MsWalkrOfSky

I've now posted my final review! You can check it out here: 
Sorry for the late post everyone, it took me a while to make it through the testing period, and then life got in the way, as it loves to do!

I've now posted my final review! You can check it out here: 
Sorry for the late post everyone, it took me a while to make it through the testing period, and then life got in the way, as it loves to do!

Introduction
Hiya everyone! A quick TLDR is at the bottom of this section. My name is Lucy, I’m 31 years old from Terre Haute, Indiana. I’m a business systems analyst for my day job, and I’m ecstatic to have been selected to test a product with data driven results like the SuperSpeed Training System. As for what I do besides golf, I’m a competitively oriented gamer, pc builder, DnD loving all around nerd. I’m also working on designing a custom campaign for the Stargate SG-1 RPG system at the moment.

My Golf Background
I played golf for most of my childhood with my grandpa; I went to a camp with some instruction when I was small, but obviously that degraded, and I ended up with a pretty rough swing. As I got older, I got priced out of golf for years. It wasn’t a huge priority to me, as golf was the fun sport I played with family, not one of my “main” sports. I was relatively athletic all the way up until college, playing sports year around like soccer, diving, tumbling, pole vaulting, etc. However, I hit my college years and became quite inactive and… Ya. I still ate like I played soccer 5 times a week. In 2021, I looked into golf again, dragging my partner Robyn with me by pointing out we’d walk like 6 miles (at first, she was heavily skeptical about even the possibility she’d like golf, she showed me this when it came out saying hey, it’s me the first time we went golfing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auQ3iIj75QU), though we played fairly sparingly that year. In 2022 we played consistently 1-3x/week throughout the season and started taking lessons halfway through the year. 

My Fitness Journey
Starting about 2019, I began a concerted effort to get my weight down. As of today, I’m 5’9” and weigh 162lbs, with a total weight loss of 77lbs from when I started tracking. 
As far as my current fitness level, my cardio could be better, but I hate cardio and haven’t really done much. I started lifting again about 9 weeks ago 3 times a week with a personal trainer for 8 of those weeks to get me started in a way that didn’t damage my body. I started the 5/3/1 for beginners program last week and it has been brutal but satisfying. I may be going down to a program oriented towards twice a week during this review. I’m fairly flexible, and do yoga off and on when free classes come up. It’s satisfying, as a year ago, I struggled with a lot of the flows and now I can crank out almost all of the ones that come up in class (crow pose is unfair, and I still did it for like 5 seconds, don’t @ me).

Why I golf
I absolutely love getting out onto the course and being outside again. I didn’t really do anything outside for a long time before I got back into golf. The fact that golf also ticks my competitive side, making me want to constantly strive to improve, to develop, to learn more, to do more… Enjoying the outdoors, working and developing an impossible to perfect skill set, while spending quality time with my favorite person in the world? All while knowing I can do it for the rest of my life? How could I not love golf?

My Current Golf Game
I’m still mainly walking, and I’ve switched from 5,800 to 6,300 yard tees to 5,000 to 5,500 yard tees when a rating is available on them, throwing my long driving ego to the side in favor of having way more fun! My handicap is from 18Birdies, and is a mix of men’s and women’s tees, as I sometimes play on tees that aren’t rated for women at all. 

I’ve dropped my HDCP from 30 at the very end of last year (got to 30 thanks to a vacation round where I played lights out, breaking 100 for the first time, on a course that definitely should have eaten me for breakfast) to 25.9 now. My favorite executive course isn’t rated (soon they say, soon), so a lot of my rounds don’t contribute to HDCP at the moment. My trend in score at the moment is between 95 to 115, with my best round being a 92 on a wide open course that I can’t lose my ball on unless it’s a dramatically bad hit…… I definitely lost two balls the time I went there before the 92. In 9 holes. Bleh.

Club Specifics
When my normal driver swing is as correct as I can manage at the moment, my swing speed is around 95. When I try to let it rip and let my form degrade (I swing way too much with my arms and too fast in my backswing), my swing speed is 105. These are my measurements taken this past weekend at a local golf store before receiving the SuperSpeed equipment.

Good Drive traced.mp4 My best part of the game is either my chipping or my driving, depending on the day. Some days, my iron game is on point, and others I dread pulling out any iron. My putting is absolutely abysmal; on average over the course of 6 rounds, I putt at a -5 strokes gained compared to 25 HDCP, with a recent 9 hole being at -8. Putting is definitely where I need to put in some hours; I really struggle to do putting practice, as I find it incredibly under-stimulating and boring. 

Chip Shot-1.m4v Distance wise, I hit my pitching wedge for 100 yards, 6 iron for 150 yards, and my 9 wood for 190-200 yards. If you want more details, see my unofficial ongoing review of the ShotScope X5 here:  
I believe my distances may quickly and dramatically change in the near future, as my first lesson of the year fixed my grip (again, but now getting it out of the fingers instead of into them at all, oh boy!). I’ve played one 9 hole since the lesson and had one range day, and managed to finally get swinging with the left arm in to out to click; I now am hitting constant snap hooks with my driver, as my coach has wanted me to do since he started working with me. Unsurprisingly, with the swing and grip changes made, my 9 hole was a bit of a disaster, so we’ll see how it changes going forward (the lesson tomorrow cannot come soon enough).

Par 5 Birdie Video-1.m4v  
 SuperSpeed Training Program Goals
My main goal with the SuperSpeed Training Program is to increase my swing speed while increasing my driving accuracy. While I’ve always technically been able to torque out a fast club head speed, doing that and hitting the ball well has always been beyond me. I’m hoping that increasing my swing speed will help my control with my longer irons. I also hope that this acts well as assistance exercises for 5/3/1 and helps to build up my general strength, especially my core. I would love for my endurance to increase so that playing back to back days isn’t as rough. I’m looking forward to testing, gathering my data, and seeing the progression over time! 
If there’s anything specific that someone wants checked out, throw me an @ and I’ll make sure to cover it. Or if you just want to shoot the breeze in the comments with me about games, computers, or DnD, maybe hit me up in a side thread 😊 Or this one, go wild, the mods will reign us in if need be 😄
TLDR Introduction:
I currently workout, swing speed around 100 with drives around 240, getting better at golf, handicap 26 and falling, my goal with SuperSpeed is to increase accuracy while increasing swing speed, and have been playing regularly for about two and a half years.
 
Initial Impressions and Driver Swing Speed Averages
My equipment actually arrived a few weeks ago. Sadly, I hurt my knee the day after I unboxed and took pictures, so I took a break before getting “official” starting numbers. I did take the PRGR out the day it arrived to get some initial impressions and some not very official testing data (I didn’t do a consistent warm up or anything that could be replicated easily). On that day, I averaged about 103, with a max out of 108. I only bring this up because my break led to some pleasant surprises I’ll get into in a bit.

The initial branding for the box is solid. I appreciate that they at least don’t gender the box and swing-sticks like they do the options on the website. Side-note: why would you even gender the options on the website? The fact that taking the quiz has an option for gender at the start, then recommends I get the “men’s set” is bonkers to me; if it’s about swing speed and club/shaft used, make it about swing speed and club used, gendered branding is just more weird golf gatekeeping that isn’t necessary and can cause confusion.

The clubs themselves have a nice weight to them. The grips feel tacky enough, but have some weird discoloration leftover from what I assume is the plastic that will likely go away with use. The shafts look awesome, and the weights themselves having the logo is a nice touch.


The PRGR feels well constructed. It occasionally has read errors if you really mishit the ball, but not often enough to be an issue. It’s my first launch monitor and using it is actually really fun, even at the range where I can see the ball flight anyway. Having solid numbers right in front of me really helps with feeling when I do something different.

Initial Numbers

I clocked way faster than I did before I hurt my knee! With a max of 112 that actually happened more than once, and an average of 109.2, I gained about 6 MPH over where I was a few weeks ago. The first thing I asked myself was how did I do this? I hadn’t worked out, had barely played golf for the last 3 weeks (yes, this was close to torture). My answer was torn between my swing and having time to recover. I’d changed it slightly in both initial setup and theory over the time I wasn’t really playing and trying to heal. I narrowed my stance a bit in order to allow for an easier rotation. My coach is having me work hard on going in to out, as I go back and then come over the top, so it’s all still in progress, but right now, I’m hitting harder than I ever have before!
My planned workout schedule starts today, 6/20. I’m going to be following the schedule of Tuesday, Friday, Sunday. I’m going to try to hit the range consistently on Tuesdays so that I can get my pre and post training speeds while hitting range balls. I'm looking forward to seeing how much I can gain!
 
Conclusion/Post-Mortem
Introduction:
This fairly lengthy review process has had a lot of ups and downs for me. I fought through injury and pain. I had long gaps in training. I struggled with consistency. With all that being said, I’ve had massive gains from this program. I’ve gone from seeing a max swing speed of 106 to seeing 126 pop up once on the monitor. Even if you are a person who struggles with consistency, who struggles with injury, or struggles with time, I believe this program can provide gains for you based on my experience. Let’s dive into the details. 
Physical Product: 15/20
The product itself delivered exactly what was promised. I felt that the sticks themselves were super solid. The grips were at best okay; I took off 3 points for the appearance of the grips and feel of them. I had to wear two gloves while doing the testing due to both the grip and the rigorousness of the testing. I eventually re-gripped them to have bigger grips, as the program was causing my arthritis to flare up. 
Aesthetically, the product looked nice in the bag and in the hand. I never questioned the durability of it the entire time I used it. I hit the ground slightly on multiple swings and never noticed any damage or issues with it. Re-gripping worked just like with every other club I’ve done. I don’t think durability is any more of an issue with this than any other club in the bag, and I expect it to keep working just fine for many years to come.
The box it was delivered in was well presented. I felt like I was receiving a high quality product. It didn’t go way over the top in this area either, which I felt would have been out of place for the goals of the product. It didn’t come with any real way to store it besides in the box they came in, but considering I’ll generally need at least my driver with me as well, I don’t consider this a flaw in any way. I will throw out that the only way I’d improve it is by including some cheap leather or cloth headcovers to help reduce sound in the bag and prevent damage to longer clubs; I generally just kept them spread around the bag away from my driver.
I am docking the last two points for the recommended PRGR launch monitor. While it was really neat to get to use a launch monitor consistently in my practice, I heavily struggled at times to get consistent readings out of it. If it were not for the review, I would have just let the obviously bad data go. Instead, I would redo the swing and hope to get a better read. I once had to hit 15 balls with driver to start with to get 5 good reads; I found this incredibly frustrating at times, and I still don’t believe the data fully for some of my best swings. I saw a 126 that seemed reasonable at the time, but I still worry that it might have been a misread, as I haven’t come close to that mythical number since that day.
 
Program: 13/20
The program was… interesting to me. I really liked the concept of swinging right and left handed, and I think that the program got that exactly right. I don’t like feeling unbalanced in my workouts, and I think that if I hadn’t done the opposite-handed swings it would have felt strange. I think that including the opposite-handed swings was a real benefit in a lot of ways, from developing an understanding of how to build a swing for someone that is an instinctive person, to balancing out the workout. I actually hit a few left handed clubs for fun and could make real contact and get surprising amounts of distance. I still need to work up to the driver though if I ever want to try a round that way, I could barely make contact with my wild speed swing.
Instruction wise, I want to say that they felt like they were clear, and I felt like I really understood them. However, I was doing step swings incorrectly for the first 3 or 4 weeks! I docked 2 points for that because I felt like I tried to understand how I was supposed to be doing the swings, I read their materials, watched the videos, and I still managed to mess that up. I’ll also say, once I switched to the correct way to do it, I genuinely felt like the way I was doing it before made more sense for what I thought it was trying to accomplish; weight transfer forward in the swing.  
The other 5 points I docked are mainly because the program is difficult to keep up with. When you swing as hard as you can that many times, if you’re at all injury prone (yes, I mean me), you’re likely to cause damage. The instructions specify to swing as fast as possible; even with proper warmup and stretching, this kind of high intensity training can cause damage when you don’t work up to it at all (warming up is not really working up to it). I at different points hurt my hands, my wrist, my ankle, and reinjured my knee. My knee basically hurt the entire time I was doing the program off and on; now that the program is over, I’m hoping it will eventually heal all the way in time for next season.
I also feel that self-motivation is difficult in this program. I have ADHD, so some of this is definitely on me. Keeping to the program when you have cool golf plans is incredibly difficult, as you know doing the program the night before playing is going to make you sore and tired for golf the next day. I tried on occasion to do the program after my cool plans; I didn’t feel this was very effective, as I was already tired from my round. I think a big factor for making this plan easier if you want to do it is to ensure you have a place to put up a hitting area and net somewhere at your house; I had a place that kind of worked to do it at home but it was uncomfortably tight and I tried to go elsewhere 90% of the time, which meant that the time it took to accomplish the workout went up.
I’d like to see a two-week (or other shorter than 5 week) introductory period, where the goal isn’t to swing all out; instead, the goal would be to swing at 80 to 90 percent and try to consistently get the same speed every swing. This would allow time for the player to get used to swinging left handed, and ensure that the body is better prepared for the more rigorous training to come. I can see this being unnecessary if you already are hitting a lot of balls and playing a ton of golf, however when you are hitting a bucket of balls or two a week and playing once or twice a week and then add this program to it, you’re probably doubling or tripling the amount of high intensity driver swings you do in a week.  
Performance: 40/40
Let’s dive straight into the numbers and graphs first!
I had an average of 20% increase between the first week first session number and the last week last session numbers. 

As far as pre and post training driver speeds, I had a lot of variability in an upward trend for the first session. The second session felt very consistent, like I was always around the expected speeds for me, but I never really unlocked more distance during it.

Now a swing comparison. Here is one of my swings from May back when I was just starting the program.

PXL_20230520_204420672~3.mp4  
PXL_20230520_205954055.mp4    
Here is one from July:

PXL_20230712_002320590.TS~3.mp4    
And here is one from late September at the end of the program:

Good swing.mp4    
I’ve had real benefits and gains from this program. I don't think anyone could argue that I haven’t. However, the thing that really gave me the most gains wasn’t a massive increase in muscle strength so much as muscle endurance; for me, there’s a decent chance that the amount of injuries I had prevented this from happening, as it meant that my “10-week program” was instead about 20 to 24 weeks. I think I might have had more muscle gain if I hadn’t had to take so many breaks.
Focusing entirely on swinging a stick and not hitting a ball allowed a massive amount of experimenting! I think I gained more distance from the knowledge I gained swinging than I did from muscle build up. I did not have a mechanically great swing; I still don’t have one that is that good. However, I now have a significantly better understanding of how to add speed to my swing. I learned how to apply a whipping motion. I learned how to properly extend my backswing. By the end I was trying to practice accelerating through the downswing and was starting to get some good results from that before my latest injury. 
I was getting consistent lessons once a week the entire summer from a golf pro friend. I think having him on hand and being able to pick his brain on if what I was doing was correct or incorrect helped a lot, and I’d encourage anyone doing this program to get at least a lesson or two during it to check your swing habits and make sure you’re not building bad ones in your training. 
For anyone that has a higher handicap, I genuinely think that the majority of your gains from a 10-week program will come from knowledge gained. Small changes made over time from swinging a stick instead of hitting a ball, followed by instant feedback that those small changes do increase speed, over 10 weeks, all of that adds up to a lot of knowledge on how to move your body by the end. Without a coach, you still may be adding incorrect things, but your speed will definitely go up if you experiment and try new things. There’s also a lot of consistency in doing the program three times a week that is normally missing from someone with a high handicap.
Previously, my “gamer” drive was about 220 to 240. I could hit 250 or 260 if I went after it and caught a good one, but those were rare and notable, with a high risk of a slice or a hook. Now, my gamer drive is in the 250 to 270 range, with the ability to push to 280 to 300 with my rare and notable drives. I still have off days where my speed is down, but I’ve had a significant increase in my distance overall. I still slice or hook a decent amount, meaning that taking out the driver on a narrow course is a risk at times, but I also now have a safer drive option; slowing down to my previous swing speeds of around 100 to 105 adds a significant amount of control and reduces the amount of left or right spin I apply.
Before I did this program, I did some basic workouts for about 8 weeks. I used those 8 weeks to get my body used to working out again and slowly ramped up the weight. I then started 5/3/1, and promptly tweaked my knee doing squats after two weeks. That knee injury plagued me the entire program and still bothers me a bit today. I feel that for building up swing speed, this program is more effective than any weightlifting program if you’re a higher handicap. I can’t comment really on how much it will help for lower handicaps, as that just isn’t my experience with it, and I genuinely think that the results high handicappers get out of this program is significantly different. My partner continued her 5/3/1 the whole summer, also had the lessons all summer, and she didn’t really make major increases in distance for her drive, so with my two data points (please excuse the horrible science), I genuinely think that just doing this program can give you more improvement than just weightlifting.
I have gained a ton golf wise this season. I’ve shot my lowest score ever, going from a 92 at my local course to an 80. My handicap has dropped from 26 to 22. I’ve learned to compress the ball with my irons this season. And on days my drives are good, I’m now hitting 250 to 270 reliably enough that if clearing water took 235 in the air, I’d go for it every time. I feel I’ve grown a ton as a golfer this year, and the swing speed program was a major part of that journey.
 
Keep it or Re-Gift? 15/20
For myself, if I had the option to go back, I don’t believe I would have done the program the way I did. Honestly, writing a review for the program pushed me to continue at times when I really should have instead let myself heal; I’m hoping my knee will recover over the winter, but there’s a chance the injury will follow me the rest of my life. If I were to do this program again, I’d only do it if entirely healthy, and if doing the program caused any pain in joints or other areas, I’d stop it and probably not resume it. I have a bad history of playing through injuries from my days playing soccer, and frankly, this is very much a “me” problem. 
Even with the hesitancy to do it again, I don’t believe I could give up the knowledge I gained from the program; how to move my body, how to loosen my grip and feel the club whip past my arms, how to add just that bit more of twist to my backswing. It was incredibly valuable, and I’m grateful I had the opportunity to do this. I likely never would have thought to buy such a program, as my drive distance was already very good. 
That being said, I am taking off 5 points for this section because I would likely not do the program as specifically instructed again if I could go back and do it over. I don’t think I’ll continue the program as it is currently designed next spring. It’s not long term sustainable for me. I feel if I continue it, I’ll make my injuries worse over time, or add new ones. I fought through knee injuries from other things, and my training added hand injuries to go along with it. I had days where I could barely open my hand, leading to pauses while I recovered. I got a lot from this program, and I think that I’ll likely try to create my own model or program using the training tools. Three times a week is just too much for me on top of playing golf and other responsibilities in season, so during the season I’ll likely scale back to their recommended maintenance. I would not recommend anyone start this program during the peak of your golf season; I genuinely think it would be a fantastic offseason tool and I’m going to treat it as such.
If you’re wondering if you should buy this program, I think that if you answer yes to any of the following, it would be beneficial to you:
Are you a high handicapper? – yes, just generally a high handicapper, I believe every high handicapper will significantly benefit from this program from knowledge gained alone.
Are you someone with what you feel is a low drive distance?
Are you someone who wants to improve their drive mechanics?
Are you looking for a workout routine that will get your blood pumping, heart rate up, and can improve your golf?
 
Conclusion 83/100
I started this journey with a swing speed of around 100, and if I strained with all my might, I could hit 106. I ended with an average swing speed of around 115, with some swings spiking close to or above 120 on my best days. This program definitely can increase your drive distance, and the equipment that is provided for it is a good fit for the job. I would warn people to be wary of continuing this program through minor injury, as the all-in full-power nature of the training can exacerbate injuries. I’d recommend the program to just about anyone that asked me about it as an off-season training tool, but would be hesitant to recommend it during the season. If you’re lucky enough to have a year around season, just know that it is exhausting, difficult, and you’ll need to plan around your sessions for your golf but that it is incredibly rewarding for your efforts.
 

I've now posted my final review! You can check it out here: 
Sorry for the late post everyone, it took me a while to make it through the testing period, and then life got in the way, as it loves to do!

Best of luck!  I hope you play well but remember to have a lot of fun too!

Hey, guess what? You're a LEGEND for getting all this done!! 
Also, I broke 80 for the first time in my life, so I'm not going to let a little thing like getting ABSOLUTELY BURIED by @MsWalkrOfSkyand team ruin my fun 😜
Congrats to the groups moving on! I'm playing Friday and am available to pinch-hit if anyone needs A GUY WHO IS CAPABALE OF BREAKING 80, Baby!!!

Congratulations to @GolfSpy TCB @Tom the Golf Nut @Bohnson and @Mikedb26 with @Shank Aaron!
Well played team!
Barbie's Birdie Bandits are disappointed to lose by such a close margin but a win is a win.  @Hasty @glenmore5 @MsWalkrOfSky and @BKervin are tipping our hats to you!

I have to give credit to @GolfSpy TCB for scheduling this Match Play event.  The final important Week 3 play finishes on Solheim Cup singles matches, semi-finals play finishes on the Ryder Cup singles matches and that leaves us alone to crown our match play champion the next week.  
What a great three weeks of golf!

So...wow. Lol. You really wanted to put the dagger in this week, eh? Congrats!!! I'm still picking my jaw up off the ground after looking at that front 9 - we've got our work cut out for us, that's for sure.  But hey, who says I can't go out and break 80 this week (for the first time ever)? 😉
Great, great round!

It help when you don't play s*cky golf!

Date 09/20/2023 Course Name Pennhills Club Gross Score 95 Course Handicap 30 Gross Strokes over/under par 24 Net Score to Par -6 Net Score 65 Net Birdies or better 9 Longest Drive 141 VCT Match Play Designate as Week 3 Match Score Well, all I can say is - What a day!!  I have never played this well consistently for almost every shot.  Bad shot - no problem - picked the right club and got out of it.  I've only been below 100 like 3 times before and just barely.  I even had 2 male members in front of me saying "nice shot" "nice drive" "nice putt"!
I'll take a game like this any day!

It looks like Barbie's Birdie Bandits are coming for L.A.B. Results big time!  They've posted two great rounds.  
Great shooting @MsWalkrOfSky and @BKervin!  Take down that first place team!

Date 09/19/2023 Course Name Hulman Links Golf Course Gross Score 101 Course Handicap 31 Gross Strokes over/under par 29 Net Score to Par -2 Net Score 70 Net Birdies or better 9 Longest Drive 0 VCT Match Play Designate as Week 3 Match Score Wow my front nine was absolutely amazing! I felt like I was playing great. However, the back 9 at Hulman is absolutely my worst nightmare: narrow with trees on both sides, as well as strong doglegs that I can't cut due to high trees. My distance means very little on that back nine, and it shows. I still feel like I put up a good showing for match play this week though, which is good 🙂 I also dropped my handicap from 23.7 to 22.1, so definitely a great score! Also, for the record, the greens at Hulman tend to be huge, rolling, and decently quick, leading to a lot of 3 putts, especially when putting from the fringe 😕 

Date 09/19/2023 Course Name Hulman Links Golf Course Gross Score 101 Course Handicap 31 Gross Strokes over/under par 29 Net Score to Par -2 Net Score 70 Net Birdies or better 9 Longest Drive 0 VCT Match Play Designate as Week 3 Match Score Wow my front nine was absolutely amazing! I felt like I was playing great. However, the back 9 at Hulman is absolutely my worst nightmare: narrow with trees on both sides, as well as strong doglegs that I can't cut due to high trees. My distance means very little on that back nine, and it shows. I still feel like I put up a good showing for match play this week though, which is good 🙂 I also dropped my handicap from 23.7 to 22.1, so definitely a great score! Also, for the record, the greens at Hulman tend to be huge, rolling, and decently quick, leading to a lot of 3 putts, especially when putting from the fringe 😕 

I've updated the review! I added a video of my touch screen woes. I'm going to send it to the company, as when I contacted customer support about it, they asked for one. 
 
I really wish you could put in your handicap and tell it to use net instead of gross for stats like this. I feel like that would be a useful metric for everyone; how well did I play exactly compared to what my handicap is. I agree with you that at minimum, it should just have a score breakdown up to quintuple bogey or something. 
 
I actually disagree with this a lot. With higher handicaps, unless you make getting better at golf your second job, manual tracking is a nightmare. Tracking what the hell happened when you hit 10+ shots on a hole is a horrible experience and incredibly demoralizing in a different way than looking at data that has already been put in. As an aside, for people that say after that many you should just pick up, as long as you're keeping pace or the course is slow, I entirely disagree with that philosophy unless it's to maintain mental and keep having fun. Not getting the ball in the hole robs you of the experience you get from playing from a crap location, awkward distances, while frustrated, which are skills every golfer needs to develop.
I think high handicappers want to just be able to get some fun data to see what misconceptions they have about their game, without putting much effort into figuring it out. Sure, they mostly know that they have a lot to work on and it's not super hard to figure out that it's basically everything. But this data can show when they start actually making improvements that aren't score related. For example, my partner had a fantastic round the most recent time we played. She lowered her handicap by 3 strokes from 45 to 42. She felt like she played well, but didn't realize how well in context of how she played previously. She tried to keep track of some shots, but quickly gave up due to frustration with trying to push her cart and mess around on her phone when she just wanted to be enjoying the pretty course and the nice weather. She would have loved to be able to see what shot decisions and what club choices helped her the most that day, but it's just not in the cards.
This device is spending money to save time that could be spent enjoying yourself, instead of doing golf homework on and off the course. You could get almost all these metrics for free yourself if you put in the work; manually tracking shots on your phone with gps with a free app then converting the data after a round to spreadsheet form to measure performance. I'd argue if a high handicapper wants data, there is no better way to get it than a system like this, and that data at all levels of golf is incredibly useful, as data doesn't lie to us like we can to ourselves.

Introduction
Hiya everyone! A quick TLDR is at the bottom of this section. My name is Lucy, I’m 31 years old from Terre Haute, Indiana. I’m a business systems analyst for my day job, and I’m ecstatic to have been selected to test a product with data driven results like the SuperSpeed Training System. As for what I do besides golf, I’m a competitively oriented gamer, pc builder, DnD loving all around nerd. I’m also working on designing a custom campaign for the Stargate SG-1 RPG system at the moment.

My Golf Background
I played golf for most of my childhood with my grandpa; I went to a camp with some instruction when I was small, but obviously that degraded, and I ended up with a pretty rough swing. As I got older, I got priced out of golf for years. It wasn’t a huge priority to me, as golf was the fun sport I played with family, not one of my “main” sports. I was relatively athletic all the way up until college, playing sports year around like soccer, diving, tumbling, pole vaulting, etc. However, I hit my college years and became quite inactive and… Ya. I still ate like I played soccer 5 times a week. In 2021, I looked into golf again, dragging my partner Robyn with me by pointing out we’d walk like 6 miles (at first, she was heavily skeptical about even the possibility she’d like golf, she showed me this when it came out saying hey, it’s me the first time we went golfing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auQ3iIj75QU), though we played fairly sparingly that year. In 2022 we played consistently 1-3x/week throughout the season and started taking lessons halfway through the year. 

My Fitness Journey
Starting about 2019, I began a concerted effort to get my weight down. As of today, I’m 5’9” and weigh 162lbs, with a total weight loss of 77lbs from when I started tracking. 
As far as my current fitness level, my cardio could be better, but I hate cardio and haven’t really done much. I started lifting again about 9 weeks ago 3 times a week with a personal trainer for 8 of those weeks to get me started in a way that didn’t damage my body. I started the 5/3/1 for beginners program last week and it has been brutal but satisfying. I may be going down to a program oriented towards twice a week during this review. I’m fairly flexible, and do yoga off and on when free classes come up. It’s satisfying, as a year ago, I struggled with a lot of the flows and now I can crank out almost all of the ones that come up in class (crow pose is unfair, and I still did it for like 5 seconds, don’t @ me).

Why I golf
I absolutely love getting out onto the course and being outside again. I didn’t really do anything outside for a long time before I got back into golf. The fact that golf also ticks my competitive side, making me want to constantly strive to improve, to develop, to learn more, to do more… Enjoying the outdoors, working and developing an impossible to perfect skill set, while spending quality time with my favorite person in the world? All while knowing I can do it for the rest of my life? How could I not love golf?

My Current Golf Game
I’m still mainly walking, and I’ve switched from 5,800 to 6,300 yard tees to 5,000 to 5,500 yard tees when a rating is available on them, throwing my long driving ego to the side in favor of having way more fun! My handicap is from 18Birdies, and is a mix of men’s and women’s tees, as I sometimes play on tees that aren’t rated for women at all. 

I’ve dropped my HDCP from 30 at the very end of last year (got to 30 thanks to a vacation round where I played lights out, breaking 100 for the first time, on a course that definitely should have eaten me for breakfast) to 25.9 now. My favorite executive course isn’t rated (soon they say, soon), so a lot of my rounds don’t contribute to HDCP at the moment. My trend in score at the moment is between 95 to 115, with my best round being a 92 on a wide open course that I can’t lose my ball on unless it’s a dramatically bad hit…… I definitely lost two balls the time I went there before the 92. In 9 holes. Bleh.

Club Specifics
When my normal driver swing is as correct as I can manage at the moment, my swing speed is around 95. When I try to let it rip and let my form degrade (I swing way too much with my arms and too fast in my backswing), my swing speed is 105. These are my measurements taken this past weekend at a local golf store before receiving the SuperSpeed equipment.

Good Drive traced.mp4 My best part of the game is either my chipping or my driving, depending on the day. Some days, my iron game is on point, and others I dread pulling out any iron. My putting is absolutely abysmal; on average over the course of 6 rounds, I putt at a -5 strokes gained compared to 25 HDCP, with a recent 9 hole being at -8. Putting is definitely where I need to put in some hours; I really struggle to do putting practice, as I find it incredibly under-stimulating and boring. 

Chip Shot-1.m4v Distance wise, I hit my pitching wedge for 100 yards, 6 iron for 150 yards, and my 9 wood for 190-200 yards. If you want more details, see my unofficial ongoing review of the ShotScope X5 here:  
I believe my distances may quickly and dramatically change in the near future, as my first lesson of the year fixed my grip (again, but now getting it out of the fingers instead of into them at all, oh boy!). I’ve played one 9 hole since the lesson and had one range day, and managed to finally get swinging with the left arm in to out to click; I now am hitting constant snap hooks with my driver, as my coach has wanted me to do since he started working with me. Unsurprisingly, with the swing and grip changes made, my 9 hole was a bit of a disaster, so we’ll see how it changes going forward (the lesson tomorrow cannot come soon enough).

Par 5 Birdie Video-1.m4v  
 SuperSpeed Training Program Goals
My main goal with the SuperSpeed Training Program is to increase my swing speed while increasing my driving accuracy. While I’ve always technically been able to torque out a fast club head speed, doing that and hitting the ball well has always been beyond me. I’m hoping that increasing my swing speed will help my control with my longer irons. I also hope that this acts well as assistance exercises for 5/3/1 and helps to build up my general strength, especially my core. I would love for my endurance to increase so that playing back to back days isn’t as rough. I’m looking forward to testing, gathering my data, and seeing the progression over time! 
If there’s anything specific that someone wants checked out, throw me an @ and I’ll make sure to cover it. Or if you just want to shoot the breeze in the comments with me about games, computers, or DnD, maybe hit me up in a side thread 😊 Or this one, go wild, the mods will reign us in if need be 😄
TLDR Introduction:
I currently workout, swing speed around 100 with drives around 240, getting better at golf, handicap 26 and falling, my goal with SuperSpeed is to increase accuracy while increasing swing speed, and have been playing regularly for about two and a half years.
 
Initial Impressions and Driver Swing Speed Averages
My equipment actually arrived a few weeks ago. Sadly, I hurt my knee the day after I unboxed and took pictures, so I took a break before getting “official” starting numbers. I did take the PRGR out the day it arrived to get some initial impressions and some not very official testing data (I didn’t do a consistent warm up or anything that could be replicated easily). On that day, I averaged about 103, with a max out of 108. I only bring this up because my break led to some pleasant surprises I’ll get into in a bit.

The initial branding for the box is solid. I appreciate that they at least don’t gender the box and swing-sticks like they do the options on the website. Side-note: why would you even gender the options on the website? The fact that taking the quiz has an option for gender at the start, then recommends I get the “men’s set” is bonkers to me; if it’s about swing speed and club/shaft used, make it about swing speed and club used, gendered branding is just more weird golf gatekeeping that isn’t necessary and can cause confusion.

The clubs themselves have a nice weight to them. The grips feel tacky enough, but have some weird discoloration leftover from what I assume is the plastic that will likely go away with use. The shafts look awesome, and the weights themselves having the logo is a nice touch.


The PRGR feels well constructed. It occasionally has read errors if you really mishit the ball, but not often enough to be an issue. It’s my first launch monitor and using it is actually really fun, even at the range where I can see the ball flight anyway. Having solid numbers right in front of me really helps with feeling when I do something different.

Initial Numbers

I clocked way faster than I did before I hurt my knee! With a max of 112 that actually happened more than once, and an average of 109.2, I gained about 6 MPH over where I was a few weeks ago. The first thing I asked myself was how did I do this? I hadn’t worked out, had barely played golf for the last 3 weeks (yes, this was close to torture). My answer was torn between my swing and having time to recover. I’d changed it slightly in both initial setup and theory over the time I wasn’t really playing and trying to heal. I narrowed my stance a bit in order to allow for an easier rotation. My coach is having me work hard on going in to out, as I go back and then come over the top, so it’s all still in progress, but right now, I’m hitting harder than I ever have before!
My planned workout schedule starts today, 6/20. I’m going to be following the schedule of Tuesday, Friday, Sunday. I’m going to try to hit the range consistently on Tuesdays so that I can get my pre and post training speeds while hitting range balls. I'm looking forward to seeing how much I can gain!
 
Conclusion/Post-Mortem
Introduction:
This fairly lengthy review process has had a lot of ups and downs for me. I fought through injury and pain. I had long gaps in training. I struggled with consistency. With all that being said, I’ve had massive gains from this program. I’ve gone from seeing a max swing speed of 106 to seeing 126 pop up once on the monitor. Even if you are a person who struggles with consistency, who struggles with injury, or struggles with time, I believe this program can provide gains for you based on my experience. Let’s dive into the details. 
Physical Product: 15/20
The product itself delivered exactly what was promised. I felt that the sticks themselves were super solid. The grips were at best okay; I took off 3 points for the appearance of the grips and feel of them. I had to wear two gloves while doing the testing due to both the grip and the rigorousness of the testing. I eventually re-gripped them to have bigger grips, as the program was causing my arthritis to flare up. 
Aesthetically, the product looked nice in the bag and in the hand. I never questioned the durability of it the entire time I used it. I hit the ground slightly on multiple swings and never noticed any damage or issues with it. Re-gripping worked just like with every other club I’ve done. I don’t think durability is any more of an issue with this than any other club in the bag, and I expect it to keep working just fine for many years to come.
The box it was delivered in was well presented. I felt like I was receiving a high quality product. It didn’t go way over the top in this area either, which I felt would have been out of place for the goals of the product. It didn’t come with any real way to store it besides in the box they came in, but considering I’ll generally need at least my driver with me as well, I don’t consider this a flaw in any way. I will throw out that the only way I’d improve it is by including some cheap leather or cloth headcovers to help reduce sound in the bag and prevent damage to longer clubs; I generally just kept them spread around the bag away from my driver.
I am docking the last two points for the recommended PRGR launch monitor. While it was really neat to get to use a launch monitor consistently in my practice, I heavily struggled at times to get consistent readings out of it. If it were not for the review, I would have just let the obviously bad data go. Instead, I would redo the swing and hope to get a better read. I once had to hit 15 balls with driver to start with to get 5 good reads; I found this incredibly frustrating at times, and I still don’t believe the data fully for some of my best swings. I saw a 126 that seemed reasonable at the time, but I still worry that it might have been a misread, as I haven’t come close to that mythical number since that day.
 
Program: 13/20
The program was… interesting to me. I really liked the concept of swinging right and left handed, and I think that the program got that exactly right. I don’t like feeling unbalanced in my workouts, and I think that if I hadn’t done the opposite-handed swings it would have felt strange. I think that including the opposite-handed swings was a real benefit in a lot of ways, from developing an understanding of how to build a swing for someone that is an instinctive person, to balancing out the workout. I actually hit a few left handed clubs for fun and could make real contact and get surprising amounts of distance. I still need to work up to the driver though if I ever want to try a round that way, I could barely make contact with my wild speed swing.
Instruction wise, I want to say that they felt like they were clear, and I felt like I really understood them. However, I was doing step swings incorrectly for the first 3 or 4 weeks! I docked 2 points for that because I felt like I tried to understand how I was supposed to be doing the swings, I read their materials, watched the videos, and I still managed to mess that up. I’ll also say, once I switched to the correct way to do it, I genuinely felt like the way I was doing it before made more sense for what I thought it was trying to accomplish; weight transfer forward in the swing.  
The other 5 points I docked are mainly because the program is difficult to keep up with. When you swing as hard as you can that many times, if you’re at all injury prone (yes, I mean me), you’re likely to cause damage. The instructions specify to swing as fast as possible; even with proper warmup and stretching, this kind of high intensity training can cause damage when you don’t work up to it at all (warming up is not really working up to it). I at different points hurt my hands, my wrist, my ankle, and reinjured my knee. My knee basically hurt the entire time I was doing the program off and on; now that the program is over, I’m hoping it will eventually heal all the way in time for next season.
I also feel that self-motivation is difficult in this program. I have ADHD, so some of this is definitely on me. Keeping to the program when you have cool golf plans is incredibly difficult, as you know doing the program the night before playing is going to make you sore and tired for golf the next day. I tried on occasion to do the program after my cool plans; I didn’t feel this was very effective, as I was already tired from my round. I think a big factor for making this plan easier if you want to do it is to ensure you have a place to put up a hitting area and net somewhere at your house; I had a place that kind of worked to do it at home but it was uncomfortably tight and I tried to go elsewhere 90% of the time, which meant that the time it took to accomplish the workout went up.
I’d like to see a two-week (or other shorter than 5 week) introductory period, where the goal isn’t to swing all out; instead, the goal would be to swing at 80 to 90 percent and try to consistently get the same speed every swing. This would allow time for the player to get used to swinging left handed, and ensure that the body is better prepared for the more rigorous training to come. I can see this being unnecessary if you already are hitting a lot of balls and playing a ton of golf, however when you are hitting a bucket of balls or two a week and playing once or twice a week and then add this program to it, you’re probably doubling or tripling the amount of high intensity driver swings you do in a week.  
Performance: 40/40
Let’s dive straight into the numbers and graphs first!
I had an average of 20% increase between the first week first session number and the last week last session numbers. 

As far as pre and post training driver speeds, I had a lot of variability in an upward trend for the first session. The second session felt very consistent, like I was always around the expected speeds for me, but I never really unlocked more distance during it.

Now a swing comparison. Here is one of my swings from May back when I was just starting the program.

PXL_20230520_204420672~3.mp4  
PXL_20230520_205954055.mp4    
Here is one from July:

PXL_20230712_002320590.TS~3.mp4    
And here is one from late September at the end of the program:

Good swing.mp4    
I’ve had real benefits and gains from this program. I don't think anyone could argue that I haven’t. However, the thing that really gave me the most gains wasn’t a massive increase in muscle strength so much as muscle endurance; for me, there’s a decent chance that the amount of injuries I had prevented this from happening, as it meant that my “10-week program” was instead about 20 to 24 weeks. I think I might have had more muscle gain if I hadn’t had to take so many breaks.
Focusing entirely on swinging a stick and not hitting a ball allowed a massive amount of experimenting! I think I gained more distance from the knowledge I gained swinging than I did from muscle build up. I did not have a mechanically great swing; I still don’t have one that is that good. However, I now have a significantly better understanding of how to add speed to my swing. I learned how to apply a whipping motion. I learned how to properly extend my backswing. By the end I was trying to practice accelerating through the downswing and was starting to get some good results from that before my latest injury. 
I was getting consistent lessons once a week the entire summer from a golf pro friend. I think having him on hand and being able to pick his brain on if what I was doing was correct or incorrect helped a lot, and I’d encourage anyone doing this program to get at least a lesson or two during it to check your swing habits and make sure you’re not building bad ones in your training. 
For anyone that has a higher handicap, I genuinely think that the majority of your gains from a 10-week program will come from knowledge gained. Small changes made over time from swinging a stick instead of hitting a ball, followed by instant feedback that those small changes do increase speed, over 10 weeks, all of that adds up to a lot of knowledge on how to move your body by the end. Without a coach, you still may be adding incorrect things, but your speed will definitely go up if you experiment and try new things. There’s also a lot of consistency in doing the program three times a week that is normally missing from someone with a high handicap.
Previously, my “gamer” drive was about 220 to 240. I could hit 250 or 260 if I went after it and caught a good one, but those were rare and notable, with a high risk of a slice or a hook. Now, my gamer drive is in the 250 to 270 range, with the ability to push to 280 to 300 with my rare and notable drives. I still have off days where my speed is down, but I’ve had a significant increase in my distance overall. I still slice or hook a decent amount, meaning that taking out the driver on a narrow course is a risk at times, but I also now have a safer drive option; slowing down to my previous swing speeds of around 100 to 105 adds a significant amount of control and reduces the amount of left or right spin I apply.
Before I did this program, I did some basic workouts for about 8 weeks. I used those 8 weeks to get my body used to working out again and slowly ramped up the weight. I then started 5/3/1, and promptly tweaked my knee doing squats after two weeks. That knee injury plagued me the entire program and still bothers me a bit today. I feel that for building up swing speed, this program is more effective than any weightlifting program if you’re a higher handicap. I can’t comment really on how much it will help for lower handicaps, as that just isn’t my experience with it, and I genuinely think that the results high handicappers get out of this program is significantly different. My partner continued her 5/3/1 the whole summer, also had the lessons all summer, and she didn’t really make major increases in distance for her drive, so with my two data points (please excuse the horrible science), I genuinely think that just doing this program can give you more improvement than just weightlifting.
I have gained a ton golf wise this season. I’ve shot my lowest score ever, going from a 92 at my local course to an 80. My handicap has dropped from 26 to 22. I’ve learned to compress the ball with my irons this season. And on days my drives are good, I’m now hitting 250 to 270 reliably enough that if clearing water took 235 in the air, I’d go for it every time. I feel I’ve grown a ton as a golfer this year, and the swing speed program was a major part of that journey.
 
Keep it or Re-Gift? 15/20
For myself, if I had the option to go back, I don’t believe I would have done the program the way I did. Honestly, writing a review for the program pushed me to continue at times when I really should have instead let myself heal; I’m hoping my knee will recover over the winter, but there’s a chance the injury will follow me the rest of my life. If I were to do this program again, I’d only do it if entirely healthy, and if doing the program caused any pain in joints or other areas, I’d stop it and probably not resume it. I have a bad history of playing through injuries from my days playing soccer, and frankly, this is very much a “me” problem. 
Even with the hesitancy to do it again, I don’t believe I could give up the knowledge I gained from the program; how to move my body, how to loosen my grip and feel the club whip past my arms, how to add just that bit more of twist to my backswing. It was incredibly valuable, and I’m grateful I had the opportunity to do this. I likely never would have thought to buy such a program, as my drive distance was already very good. 
That being said, I am taking off 5 points for this section because I would likely not do the program as specifically instructed again if I could go back and do it over. I don’t think I’ll continue the program as it is currently designed next spring. It’s not long term sustainable for me. I feel if I continue it, I’ll make my injuries worse over time, or add new ones. I fought through knee injuries from other things, and my training added hand injuries to go along with it. I had days where I could barely open my hand, leading to pauses while I recovered. I got a lot from this program, and I think that I’ll likely try to create my own model or program using the training tools. Three times a week is just too much for me on top of playing golf and other responsibilities in season, so during the season I’ll likely scale back to their recommended maintenance. I would not recommend anyone start this program during the peak of your golf season; I genuinely think it would be a fantastic offseason tool and I’m going to treat it as such.
If you’re wondering if you should buy this program, I think that if you answer yes to any of the following, it would be beneficial to you:
Are you a high handicapper? – yes, just generally a high handicapper, I believe every high handicapper will significantly benefit from this program from knowledge gained alone.
Are you someone with what you feel is a low drive distance?
Are you someone who wants to improve their drive mechanics?
Are you looking for a workout routine that will get your blood pumping, heart rate up, and can improve your golf?
 
Conclusion 83/100
I started this journey with a swing speed of around 100, and if I strained with all my might, I could hit 106. I ended with an average swing speed of around 115, with some swings spiking close to or above 120 on my best days. This program definitely can increase your drive distance, and the equipment that is provided for it is a good fit for the job. I would warn people to be wary of continuing this program through minor injury, as the all-in full-power nature of the training can exacerbate injuries. I’d recommend the program to just about anyone that asked me about it as an off-season training tool, but would be hesitant to recommend it during the season. If you’re lucky enough to have a year around season, just know that it is exhausting, difficult, and you’ll need to plan around your sessions for your golf but that it is incredibly rewarding for your efforts.
 

Date 09/17/2023 Course Name Rea Park Golf Course Gross Score 97 Course Handicap 21 Gross Strokes over/under par 25 Net Score to Par 4 Net Score 76 Net Birdies or better 6 Longest Drive VCT Match Play Designate as Week 2 Match Score Not a great round from me, but first eagle I think since I started recording my scores with an app, so that's pretty awesome! 🙂

Date 09/17/2023 Course Name Rea Park Golf Course Gross Score 97 Course Handicap 21 Gross Strokes over/under par 25 Net Score to Par 4 Net Score 76 Net Birdies or better 6 Longest Drive 0 VCT Match Play Designate as Week 2 Match Score Not a great round, but I did manage an Eagle for like the first time since I started tracking scores in an app! So that's cool.

Date 09/17/2023 Course Name Rea Park Golf Course Gross Score 97 Course Handicap 21 Gross Strokes over/under par 25 Net Score to Par 4 Net Score 76 Net Birdies or better 6 Longest Drive 0 VCT Match Play Designate as Week 2 Match Score Not a great round, but I did manage an Eagle for like the first time since I started tracking scores in an app! So that's cool.

Just thought I'd share my post here as well, as I know it'll probably be a bit buried in the VCT thread.
 
 

Challenge excepted by Barbie's Birdie Bandits!

@Golf2Much
Team Muscle Backs is calling in our A-Team on the bench this week. 
@Tom the Golf Nut will be playing more rounds than I can count this week, but they all happen to be scrambles while he is "working" lol.  Have fun Tom!!
@Pinetree our pre-assigned backup is ready for action, and will be filling the role and playing as @Bohnson team mate.  
I will remain paired with @Mikedb26.... and I have to tell you... I'm more than a little concerned about our match this week.  Team Barbie's Birdie Bandits is rolling @BKervin and @MsWalkrOfSky out and that is a team to be reckoned with!!!
Play well everyone!!

For Barbie's Birdie Bandits I played... Not great. It was my first time playing a proper feelings Links course. Local rule according to the starter was that the heather is treated as lateral relief for a stroke penalty if your ball is not found within 2 minutes. And wow did I spend a lot of time in the heather 😕
However, it was an absolutely beautiful course and day. My partner shot her lowest score ever on a standard 18 hole course, I had some really good holes to match my really bad holes (BIRDIE ON THE FIRST LET'S GO!), and it was just super nice to be out on the course. I've learned I absolutely love links style courses, even if they're damn hard with the blind shots, the heather, and the brutal bunkers.
I played back on the whites, because they were actually rated for me 🙂 It was a lot of fun, though the fact that my swing just randomly crapped out for a while meant that those distances got pretty damn long at times. Knowing I was playing in a match play event really kept my spirits up through the bad holes, and allowed me to not worry too much about my overall score; every hole mattered, so I tried to not let it get to me. I also played a little more aggressive at times than I would have normally played without match play, and I definitely paid the price a couple of times for that. Overall, it was a wonderful day 🙂

 
Handicap: 23
Course Handicap: 30
Net Score: +40
Gross: +10

 

 

Here you go: 
 
@Golf2Much fyi

Just thought I'd share my post here as well, as I know it'll probably be a bit buried in the VCT thread.