The Physics of Golf
As anyone who has played a round of golf will attest to, the sport is based around many fundamental principals of physics. These basic laws are involved with every aspect of the game from how a player swings the club to how the ball moves through the air on its way toward the pin. It is the challenge that physics presents to the golfer that has allowed the game, and equipment used, to develop so drastically over the past one hundred years. The first golf balls used were called featheries. They were made with a horsehide cover packed with wet goose feathers. When the balls dried they became extremely hard. The major flaw with the featheries was that they could not be used when the conditions were wet because they would soften again.[5] Despite the flaw of the featheries, they remained the only ball used up until the middle of the 19th century when the revolutionary gutta-percha ball was invented. The new ball, sometimes referred to as a "guttie", was molded from the warmed, dried gum of the sapodilla tree.[5] These balls were cheap to manufacture and opened up the game of golf to a more diverse socio-economic group. This in turn made the game of golf very popular, which led to dramatic improvements in golf balls in the next decades. In 1900 a unique event occurred. Some claim that it can be called the first professional sports endorsement. The Spalding Company paid England's Harry Vardon a considerable sum of money to come to the United States to demonstrate what he could do in winning tournaments using the latest ball design. He won the U.S. Open using the new rubber-wound Haskell ball.[5] This led to another major revolution in the design of the golf ball. Not only was this ball cheap to manufacture, but al...
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...nly on the acceleration of the wrist-cock-angle. The torque represented by curve C depends mainly on the square of the velocity of the wrist-cock-angle. Curves D and E show the torques resulting from action of gravity and the golfers weight shift respectively. The torque T shows how the sum of the five-torques on the arms varies during the downswing and becomes very large just prior to the club colliding with the ball. (graph from source #1)
Bibliography:
Bibliography
1. Abrahams, Jonathan (1994). Club Smarts. New York: Lyons & Burford. 2. Andrisani, John. (1997). The Tiger Woods Way. New York: Random House. 3. Beard, James (1982). Turf Management for Golf Courses. New York: McMillan. 4. Jones, Trent (1993). Golf By Design. New York: Little, Brown, and company. 5. Kroen, William. (1992). The Why Book Of Golf. California: Price Stern Sloan.
Rotational Biomechanics of the Elite Golf Swing: Benchmarks for Amateurs. Journals of Applied Biomechanics, 27, 242-251 Human Kinetics, Inc. Retrieved from
Many people might think that swinging the bat straight through the ball would be enough to hit the ball a decent distance off the bat. There's many more mechanics involved in the swinging process. Muscle has only a small part to play in the swinging a bat for power. There are two types of mechanics involved while swinging a bat, Linear and Rotational. Rotational mechanics are the dominant source of power in the swing. Out of the rotational mechanics come the two forces that help generate the speed and power of the swing, torque and the other comes from the energy of rotation. Speed from the energy of rotation comes from the path that your hands follow as you swing the bat. The speed generated by the circular rotation from your hands is like a ball at the end of a string, as long as your hands are moving in a circle then the ball continues to accelerate in a circle. So the bat will also move in at an increasing speed as long as your hands are following a circular path as you swing. Any foward movement of the hands or body in a straight line won't add to the overall bat speed.
First, before you can drive a ball, you need the right equipment. You will need a number one wood, or driver, a golf tee, and, preferably golf shoes for extra traction to prevent your feet from sliding. Now that you have the proper equipment, you can begin the drive.
Golf is the ultimate battle between man and nature. It is a beautiful sport in which dreams come true and hearts are broken. Man is challenged on every stroke by nature’s elements. Wind and rain are only a few of the conditions that affect this great game. Undulating hills, sand bunkers, thick rough, and even creeks and ponds come into play on most golf courses. These features are fierce at Augusta National Golf Course. Located along the fall line, the natural beauty of the region is the perfect complement to this championship golf course. Every spring when the flowers are in full bloom, Augusta plays host to The Masters Championship and is transformed into the Mecca of Golf.
Baseball is a fascinating sport that is exceptionally fun to play. This assignment is all about understanding the physics of a few key aspects of this sport. One might ask what physics could have to do with baseball? Like most sports baseball involves physical motion. Baseball encompasses all three planes of motion through throwing, hitting, and fielding. All of the classical laws of mechanics can be applied to understand the physics of this game.
Baseball is considered America’s past time. Legends like Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jackie Robinson, and many more have come and gone. Throughout baseball’s history certain players have excelled more than others, and like any sport they were successful by exploiting their strengths. It isn’t the rules, uniforms, stadiums, and fan base that make baseball a beautiful sport; it’s the players. Anyone competing, whether it is at a professional level or not, has their own unique mechanics that allows them to perform the best they can. No pitcher throws the ball the same way as another and no batter hits the ball the same way as another. Every baseball player has a routine in everything they do that makes them special. It has been said that hitting a baseball is the hardest task in all of sports. To accomplish that task, all factors come in to play; the type of pitch being thrown, the release point of the pitch, the break of the ball, etc. All those factors occur before the batter’s swing is fully initiated. As mentioned earlier, no batter swings the same way as another however, the mechanics of a swing is a different thing entirely. The mechanics of one’s swing begins when a batter enters the box and ends when a batter exits, what happens in between is up to the batter. By perfecting a batter’s mechanics while in the box, their chances of making contact increase greatly.
The History of Golf Balls The golf ball has changed dramatically over the years. Smooth hardwood balls were used between the 1400 and 1700's.
With this discovery, Phil Young persuaded Fred Bommer, to “head up the Acushnet Golf Division” (Titleist Story - Titleist.com. (2016). They set out to develop the highest quality and best performing golf ball in the world; one that would be uniform and consistent in quality, ball after ball. A trait that is still found within the Titleist brand (Titleist Story - Titleist.com. (2016).
According to sports, golf become more popular in our society, many people are practice it and other play golf as a hobby. This research will be about golf and the negative affect that cause to society in past or even today. Golfing aims a lot of discrimination among women, it provided racism and the cost of this sport creates tension between social classes.
Contrary to what most think, an “Arnold Palmer” is not just a blend of tea and lemonade. One day, all might be able to swing a golf club like Arnold Palmer. Golf has been around since the thirteenth century and was introduced by the Scottish and Dutch. The main goal of golf is to reach the hole in the fewest amount of shots possible. One main difference between golf and many other sports is the lower the score the better. Regardless of the fact that the game was once banned, golf is now enjoyed by many (“The History of Golf”). Despite the images in common golf commercials, the golf swing is endlessly complicated.
Water and Salt water sound similar, at first you would think that but as soon as you research either of them you’ll find that the only thing they have one thing in common water. This pair brings to mind somewhat of a similar situation in golf and frisbee golf. One would think that you frisbee golf is just golf with a frisbee but this is not so it s deeper than that. When you experience both of these it come to you, although they share similar names golf and frisbee golf have many differences between them.
The sport of golf was created a long time ago but is not actually precisely dated for when the game was made. According to Jack Connelly, a retired teacher and golfer, reports that the game has been dated back to places like China and Scotland. There also is a wide year range for the time golf was created going all the way back to the 960’s to more exact years like 1457. The game of golf as we know it today was “born on May 14, 1754, when the Society of St. Andrews was founded by a group
The amount of contact in each sport is a prime example. In football, it is impossible to avoid physical contact, as it is a very aggressive sport with hard hits occurring every play. There is also a difference in the type of injuries within each sport. In football, injuries are much more severe. According to Head Case Company, football is the leading sport in concussions (“Sports Concussion Statistics”). It is common to have injuries in upper and lower limbs and in the torso and pelvis (“Sports Concussion Statistics”). There is also a difference in training between the two sports. Daily, our football practices consist of intense running drills, weight lifting, hitting and blocking drills, and many team building activities (BE3). When contrasting physical demands of football with golf, an obvious difference is that in golf there is no contact with opponents. There are also minor injuries that are common due to repetitive motions in the shoulder and elbow. Training for golf is much less strenuous, as it focuses more on muscle memory. Meticulous changes are often made to the swing and grip, and a sweat typically isn’t broken. Golf training heavily focuses on precision and
One big difference is a type of balls used and what is used to make the balls. For a tennis ball, the "modern tennis balls are made of a hollow rubber core, covered in a wool or nylon shell which is known as the nap. Pressurized air inside the rubber core makes the ball bounce. Balls that haven 't got enough pressure inside make a thud when they hit the floor. These are called dead balls." This information I found on www.bbc.co.uk, which also explains a little bit of the history of the tennis ball. In golf, the balls are made up of "many materials used in golf balls but the majority can is broken down into three categories: rubbers, ionomers and urethanes. In the past, golf balls have been made of wood, leather wrapped around feathers, sap from a gutta tree and sap from balata trees." This information is found on www.srixon.co.uk/ which goes further into the making of the golf balls. The tennis ball is two and a half inches (6.35cms) in diameter and weighs two ounces (56.7g). A golf ball is 1.6 ounces (45.93g) and 1.7 inches (42.7mm) in diameter. Even though tennis balls and golf balls are different sizes, they almost weigh the same weight. I find it very interesting that the balls are such different sizes but only a few ounces different in
The difference in the two sports that the athletes played (basketball and golf) is quite a big one. In basketball, the object of the game is if you are on offense you want to put the ball into the round hoop while you are being guarded by opposing players and you have a boundary you have to stay in. If you are on defense, you want to prevent the offense from scoring into the hoop and if a shot is made, you throw the ball from out of bounds and then you are on offense. In golf, you are not on a team you are playing for your own