Max started training with us in January 2024. This month he left for his first year on the golf team at the University of Louisville, a D1 program.

When he walked in, he was 16 years old and his max clubhead speed was 108 mph. This off-season, at 18, before he left, it was 120.

Here is the part that matters. In two and a half years of training, we did close to no speed training. No overspeed protocols, no swing speed sessions, none of the things golfers assume produce a number like that. We built strength, we built control, and his body composition changed dramatically. The speed showed up on its own.

Where He Started

Max at his first testing session, January 9, 2024: 224 pounds, 108 mph max clubhead speed, and a functional profile that told a very clear story. The engine was underpowered for the frame it was carrying.

His split squat, both legs combined, was 60 pounds. His cable push was 16.5 pounds. His vertical jump was 18 inches. For a golfer with D1 ambitions, those numbers were the ceiling on everything he wanted to do.

This is the profile we wrote about in the junior golf post: output the body was not built to support. The difference is that Max did something about it, and stuck with it for two and a half years.

What We Did, and What We Did Not Do

The plan was the same one we run for every athlete, because it is the one that works. Test everything, find the limiters, and train those.

For Max that meant strength, in a progressive, supervised program. Full body workouts with some jump landing drills, along with medicine ball throws sprinkled in. Control of the positions his swing demands. Along the way his eating habits changed and 47 pounds came off, 31 of them by his January 2025 test.

What we did not do was chase the number. Almost no dedicated speed training in the entire period. No radar chasing, no overspeed sticks as a program staple. The launch monitor number nobody trained went up 12 mph anyway.

We never trained the number. We trained the body that produces it.

Two lines going opposite directions. That crossing is the whole story.

The Part That Should Not Work

Here is what makes this case unusual. Body mass typically helps clubhead speed. Bigger, heavier players tend to swing faster, and the research on elite golfers backs that up. Losing 47 pounds should have cost Max speed.

It did not, because of what the 47 pounds were. He lost mass that produced very little: it did not contribute force to the swing, but it still had to be carried, accelerated and controlled by every movement he made. Meanwhile the tissue that actually produces force grew. Strength up on every single test while total mass fell 14% over the testing period, and 21% by the time he left.

Force production per pound of bodyweight is what transfers to the club. Max’s ratio did not improve by a little. On some tests it roughly tripled.

The Numbers

First testing session against his best tested values. Every measure improved. Not one went backward.

First test, January 2024, against his best tested values. Jumps in inches, throws in feet, strength in pounds.

A few of these deserve a closer look.

Split squat: 60 to 110 pounds. Lower body strength is where clubhead speed starts, because the swing starts from the ground. This nearly doubled.

Cable push: 16.5 to 45.5 pounds. The single largest change in the profile at 176%. His upper body pressing strength when he arrived was the weakest link in the chain.

Single leg jumps: nearly doubled on both legs. Single leg power measurements from 9.8 and 8.6 inches to 18.4 and 16.2. Producing almost twice the single leg power. This is the clearest picture of what changed: the same Max, just reorganized.

Vertical jump: 18 to 22.5 inches. Lower body power expressed straight through two legs, into the minimum range we target for competitive golfers.

What This Means If You Are Chasing Speed

We are not against speed training. We use it, with athletes who have earned it. But Max’s case makes the argument we keep coming back to in this series: for most golfers, and for almost all juniors, the limiter is not swing technique or swing speed work. It is the engine.

If your strength numbers are low, speed training is polishing the output of an engine that needs rebuilding. Build the engine and the output takes care of itself.

The blood pressure rule from the distance post applies to juniors just as much as to 50 year olds. The right question after a low number is not what do I take for this. It is why is it low. For Max the answer was strength, so that is what we trained, and 12 mph came along for free.

Watch His Story

Where He Is Now

Max left for Louisville in August at 177 pounds, swinging up to 120, with strength numbers still climbing at his last test. We are still training him, and the next phase belongs to him and his college program.

The last thing worth saying is the thing every parent of a junior golfer should hear. Nothing about this was complicated. Test, find the limiter, train it, retest, repeat, for two and a half years. The magic ingredient was not a protocol. It was the base, built in the right order, over enough time to matter. Even better, during the summers we worked together one to three times per month. This was not a five day per week gym challenge. It was consistency over years.

If you want to see how we test, the full breakdown starts with the functional profile. If you have a junior chasing speed, read what parents should know first.