The Quest for 180 isn't really about learning to swing harder. It's about understanding where speed actually comes from — and building enough reserve that 116mph feels like a normal golf swing, not a maximum effort.
When I started the Quest for 180, the objective sounded simple enough. Get faster. The ultimate target is 180mph ball speed, but the real goal has always been slightly different. I want to reach a point where I can stand on a golf course next season, swing the driver at around 116mph, produce 165 to 170mph ball speed, and have it feel smooth rather than like I am swinging out of my shoes.
Producing one enormous swing on a launch monitor is interesting. Building enough speed reserve that 116mph becomes comfortable is much more valuable.
Over the last few weeks I've been digging into a series of TPI sessions with tour players and coaches, alongside my own speed work. The conclusion: this isn't about learning to swing harder. It's about understanding where speed actually comes from.
One of the most useful ideas from TPI is their approach when a player wants more speed. They ask three questions: can the body move properly? Can it produce enough force and power? Can that force be transferred efficiently into the golf club?
Two golfers swinging at the same speed may have completely different limitations. One might not have a big enough physical engine. Another may have plenty of power but poor sequencing. A third might have both, yet subconsciously be restricting how fast they allow themselves to move.
// Case study — Korn Ferry Tour player Davis Lamb
Cruising around 109–110mph clubhead speed despite testing extremely well physically — good movement, good power numbers, good force production, good transfer of energy. There was no obvious physical reason he should be swinging that slow.
So TPI removed the requirement to hit a good golf shot entirely. Forget the fairway. Forget dispersion. Forget the golf swing. Using a simple three-strike game, just move the club as fast as possible.
109–110mph
Cruising clubhead speed
121.6mph
Reached with the governor removed
He hadn't become stronger during the session. They had uncovered speed that was already there.
The first is my maximum speed ceiling — how fast can I physically move a driver if I don't care where the ball goes? The second is my playing-speed floor — how fast can I move while still hitting a proper golf shot?
If my absolute maximum is 116mph, it's unrealistic to expect 116mph to feel comfortable on the golf course. But imagine a future profile that looks something like this:
Suddenly, 116mph isn't a maximum-effort swing. It is simply golf. That is the reserve capacity I want to build.
My current good swing feel is long and loose. Davis Lamb increased his speed when TPI encouraged a slightly longer arm path — more time to create force, more time to accelerate the club.
// Case study — Aldrich Potgieter, one of the longest hitters in professional golf
Some of his conventional power tests were actually below PGA Tour averages. Yet his golf swing is incredibly efficient — enormous mobility, a long swing, exceptional wrist lag, very early ground forces, and an extremely efficient kinetic and kinematic sequence. His long swing isn't a fault to shorten. It's part of his superpower.
That doesn't mean I should try to swing like Aldrich Potgieter. The lesson is to discover how I create speed, rather than copying how somebody else creates it. For me, "long and loose" may be significant — it feels free, it feels athletic, and it doesn't feel like I'm manufacturing positions.
More travel + more time + more acceleration =
more speed with less perceived effort.
Another TPI session demonstrated how dramatic a difference pressure and timing can make. The breakthrough was understanding the sequence almost like a vertical jump.
Nobody needs six swing thoughts to jump onto a box. The body already understands how to perform the movement athletically. Golf often becomes the opposite — takeaway positions, hip angles, wrist conditions, elbow locations, clubface orientation — until something inherently athletic becomes almost entirely mechanical.
One of the players in the TPI session gained around 5mph almost immediately once the movement became more athletic.
I'm not suggesting five miles per hour is sitting there waiting for me tomorrow. But it shows that speed isn't purely a strength problem. It can also be a movement problem.
TPI repeatedly emphasise that the longest hitters create their ground-reaction forces early enough that the energy has time to transfer from the ground, through the body and into the club.
This has made me rethink what my gym programme is trying to achieve. The objective can't simply be "produce more force." It has to become:
Produce enough force, produce it quickly, produce it at the right time,
and transfer it into the golf club.
Strength still matters. So do jumps. So does explosive training. But the bridge between gym power and golf speed becomes critically important. One TPI player spent 30 days working on hip mobility, thoracic rotation, power and lead-side pressure — his physical movement improved, but the hardest part wasn't the gym. It was transferring that movement into the golf swing.
// The transfer progression that worked
Gradually the body begins to recognise the new movement as the more athletic solution. That's a much better model than doing a power workout on Tuesday and simply hoping it magically appears in the driver swing on Saturday.
The trail side can help push the golfer towards the target. But the lead side then has to accept that force and provide a stable platform from which the upper body and club can accelerate.
That has implications for the gym programme. I still need force production. But I also need the ability to absorb, stabilise and redirect force — single-leg strength, split-stance work, controlled landings, isometrics and deceleration all have a role alongside the more obvious power exercises.
The gym's job isn't simply to make me stronger. It has two jobs: create more force, and make my body capable of safely handling the force I am trying to produce.
At 48, that second part matters enormously. One TPI player had previously suffered a serious back injury. After several years rebuilding his body, he was producing clubhead speeds significantly higher than before. Getting older doesn't automatically mean getting slower. But increasing speed requires the body to be capable of tolerating it.
TPI challenged the idea that there is a single golf swing. There isn't. A driver on a tee requires a different task from a seven iron on the ground. A 20-yard finesse wedge requires something different again. Putting is different again — and motor patterns can bleed from one part of the game into another.
Driver needs
Athletic movement and force. Long and loose. Maximum acceleration.
Finesse wedges need
Stability and a repeatable bottom of the arc. Almost opposite requirements.
With finesse wedges, the checklist looks like this:
The biggest objective is consistency of strike. If the bottom of the swing arc continually moves backwards and forwards, contact becomes unpredictable — and if contact is unpredictable, spin, launch, carry and rollout become unpredictable too. The ultimate aim is to remove strike from the equation entirely.
I shouldn't stand over a chip wondering whether I'm going to catch it thin, heavy or a groove low. I want contact to become predictable enough that the only question remaining is: how much energy does this shot require?
TPI reduced putting to three skills.
One player said his last thought before putting was essentially to take the putter straight back and straight through. TPI hated it. Their analogy was a basketball free throw — nobody stands at the line thinking about the exact movement of their hand. They look at the target and subconsciously solve the problem: how much energy is required?
That's how they wanted the player to putt. Do the technical work before the stroke — read the putt, choose the pace, see the line, aim — then make the free throw. The line itself only makes sense at the chosen speed. That might be one of the most useful putting thoughts I've come across.
Practice and playing golf require completely different mental states. During training, there's room to think about pressure, speed, movement, lead leg, backswing length, clubhead speed, force, drills.
Training mode
Pressure, speed, movement, sequencing, force, drills. Technical work belongs here.
Playing mode
Pick the shot. Pick the target. Hit it. Scoring belongs here — and nowhere else.
When the TPI player eventually went back to hitting a "gamer," they told him to forget all of it. That's exactly where my golf needs to get to. It also reinforces something I learned from my round with DP World Tour caddie Dom Bott — once the shot has been selected, the job becomes commitment.
All of this has changed the way I now see the project. There are six stages.
Capacity
Can my body move well enough and tolerate the forces required? Mobility, strength, stability and resilience.
Force
Can I produce enough force quickly? Strength, jumps and explosive training.
Timing
Can I produce that force early enough and in the correct sequence?
Transfer
Can I connect the gym movement to a golf swing? Drill → partial swing → normal swing.
Ceiling
How fast can I physically move the driver? Where maximum-intent swings and the three-strike game become useful.
Cruise
Can yesterday's maximum eventually become tomorrow's normal swing? That is the real objective.
The number still matters. Seeing 180mph ball speed would be a brilliant milestone. But I increasingly think the Quest for 180 is about something bigger — a physical engine capable of generating speed, learning how my body naturally expresses that speed, removing unnecessary governors, and enough reserve capacity that I don't have to force anything on the golf course. And doing it without destroying the golf swing I already have.
That last point might be the most important lesson from all of the TPI material. When they analysed Potgieter, their advice was essentially: don't let anybody mess with what makes this swing special. Fix genuine limitations. Protect strengths. That applies just as much to an amateur trying to get better as it does to a future PGA Tour star.
Build a bigger engine, remove the governor, and make yesterday's maximum tomorrow's cruising speed.
If I can eventually stand on the first tee swinging at 116mph and genuinely feel as though I am just making a normal golf swing, the Quest for 180 will have achieved exactly what I wanted it to.
The live scorecard tracking ball speed and on-course club speed against the March 2027 target.
View the hub →Why this is an assess-first programme built on Kolby Tullier's methods — the reasoning behind every test in the baseline battery.
Read the approach →Log mobility, stability, power, rotation and strength numbers directly on the page — retested every six weeks.
Log a session →