Golf s Modern Ball Impact and Flight Model

Transcription

1 Todd M. Kos 2/28/201 /2018 This document reviews the current ball flight laws of golf and discusses an updated model made possible by advances in science and technology. It also looks into the nature of the strike, golf ball impact, and factors influencing the ball flight shape and distance result.

2 Contents Golf s Modern Ball Impact and Flight Model Introduction... 2 Current Ball Flight Laws... 3 Modern Technology Influences on Golf... 4 Modern Ball Impact and Flight Model... 6 Key Influences on the Clubface and Strike Force... 7 Conclusion: Todd Kos QualityGolfStats, LLC Page 1 of 8

3 Introduction Golf s Modern Ball Impact and Flight Model Recent developments in golf science, impact metrics, and high-speed technology tools have revealed a wealth of new information being generated from a golf shot. The current PGA of America Ball Flight Laws are reviewed with the benefit of these new findings. This paper represents a step forward in our understanding of impact forces on ball flight. It offers great potential for improvement in the way we teach and learn golf. It is aimed at golf teaching professionals and serious golfers. The teaching model developed and updated by the PGA of America in 1990 provides an overview of the cause-and-effect problems facing all golfers and encourages the development of methods to minimize or eliminate those problems. To provide a clear understanding of the swing, the teaching model sets out three levels of understanding, 1) Laws, 2) Principles, and 3) Preferences. In today s golf instruction, the focus of attention covers many parts. It considers the movement of both the body and the club during the swing and what happens to the clubhead and the clubface at the moment of impact. This paper introduces a closer look at the strike and specifically at how the strike forces determine what happens to the ball during impact. Its purpose is to reveal even more fundamental insights into how ball flight is produced and controlled. For the reader to readily assimilate what is revealed by the new Ball Impact and Flight Model, a change in mindset is needed from traditional club and swing geometry alignments to an understanding of how strike forces are created and delivered. Exciting opportunities for how we teach and learn golf start to emerge when these insights are fully considered Todd Kos QualityGolfStats, LLC Page 2 of 8

4 Current Ball Flight Laws The past half century of scientific research into the golf shot has produced literature to help golfers understand the swing and play the game better. For example, one of the early and most commonly cited golf references is the book Search for the Perfect Swing (1968, Cochran and Stobbs). Twenty-two years later in 1990, the basis of a teaching model was developed and promoted by the Professional Golfers Association of America. The model established the definitive set of five ball flight laws based on what was known to be happening to the clubhead and the clubface at impact for Distance and Direction results. These factors were considered at the time to be absolute in influencing the flight of the ball. The term law as applied to the teaching model was defined thus, LAW is a statement of an order or relation of phenomena that so far as is known is invariable under given conditions On a more fundamental level, what was happening to the ball during impact was less well understood. This was not surprising considering that the scientists at that time did not have powerful computers, radar analytics, and high-speed cameras that today s scientists benefit from. The validity of the Ball Flight Laws introduced by the PGA of America has been discussed and challenged in the past and the present, but the laws have remained unchanged since Todd Kos QualityGolfStats, LLC Page 3 of 8

5 Modern Technology Influences on Golf The influences of infrared, radar, and photo metric launch monitor systems have evolved over the years to make a positive impact in measuring golf ball metrics. When these developments are integrated with advanced ball flight trajectory models, it is possible to precisely predict where the ball will end up for a given set of launch conditions and weather factors. The launch and flight metrics are challenging us on how best to apply the Ball Flight Laws properly and effectively. The Ball Flight Laws offer five key factors to consider for errant shot troubleshooting or diagnosis, but they fail to offer any real clues on how to control the flight of the ball or curve the shot back to the target. The old school golf masters honed their game through thousands of hours of practice and experimentation with no technological feedback. Today, few players have the luxury of devoting so many hours to practice, and instead, look to modern technology feedback for a fast-lane route to their desired progress or results, even though they may not fully understand it. Golf would be an easier game if we could understand it more simply. Modern technology has introduced us to many new metrics for our body, swing, club, and ball. This creates a more-data, the less you really understand never-ending problem about how to strike and launch the golf ball correctly. Furthermore, these additional metrics raise questions in the minds of many about the accuracy or validity of the ball flight laws as we know them, resulting in countless hours of often heated debate and argument in social media that has no value to the golfer whatsoever. More data and a complicated swing + impact + launch metrics picture is not the answer to understanding things better. A deluge of data only serves to drown out our natural abilities to control and master the elements; the very things that really make a difference in golf ball striking and in creating the desired results. The more we evolve to become ever more obsessed and preoccupied with data and metrics, the further disconnected we become from the simple process of striking the ball as intended. As a result, it was necessary to enhance our laws with a mathematical basis to reveal once and for all how the ball is struck, and the launch results the strike produces. If we can understand the strike simply, then we can fully master it with confidence for a more enjoyable golf game Todd Kos QualityGolfStats, LLC Page 4 of 8

6 Golf is played by striking the ball with the head of the club. The objective of the player is not to swing the club in a specified manner, not to execute a series of complicated movements in a prescribed sequence, not to look pretty while he is doing it, but primarily and essentially to strike the ball with the head of the club so that the ball will perform according to his wishes. *Bobby Jones Source Golf is My Game by Bobby Jones (1960) * Bobby Jones, Amateur Golfer ( ) is most famous for his unique "Grand Slam," consisting of his victory in all four major golf tournaments of his era (the open and amateur championships in both the U.S. & the U.K.) in a single calendar year (1930). In all Jones played in 31 majors, winning 13 and placing among the top ten finishers 27 times Todd Kos QualityGolfStats, LLC Page 5 of 8

7 Modern Ball Impact and Flight Model Twenty-eight years following the introduction of the Ball Flight Laws, the latest golf research into impact has heralded a new level of understanding. The result is a mathematically formulated foundation for a simpler and more relevant ball impact and flight model. It considers the factors directly responsible for spin and ball flight, specifically the direction of the strike force vector traveling through the strike-point position on the ball in relation to the ball s center of mass. This is a major breakthrough because these relationships are not defined in the current PGA of America Ball Flight Laws Todd Kos OptimalStrike QualityGolfStats, LLC The current laws would imply we focus on swing path and angle of approach as clubhead force vectors. However, aided by advances in impact analytics, and using launch parameters as inputs, we are learning more about the dynamic relationship the clubface has with the ball. It is now possible to mathematically define the result of the strike in terms of: The clubface orientation and strike-point on the ball. The direction of the force vector through the strike-point. Shining a spotlight on the true nature of the strike in this way, offers further insights into how the strike is formed and delivered by the golfer Todd Kos QualityGolfStats, LLC Page 6 of 8

8 Key Influences on the Clubface and Strike Force The diagram below shows various inputs influencing the presentation of the clubface to the ball s Strike-Point and Resultant 3D Strike Force Vector. It reveals new insights, and validates the need to consider impact and spin in a more dynamic way, with regard to the measured ball flight metrics of Spin, Ball Velocity, and Launch Direction. At a first glance, it is a much more complete picture than the five Ball Fight Laws, Centeredness of Impact, Clubhead Speed, Angle of Approach, and Clubhead Face and Path Todd Kos OptimalStrike QualityGolfStats, LLC The PGA of America s Ball Flight Laws did provide an initial foundation for golf instruction, however, the modern view of the ball and strike focused fundamentals reflect a more natural and instinctive style of golf to be played. It is this area of instruction, i.e. understanding how the strike is formed during the set-up, and delivered to the ball that offers greater potential to improve the player s level of golfing skill to produce a variety of different shots. The ability of skilled players to utilize strike forces intuitively to produce the required spin control and ball flight is not new. A review of golfing greats of the past, and their methods (Vardon, Jones, Hagan, Hogan, Mehlhorn, Trevino, Nicklaus, et al) reveal that all were highly skilled in this art form, and all possessed swing styles that were highly complementary to their desired strike outcome. Not surprisingly, the same skills are possessed by the world s best golfers of today Todd Kos QualityGolfStats, LLC Page 7 of 8

9 Any errors in the outcome of the shot will be apparent in how the strike was formed and delivered. The observed ball flight, and the formation of the strike that produced it, must be the first point of call in diagnosing faults. Diagnosing swing faults through body and club positions, and movements; without reference to the intended strike and how it is launched is more than likely to be an exercise in futility than to be of real help to the student golfer. Conclusion: The Modern Ball Impact and Flight Model provides a complete strike vision, which has been mathematically defined and validated, The Modern Ball Impact and Flight Model offers the first real evolution of the PGA s golf ball flight laws by recognizing the dynamism of the swing and the strike itself. It also provides a more complete relationship of the resultant swing and club forces to the ball during impact and flight. The enhanced sense of feel that a player possesses for the dynamism of the strike is what differentiates the great ball-strikers from every other player. It is only when the player possesses the intuition to realize this truth that shot making can be transformed from a science into a true art form. Strike and results oriented teaching is the path to self-discovery for the golfer. The increased confidence that will arise from knowing that your set-up can be relied upon to deliver the swing and the strike, and the successful shot outcome you require, is the route to continuous improvement and skill development. Guided by a clearer vision of the Modern Ball Impact and Flight Model, and once assimilated by the subconscious mind, the golf stroke is naturally and instinctively performed, with grace, artistry, power and precision Todd Kos QualityGolfStats, LLC Page 8 of 8