# What smash factor is and what it is worth

Smash factor is ball speed divided by club head speed, which makes it a measure of strike quality rather than of distance. The right value depends entirely on the club: loft caps it, so a tour driver runs about 1.48 and a tour pitching wedge about 1.23.

## Key figures

- Raising smash factor by 0.01 is worth roughly 1.6 yards of carry at a 95 mph driver speed, where the model gives 1.442 smash and 226 yards.
- Tour smash factor runs from 1.478 with a driver down to 1.173 with a gap wedge.
- A driver smash of about 1.50 is the physical edge of what the rules allow a clubface to do; irons and wedges cannot reach it at all.

## Scope

- Smash factor says the strike was clean. It says nothing about where the ball went.

Full page: https://pinflag.io/smash-factor