GOLF CLUB PERFORMANCE AND ROCKET SCIENCE: IT’S ALL IN THE MATH
Wouldn’t you like to know the absolute
farthest distance you can hit a golf ball, and then have a club that could help you do it? The building of such clubs
used to be a matter of educated trial and error. Now, we have sharpened the science.
As knowledge is power, this
is matter of power from knowledge. Master club maker and designer David Butler sat down, recently, with Craig Swanson,
a Engineer with Boeing, who launches spacecraft. As engineers tend to do, they talked numbers, and discovered that golf
balls have an all-important factor in common with missiles---initial velocity. So, they adapted an aerospace formula to predict
maximum golf ball distances.
Unlike rockets, which gain speed and momentum after launch, golf balls reach initial
velocities at impact. But, speed, alone, does not account for distance because a launched golf ball is also a flying, dynamic
object. Spin matters, as do launch angles and atmospheric conditions.
Data shows that Tiger Woods, for example,
launches his drives at 180 miles per hour.
By plugging in that number, David’s formula reveals Tiger’s ideal
launch angle to be 11 degrees, his most efficient ball spin to be 2200 revolutions per minute, and maximum carry distance
in average conditions to be 301 yards.
Any ball falling short of that distance, at that speed, in those conditions,
comes from a club that is less-than-perfect.
David can do the same for you. Most of us will never hit a golf ball
as hard or fast as Tiger, but the formula works for any golfer. By combining his math with
TrackMan diagnostic technology, David can increase your ball speed by finding an optimal combination of shaft and club head. Then, he can tune your flight
to that maximum quantitative distance.
Wouldn’t you like to know that number?
Better yet, wouldn’t
you like to hit the ball there?
