I'd recently popped a thread regarding a phenomenon that was baffling me: my ball would sometimes sail straight the first 2/3-rds, and then start veering over to the right. I just couldn't get to grips with it: "... but the ball was heading straight for the green - why did it start pulling right so late?"
I found this (shortened) article in the July '06 (SA) edition of GD; by Shelby Futch: "Many of your (golf) problems can be fixed by paying attention to what your ball does in the air. With the driver, try to watch the entire ball flight - the first 75% of the flight will tell you a lot about your swing path. The final 25% will tell you what your clubface was doing on impact."
And the penny drops.
Last edited by Divot2deep : November 11th, 2006 at 05:42 PM.
The ball flight laws aren't so bad once you get the hang of it. If your flies straight and then starts to veer off to the right, your swing path is good but your club face was just slightly open. Generally the direction the ball takes off can be attributed to your swing plane and alignment and where the ball finishes can be attributed to your club face at impact. All of this assumes that your alignment is solid of course. If you have your shoulders wide open and your feet closed, it's pretty hard to tell where you want to go.
EDIT: Sorry that was redundant. I didn't read your post well enough to see that you posted basically the same thing.
Thats why once you learn it, it's easy to hit draws and fades. For a draw you aim your club face at the target (where you want it to end at) and aim your body slightly to the right. So, you're going to swing along your body line, with what will be a closed club face relative to your body line, hence producing a draw.
i know this may sound a little silly, but every so often (at least with me anyhow) you can strike a ball and put a three demensional rotation on the ball, manytimes due to the ball having a heavy spot. while having normal back spin, as it slows down some. the ball will turn over, causing a late turn one way or another, or the centralfugal force will turn the ball. iv'e had many range balls go sometimes two different ways while in the air( self correcting).
i know this may sound a little silly, but every so often (at least with me anyhow) you can strike a ball and put a three demensional rotation on the ball, manytimes due to the ball having a heavy spot. while having normal back spin, as it slows down some. the ball will turn over, causing a late turn one way or another, or the centralfugal force will turn the ball. iv'e had many range balls go sometimes two different ways while in the air( self correcting).
i know this may sound a little silly, but every so often (at least with me anyhow) you can strike a ball and put a three dimensional rotation on the ball
Well, every rotation is inherently three-dimensional. Look at this picture ( http://exploration.grc.nasa.gov/educ.../rotations.gif ) as just one example. Every rotation can be thought of as having all three components in the picture. Though if you had a pure sidespin, two of three components would be set to zero. In this case, spin still has three components (short reason, it is a 3-space-dimensional universe), it is just that the value of two of the three components are zero.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mikey300
or the centrifugal force will turn the ball.
Centrifugal force is just a fictitious force used in rotating reference frames. In the 'real world' it doesn't exist. That said, centrifugal force has nothing to do with a ball in flight.
Gravity, Lift, and Drag forces are the forces that affect a ball in flight. Lift is highly dependent upon spin, and drag to a certain extent.
I should probably mention that the way I use 'lift' is not just restricted to opposite of gravity. For example, hold a single piece of paper vertically, and drop it. It will rotate and be pushed off in one direction or another. This is the lift force on the side of the paper pushing it to a side. Sometimes people will discriminate between the anti-gravity lift and a sideways-pushing lift and call that sideways lift yaw. (Depends a lot on what your background is.)
If the ball had a denser spot, the spin could change and hence the lift force could change significantly pushing the ball in a different direction. As far as I know, this can only happen if the denser spot was in the original plane of rotation and then goes off it, or if the denser spot was off the rotation plane and then got onto it. A small gust of wind would be enough to change the rotation to move a denser spot on or off plane. Also, all other things being equal, the denser spot will eventually move so that the denser spot will rotate on plane, though I do not know if there is enough time for this correction to happen in the time of an average golf ball's flight.
Last edited by Bignose : November 15th, 2006 at 01:24 AM.
i know this may sound a little silly, but every so often (at least with me anyhow) you can strike a ball and put a three demensional rotation on the ball, manytimes due to the ball having a heavy spot. while having normal back spin, as it slows down some. the ball will turn over, causing a late turn one way or another, or the centralfugal force will turn the ball. iv'e had many range balls go sometimes two different ways while in the air( self correcting).
please don't beat me too much on this one.
I am no scientist and have not a shred of proof to support your whys, but I do know that I see balls that I hit at the range have suprising flight dynamics...I hit a 3 wood today that was a climbing, penatrating shot that suddenly dropped like a sinker...it was if it had hit a bird or something...
Well, every rotation is inherently three-dimensional. Look at this picture ( http://exploration.grc.nasa.gov/educ.../rotations.gif ) as just one example. Every rotation can be thought of as having all three components in the picture. Though if you had a pure sidespin, two of three components would be set to zero. In this case, spin still has three components (short reason, it is a 3-space-dimensional universe), it is just that the value of two of the three components are zero.
Centrifugal force is just a fictitious force used in rotating reference frames. In the 'real world' it doesn't exist. That said, centrifugal force has nothing to do with a ball in flight.
Gravity, Lift, and Drag forces are the forces that affect a ball in flight. Lift is highly dependent upon spin, and drag to a certain extent.
I should probably mention that the way I use 'lift' is not just restricted to opposite of gravity. For example, hold a single piece of paper vertically, and drop it. It will rotate and be pushed off in one direction or another. This is the lift force on the side of the paper pushing it to a side. Sometimes people will discriminate between the anti-gravity lift and a sideways-pushing lift and call that sideways lift yaw. (Depends a lot on what your background is.)
If the ball had a denser spot, the spin could change and hence the lift force could change significantly pushing the ball in a different direction. As far as I know, this can only happen if the denser spot was in the original plane of rotation and then goes off it, or if the denser spot was off the rotation plane and then got onto it. A small gust of wind would be enough to change the rotation to move a denser spot on or off plane. Also, all other things being equal, the denser spot will eventually move so that the denser spot will rotate on plane, though I do not know if there is enough time for this correction to happen in the time of an average golf ball's flight.
If I actually remember this, do I get credit in a physics class somewhere??
November 11th, 2006, 04:35 PM
I wanna be straight - my way is right
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