Year end musings

[mandrin]

Originally Posted by libro

There will be no change in velocity from one to the next. I thought we already went over this topic in another post in the past?

libro,

Are you really sure?

In a down swing the shaft is virtually at an angle of 90 degrees with the trajectory of the club head at impact. From this position, taking into consideration simply the shaft to be flexible, it is difficult to imagine that a golfer can get much of his weight ‘into the shot’. The discussions about heavy hit is always with regard to this situation.

I have taken the situation however to an extreme not at all occurring in golf, aligning the shaft in line at impact hence eliminating the flex of the shaft. The shaft does not buckle and in our experiment ALL of the weight of the mass is aligned directly along the line of action. This is to match the argument often found on forums when one invokes a boxer getting his weight behind the punch

We have the ‘scientific reference’ - TGM - which clearly invokes the heavy hit, matched by the intuition of many generations of golfers who really believed in the concept of heavy hit. For instance, the late Wendy Blake, a well established engineer and war hero, published two books with the concept of heavy hit as the central theme.

Are you still really sure?

[mandrin]

Originally Posted by spider

Like many I am sure on this board....I hesitate to answer. Obviously for fear of feeling...well... stupid! But, here goes none the less.

My first inclination was to say each of the balls would depart at the same velocity no matter the weight behind the strike.

However, I am going to GUESS that the larger mass will not absorb (possible wrong term used) as much of the strike against the ball or absorb more efficiently the strike. Thus imparting more energy or transfer of it to the ball and a greater initial velocity.

Just a guess.

I sympathize with your feelings as I have written on the subject before quite a bit and been rather vocal about the heavy hit not to be a reality. Hence asking about it seems that I am really kind of tricking people.

But in this case the situation a depicted is not that representing a golf swing. The huge mass is directly behind the mass representing the club head and our intuition strongly suggests that it must have some effect.

Is our intuition right on wrong?

You are the only one, for the moment, feeling that there is an increase in departure velocity with the heavy mass present.

[mandrin]

Originally Posted by cmartingolf

Zero, no difference.

cmartingolf

Your answer would be valid in the world of mathematics. In a real life situation one can’t have zero influence.

Hence why not graduate your answer, making it more along the line of somewhat, very little, negligible, etc..

[Jon Hardesty]

Since this example does not represent a real golf swing or the so-called "heavy hit" I will say that the heavier mass object will give the golf ball a higher velocity. On second thought I take that back and say there will be no change in velocity between the two examples. I got a feeling that there is some sort of trick question type stuff going on in this thread!

[JonWil]

The 'heavy golfer' model will have a 'large' difference in the result since Mandrin's 'direct link' setup greatly differentiates the masses involved. "How bout them apples?"

[mjstrong]

I think they'd be the same, assuming identical properties of the club and shaft. If you threw the golf ball at 160mph at a wall, would the rebound speed be different if one building weighed twice as much as another? I don't think so...

Just my reasoning...not scientific at all.

[blehnhard]

I am willing to step up and embarras my self. The "heavy" hit as illustrated will apply 2.5 million time the "force" to the ball 1,280,000,256 kg/kph as opposed to 512 kg/kph However, there is a limit as to how much of this energy can translate to ball speed. As the "smash factor" seems to maximize at about 50% for any given clubhead speed, I would say that even with the significantly great force from the "heavy" hit, change in ball speed would be insignificant.

Bruce

[Jim Kobylinski]

My guess is similar to brian's that there will be a difference; however as we say in my line of work it is statistically insignificant the change is so minute.

[mandrin]

Originally Posted by libro

Since this example does not represent a real golf swing or the so-called "heavy hit" I will say that the heavier mass object will give the golf ball a higher velocity. On second thought I take that back and say there will be no change in velocity between the two examples. I got a feeling that there is some sort of trick question type stuff going on in this thread!

libro,

Trick question.

Just think about it. In a hypothetical context where people had never heard of mandrin and his ideas about ‘heavy hit’ in golf, and this question was posed, I am very certain that 100 % would answer that it definitely should have an effect and possibly quite a large one.

[jpeck]

I'll say there would be a small difference in velocity. If I recall correctly, Cochran and Stubbs (1968?) suggested about one metre more distance on a drive hit with a very heavy club.