Golf Club Atlas
GolfClubAtlas.com => Golf Course Architecture => Topic started by: JohnV on April 19, 2006, 12:52:28 PM
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The USGA has just published a scientific paper on their website that shows that the ball does NOT get "super-sized" at higher swing speeds.
Please read: http://www.usga.org/news/2006/april/distance.html
Balls don't even exhibit straight-line gains as the swing speed increases because the COR of the driver goes down as swing speed increases and while lift increases as ball speed goes up, drag increases even faster.
Glad to see the Laws of Physics still apply. ;)
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John, I don't deny the validity of the results using just one driver; the USGA test club. Do you think that graph's slope would change if they optimized the driver as they increased club head speed?
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In a word, no.
Certainly the measured distances would probably change between drivers at the same speeds, but they would exhibit the same general trends. The COR would continue to go down as speed increased as has been shown in the papers cited (dating back to 1994). The lift and drag numbers are based on launching the ball using their Indoor Test Range, not a driver so those numbers would stay the same.
I'm not a physicist, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express a few months ago. ;)
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One interesting thing I've seen in the paper is that when they launched balls under optimal conditions, the distance increase due to optimization at 125 mph (7.5 yards) was a lot less than the distance increase at 90 mph (19 yards).
This can be looked at in two ways. One is that it is a good thing because it means that optimization doesn't do as much for the big hitter. The other is that it is a bad thing since the big hitter seems to get the results regardless of how optimal his swing/club is.
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John,
I have a bridge in Brooklyn I am sure you would be interested in buying! ;)
You may notice that the "scientific" paper is published on their website, not in a peer reviewed journal. Geoff Schackelford has questioned their use of the year 2000 in their arguments. The claim in the paper is that most players were using the wound balata covered ball in 2000. However, I did not have to look far to find the following on the Titleist website. "There was instant tour acceptance and near overnight conversion to multi-component urethane elastomer golf ball technology in 2000."
I don't doubt their formula and computation of results from physical laws. I do believe they misrepresent the question. The question is not whether higher swing speeds cause current balls to go disproportioniately longer than slower swing speeds. The question is the gain from the conversion of balls is disproportionately larger. It seems to me that they do a poor job in considering old vs. new balls in light of the conflict in when the new balls were put into play.
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Well I guess I should have gone a little farther then I did on the Titleist website.
They later give a graph that is hard to read accurately, but seems to show only 27% using solid balls at the beginning of 2000, and slightly over 40% by the end.
Still Geoff's suggestion of using 1995 would clearly be comparing all wound vs. the all solid 2005.
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Garland, for a number of years, there have been people on this site and elseware arguing that the ball went disproportionately longer when you swung faster. That is what this test disproves.
Please tell me what paper, whether published in a scientific journal or not, shows any facts that support that argument or counter the arguments put forward in this paper.
I don't need no bridges in Brooklyn, I live in the city of bridges.
The headline on the article is "Do Long Hitters Get An Unfair Benefit?", not does the ball go further today.
Certainly the ball goes further than a wound balata ball did in previous years. Also, the club heads are bigger, the swing speeds are much faster, the shafts add more and, while I know that Geoff likes to mock it, the players in general are in a hell of a lot better shape. Add it all up and I agree that golf today is a different game than 20 or 30 years ago. Should it be changed? In my opinion it probably should, but I'm not sure that rolling back the ball is the answer, but I've been back and forth on that a number of times.
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John,
I think I showed you "facts" (at least what you get from a marketing website (Titleist)) that call into question the old ball vs. new ball argument of the paper.
As I wrote before, I understand what their test disproves and have no disagreement with it. I think the issue is the change in balls. I think that what drives people to conclude disproportionality is not within the same ball, but the gains derived from changing balls.
Slower swingers have always imparted less spin on the ball. The difference in spin rate between hitting the two different kinds of balls for a slow swinger is less than the difference in the spin rate between hitting the two different kinds of balls for a fast swinger. Logically, this would suggest more gain for the faster swinger. If spin rate were the only factor in play, it would demonstrate there has to be more gain for the faster swinger.
They have the science and the formulae. Why don't the plug data from the balata wound ball into their formulae and give us that result, instead of using tour data from a year of questionable ball use?
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In that I'm no scientist (nor have I spent any time lately in a certain hotel), I have no clue if this is a reasonable question or not, but here it goes:
Doesn't acceleration have something to do with balls going further for faster swing speeds?
It seems logical to me that a club moving at 90 mph at impact imparts x_mph force to the ball....which allows it to decelerate over y-distance. So a club moving at 120 mph would be accelerating more through impact, thus the ball would have more imparted force and would take longer to decelerate, and stop. Thereby travelling longer.
I'm missing something from 9th grade physics here, what is it? Thanks.
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Matt,
What have to be able to do is to understand the terms used above. Since the COR goes down for higher swing speeds, the answer to your question is no it doesn't get extra kick, it gets less kick than one would expect for the higher swing speed. COR measures the rebound ability of the ball.
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Matt -
You're confusing acceleration and velocity. They're not the same.
Garland -
Where do you get that COR goes down as speed goes up? Is that in the paper? (In case you're wondering, this is an honest question, not a leading question.)
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Yep George, in the paper.
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Thanks, Garland, I just read the USGA summary, maybe I'll get a chance to read the paper over the weekend.
I'm a little confused at your position. Whether one class of player, or one type of player, benefits more from a switch from wound to solid is of little consequence to me. The corollary to this would be that, for many years, the higher swing speed player would have been unduely penalized, relatively speaking, prior to the switch.
I place a lot of stock in JohnV's opinion, but I tend to fall more on the rollback side. The way I see it, even if things are maxed out now, the ball is still "causing" older courses to be stretched and modified too much, imho.
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Didn't the Consumer Report on golf balls show the same result...slower swing speeds got as much distance, if not more, than higher swing speeds?
Here's the thing...comparing today's data with data from 5,10,20,or 50 years ago is meaningless.
What matters is what is happening now....today's ball and today's club...
From what I see at my golf course, 50% of the golfers might have clubs purchased in the last two years....and very few use Pro V1's...perhaps that is why I don't see that many golfers knockin' it 300 yards ;D
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...The corollary to this would be that, for many years, the higher swing speed player would have been unduely penalized, relatively speaking, prior to the switch....
That would be from the beginning of golf that "the higher swing speed player would have been unduely penalized".
Until the modern ball, there has been nothing that changed the ball spin from a naturally occuring spin linearly proportional to the clubface angle. The modern ball changes this to artificially limited with respect to low clubface angle (and perhaps enhanced with respect to high clubface angle).
So you see, the higher swing player has never been unduely penalized. I believe that he now has been unduely rewarded by modifications to the physical response of the ball.
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Garland,
I don't think anybody disputes that the "changeover" from balata to solid core balls has really benefitted the pros more than the rest of us, simply because they now use balls that meet the ODS, which has been the same for years. Most golfers were already using solid core balls before the ProV came out, of course. Since the pros are now hitting the equivalent of a Pinnacle (almost) that spins a lot off a wedge, they have clearly benefitted the most from that change. I think that's a settled matter, and I doubt anybody would bother to do any research on it.
As JohnV says, the issue here has been the debate over whether or not ProV's and the like give more than a 10% gain for a 10% increase in swing speed if the swing speed is very high, but only 10% or less if the swing speed is slower. I had that impression, along with many others, and it now is evident to me that I was wrong. The fact that 10% of a bigger number is a bigger number is NOT a nonlinear gain, so I stand corrected.
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I'm not supposed to post on non-GCA topics but I've read the study that John linked to and here is its bottom line...
Just like everyone in the industry has always known, as clubhead speed increases the ball speed and total distance increases but at an ever-diminishing rate. So going from 100mph to 101mph buys you more additional distance than going from 120mph to 121mph all else being equal (this was shown in the USGA study to hold at least over the range 90mph-125mph).
So all the people who've been repeating that "exponential" claim can just stop (not that they ever knew what the hell "exponential" meant anyway). Basically, this study refutes the straw-man argument that beyond some mythical high clubhead speed the rate of distance increase is more than linear. Note well: this study says absolutely nothing about whether good players hit the ball too far now or whether a rollback of the ball specification is a valid way to address the distance increases observed over the past several year. It just points out and confirms the obvious which is that the same downward-curving clubhead speed versus distance relationship that has always obtained is still evident at high clubhead speeds with modern "Tour" balls. I'll admit that after years of hearing the hype I had started to wonder if indeed the manufacturers had made an end-run around that principle but now it is clear that they have not.
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Since the pros are now hitting the equivalent of a Pinnacle (almost) that spins a lot off a wedge, they have clearly benefitted the most from that change. I think that's a settled matter, and I doubt anybody would bother to do any research on it.
Exactly. The manufacturers found a way to make a ball that elite players can use which goes every bit as far as the ODS allows and with managable driver spin. The USGA assumed that the strongest players would always choose a Balata ball and only weaker players would max out the distance possible with their clubhead speed. When that ceased to be the case (circa 1999) it took the USGA 5+ years to react to that manifestly evident trend. I have confidence that the USGA can at least limit future distance gains and perhaps even impose a modest rollback. If that is needed, it would be better to do it now rather than wait another half a decade.
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Garland,
I don't think anybody disputes that the "changeover" from balata to solid core balls has really benefitted the pros more than the rest of us, simply because they now use balls that meet the ODS, which has been the same for years.
They have disputed whether that was fair. TEP called it ultimately fair and I disagreee. Eventually he called me nasty names. I wear that as a badge of honor!
As JohnV says, the issue here has been the debate over whether or not ProV's and the like give more than a 10% gain for a 10% increase in swing speed if the swing speed is very high, but only 10% or less if the swing speed is slower. I had that impression, along with many others, and it now is evident to me that I was wrong. The fact that 10% of a bigger number is a bigger number is NOT a nonlinear gain, so I stand corrected.
That is one issue here. And is settled as far as I am concerned.
Another issue here is does the pros benefiting from this change hurt golf.
Several subissues
a) Courses become longer
b) golf becomes more expensive
c) time to play becomes longer
d) pro game is all a boring game of smash and wedge
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Another issue that the USGA paper did a shoddy job of addressing is did the high swing speed pros gain more than the low swing speed pros.
Subissues
Distance
Flight curvature
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Garland, for a number of years, there have been people on this site and elseware arguing that the ball went disproportionately longer when you swung faster. That is what this test disproves.
Please tell me what paper, whether published in a scientific journal or not, shows any facts that support that argument or counter the arguments put forward in this paper.
I don't need no bridges in Brooklyn, I live in the city of bridges.
The headline on the article is "Do Long Hitters Get An Unfair Benefit?", not does the ball go further today.
Certainly the ball goes further than a wound balata ball did in previous years. Also, the club heads are bigger, the swing speeds are much faster, the shafts add more and, while I know that Geoff likes to mock it, the players in general are in a hell of a lot better shape. Add it all up and I agree that golf today is a different game than 20 or 30 years ago. Should it be changed? In my opinion it probably should, but I'm not sure that rolling back the ball is the answer, but I've been back and forth on that a number of times.
I must admit that after reading this report I need to eat a dinner full of crow. However, I still have questions...
First, I would love someone to check the accuracy of the chart that shows a "selected" grouping of tour pros gain in distance. I would like to know who the pros are that they are speaking of and see the actual data that shows the distance increase they suggest has occured for these pros. I seem to recall checking many tour pro averages and noticing sizable gains for longer hitters, relatively.
Second, they should do a test with balatas from 1995, a Titleist Professional circa 1999, and a Pinnacle circa 1995. If they showed the same near linear gain in distance from their Iron Byron as the modern ball does then I would say that I have been clearly wrong on this subject. Maybe it is just a general increase in distance gained by all players that has become a detriment to the game. I know the balata may not show the same linear results but maybe the Pinnacle and Professional balls would. I would like to know if this linear gain in distance has been consistent in those balls just as it is in the modern ProV1 type ball.
Third, I would like to see a study on how much side spin is imparted on a ball from different club paths and face angles and whether or not there is a difference in the modern ball from the high-end balls that came right before it. I would venture a guess that the modern ball doesn't curve as much as balls that came before it when hit with different swing paths and face angles at impact. If this is the case this could contribute to longer distances.
Speaking from experience I can say that I have gained a tremendous increase in my average driving distance over the last 5-10 years. I have also experienced a much less amount of curve or deviation in my ball flight over this period of time as well.
All in all, it looks as if this might be the USGA's way of saying that they are not going to pursue a rollback and that everything is fair and ok.
Jeff F.
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Jeff,
I too found the whole comparison of Tour players 2000-2005 to be unconvincing. That's just not a comparison that admits any particular interpretation about what should or shouldn't be done about the ball.
The comparison that you want to see is the one I've brought up over and over in discussions of this topic. That made-up meme about "exponential gain in distance" or "more than linear increase in distance" with high clubhead speeds has always been bogus and it's a pity that it had gotten so much currency that it had to be debunked with a study.
The single graph that could most inform our understanding of what's going on with Tour players now and how it has arisen over the past ten years would be to plot distance versus clubhead speed for three balls (forget the Pinnacle). Put the curves for 1995 Balata, 1999 Professional and 2005 ProV1x side by side on the same graph. What you would see is that the ProV1x would be a curve like in today's study, the Professional would be below the ProV1x at high clubhead speeds and the balata would curve down like a limp banana.
That's the essence of what's going on. It isn't the fact that all real-world golf balls will suffer from quadritic-law increases in lift and drag at high speeds. It's the fact that a modern Tour ball does not suffer that effect to the same extent as the balls that were being used on Tour in the late 1990's. This was the assumption that caught the USGA with their pants down when Tour players switched wholesale to solid-core balls.
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Garland,
I don't think anybody disputes that the "changeover" from balata to solid core balls has really benefitted the pros more than the rest of us, simply because they now use balls that meet the ODS, which has been the same for years.
They have disputed whether that was fair. TEP called it ultimately fair and I disagreee. Eventually he called me nasty names. I wear that as a badge of honor!
As JohnV says, the issue here has been the debate over whether or not ProV's and the like give more than a 10% gain for a 10% increase in swing speed if the swing speed is very high, but only 10% or less if the swing speed is slower. I had that impression, along with many others, and it now is evident to me that I was wrong. The fact that 10% of a bigger number is a bigger number is NOT a nonlinear gain, so I stand corrected.
That is one issue here. And is settled as far as I am concerned.
Another issue here is does the pros benefiting from this change hurt golf.
Several subissues
a) Courses become longer
b) golf becomes more expensive
c) time to play becomes longer
d) pro game is all a boring game of smash and wedge
...
Another issue that the USGA paper did a shoddy job of addressing is did the high swing speed pros gain more than the low swing speed pros.
Subissues
Distance
Flight curvature
How it is unfair for a player who is able to swing faster than me to hit it farther than me escapes me. That's just the way golf is.
To me, the course length/expense/time issue is something ALWAYS blamed on the golf ball on this site. I think the changes have much, much more to do with marketing a modern golf course in a highly competitive market place with a growing supply of courses. Since the vast, vast majority of players aren't hitting the ball any farther than they ever did, how could the distance the ball will travel be responsible for longer courses? It is just too easy an answer.
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Since the vast, vast majority of players aren't hitting the ball any farther than they ever did, how could the distance the ball will travel be responsible for longer courses? It is just too easy an answer.
I don't think anyone has made a really convincing case for the golf ball causing longer courses etc. But I think the argument can be made that the only thing there's a remote chance of changing to shorten courses back up is the golf ball specification. My own position is that I'd be willing to see a modest rollback purely in reaction to the fact that elite players hit the ball so far now that courses are getting unmanagably long and expensive and difficult to reconcile with the 99%+ of players who still hit it about 210-220 yards in the air with a (Titanium, high-tech) driver.
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The old bible "Search for the Perfect Swing" stated this i.e. the COR for a given ball was higher for a putt than a drive.
The improvements in driver have been more significant than ball.
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John V.,
Very interesting paper and article. Kudos to the USGA for finally publicly addressing some of this stuff. We have much to digest and much to comment on, but a little at a time . . . .
First . . . .
Garland, for a number of years, there have been people on this site and elseware arguing that the ball went disproportionately longer when you swung faster. That is what this test disproves.
I think you are misrepresenting the dissenting opinion. At least you are with regard to my opinion, and I of course can only speak for myself. I am not talking about just swinging faster as your summary implies---Few can just decide to swing faster. To the contrary, I am talking about different golfers with different swing speeds, and the relative benefits they receive from technology.
What I have been saying (and I can only speak for myself) is that some of the newer balls (such as the ProV1x) have benefited the fast swingers more than they benefit the slow swingers, thus creating a enlarged distance gap between fast and slow swingers. As you know from our past discussions, this has absolutely nothing to do with diminishing or increasing slopes, but rather has everything to do with comparing the different distance characteristics (slopes) of two different balls.
Let me put it this way. Say we have a fast swing golfer (say 125 mph) and a slow swing golfer (say 80 mph) who both switch to the ProV1x from the ProV1 (or even from some low-priced "distance" ball.) I don't think that the 80 mph golfer will experience the same distance increase as the 120 mph golfer.
Now, it may be that this USGA calls into question my premise as well. I will read it thoroughly and let you know what I think. But merely demonstrating that the slopes are diminishing says nothing about whether two different golf balls have different slopes and values across a range of distances.
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The PDF file states that the COR drops faster for solid balls than wound.
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The PDF file states that the COR drops faster for solid balls than wound.
Yes . . . ???
Since the .pdf doesnt give any indication of the actual COR of the wound ball, this tidbit sounds interesting but is not at all illuminating.
Had the USGA chosen to include a wound ball in their tests, my guess is that we would have seen a slightly straighter line but also a lower and flatter line.
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Still Geoff's suggestion of using 1995 would clearly be comparing all wound vs. the all solid 2005.
Ok, I did it. I took the 60 players who were in the PGA Tour stats in both 1995 and 2005.
I put them in groups of 6 to get 10 groups. Below are the average gains from 1995 to 2005 for the 10 groups with shortest 1995 hitters listed first.
Shortest 6 - 18.75 yards
2nd Shortest - 18.97
3rd Shortest - 18.95
4th Shortest - 19.52
5th Shortest - 21.92
6th Shortest - 19.4
7th Shortest - 18.45
8th Shortest - 19.2
9th Shortest - 13.2
Longest - 17.55
It seems like the shorter hitters have gained more than the longer hitters from the new balls and clubs, with the bottom 50% gaining 2 more yards than the top 50%.
The 6 shortest hitters in 1995 of this group were: Omar Uresti, Billy Andrade, Corey Pavin, Loren Roberts, Larry Mize and Jim Furyk.
The 6 longest hitters were Fred Couples, Woody Austin, Vijay Singh, Dennis Paulson, Davis Love III and John Daly.
If it wasn't for Corey Pavin's measly 3.8 yard gain, the lowest 6 would have been even better.
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John,
Perhaps you can explain to me why you and USGA chose to use the older of the statistics (2000 as opposed to 2005, 1995 as opposed to 2005) as your baseline? If we are really interested in comparing who benefited from technology with those who didnt, shouldn't we use the later of the comparison years as the baseline? Given the difference in the game compared to even 5 years ago wouldn't the 2005 distance numbers be a more accurate indicator of relative swing speed?
I tried it to see if the results differ. And they do, significantly.
I took the 80 players active in 2000 and 2005 and broke them down into groups of 8 (10%.) Not suprisingly (not suprising to me at least) the longer hitters (presumably the faster swingers) gained the most. By far.
With the longest drivers in 2005 listed first . . .
Top 10% 18.55 yards
11-20% 14.36
20-30% 14.09
30-40% 12.36
40-50% 14.68
50-60% 11.08
60-70% 8.63
70-80% 8.79
80-90% 5.04
10% 7.31 yards.
So the longest 10% in 2005 had gained over 11 yards more than the shortest hitters.
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I have also done 1995-2000 comparison. There were 106 players that were in the list for both years. I put 11 players in the shortest and longest groups and 12 in all the ones in the middle and got 9 groups. Here are the numbers:
Shortest - 10.39 yard average gain
2nd Shortest - 11.14
3rd Shortest - 7.88
4th Shortest - 7.71
5th Shortest - 6.77
6th Shortest - 6.73
7th Shortest - 6.51
2nd longest - 4.81
Longest - 2.69 yard average gain
So the shortest players in 1995 gained 4 times as many yards as the longest ones did by 2000. Seven of the short 11 gained over 10 yards while only one of the 11 (John Daly) gained that much.
11 players lost yardage betwen 1995 and 2000 including 3 of the longest 11 (Robert Gamez, Woody Austin and Vijay Singh).
Nobody lost yardage between 1995 and 2005.
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Still Geoff's suggestion of using 1995 would clearly be comparing all wound vs. the all solid 2005.
Ok, I did it. I took the 60 players who were in the PGA Tour stats in both 1995 and 2005.
I put them in groups of 6 to get 10 groups. Below are the average gains from 1995 to 2005 for the 10 groups with shortest 1995 hitters listed first.
Shortest 6 - 18.75 yards
2nd Shortest - 18.97
3rd Shortest - 18.95
4th Shortest - 19.52
5th Shortest - 21.92
6th Shortest - 19.4
7th Shortest - 18.45
8th Shortest - 19.2
9th Shortest - 13.2
Longest - 17.55
It seems like the shorter hitters have gained more than the longer hitters from the new balls and clubs, with the bottom 50% gaining 2 more yards than the top 50%.
The 6 shortest hitters in 1995 of this group were: Omar Uresti, Billy Andrade, Corey Pavin, Loren Roberts, Larry Mize and Jim Furyk.
The 6 longest hitters were Fred Couples, Woody Austin, Vijay Singh, Dennis Paulson, Davis Love III and John Daly.
If it wasn't for Corey Pavin's measly 3.8 yard gain, the lowest 6 would have been even better.
Great job, John. With one exception (9th shortest, i.e. 2nd longest), the differences don't seem significant. My interpretation is, everyone gained about the same.
Two questions. Suppose equipment had not changed. The players are now ten years older. Do you think they, on average, would have lost yardage?
Second, these guys all learned their swings with the old balls, the old clubs. As I understand it, the new tech lets you swing harder. So could it help young players learning the game more than older ones who already have built their swings?
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David, I chose it to be consistent with the USGA's report.
I believe the proper way to measure change is to measure from a baseline and go forward in time, not backwards.
Somehow it doesn't surprise me that you would like to go back in time. ;)
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John, which year--- 2000 or 2005--- do you think is a more accurate indicator of relative swing speed between the players?
After all, isnt that the point-- to try to best capture swing speed?
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David,
I had 98 players who were active in 2000 and 2005 and on the driving distance list. I then added Ernie Els and Nick Price since they didn't play enough rounds to be counted and it made it an even 100.
When done the same way as the USGA, I get almost identical numbers (except for the Ernie/Nick factor) Ernie was a big gainer and modified his group pretty heavily.
When I do things the same way you did, I do see that the longer hitters would show the most gain, . I don't believe your numbers are as valid though. Since you are sorting based on the end of the series rather than the start, your numbers get biased towards showing the changes. I took a few statistics classes in college over 30 years ago and I can't remember much, but it seems that when you plot trends, you should go forward rather than backwards.
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David,
The relative swing speed of two players can be based on many things. As to which is a more accurate representation, I don't see how you can say either is, both are what they are at that point in time. Given that we are talking about 2006, then 2005 is a more accurate measurement of today. That doesn't mean anything when deciding how you sort the data to me.
How much of 2005's gain is swing speed (and which of the following affects that), how much is the ball, how much is the club head going from 200 CC to 460 CC, the COR going up, the MOI going up, the shaft getting better and longer, the players working out more.
Some players swing faster in 05 that in 00, others might swing slower if you gave them the same club as 2000. But, they all have gained because the ball and the clubs have gotten better. No doubt about that. If someone has gone to a longer shaft, they are getting more swing speed. If they have worked out more, they probably got more swing speed. If they got a more forgiving club, they might be swinging harder. If they are trying to keep up with Tiger, they might be doing all of the above.
Tiger switched from steel to graphite, he went to a longer shaft, he is stronger and fitter than he was in 2000, he modified his swing to make better contact, he switched clubs and balls. And out of all that, he gained 18.1 yards. I can't tell you which of those added the most or the least.
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When I do things the same way you did, I do see that the longer hitters would show the most gain, . I don't believe your numbers are as valid though. Since you are sorting based on the end of the series rather than the start, your numbers get biased towards showing the changes. I took a few statistics classes in college over 30 years ago and I can't remember much, but it seems that when you plot trends, you should go forward rather than backwards.
I did my initial analysis sometime last year and had ended up with 80 players.. I dont recall but I might have cut my numbers off at 150 or something. I'll look again to pick up the other 20, or if you want you can send me your spreadsheet and I can work off that as I do trust it.
But I disagree with you about the validity of using the old baseline vs. the more recent baseline. Our goal is to determine how the faster swingers benefited from the technology vs. the slower swingers from 2000 to 2005 (or for whatever years.) So our baseline should be whatever statistic most closely correlates to swing speed for these given players. Given the changes in the game and the transitory state of the technology in 2000 (ex. 40% already using solid balls by the end of the 2000) I'd say that 2005 is a much better bellwether for swing speed.
Let me ask you again, which year do you think is a better indicator of relative swing speed?
Would you split the difference?
Here are the numbers given my 80 players and averaging their distances for both years . . .
Longest 10% 14.4
Next 10% 14.6
Next 10% 12.8
Next 10% 12.0
Next 10% 12.4
Next 10% 13.2
Next 10% 10.9
Next 10% 9.8
Next 10% 7.6
Shortest 10% 7.3
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How it is unfair for a player who is able to swing faster than me to hit it farther than me escapes me. That's just the way golf is.
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It is fair for a player who swings faster to hit it farther. It is unfair if his advantage is increased by artificial technological tricks.
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Still Geoff's suggestion of using 1995 would clearly be comparing all wound vs. the all solid 2005.
Ok, I did it. I took the 60 players who were in the PGA Tour stats in both 1995 and 2005.
I put them in groups of 6 to get 10 groups. Below are the average gains from 1995 to 2005 for the 10 groups with shortest 1995 hitters listed first.
Shortest 6 - 18.75 yards
2nd Shortest - 18.97
3rd Shortest - 18.95
4th Shortest - 19.52
5th Shortest - 21.92
6th Shortest - 19.4
7th Shortest - 18.45
8th Shortest - 19.2
9th Shortest - 13.2
Longest - 17.55
It seems like the shorter hitters have gained more than the longer hitters from the new balls and clubs, with the bottom 50% gaining 2 more yards than the top 50%.
The 6 shortest hitters in 1995 of this group were: Omar Uresti, Billy Andrade, Corey Pavin, Loren Roberts, Larry Mize and Jim Furyk.
The 6 longest hitters were Fred Couples, Woody Austin, Vijay Singh, Dennis Paulson, Davis Love III and John Daly.
If it wasn't for Corey Pavin's measly 3.8 yard gain, the lowest 6 would have been even better.
Thanks for doing this John. It helps the USGAs argument some. However, as I wondered before, why isn't the mathematical model used to compare the wound balata ball? The data such as yours and that given in the USGA report suffers from mixing in several factors among which are the change in club head size and COR, and the Tiger conditioning factor (players working on their conditioning to try to keep up with Tiger). My college technical writing teacher taught me to not change methods in the middle of a paper. If the paper is going to present the formulae describing the physics, then it should complete the argument that way instead of switching to questionably applicable tour driving stats.
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How it is unfair for a player who is able to swing faster than me to hit it farther than me escapes me. That's just the way golf is.
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It is fair for a player who swings faster to hit it farther. It is unfair if his advantage is increased by artificial technological tricks.
Are you suggesting that there are still some "artificial technological tricks" that lead to disproportionate gains? If so, what are they?
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For those of you who want a comparison with a wound balata ball, where would you propose to get some to do the test with? Does anybody still manufacture them? Any that have been lying around for 10 years would certainly have lost some of their distance due to loosening of the windings and deterioration of the rubber. I doubt that it is possible to effectively construct the test you're suggesting.
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But I disagree with you about the validity of using the old baseline vs. the more recent baseline. Our goal is to determine how the faster swingers benefited from the technology vs. the slower swingers from 2000 to 2005 (or for whatever years.) So our baseline should be whatever statistic most closely correlates to swing speed for these given players. Given the changes in the game and the transitory state of the technology in 2000 (ex. 40% already using solid balls by the end of the 2000) I'd say that 2005 is a much better bellwether for swing speed.
This reminds me of that old saying - lies, damn lies and statistics. You can use numbers to say anything you want.
I'm with John; my statistics training was always based on selecting your group and then moving forward - not backward.
In trying to address your new goal, why don't you use 1995 so that the transition of players from wound to solid balls is removed from the equation. John's numbers for those years support the USGA's graph. No disproportionate gains for high speed swingers. If you use 1995 as your base year, is it not axiomatic that the longest hitters of that era were also the fastest swingers? Does anybody dispute that the fastest swingers were also the longest in any era? Or do you believe that Garland's "artificial technological tricks" were at play in that era as well.
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For those of you who want a comparison with a wound balata ball, where would you propose to get some to do the test with? Does anybody still manufacture them? Any that have been lying around for 10 years would certainly have lost some of their distance due to loosening of the windings and deterioration of the rubber. I doubt that it is possible to effectively construct the test you're suggesting.
Well Bryan, the USGA made the claim that the COR drops less for wound balls as swing speed increases, so apparently they have already done the tests. If you don't think the balls they used were up to snuff, then why don't you contact them and express your concerns. I am sure TEPaul can put you in touch with them.
And Bryan, I don't really think it is my goal at all. But if you say so . . . then perhaps you can explain to me just what exactly the USGA was trying to prove by comparing the pro statistics? Just what variables were they trying to test? Did they hold all the other variables constant? Do you consider their comparison "scientific?" What have they proven?
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For those of you who want a comparison with a wound balata ball, where would you propose to get some to do the test with? Does anybody still manufacture them? Any that have been lying around for 10 years would certainly have lost some of their distance due to loosening of the windings and deterioration of the rubber. I doubt that it is possible to effectively construct the test you're suggesting.
Are you suggesting that Titleist couldn't produce 100 brand new Tour Balatas by tomorrow if asked? I'm sure new wound balls could be created with ease.
Jeff F.
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8)
hey.. ol' Billy Andrade was 6 under par yesterday on his own ball in a Pro-AM at the SHO.. hit the ball beautifully on the new long Tourney Course at Redstone..
Isn't there the corrolary and perhaps stronger argument that to capture any benefits from swinging in the 120+ mph range, one better hit the ball square with less side spin imparted! Otherwise you're long in the woods or the next county..
I vote for the "approach to a perfect human swing" theory explaining the largest portion of the variance behind distance gains (say > 40%), lagged by club & ball improvements (25% each), followed by course improvements (10%).
Everyone can be in violent agreement or disagreement, but there's certainly a mix to this issue, emblematic of the game, open to opinion.
As much as it hurts, from my experience with the SHO leaving the TPC at the Woodlands for Redstone, I say let the pros move on to new venues..
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Well Bryan, the USGA made the claim that the COR drops less for wound balls as swing speed increases, so apparently they have already done the tests. If you don't think the balls they used were up to snuff, then why don't you contact them and express your concerns. I am sure TEPaul can put you in touch with them.
They said the COR decreases less over the range from 90mph to 125mph for a wound ball than a solid ball, which is true. The COR of a wound ball is lower and more constant throughout that range than for modern solid-core balls. They didn't do a test because that is known as surely as what phase the moon will be tonight, old news, settled fact, nothing to test.
Note that they did not claim that the curve of distance versus clubhead speed was flatter for a wound ball than a solid one because it is not. Due to the higher spin of wound balls (and even more so wound balata balls) the gain in distance per unit increase in clubhead speed drops off dramatically at high clubhhead speeds. So do not take anything in this test as a contradiction of that fact.
It is a pity they didn't use the time and effort that went into this study to quantify the more interesting question of what has changed between the normative "Tour" ball of ten years ago and the solid-core "Tour" balls today at high clubhead speed.
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The Coefficient of Restitution is a scalar - it has no dimensions. It is best to view COR as an measure of efficiency - how well (how efficient) does the dynamic clubhead transfer mechanical energy to the stationary golf ball. COR is purely a material property and invariant to the clubhead speed. The COR for an electron hitting the clubhead is the same for a bowling ball hitting it. If the COR was a function of impact velocity - if would have to have units of restitution/impact velocity.
Given the same ball and same club (same COR) by physics Daly hits it further than Pavin purely based on the square of the impact velocities, not due to the COR.
Now, if you let Pavin use a "springier" club head with higher COR (Ping to a Taylormade, for example) than does Daly, then you're comparing apples to oranges and must adjust for the "trampoline" (COR) effects to make a meaningful comparison.
I'm baffled by the USGA data.
JC
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The COR for a given collision is not invariant with clubhead speed. The more that ball is deformed, the less efficient it is at recovering its shape and releasing the elastic strain energy into kinetic.
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COR is purely a material property and invariant to the clubhead speed. The COR for an electron hitting the clubhead is the same for a bowling ball hitting it. If the COR was a function of impact velocity - if would have to have units of restitution/impact velocity.
Not true. For starters, the COR is demonstrably different at different clubhead speeds. Just because a quantity is dimensionless does not mean it is invariant. At full-swing speeds the collision between clubhead and ball is far from inelastic (which seems to be type of "physics" you're quoting) and restoration is a non-linear function of the both the material(s) in the golf ball and the impact velocity.
Given the same ball and same club (same COR) by physics Daly hits it further than Pavin purely based on the square of the impact velocities, not due to the COR.
Not true. You're confusing kinetic energy with the clubhead speed and ball speed. Initial ball speed scales (approximately) with the first power of clubhead speed, not the square.
Now, if you let Pavin use a "springier" club head with higher COR (Ping to a Taylormade, for example) than does Daly, then you're comparing apples to oranges and must adjust for the "trampoline" (COR) effects to make a meaningful comparison.
The study we're discussing used a single clubhead to do all their tests.
I'm baffled by the USGA data.
Obviously. Start by just reading the actual published results rather than trying to adapt it to your own incomplete understanding of the physics behind ball/club impact. The paper itself gives you all the relavant physics you need to understand the results and the physics he presents are correct.
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Have any wound balls been manufactured in the last few years? The COR of a wound ball decreases as it ages.
I'd be interested to know why the COR is more constant for a wound ball over the range of impact velocities.
I've only scanned the paper. But I think the USGA must have used a Ti club without the SLE (Spring Like Effect) to minimize variables. i.e. the effect of the SLE will not be exactly constant through the impact velocities and will change COR of the collision.
(I believe the SLE is not constant, but don't have data.)
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Paul,
A clubface has a characteristic time (the frequency at which it flexes) and when that time/frequency matches closely to the compression and rebound time constant (or frequency) of the golf ball you get a higher COR (more efficient rebound). According to my limited understanding, the rebound time constant of the ball varies with impact speed while that of the clubface is constant (or varies only negligably).
The so-called "spring-like effect" consisted mainly of building drivers with faces sufficiently large and thin that their frequency was lowered into the range that matches up with modern golf balls. A typical 250cc stainless steel driver would have a characteristic time much shorter than the time it takes for a golf ball to rebound off the face, making the collision dynamics almost completely a function of the restoration that takes place in the golf ball. With thin-faced titanium drivers and large clubheads you can slow down the flexing of the clubface just enough to match up with the ball and let the driver do some of the flexing instead of the ball. The rebound of a metal clubface from a very small deflection is orders of magnitude more efficient than the rebound of a elastomer golf ball from a deflection of nearly half its diameter. So to the extent you can substitue clubface flex from golf ball compression you get more efficient rebound, hence the advantage to big, thin-faced drivers.
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Brent
Yes you could be right, the SLE it may well be near constant. The "Aeson" driver likely has the max SLE allowed. I'd like to see data for the SLE contribution to the COR over a range of speeds. I have heard claims that the SLE only benefits the stronger players, but never seen any data to back it up. There are claims that weaker players don't benefit from the SLE because they don't hit the sweet spot often, which is where the club face has been optimized for SLE. Which seems to make sense, but again, I don't have any data as to how the SLE varies away from the sweet spot.
My understanding of the SLE is that the metal face of the club can snap back into shape with less losses than the ball. Which make sense if you think about the differences in the material... atomic bonds in a metal vs polymers. For a given impact speed, the ball will deform less with an SLE driver vs a rigid driver. But in terms of the COR of the collision, this is more than compensated for by the club face deforming and snapping back.
If you were building a ball for absolute max COR you want the ball to deform as little as possible to limit losses: roughly, the stresses in the ball are inversely proportional to the amount of deformation. So v small deformations will put huge stresses on the internal bonds...a stiff,strong, material like Ti in the club face can handle this, it will deform less and not shatter.
If there was no COR limit, I think you would see a greater push towards the hollow metal ball. A ball that recover its shape most efficiently.
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I don't know if anyone has already said this and I surely am not going to muddle through three pages, but
it's not that the ball goes disproportionally further for faster swing speeds but that
the ball will definitely go further the more solidly it is struck.
Professional and top amateur players not only have faster clubhead speeds but also hit the ball more solidly more often, thus more distance gain.
There is an association with higher clubhead speeds and more distancegain, but not a cause and effect relationship, the two coincidentally exist.
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So if fast swinger's don't get a special benefit from the new, harder balls, I guess they're saying that slower swinging golfers will get no additional benefit from softer balls (like the Noodle). And to take it further, slow swingers should do just as well with a Pro V1x.
It seems to me that you can make a harder ball that can only be compressed efficiently with a harder swing. Isn't that part of the concept behind slower balls (i.e. that there is an optimum ball "hardness" for a given swing speed)?
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If anyone has the time. It would be useful to ignore specific players and plot the distribution curve (normal/bell, I assume) of driving distance for years 1995,2000,2005.
See if the spread in the distribution stretches in range: indicating a tech advantage to the strongest players. Or if the distribution is the same and the curves just shift to higher values. Get a standard deviation value and compare means and medians.
From a quick look, the distributions look similar.
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Walt,
They only looked at "Tour" balls similar to the ProV1x and they only looked at center-of-clubface normal (perpendicular) impact in the range of 90mph-125mph. So the results of the study published yesterday don't say anything at all about what happens at slow clubhead speeds or with softer golf balls.
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How it is unfair for a player who is able to swing faster than me to hit it farther than me escapes me. That's just the way golf is.
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It is fair for a player who swings faster to hit it farther. It is unfair if his advantage is increased by artificial technological tricks.
Are you suggesting that there are still some "artificial technological tricks" that lead to disproportionate gains? If so, what are they?
Same thing I have been pointing out repeatedly. The spin of the ball has been altered unnaturally. If it gives further advantage to high swing players, then it is unfair.
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For those of you who want a comparison with a wound balata ball, where would you propose to get some to do the test with? Does anybody still manufacture them? Any that have been lying around for 10 years would certainly have lost some of their distance due to loosening of the windings and deterioration of the rubber. I doubt that it is possible to effectively construct the test you're suggesting.
Are you suggesting that Titleist couldn't produce 100 brand new Tour Balatas by tomorrow if asked? I'm sure new wound balls could be created with ease.
Jeff F.
I asked them that and they said all the equipment necessary has been disposed of and they have no capability to produce the balls. I don't know how honest they were being with me. I am skeptical, because they can produced possible rolled back balls for USGA testing when asked.
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The spin of the ball has been altered unnaturally. If it gives further advantage to high swing players, then it is unfair.
Garland,
You keep using that pejorative "unnatural" in a context that makes it seem like a synonym for "unfair". There's nothing natural at all about a golf ball covered in balata-rubber or in a urethane elastomer. The modern golf balls spin very differently from old wound ones and that's a fact. It is not a comparison of natural vs. unnatural, it's a comparison between one kind of spin and another kind of spin.
The manufacturers knew that elite players would benefit from a ball that spun differently than the ball they were using. One day they discovered how to build balls whose spin was more suited to the games of those elite players and that's what the elite players use now. Just like somewhere along the line it was discovered that a rubber grip works better than leather so now we all use rubber grips. Should we make Tour players go back to leather grips because leather is more "natural"?
Your working definition of "unfair" seems to be anything that performs better in Vijay Singh's golf game than it does in yours or mine. So perhaps you want to outlaw stiff shafts, metalwoods with open face angles, low-lofted drivers and three-irons. Those work great with Vijay's swing but don't work worth a darn with mine. Why not go the whole way and make him use my limp-shafted 14-degree driver, hybrid long irons and two-piece low-compression golf ball? It would seem to meet your concept of fairness since he wouldn't be able to choose equipment that is suited to his swing.
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The spin of the ball has been altered unnaturally. If it gives further advantage to high swing players, then it is unfair.
You keep using that pejorative "unnatural" in a context that makes it seem like a synonym for "unfair". There's nothing natural at all about a golf ball covered in balata-rubber or in a urethane elastomer. The modern golf balls spin very differently from old wound ones and that's a fact. It is not a comparison of natural vs. unnatural, it's a comparison between one kind of spin and another kind of spin.
Hit a round rock with a driver, a 3 iron, a 6 iron, a 9 iron, and a SW. Measure the spin and plot the spin vs the club face angle. I believe you will get a straight line.
Do the same with the balata wound ball. I believe you will get a straight line.
Do the same with a Pro V1. I doubt you will get anything close to a straight line.
Not perjorative, just the facts.
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Hit a round rock with a driver, a 3 iron, a 6 iron, a 9 iron, and a SW. Measure the spin and plot the spin vs the club face angle. I believe you will get a straight line.
Do the same with the balata wound ball. I believe you will get a straight line.
Do the same with a Pro V1. I doubt you will get anything close to a straight line.
Not perjorative, just the facts.
As long as you're talking about an impact that significantly compresses the ball I would not expect to see a straight line relationship for any type of golf ball, certainly not for a wound balata one. Do you know of anywhere to see a published plot of backsping vs. clubface angle? Is it somewhere in Cochran and Stobbs?
[EDIT] And BTW, the clubhead speed at impact for a sand wedge, iron and driver are not nearly the same. Spin is as much a function of clubhead speed as of clubface angle.
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As long as you're talking about an impact that significantly compresses the ball I would not expect to see a straight line relationship for any type of golf ball, certainly not for a wound balata one. Do you know of anywhere to see a published plot of backsping vs. clubface angle? Is it somewhere in Cochran and Stobbs?
[EDIT] And BTW, the clubhead speed at impact for a sand wedge, iron and driver are not nearly the same. Spin is as much a function of clubhead speed as of clubface angle.
In conducting the experiment, we would control the variables. The same club head speed would be used for all.
In my knowledge, the manufacturers of golf balls did nothing to alter natural spin characteristics of golf balls until the Strata, and then later the Pro V1. I have to wonder what possible reason you would expect the wound balata ball not to exhibit the linear relationship I outlined. The reason I prefaced each statement with I believe, is because I have no knowledge of such a study. The reason I came to these conclusions is that wound balatas spun faster off all club faces then rockflite style balls did off the same clubfaces. Currently Pro V1s spin about the same as rockflite style balls do off drivers, whereas they spin much much faster than rockflite style balls do off short irons.
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For a given club head speed, there is a fair amount of variation of spin between the balls tested in the report. Compare C and E. About a 15% difference at the max club head speed; but both balls have much the same distance. The dimple depth/pattern may be used to compensate. i.e. the lower spin rate may have deeperor more dimples to give similar lift/drag.
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Garland, why is an intelligent use of the knowledge of physics and aerodynamics unnatural?
Just because you might not understand or accept it doesn't make it black magic, a pact with the devil or even Intelligent Design.
To followup on Paul's last comment, the USGA put the Overall Distance Standard in place in the '70s or '80s when the manufacturers started modifying the dimples so that the ball still passed the Initial Velocity Test (which was put in place in 1941) but flew a lot further due to improved aerodynamics.
Spin characteristics were modified by the initial Surlyn balls.
All the manufacturers did was figure out how to make a Surlyn ball that acted like a Balata. Perhaps it is some kind of strange hybrid species, but it certainly passes Darwin's survival of the fittest test.
The rolled back balls that Titleist and others produced for the USGA are probably not wound balata balls. They are simply 2 or 3 piece balls with lesser flight characteristics. I'd bet the only machine that still exists for winding a ball with rubber bands is in a museum somewhere.
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The same club head speed would be used for all.
Well, it wouldn't be informative in the least to test spin off a sand wedge at 120mph or spin off a driver at 75mph would it? I thought we were talking about golf balls and the games of elite players, not idle thought experiments.
I have to wonder what possible reason you would expect the wound balata ball not to exhibit the linear relationship I outlined. The reason I prefaced each statement with I believe, is because I have no knowledge of such a study.
I say I expect that because in the back of my mind I recall just such a graph. Unless I'm imagining it, the source was probably "Search for the Perfect Swing". Or maybe I made the graph myself using simulation software. Or maybe I'm just wrong (but I doubt it).
The reason I came to these conclusions is that wound balatas spun faster off all club faces then rockflite style balls did off the same clubfaces. Currently Pro V1s spin about the same as rockflite style balls do off drivers, whereas they spin much much faster than rockflite style balls do off short irons.
OK, that is certainly possible. But what you're describing could just as easily be two linear relationships with different slopes as it could one linear slope and one non-linear (or it could be two different non-linear curves). That's the problem that always plagues these threads, people notice something that's probably true (at least approximately) and then jump to the conclusion that their observation supports some very specific highly technical assertion that is perhaps sufficient but almost never necessary to explain the observation.
Here's a few starting points for a rational discussion. Don't say "linear" if you don't mean at least an approximately straight-line relationship. Don't say "exponential" unless you mean at least approximately a curve described by an exponential function. Don't assume that the first explanation for something that pops into your head is the only possible explanation. And most importantly, make clear when you're describing something that is supportable by objective evidence and when you're describing something that you think has to be true even though you've never measured it or seen the results of someone else's measurement of it.
I've always half bought into the marketing hype that claims three-piece and four-piece solid core balls allow the designer extra degrees of freedom to independently (somewhat) manipulate the spin rate off drivers, irons and wedges. On the other hand, every objective test of golf balls with different clubs show the difference among ball models to be very modest. Mostly, they all show a pretty similar spin vs. club plot to a plain old two-piece golf ball. Of late, I'm starting to think that the actual differences are a few percent here and there and not as earth-shattering as the advertisements want us to believe.
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Garland,
JohnV is, of course, right again. You assume, for some reason, that the "natural" spin of a golf ball was represented by a balata ball, which makes the spin rates of ProV's somehow unnatural. It's like we're talking about organic farming or free-range golf ball production or something.
There is no such thing as a "natural" spin rate for a golf ball. There are only things like maximum, minimum, optimal, etc. Not natural.
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Garland, why is an intelligent use of the knowledge of physics and aerodynamics unnatural?
Because you can't modify a rock thusly!
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This is a great thread, Brent. I don't understand everything, but I think I get the big stuff (though maybe as if through a glass darkly).
(I note your mention of the best golf book ever written. Cochran and Stobbs is incredible. Why it isn't widely known, quoted daily and set to memory is beyond me. Your understanding of it is at a whole different level than mine, however.)
But to paraphrase George Orwell - haven't we come to point where "the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men"?
I mean, whether or not increases in distance are linear over different swing speeds, is there any serious doubt that tournament fields are hitting it much farther than they did 10 years ago, and much, much farther than they did 20 years ago, etc. and that we have reached a crisis point with historic golf courses?
Is that issue in doubt? I ask my question only because, reading between the USGA lines, they seem to imply it is in doubt; that everything is just fine and under control and we shouldn't worry.
Me, I worry. A lot.
Bob
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Just because you might not understand or accept it doesn't make it black magic, a pact with the devil or even Intelligent Design.
Who doesn't understand what? I believe I understand what was done to make the Stratas and Pro V1s have radically different spin characteristics than a rock. You seem to be in denial that is was a significant departure from the wound balata ball and rockflites of old.
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I mean, whether or not increases in distance are linear over different swing speeds, is there any serious doubt that tournament fields are hitting it much farther than they did 10 years ago, and much, much farther than they did 20 years ago, etc. and that we have reached a crisis point with historic golf courses?
Is that issue in doubt? I ask my question only because, reading between the USGA lines, they seem to imply it is in doubt; that everything is just fine and under control and we shouldn't worry.
If the golf world collectively decides that the modern game is out of whack with the traditional scale of a golf course then two responses are possible.
1) We can decide to change our idea of how big a golf course ought to be and how it relates to the scale of human beings and human habitation.
2) We can decide to change the golf ball in order to scale the modern game back to be more in keeping with the courses as they've been conceived for the past century or so.
As I said earlier in the thread, a lot of the hows and whys of golf balls and clubs are only relevant in as much as they inform the question of how to best accomplish #2 such that it holds for at least a generation or two. We're not going to start back using wooden drivers and elite golfers aren't going to quit getting stronger with better swings. If anything is going to change, I can't for the life of me see it being something other than the golf course or the golf ball.
In that case, I'm inclined to choose changing the ball. I hope such changes would be done modestly, equitably and with some forethought for future developments. I certainly would not be in favor of pretending the issue does not exist for another decade or so. Likewise I would not be in favor of any sort of backward-looking attempt to prescribe wound balls or rubber covers or extremely specific regulation about the construction of the ball. Just specify in what ways we want the ball to act differently than a ProV1 so as to reign in some of the great improvements in distance from the Nineties and Double-Noughts.
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I believe I understand what was done to make the Stratas and Pro V1s have radically different spin characteristics than a rock. You seem to be in denial that is was a significant departure from the wound balata ball and rockflites of old.
Nobody denies that a ProV1x is different from a wound balata or 80's-vintage surlyn distance ball. Everyone here agrees on that. What we "deny" is that the existence of a ProV1x is in any way "unfair", "unnatural" or not in keeping with the letter and spirit of the Rule of Golf. It's different, heck it's better in every way, there's nothing wrong with better.
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Nobody denies that a ProV1x is different from a wound balata or 80's-vintage surlyn distance ball. Everyone here agrees on that. What we "deny" is that the existence of a ProV1x is in any way "unfair", "unnatural" or not in keeping with the letter and spirit of the Rule of Golf. It's different, heck it's better in every way, there's nothing wrong with better.
To believe what you just wrote, you have to believe that the manufacturers knew that their balls would meet the initial velocity test and the ODS when they submitted them to the USGA, but they did not know that when optimized for driver loft/spin rate/launch angle the balls would well exceed the ODS. I believe they knew, and although they were in keeping with the letter of the Rules of Golf, they were not keeping in spirit with the Rules of Golf.
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Well, the geek in me is somewhat intrigued by the technical aspects of this discussion, but, along the lines of what the sage Bob Crosby said, I think everyone is kind of losing the forest for the trees.
An ODS was created in the early 70s (I think), because people understood the implications of a large distance increase. Well, we've seen that increase, whatever the reason. It appears that the once beautiful balance that existed between power and finesse has been altered, to the game's loss, imho.
Is there a bonifide reason to remain married to that standard? Can it not be revisited?
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... It appears that the once beautiful balance that existed between power and finesse has been altered, to the game's loss, imho.
Exactly George! This is why I am against the change in spin characteristics. This is why Brent is wrong when he says the new balls are better in every way.
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Nobody denies that a ProV1x is different from a wound balata or 80's-vintage surlyn distance ball. Everyone here agrees on that. What we "deny" is that the existence of a ProV1x is in any way "unfair", "unnatural" or not in keeping with the letter and spirit of the Rule of Golf. It's different, heck it's better in every way, there's nothing wrong with better.
To believe what you just wrote, you have to believe that the manufacturers knew that their balls would meet the initial velocity test and the ODS when they submitted them to the USGA, but they did not know that when optimized for driver loft/spin rate/launch angle the balls would well exceed the ODS. I believe they knew, and although they were in keeping with the letter of the Rules of Golf, they were not keeping in spirit with the Rules of Golf.
I don't think it is quite as nefarious as you make it sound. I am under the impression that, even now, the prov1, etc., meet the ODS, and that the old Top Flites/Pinnacles/etc., would exceed the ODS, if hit under optimal conditions - higher swing speed, coupled with optimized launch angle, etc.
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... It appears that the once beautiful balance that existed between power and finesse has been altered, to the game's loss, imho.
Exactly George! This is why I am against the change in spin characteristics. This is why Brent is wrong when he says the new balls are better in every way.
There you guys go making stuff up again...who are the great players today that don't have an equal measure of power and finesse..
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I mean, whether or not increases in distance are linear over different swing speeds, is there any serious doubt that tournament fields are hitting it much farther than they did 10 years ago, and much, much farther than they did 20 years ago, etc. and that we have reached a crisis point with historic golf courses?
Is that issue in doubt? I ask my question only because, reading between the USGA lines, they seem to imply it is in doubt; that everything is just fine and under control and we shouldn't worry.
I think we all agree that the players are hitting it further than they did 20 years ago. In just the last 10 years we see that 60 players on the PGA Tour are hitting it 18.6 yards further with the driver while getting 10 years older (see my reply #27). I hope we can all agree that there are a multitude of changes that are responsible for that, not just the ball.
One thing that hasn't been mentioned much (it was in Vernon's speech) about why the ball goes further today is that off-center hits go much further than they used to go. This raises the averages for all the players. Instead of having one drive to 320 and another go 260 when you hit it off center, now they go 320 and 300. Obviously the averages go up when you raise the bad ones as much as when you increase the good ones. More forgiveness and higher Moment of Inertias have given us that situation, which is why the USGA has put out the proposal to limit MOI.
The question is, if the USGA rolled back the ball 15% which would be about twice the gain since 1995, would Augusta or other courses where the PGA Tour plays shorten their holes by about some amount? If not, wouldn't the change be favoring the longer hitters even more (with the exception of a par 5 that was no longer reachable by the long hitters that the short ones can't reach today if there are any). If so, by how much should they shorten them? If you shorten by 15%, you are back where you started. If you go somewhere in between, I believe you still help the long hitter more than the short one.
Certainly it would mean there would be no need to lengthen courses that hadn't already been lengthened, which is a good thing.
This is why I think the USGA is looking at another solution. The solution I think they are aiming towards is one that would increase the penalty for inaccuracy. In both their "myths" paper and in Jim Vernon's speech earlier this year a major point is that driving accuracy is not a relevant indicator of success today. It seems to me that they are going the way of lowering the capability of the players to spin a ball as much. This could be done by changing the groove specifications and surface treatments on clubs. If the player couldn't control his ball from the rough, he wouldn't be as inclined to smash it from the tee.
If they lower the ability of the clubs to spin the ball, the manufacturers might start to make higher spinning balls in order for players to generate more spin around the green, returning the ball to the Balata days that Garland and others would like.
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I don't think it is quite as nefarious as you make it sound. I am under the impression that, even now, the prov1, etc., meet the ODS, and that the old Top Flites/Pinnacles/etc., would exceed the ODS, if hit under optimal conditions - higher swing speed, coupled with optimized launch angle, etc.
George,
Perhaps you might want to rephrase that. Of course the prov1 meets the ODS. Otherwise it would be illegal.
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Nobody denies that a ProV1x is different from a wound balata or 80's-vintage surlyn distance ball. Everyone here agrees on that. What we "deny" is that the existence of a ProV1x is in any way "unfair", "unnatural" or not in keeping with the letter and spirit of the Rule of Golf. It's different, heck it's better in every way, there's nothing wrong with better.
To believe what you just wrote, you have to believe that the manufacturers knew that their balls would meet the initial velocity test and the ODS when they submitted them to the USGA, but they did not know that when optimized for driver loft/spin rate/launch angle the balls would well exceed the ODS. I believe they knew, and although they were in keeping with the letter of the Rules of Golf, they were not keeping in spirit with the Rules of Golf.
I think you have a false assumption here. It isn't that these balls exceed the ODS; they didn't and they don't under USGA testing. They are still well within the ODS, and there are longer balls than the ProV generation of balls out there for sale. ALL comply with the ODS.
What they exceed is the distance that balata balls used to travel. That's all. But there were ALWAYS balls that did that; pros just didn't use them.
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I mean, whether or not increases in distance are linear over different swing speeds, is there any serious doubt that tournament fields are hitting it much farther than they did 10 years ago, and much, much farther than they did 20 years ago, etc. and that we have reached a crisis point with historic golf courses?
Is that issue in doubt? I ask my question only because, reading between the USGA lines, they seem to imply it is in doubt; that everything is just fine and under control and we shouldn't worry.
If the golf world collectively decides that the modern game is out of whack with the traditional scale of a golf course then two responses are possible.
1) We can decide to change our idea of how big a golf course ought to be and how it relates to the scale of human beings and human habitation.
2) We can decide to change the golf ball in order to scale the modern game back to be more in keeping with the courses as they've been conceived for the past century or so.
As I said earlier in the thread, a lot of the hows and whys of golf balls and clubs are only relevant in as much as they inform the question of how to best accomplish #2 such that it holds for at least a generation or two. We're not going to start back using wooden drivers and elite golfers aren't going to quit getting stronger with better swings. If anything is going to change, I can't for the life of me see it being something other than the golf course or the golf ball.
In that case, I'm inclined to choose changing the ball. I hope such changes would be done modestly, equitably and with some forethought for future developments. I certainly would not be in favor of pretending the issue does not exist for another decade or so. Likewise I would not be in favor of any sort of backward-looking attempt to prescribe wound balls or rubber covers or extremely specific regulation about the construction of the ball. Just specify in what ways we want the ball to act differently than a ProV1 so as to reign in some of the great improvements in distance from the Nineties and Double-Noughts.
Brent,
There is a third possibility, isn't there? There could be several changes made alone or in combination. A MINIMUM spin rate off the driver, and/or no lofts above 56 degrees, etc. are two that would might be helpful in making better players CHOOSE not to try to flog, while allowing lesser players to still hit it far enough to enjoy the game. Groove technology is another possibility.
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This is why I think the USGA is looking at another solution. The solution I think they are aiming towards is one that would increase the penalty for inaccuracy. In both their "myths" paper and in Jim Vernon's speech earlier this year a major point is that driving accuracy is not a relevant indicator of success today. It seems to me that they are going the way of lowering the capability of the players to spin a ball as much. This could be done by changing the groove specifications and surface treatments on clubs. If the player couldn't control his ball from the rough, he wouldn't be as inclined to smash it from the tee.
If they lower the ability of the clubs to spin the ball, the manufacturers might start to make higher spinning balls in order for players to generate more spin around the green, returning the ball to the Balata days that Garland and others would like.
John -
I hope you are right about the USGA's intentions. I have my doubts about what happens next.
If the heart of the issue is finding ways to make people pay for offline drives, it is sorely tempting just to narrow fairways even more and let roughs grow even higher. Which also happen to be tools the USGA already has in its toolbox. Tools they have used often and for years.
And it works. You make fairways really narrow and roughs really high, at some point no one recovers.
Which means they can attack the problem the easy way (see above).
Or attack the problem the hard way by new regulations for balls and equipment.
Call me old and cynical, but I have a prediction about which solution they adopt.
Bob
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... It appears that the once beautiful balance that existed between power and finesse has been altered, to the game's loss, imho.
Exactly George! This is why I am against the change in spin characteristics. This is why Brent is wrong when he says the new balls are better in every way.
There you guys go making stuff up again...who are the great players today that don't have an equal measure of power and finesse..
Of course I made that up. It is an opinion, mine, which Garland happens to agree with. Some might argue that the game in the past was all about power. I'd disagree with that, but both opinions are in fact made up.
Much like your assertion that the great players of today have an equal measure of power and finesse.
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The question is, if the USGA rolled back the ball 15% which would be about twice the gain since 1995, would Augusta or other courses where the PGA Tour plays shorten their holes by about some amount? If not, wouldn't the change be favoring the longer hitters even more (with the exception of a par 5 that was no longer reachable by the long hitters that the short ones can't reach today if there are any). If so, by how much should they shorten them? If you shorten by 15%, you are back where you started. If you go somewhere in between, I believe you still help the long hitter more than the short one.
Certainly it would mean there would be no need to lengthen courses that hadn't already been lengthened, which is a good thing.
John -
I love ya like a brother, but this argument is a non-starter.
If courses have already been lengthened, start playing from middle tees.
Bob
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David Moriarty said;
"What I have been saying (and I can only speak for myself) is that some of the newer balls (such as the ProV1x) have benefited the fast swingers more than they benefit the slow swingers, thus creating a enlarged distance gap between fast and slow swingers."
David:
You have continuously said that but you seem to continuously fail to realize or at least appreciate that good players always used a different type of golf ball from the rest which had very much of a deleterious effect on distance for them compared to what everyone else was using. Had good players not used another type of ball all these years but had used the ball that almost all not particularly good players have been using for over 40 years there never would have been this distance spike recently for good players when they switched to the type of ball that everyone else has always used.
So you're looking at a disportionate increase only in relation to the distance good players used to get from the type of ball they used to use and no one else did. In a distance comparison analysis you're comparing apples to oranges.
Now everyone is using the same type of ball distance-wise across the board---now we can compare apples to apples or oranges to oranges for the first time and as the USGA has always said to me and is saying with this article is now that we can compare the same type of golf ball for everyone to swing speeds across the MPH spectrum there IS NO DISPROPORTIONATE INCREASE for high mph golfers vs low mph golfers---that in fact distance production is relatively linear across the swing speed spectrum.
Actually this article shows that as swing speed increases the distance advantage percentage-wise for high mph players begins to decline.
Perhaps you think the only equitable situation was when good players used a golf ball that was DIIFFERENT distance-wise from what everyone else was using and which was deleterious to them distance-wise compared to what everyone else was using.
If you actually do think that then please tell us how in God's name the I&B rules and regs authorities should force good players back to that kind of golf ball (the old high spinning ball). Do you think they should tell all good players that they are not allowed to use balls (that have been legal for decades) that go farther for everyone else?
Furthermore, you certainly have maintained that the ProVx created a disproportionate distance increase that was non linear, and which you seemed to imply was somehow unfair or inequitable to not good players. Non-linear compared to what? To what not good players had been using for years? To what good players used to use?
The point is that today everyone basically uses the same type of golf ball distance-wise, or at least has that opportunity (as in fact they always did have), and as this article explains there is nothing disproportionate or non-linear about it as you have continuously maintained.
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TEPaul,
We are both clear of where we stand on this issue:
I prefer to evaluate the changes in the game based on what balls were actually good enough for players to use.
You prefer to evaluate the changes in the game based on a hypothetical: How far a past generation might have hit it had the inferior distance balls been good enough to actually use.
No use belaboring the discussion any further.
This article doesnt really address whether those with fast swings have disproportionately benefited by technology relative to those with slow swings.
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Tom, you substantially altered your post while I was replying, above.
Furthermore, you certainly have maintained that the ProVx created a disproportionate distance increase that was non linear, and which you seemed to imply was somehow unfair or inequitable to not good players. Non-linear compared to what? To what not good players had been using for years? To what good players used to use?
Not so, Tom. If you have to distort my position in order to refute it, then perhaps you should reconsider your position, as well as my actual position.
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"You prefer to evaluate the changes in the game based on a hypothetical: How far a past generation might have hit it had the inferior distance balls been good enough to actually use."
That is simply not the case. I'm not basing anything I've ever said on any hypothetical. I'm basing it on the REALITY of how things used to be distance-wise and how they are now. I'm basing what I say on the reality and the FACTS of history.
Furthermore, you are confused once again or else you've just incorrectly written one more time what you seem to want to maintain. You virtually wrote the opposite.
How far a past generation would have hit SUPERIOR distance balls (not inferior distance balls as you said) compared to what they used to use IS THE POINT, particularly as that SUPERIOR distance ball was always legal and available to them.
When a pro golfer like Nick Price decided to switch to the kind of ball you seem to label as inferior somehow do you actually think somebody in the USGA or R&A should have told him even though it had been legal for decades that he really wasn't allowed to use that ball because it might go farther than he should hit a golf ball compared to handicap golfers? Apparently you do! ;)
Your premise is entirely flawed and frankly preposterous but it's the only one you could find since you began to realize how wrong you were in what you were initially maintaining on this subject.
I'm using historical reality and facts and you aren't.
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"Not so, Tom. If you have to distort my position in order to refute it, then perhaps you should reconsider your position, as well as my actual position."
Just another horseshit David Moriarty remark. I didn't alter anything--I merely added to what I'd previously said. Distort your position? Your position was that high mph players got a disportionate distance increase, most specifically with the ProVx.
Believe me it would take a ton of time for you to go back into these archives and alter all the times you've maintained that, and that good players enjoyed a disporportionate distance increase. All I was doing is asking you what you think it was disporportionate compared to. If you think it was disporportionate compared to what they used to use then in my opinion that clearly shows the fallacy of your entire premise on this entire distance subject.
But if you are saying that NOW your position is that there is no disproportionate and non-linear increase with a ProvX for players across the entire swing speed spectrum as I've been telling you the Tech Center has been telling me for months then we are finally on the same page, and the fact is you've changed your positon dramatically to get on that same page.
Or put another way, David Moriarty, do you see anything at all in that article above about the fact that distance is not non-linear in favor of power hitters that is in any way at variance with anything I've ever mentioned to you that the Tech Center has told me on this entire subject?
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... It appears that the once beautiful balance that existed between power and finesse has been altered, to the game's loss, imho.
Exactly George! This is why I am against the change in spin characteristics. This is why Brent is wrong when he says the new balls are better in every way.
There you guys go making stuff up again...who are the great players today that don't have an equal measure of power and finesse..
I didn't make it up. I just read and reported.
E.g.
Deane Beman's take on it: "The modern ball plays better [easier] than the 1.6s ball used to, the one that required less skill. So from a skill level, we've gone backward. Real ball-striking ability that comes with playing unforgiving equipment is going backward. The players aren't as good as they could be if they played less forgiving equipment. And I think it takes away from golf."
Here is his take on fairness (in reference to going back to the spin characteristics of wound balata): "still be possible for somebody who is bigger and stronger to play better" "It just gets rid of the free pass."
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The solution I think they are aiming towards is one that would increase the penalty for inaccuracy. In both their "myths" paper and in Jim Vernon's speech earlier this year a major point is that driving accuracy is not a relevant indicator of success today. It seems to me that they are going the way of lowering the capability of the players to spin a ball as much. This could be done by changing the groove specifications and surface treatments on clubs. If the player couldn't control his ball from the rough, he wouldn't be as inclined to smash it from the tee.
John, I agree that this is what the war drums in the distance appear to be saying. If it happens, it would be exactly the kind of half-baked, backward-looking old-fogey response that will absolutely bite the USGA in the ass. If they think they're going to set up some chain of indirect causation where they start with the grooves and it will somehow result in the game being played like it was 30 years ago they will quickly relegate themselves to the dustbin of history and deservedly so.
I can agree that a shorter-flying ball would save us all a bunch of trouble by letting course lengths remain near the status quo ante. And if they want to put some sort of spin parameter in the golf ball specification that may be worth doing. But they ain't gonna make Vijay Singh tack his way around a golf course like a latter-day Calvin Peete no matter what they do and if they [expletive deleted] up the equipment and ball rules trying to do it they'll be pissing away decades of leadership just to massage the egos of a bunch of sour old farts who long for the good old days.
[EDIT] Come to think of it, just rewrite the Rules. Make it a two-stroke penalty to land your tee shot more than 40 yards from the center of the fairway. That'll completely take the recovery shot out of the game and make sure everyone from Tiger on down plays the Par 4's with a couple of 5-irons.
Here's my prediction. If they eliminate the lob wedge, eliminate the square grooves and either de-spin or super-spin the ball...Vijay Singh will still flog it. These guys can create clubhead speed like a sonofabitch and it will still make sense to hit it a mile off the tee and then swing out of their shoes at a flop shot from the rough with whatever wedge you let them use.
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The solution I think they are aiming towards is one that would increase the penalty for inaccuracy. In both their "myths" paper and in Jim Vernon's speech earlier this year a major point is that driving accuracy is not a relevant indicator of success today. It seems to me that they are going the way of lowering the capability of the players to spin a ball as much. This could be done by changing the groove specifications and surface treatments on clubs. If the player couldn't control his ball from the rough, he wouldn't be as inclined to smash it from the tee.
This solution makes the least sense of all. If I understand it correctly, it would actually require everyone to go out and buy new clubs. It's one thing to throw away a box or two of ProV1's, but tossing your whole set and buying a new set of clubs with updated groove specs is absurd.
I guess they wouldn't get any opposition from the manufacturers.
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TomPaul,
One last time. My position is that long hitters have disproportionately benefited from balls like the ProV1x, relative to short hitters. I am NOT saying that at above a certain swing speed the ProV1x will produce increasingly larger incrimental distance increases per unit increase in swing speed. To put it another way, I am not saying that the ProV1x has a distance curve with an increasing slope. That you don't yet understand the distinction between these two positions speaks volumes for our inability to communicate.
Look Tom, this has been an interesting thread to read, and I don't want to be a part of ruining it. Given you and I have covered this ground many times before and given that you can't seem converse with me without resorting to rudeness and profanity, I suggest we refrain from rehashing our reduntant bickering here.
Thanks, Tom. Good luck to ya.
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David M replacing the Mucci man as TEP's Salieri?? :D
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On a lighter note, the USGA paper references a paper published in the ITEA Journal, which my google search turned up as the International Tuba Euponium Association Journal.
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"TomPaul,
One last time. My position is that long hitters have disproportionately benefited from balls like the ProV1x, relative to short hitters. I am NOT saying that at above a certain swing speed the ProV1x will produce increasingly larger incrimental distance increases per unit increase in swing speed. To put it another way, I am not saying that the ProV1x has a distance curve with an increasing slope. That you don't yet understand the distinction between these two positions speaks volumes for our inability to communicate.
Look Tom, this has been an interesting thread to read, and I don't want to be a part of ruining it. Given you and I have covered this ground many times before and given that you can't seem converse with me without resorting to rudeness and profanity, I suggest we refrain from rehashing our reduntant bickering here.
Thanks, Tom. Good luck to ya."
Look David, your positions on this subject are just all over the place and even your recent point on this last post of yours makes no sense.
Don't give me any of your crap AGAIN about me ruining a thread. That, as well as your constant accusation of profanity, rudeness or personal attacks on my part towards you seems to be your constant fall-back position on any discussion when and where your assumptions, premises and conclusions are legitimately called into question.
My position has always been that distance increase across the swing speed spectrum with any USGA/R&A legal (conforming) golf ball has NOT been disproportionate or non-linear regarding the power player vs the non-power player. My position is consistent with the USGA's Tech Center in this regard particularly since that is where I got my information first-hand. If that has also been your position (which of course has been seriously inconsistent) you are the one with a truly startling inability to communicate. ;)
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"David M replacing the Mucci man as TEP's Salieri?? :)
Jonathan:
Very clever of you. Salleri sure wasn't any Mozart---was he? ;)
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"TomPaul,
One last time. My position is that long hitters have disproportionately benefited from balls like the ProV1x, relative to short hitters.
David, I'm not sure I follow this. And I've read the many posts on the subject. Is this not the opposite of what the USGA study shows. Does their study not show that the ProV1x is actually disproportionately shorter at higher swing speeds? Can you rephrase your position to make it clearer?
I am NOT saying that at above a certain swing speed the ProV1x will produce increasingly larger incrimental distance increases per unit increase in swing speed. To put it another way, I am not saying that the ProV1x has a distance curve with an increasing slope. That you don't yet understand the distinction between these two positions speaks volumes for our inability to communicate.
Look Tom, this has been an interesting thread to read, and I don't want to be a part of ruining it. Given you and I have covered this ground many times before and given that you can't seem converse with me without resorting to rudeness and profanity, I suggest we refrain from rehashing our reduntant bickering here.
Thanks, Tom. Good luck to ya."
Look David, your positions on this subject are just all over the place and even your recent point on this last post of yours makes no sense.
Don't give me any of your crap AGAIN about me ruining a thread. That, as well as your constant accusation of profanity, rudeness or personal attacks on my part towards you seems to be your constant fall-back position on any discussion when and where your assumptions, premises and conclusions are legitimately called into question.
My position has always been that distance increase across the swing speed spectrum with any USGA/R&A legal (conforming) golf ball has NOT been disproportionate or non-linear And, just to be fair to both sides in this on-going debate, Tom, I believe the USGA report says that the relationship is non-linear in a small negative way. regarding the power player vs the non-power player. My position is consistent with the USGA's Tech Center in this regard particularly since that is where I got my information first-hand. If that has also been your position (which of course has been seriously inconsistent) you are the one with a truly startling inability to communicate. ;)
I find it quite curious that this report is published now after the many discussions on this topic in the last months on this site. And, after calls by Tom to the Tech Centre. Should Tom be taking credit for instigating the USGA to publish something on the subject.
Or, for the conspiracy theorists, could it be that Tom wrote the paper and nefariously got the USGA to publish it? ;)
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"I find it quite curious that this report is published now after the many discussions on this topic in the last months on this site. And, after calls by Tom to the Tech Centre. Should Tom be taking credit for instigating the USGA to publish something on the subject."
Bryan I:
Aahaa! A very interesting suppositon indeed on your part and one on which I believe I'd just prefer to keep my mouth shut. ;)
However, it is increasingly funny to me to watch this David Moriarty try to weasel his way out of this subject.
And, as far as you not being able to follow what he says, welcome to the club. But even that too shall pass since what he says is nothing much more than his inveterate inability to admit he's wrong. This is in stark contrast to his fellow debater on this subject, Jeff Fortson who offered someone on this thread to eat a pretty healthy portion of crow. That is the type of reasonable contributor we need in these discussions and consequently I will take Jeff Fortson's plate of crow no matter how few his bites of it have been and throw that plate of crow in the trash. ;)
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[David said:]
One last time. My position is that long hitters have disproportionately benefited from balls like the ProV1x, relative to short hitters.
David, I'm not sure I follow this. And I've read the many posts on the subject. Is this not the opposite of what the USGA study shows. Does their study not show that the ProV1x is actually disproportionately shorter at higher swing speeds? Can you rephrase your position to make it clearer?
Bryan, I don’t think the USGA addressed what I have been saying. What they have done is offer evidence that, for each ball tested, the incremental distance increase declines per unit increase in swing speed. In other words, the slope of the line slightly flattens as speed increases. But this conclusion has little or no bearing on whether or not long hitters have disproportionately benefited from technology, relative to short hitters. As opposed to reinventing the wheel, I’ll draw on heavily on a few of my older posts explaining the distinction, including post #24 in this thread and a post from a few months ago, when TEPaul first reported that the USGA told him that the distance progression for each ball was largely linear. . . .
In the article, the USGA charts the distance each ball travels when hit by a driver through a range of swing speeds. But when driving the golf ball, players are pretty much locked into their maximum effective swing speed, at least at given time-- No one can simply decide to just swing faster than they are capable of swinging! So while the USGA draws conclusions based on looking how a single ball performs over a series of swing speeds, I am taking it a step further-- how does each ball relatively benefit different golfers with different swing speeds?
I have repeatedly proposed that some of the newer balls (such as the ProV1x) have benefited the fast swingers more than they have benefited the slow swingers, thus creating a enlarged distance gap between fast and slow swingers. This has absolutely nothing to do with whether the slopes of these balls’ distance curves diminish, increase, or remain constant, but has everything to do with comparing the different distance characteristics (slopes) of different balls.
Let me put it this way. Say we have a fast swing golfer (say 130 mph) and a slow swing golfer (say 70 mph) who both switch to the ProV1x from the ProV1 (or even from some low-priced "distance" ball.) I think that the 130 mph golfer will benefit much more from the switch than the 70 mph golfer. By merely demonstrating that the slope of these balls’ distance curves flatten as speed increases says nothing about whether two different golf balls have different slopes and values across a range of distances.
Here is a chart I made long ago, not as evidence of any particular ball's performance, but to graphically demonstrate the point I am trying to make. I use TWO HYPOTHETICAL BALLS, one ball’s distance increases 9 yards per 5 mph increase in swing speed, the other ball’s distance increases 11 yards per 5 yd increase in swing speed. Rather than redoing my chart, and because it is irrelevant to my point, I’ll ask you to assume that these slopes are actually decreasing slightly over time at approximately the same rate (so my chart would still look like an X but with the lines both bending down at approx the same rate.)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v249/dmoriarty/Golf%20Courses/Misc/distancechart.jpg)
Note that the second ball greatly benefits the faster swing golfer and actually hurts the slower swing golfer, relative to the first ball. Note also that while this is a hypothetical, it demonstrates that my premise (some balls provide greater distance benefits to fast swing golfers while not helping golfers with slow swing speeds) does NOT depend upon the slope of any ball's distance curve increasing.
Think of our conversations regarding the ProV1x. My theory is that while the ProV1x greatly benefited those with fast swing speeds, it would not similarly benefit those with slower swing speeds.
I hope this clears it up for you.
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[David said:]
One last time. My position is that long hitters have disproportionately benefited from balls like the ProV1x, relative to short hitters.
David, I'm not sure I follow this. And I've read the many posts on the subject. Is this not the opposite of what the USGA study shows. Does their study not show that the ProV1x is actually disproportionately shorter at higher swing speeds? Can you rephrase your position to make it clearer?
Bryan, I don’t think the USGA addressed what I have been saying. What they have done is offer evidence that, for each ball tested, the incremental distance increase declines per unit increase in swing speed. In other words, the slope of the line slightly flattens as speed increases. But this conclusion has little or no bearing on whether or not long hitters have disproportionately benefited from technology, relative to short hitters. As opposed to reinventing the wheel, I’ll draw on heavily on a few of my older posts explaining the distinction, including post #24 in this thread and a post from a few months ago, when TEPaul first reported that the USGA told him that the distance progression for each ball was largely linear. . . .
In the article, the USGA charts the distance each ball travels when hit by a driver through a range of swing speeds. But when driving the golf ball, players are pretty much locked into their maximum effective swing speed, at least at given time-- No one can simply decide to just swing faster than they are capable of swinging! I agree that each individual has a maximum effective swing speed, but I'm not sure I understand how this point relates to your general hypothesis? So while the USGA draws conclusions based on looking how a single ball performs over a series of swing speeds, I am taking it a step further-- how does each ball relatively benefit different golfers with different swing speeds? I don't understand this point. Are you saying that a given swing speed produces different results depending on the player? To me any player who swings at the speeds tested by the USGA will achieve the same results with the same ball, the same club, and the same launch conditions.
I have repeatedly proposed that some of the newer balls (such as the ProV1x) have benefited the fast swingers more than they have benefited the slow swingers, thus creating a enlarged distance gap between fast and slow swingers. This has absolutely nothing to do with whether the slopes of these balls’ distance curves diminish, increase, or remain constant, but has everything to do with comparing the different distance characteristics (slopes) of different balls.
Let me put it this way. Say we have a fast swing golfer (say 130 mph) and a slow swing golfer (say 70 mph) who both switch to the ProV1x from the ProV1 (or even from some low-priced "distance" ball.) Can we just pick one option, for discussion purposes. Let's say changing from the ProV1 to the ProV1x. I think that the 130 mph golfer will benefit much more from the switch than the 70 mph golfer. Could you quantify a range of what you think "much more" is. 5 yards? 10? 15? By merely demonstrating that the slope of these balls’ distance curves flatten as speed increases says nothing about whether two different golf balls have different slopes and values across a range of distances.
Here is a chart I made long ago, not as evidence of any particular ball's performance, but to graphically demonstrate the point I am trying to make. I use TWO HYPOTHETICAL BALLS, one ball’s distance increases 9 yards per 5 mph increase in swing speed, the other ball’s distance increases 11 yards per 5 yd increase in swing speed. Rather than redoing my chart, and because it is irrelevant to my point, I’ll ask you to assume that these slopes are actually decreasing slightly over time at approximately the same rate (so my chart would still look like an X but with the lines both bending down at approx the same rate.)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v249/dmoriarty/Golf%20Courses/Misc/distancechart.jpg)
Note that the second ball greatly benefits the faster swing golfer and actually hurts the slower swing golfer, relative to the first ball. Note also that while this is a hypothetical, it demonstrates that my premise (some balls provide greater distance benefits to fast swing golfers while not helping golfers with slow swing speeds) does NOT depend upon the slope of any ball's distance curve increasing.
In looking at your chart based on hypothetical balls, if we picked an 85 mph swing speed (a slow weekend warrior speed), that player would loose 10 yards going from hypothetically the V1 to the V1x, whereas a 125 mph swinger (near the top end of the Tour range) would gain about 6 yards. In the real world, of course, the slow speed swinger wouldn't make the change and lose the 10 yards. So the high speed swinger gains maybe 6 yards, and probably less since the curves flatten out marginally according to the USGA paper. My point is that this doesn't seem like a disproprtionately large benefit.
My second point is that the 5 balls the USGA tested (supposedly tour balls) do not exhibit this crossing of slopes that you have hypothesized.
(http://bizatt.photosite.com/~photos/tn/5770_1024.ts1145648450703.jpg)
I believe that one of these balls is the V1x, and another is the V1. They don't cross as per your hypothetical chart with hypothetical balls. Are you hypothesizing that the Tour Balata had a curve that would cross somewhere in the spectrum of speeds and was substantially flatter than these 5 balls. That is probably an unanswerable question.
By the way, perhaps we should send Tom in pursuit of the Tech Centre again to find out which ball is ball B and which is ball D. It seems to be uniformly 10 yards longer across the swing speed spectrum. This is a substantially greater difference compared to those in your hypothetical chart. Somebody have figured out better aerodynamics. Those of us who don't get paid to play a ball, and who haven't overpowered our current home courses want to know.
Think of our conversations regarding the ProV1x. My theory is that while the ProV1x greatly benefited those with fast swing speeds, it would not similarly benefit those with slower swing speeds.
I hope this clears it up for you.
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The USGA is really missing the point in all this.
:) Meanwhile, back at the ranch, while Biff and Buffy are in the Distant Hills office preparing graphs and charts, this comes from the thread 'TPC Scottsdale Desert...'. There is a quote from the East Valley Tribune article, by Bill Huffman, :)
" Bill Grove, the TPC’s general manager, said the Desert Course, at 6,390 yards, is now perceived more as an “executive experience,’’ and due to price erosion at other high-end facilities has lost its position in the local market.
6390 yards, an executive experience ? Really. It's too short. Why is that ? Why ? Is distance a part of the issue.
So the city will spend (if approved) about $8 million on the golf course.
The USGA is preparing all these graphs and charts, and the TPC is wanting to build them longer and longer.
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[David said:]
In the article, the USGA charts the distance each ball travels when hit by a driver through a range of swing speeds. But when driving the golf ball, players are pretty much locked into their maximum effective swing speed, at least at given time-- No one can simply decide to just swing faster than they are capable of swinging! I agree that each individual has a maximum effective swing speed, but I'm not sure I understand how this point relates to your general hypothesis?
Brian, my point is that when examining who the technology benefits, we must compare the distance characteristics of different balls at different swing speeds. A slow swinger doesnt benefit from the ProV1x if the ball he is using is as long (or longer) than the ProV1x at that particular golfer's swing speed.
[David said:] So while the USGA draws conclusions based on looking how a single ball performs over a series of swing speeds, I am taking it a step further-- how does each ball relatively benefit different golfers with different swing speeds? I don't understand this point. Are you saying that a given swing speed produces different results depending on the player? To me any player who swings at the speeds tested by the USGA will achieve the same results with the same ball, the same club, and the same launch conditions.
No, I am simply saying that if we wish to understand how different players benefit differently from technology, we need to compare balls over a large range of swing speeds.
[David said:] Let me put it this way. Say we have a fast swing golfer (say 130 mph) and a slow swing golfer (say 70 mph) who both switch to the ProV1x from the ProV1 (or even from some low-priced "distance" ball.) Can we just pick one option, for discussion purposes. Let's say changing from the ProV1 to the ProV1x. I think that the 130 mph golfer will benefit much more from the switch than the 70 mph golfer. Could you quantify a range of what you think "much more" is. 5 yards? 10? 15?
Sure, we can stick to the ProV1 if you like, but the point is much more general that that. My guess is that comparing the ProV1x with a senior/ladies ball like the old Lady Precept would produce more telling results. No, I cannot quantify the amount gained because I don’t have a test facility. Certainly not one which would meet your scrutiny.
In looking at your chart based on hypothetical balls, if we picked an 85 mph swing speed (a slow weekend warrior speed), that player would loose 10 yards going from hypothetically the V1 to the V1x, whereas a 125 mph swinger (near the top end of the Tour range) would gain about 6 yards. In the real world, of course, the slow speed swinger wouldn't make the change and lose the 10 yards. So the high speed swinger gains maybe 6 yards, and probably less since the curves flatten out marginally according to the USGA paper. My point is that this doesn't seem like a disproprtionately large benefit.
First, “slow weekend warrior" swing speed is far less than 85 mph, and far less than the 90 mph suggested by the USGA. Others might know more specifically, but my blind guess is that the vast majority of golfers have a swing speed slower than 85 mph.
Second,(remembering that these numbers are purely for explanatory purposes only) I do think that a 5-6 yard gain is disproportionate when compared to no gain at all. Just how big a net gain must their be before you would term such a net gain to be disproportionate?
My second point is that the 5 balls the USGA tested (supposedly tour balls) do not exhibit this crossing of slopes that you have hypothesized.
Actually balls “A”(light blue) and “C” (green) do appear to cross on the first distance chart. Nonetheless, I get your point. Remember that my chart is merely explanatory; a visual tool to help you and others understand that the USGA’s article does not answer the question of whether golfers with fast swings have disproportionally benefited from technology. That being said, keep in mind these following limitations of the USGA’s test:
First, the balls were chosen based on their wide use on Tour. My whole point is that we cannot assume balls used by fast swingers (like Tour players) benefit everyone just because they benefit those on Tour. The vast majority of us do not swing nearly as fast as even the shorter Tour players. Had they included some a wider range of balls, we might well see the lines crossing.
Second, the range of swing speeds is also much too narrow to say anything dispositive about how technology has benefited long hitters vs. short hitters. The article mentions that the 90 mph swing speed represents Amateur golfers!. Some amateurs sure, but most thrilled to have a swing speed of 90 mph. Also I’d like to have seen the numbers at 130. The lines might well have crossed had they carried the charts out further in either direction.
Third, unless I have repeatedly missed them, the USGA inexplicably fails to provide us with the actual distance numbers. I’d like to see exactly how close a few of these lines come to meeting at various speeds, and how far apart they actually get at other speeds. For example it looks like the green line and the blue line separate by almost 10 yards with a 20 mph increase.
I believe that one of these balls is the V1x, and another is the V1. They don't cross as per your hypothetical chart with hypothetical balls. Are you hypothesizing that the Tour Balata had a curve that would cross somewhere in the spectrum of speeds and was substantially flatter than these 5 balls. That is probably an unanswerable question.
Do you have any evidence that one is the ProV1 and the other the ProV1x? If I had to guess, I’d guess that “C” (green) is the ProV1, and that ProV1x is “E” (blue.) Note that at around 100 mph the these two lines are virtually overlapping, but that at the higher swing speeds the blue and the green substantially separate themselves, with “E” (blue) providing a definite distance advantage over “C” (green) to the faster swinger, but not to the 100 mph swinger. Or maybe the ProV1 is light blue. I don’t know.
I did not mean to imply anything about the old Balata. My guess is that there are plenty of balls out there still today that would cross these lines and be flatter.
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David,
Since I see a 10 yard difference between two current tour balls tested under the same conditions, I guess I would think a disproportionate gain would be something greater than that. If you think 5-6 yards is disproportionate that's fine. I was just trying to establish the meaning of the word in your terms.
As to swing speeds, I think you are seriously under-estimating average swing speeds. Amongst other things, I make clubs for people, and have used Beltronic swing speed monitors to measure swing speed. At my course last fall, I measured half a dozen people, between mid 50's and late 60's in age. Even the shortest, oldest of them was above 90 mph. At 85 mph you're only getting 200 yards off the tee. Most people I've seen play get at least 200 yards.
Do you have any evidence that one is the ProV1 and the other the ProV1x? If I had to guess, I’d guess that “C” (green) is the ProV1, and that ProV1x is “E” (blue.) Note that at around 100 mph the these two lines are virtually overlapping, but that at the higher swing speeds the blue and the green substantially separate themselves, with “E” (blue) providing a definite distance advantage over “C” (green) to the faster swinger, but not to the 100 mph swinger. Or maybe the ProV1 is light blue. I don’t know.
I did not mean to imply anything about the old Balata. My guess is that there are plenty of balls out there still today that would cross these lines and be flatter.
No, no evidence. I'd guess that the ProV1x is the E ball just based on spin rate.
My guess is that there aren't a lot of balls out there today that would cross these lines and be flatter. On that I guess we'll disagree.
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One fact that I personally find interesting is that most women pros seem to play the prov1 or prov1x. They clearly don't have the swing speed to "benefit" - under the mythical notion - but they still play it, so it must be a good ball for everyone.
This is a tough topic for me. I can empathize the position of Dave M and Garland Bayley - really, I agree with the motivation behind it - yet, the scientific facts appear to me to be more on the side of the USGA. Really, what the prov1 and prov1x seemed to do was eradicate the benefit the lesser golfers apparently had, using old rocks. Lesser golfers weren't achieving spin rates necessary to use the old balata balls effectively, anyway, so it's frustating that better golfer got the length benefits of the new ball.
The technician in me says that the new ball is more "fair". The golf lover in me says it goes too far. I'm not sure what the answer is, but I would like to see some real world testing of a shorter ball before I made a final decision. I'd be hard pressed to not believe that a ball that flew 10-15% less wouldn't be better for the game.
The GCAer in me thinks the Tom Paul/Dave M feud is mostly semantics and downright silly.
:)
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George,
From my limited experimentation when the ProV1x first came out, it's not all about clubhead speed. It's about compressing the ball. With my very anemic 88mph driver swing (at best) the ProV1x could fly about like a ProV1 when well struck. But if I made my typical oblique-contact block-fade swing with an iron the ProV1x would go about 100 yards and then fall out of the sky like a dead quail. The girls on the LPGA Tour may not have a whole lot more driver clubhead speed than I do but they make a square-clubface descending blow on the ball and get it to compress, which is what I concluded the ProV1x requires (not that I'd ever buy more than that one sleeve of them or use them in a real round anyway).
The technician in me says that the new ball is more "fair". The golf lover in me says it goes too far. I'm not sure what the answer is, but I would like to see some real world testing of a shorter ball before I made a final decision. I'd be hard pressed to not believe that a ball that flew 10-15% less wouldn't be better for the game.
I don't deal in "fair" when it comes to golf. If a ball conforms to the Rules it's fair enough to me. But the golf-course lover in me agrees with your main point. Hard to see how the world would be worse off if a 6,400-yard course could still serve amateur golfers well and a 7,000-yard Par 72 course could still be a valid venue for a major championship. A century of experience shows that golf played on that scale is fun and challenging for a huge range of golfers.
Even if it weren't for the expense I have a nagging sense that something is lost when the game is played over greater than visual range, more akin modern stand-off missile warfare than a WW-II dogfight.
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GeorgeP;
The 'fued' between me and David Moriarty is definitely not just semantics---we have a significant difference of opinion on this subject. I'm most certainly more inclined to accept as more valid the I&B test derived data from the USGA than I am David Moriarty's 'hypotheticals' ;)
You said;
"-yet, the scientific facts appear to me to be more on the side of the USGA. Really, what the prov1 and prov1x seemed to do was eradicate the benefit the lesser golfers apparently had, using old rocks."
Your second sentence in that remark pretty much captures the essence of this entire subject. For some reason David Moriarty won't accept that or just doesn't understand it. For some reason he keeps claiming when two entirely different types of balls were used by different levels of golfers that one type of ball must have been 'inferior'. Obviously for decades all the golfers who used those two different types didn't think what they were using was INFERIOR. If they did think that then why the hell did they use it? ;)
You said;
"The technician in me says that the new ball is more "fair"."
It would most certainly seem that now that apparently all levels of golfers are basically using the same type of golf ball (the lower spinning type) that things are now more "fair".
Apparently David Moriarty doesn't think all golfers should be allowed to use the same type of golf ball since in his mind doing so is unfair to less good golfers.
To say the least, his line of reasoning is specious at best. And now I really see no reason why any of us would want to continue to discuss David Moriarty's distance "hypotheticals" when we have real world test data on the subject from the USGA Tech Center.
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Since I see a 10 yard difference between two current tour balls tested under the same conditions, I guess I would think a disproportionate gain would be something greater than that. If you think 5-6 yards is disproportionate that's fine. I was just trying to establish the meaning of the word in your terms.
Again Bryan I remind you that the the numbers in my hypo are rather meaningless. Looking at the USGA chart we can see that at least two of the lines seperate by at around 10 yards in around 20 mph increased swing speed(100 to 120.) Surely we can agree that a 10 yard difference between balls is significant, can we not?
As to swing speeds, I think you are seriously under-estimating average swing speeds. Amongst other things, I make clubs for people, and have used Beltronic swing speed monitors to measure swing speed. At my course last fall, I measured half a dozen people, between mid 50's and late 60's in age. Even the shortest, oldest of them was above 90 mph. At 85 mph you're only getting 200 yards off the tee. Most people I've seen play get at least 200 yards.
I may be underestimating average swing speeds, but I don't think I am too far off. I havent found a definite answer but various sources online put the average for males at between 80 and 85 mph. I am not sure but I think this may exclude senior males. Someone here must have reliable numbers for this. Hasnt someone on here claimed on multiple occassions that most players drive the ball well less than 200 yards, on average?
Even if we assume that the average male swing speed is 85 mph then a chart starting at 90 mph does not go nearly low enough to show anything meaningful about how balls perform across a true spectrum of golfers.
My guess is that there aren't a lot of balls out there today that would cross these lines and be flatter. On that I guess we'll disagree.
I am curious, on what basis do you make this guess? Do you really believe that a golfer with swing speed of, say, 75 or 80 mph will get just as much distance from a ProV1x as from a ball geared toward slower swings, like the Lady Precept, or whatever is this year's equivalent? Do you really believe that a Pro with a swing speed of 130+ would hit a ball like the Lady Precept close to as far as he hits a ProV1x?
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Brent Hutto said: From my limited experimentation when the ProV1x first came out, it's not all about clubhead speed. It's about compressing the ball. With my very anemic 88mph driver swing (at best) the ProV1x could fly about like a ProV1 when well struck. But if I made my typical oblique-contact block-fade swing with an iron the ProV1x would go about 100 yards and then fall out of the sky like a dead quail.
Brent, I find your comments about the importance of compression very interesting although I not sure I quite understand what you are saying. Perhaps you could humor me . . .
Isn't the ball's compression really determined by the magnitude of the vector force applied by the swing, as well as the COR of the collision?
Is it reasonable to think of the problem of a "oblique-contact block-fade swing" [I know it well] in terms of forces working in slightly different directions, where a such a swing results in a lower ball velocity? Similarly, is it reasonable to think of off-center hits as effectively diminishing the COR of the collision, resulting again in less ball velocity? And if we could quantify all the inefficiencies created by crooked and off-center contact, could we work backwards and come up with some sort of an effective swing speed equivalent?
Would it be fair to say, for example, that one of my typical 88 mph, off-center, oblique-contact block-fade swing is equivalent to a straight and on-center lower speed swing (excluding direction from consideration, of course.) In other words, can a crooked, off-center swing of 90 mph produce the same distance result as a straight, on-center swing of 70 mph?
I hope these questions aren't too confusing . . .
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George Pazin said:
One fact that I personally find interesting is that most women pros seem to play the prov1 or prov1x. They clearly don't have the swing speed to "benefit" - under the mythical notion - but they still play it, so it must be a good ball for everyone.
I would think that professional women have high enough swing speeds to hit the Pro V1. They hit it further than most the men I know who hit that ball, including me. As for the ProV1x, are their really many women who play it? This surprises me. As an aside, there are a number of men out there who seemed to have benefited little from switching to the ProV1x, but they still hit it. Perhaps ego plays a role?
This is a tough topic for me. I can empathize the position of Dave M and Garland Bayley - really, I agree with the motivation behind it - yet, the scientific facts appear to me to be more on the side of the USGA.
George, specifically, what "scientific facts" appear to be on the side of the USGA? It seems to me that by focusing on the shape of the curves, they really missed the larger issues, but maybe I am wrong. Just what exactly is it that you think they have proven with their paper?
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Bob Crosby said yesterday;
"I mean, whether or not increases in distance are linear over different swing speeds, is there any serious doubt that tournament fields are hitting it much farther than they did 10 years ago, and much, much farther than they did 20 years ago, etc. and that we have reached a crisis point with historic golf courses?
Is that issue in doubt? I ask my question only because, reading between the USGA lines, they seem to imply it is in doubt; that everything is just fine and under control and we shouldn't worry.
Me, I worry. A lot."
Bob:
No, the issue that the ball goes quite a lot further for elite and powerful players today compared to that time (around and before 1995) when most all of them used a high spin golf ball is not in doubt. The USGA Tech Center is not and has not denied that (at least not in a statistical distance sense).
They have also explained (at least to me they have) why this happened. They have also admitted whenever asked that distance on Tour has increased app 30 yards (see their timeframe and parameters). So no, I don't see that they're implying that those distance stratistic are in doubt.
On the other hand, they have also said (and written) that they reserve the right to stop distance increase when it has gone too far. Unfortunately they have never said what they think too far is.
Or have they? Well, obviously they haven't said specifically (some precise yardage) what they think too far is but I feel we can see that they are taking steps (and have for about four years) to figure out how to begin to define what too far is. At least a few things they have asked manufacturers to do would indicate that. The three areas of their study (MOI, spin generation, the ball) they have recently explained would indicate that.
On this thread there're a number of interesting opinions on a number of things, as you say. Like you, I'm not very technical in these matters but I feel the USGA answered some of my fundamental questions on these issues being discussed here.
Some on here such as Garland Bayley have maintained the manufacturers altered the spin rate of the golf ball unnaturally. Of course that is ridiculous. There have been high spinning and low spinning golf balls for decades. They are all legal, always have been and the fact of the matter is the R&A/USGA has never regulated the spin rate of the golf ball and they still don't, so how anyone could think something 'unnatural' has happened regarding the spin rate of the golf ball is beyond me.
Others who are contributing posts that are technically related to the testing and performance of golf balls and distance regulation seem to be acting as if the USGA Tech Center has never existed. They seem to be suggesting their own opinions and ideas of how I&B should be tested and regulated as if the USGA Tech Center had never thought of such things.
We have contributors like David Moriarty who continues to argue for the relevency of some 'hypothetical" premises of his own and constantly attempts to construct his own graphs and analyses (also hypotheitcal ;) ) to prove whatever minor point about a ProVx's unfairness and disproportionality he seems to be subscribing to.
I don't know what Brent Hutto does for a living but from everything I can see he's been saying in a technical sense he is completely in-line with what the USGA explained to me (in a technical sense).
John Vander Borght has given a very accurate account of both how and why distance has increased in the last ten and five years and what the USGA was trying to accomplish back then and is apparenlty trying to accomplish now and in the future.
It seems half these contributors on here just want to blame the USGA for things that have happened in the past as if they would have done things differently. That of course is always easy to say after the fact and app ten to twenty years after the fact. Would they have said the same things they are now 10 to 20 years ago? Well, we certainly know they didn't and it's pretty obvious to me thay wouldn't have any more than the rest of us who are so much older didn't really see this spike coming, and very much within the existing R&A/USGA rules and regs.
The thing to really keep our eye on when it comes to the golf ball itself and distance is what the eventual result will be and will mean of these new prototype sample balls the USGA Tech Center has asked for from all the manufacturers which must go 15 and 25 yards less far. (and what will result in a distance control context from their investigation of MOI and spin generation will be interesting to watch too).
Has the USGA Tech Center told the manufacturers what specs are required to make these prototype sample balls that go 15 and 25 yards less far? No they have not. They have told them that however they want to make them to go 15 and 25 yards less far is up to the manufacturers and that the USGA will study all those prototype sample balls to determine both how and why they go 15 and 25 yards less far.
The fact of that last paragraph alone could have some real significance in vaious ways and in various areas as this entire distance saga continues to unfold over time. Mark my words. ;)
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I don't deal in "fair" when it comes to golf.
I think "fairness" is a four letter word in golf - when it comes to design.
When it comes to rules and B&I, however, fair is darn near everything.
I think Tuft's book has the two main premises as play it as it lies, and treat like situations the same, which I interpret as fairness in the rules.
Dave M, I think it's been covered in this thread, but I'll try to repeat it in a shorter fashion. It appears as though the switch to solid balls by better players did help them more than lesser players, but it also appears that this is more due to their ability than any sort of rigging of the game or circumventing of the rules.
I'm not sure what the answer to the distance problem is, but I do believe a problem exists. I know the last "solutions" I want to see attempted are continued disfiguring of older courses, continued building of ever longer, less walkable courses, and more narrowing of fairways and higher rough.
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... Obviously for decades all the golfers who used those two different types didn't think what they were using was INFERIOR. If they did think that then why the hell did they use it? ;)
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Well Tom, not so obviously. We used the INFERIOR balls then and now, because we are cheapskates! Also, some of us are so bad that we get no benefit from using SUPERIOR balls like the wound balata and the prov.
Guess this one will have to go down as the one or two things you have gotten wrong in those > 20,000 posts of yours. :)
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I don't know how to post pictures here. If someone wants to create a pictorial graph of the following hypothetical data, I would appreciate it.
loft 10 degrees 20 degrees 30 degrees 40 degress 50 degrees 60 degrees
rock 200 300 400 500 600 700
rockflite 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000 4500
balata 4000 4800 5600 6400 7200 8000
prov 2000 5000 6200 7000 7900 8200
What I call natural is the graph of the hypothetical spin rates of the rock, the rockflite, and the wound balata. Note that they are linear. What I call unnatural is the graph of the prov. Note that it is nonlinear and cross both the graphs of the rockflite and balata.
If you add the feathery, the first rubber balls, etc. I believe the graphs would all be linear.
Perhaps you have a better term than natural/unnatural, but please don't say you don't understand what I mean.
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Garland,
I believe that if your hypotheses were true, the Pro-V1 would go totally inconsistent distances as the loft were varied. Both the lift and the drag are dependent on the spin of the ball, therefore if they varied like you seem to think they do, the ball would go radically different distances between lofts.
I also find it hard to believe that a ProV1 spins more than a balata when hit with a wedge. Balata's backed up way more than the current balls ever do.
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Garland,
You are right that the ProV spins less off the driver than it does off a wedge, but you assume that the change in the spin rates for every other ball in your hypothetical is constant through the lofts, while the ProV does magical things, spinning as little off the driver as the Topflites, and MORE off the wedge as the balatas. This is not true.
What the ProV does is "hybridize" the spin rates of the old distance balls and the balatas. BUT, and this is critically important, a ProV STILL spins much more than a surlyn ball off the driver, and way, way less than a balata ball off a full wedge. The sacrifice of spin around the greens is worth the extra distance off the tee to good players, not to mention the durability and consistency relative to balata, and so they put ProV's in play.
You are writing as if the ProV is maxed out on both ends, and that just isn't so.
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Dave M, I think it's been covered in this thread, but I'll try to repeat it in a shorter fashion. It appears as though the switch to solid balls by better players did help them more than lesser players, but it also appears that this is more due to their ability than any sort of rigging of the game or circumventing of the rules.
George, now I am really confused. It sounds to me like we agree. We agree that the newer solid balls have benefited the better players more than the worse players. We agree that this is because of the superior ability of the better players, namely their ability to swing faster and more efficiently. We even agree that these changes came about within the rules.
What I dont understand is your concept of fairness. As far as I am concerned if the game is out of balance, it ought to be put back in balance, no matter how it got out of balance in the first place. The game has changed and the rules havent kept up. To put this in terms of your notion of fairness, the imbalance in the game has grown to the point where we are now trying to treat unlike situations the same, and by your definition that is not fair.
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By the way George, I looked at the Titleist website and the bulk of their female players play the ProV1, and not the ProV1x. Assuming (as you do above) that these women know what they are doing, doesnt this say something about the appropriateness of the ProV1x for those with slower swing speeds?
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Dave, my concept of fairness is that we all have the opportunity to play the same clubs under the same conditions, and that unfairness implies the discontinuity that many had thought existed. If the increases are linear, that implies fairness to me. That a better player should be forced to play a higher spinning ball to "restore balance" implies unfairness to me.
As I said, I don't know what the answer to restoring the balance of accuracy versus power is.
I know I'd very much like to see a rolled back ball tested in some tournament, and I don't think it would be that tough to do. Nike has made a big deal out of how they specially designed a ball for Tiger (and DD when he was on top of his game)(come to think of it, that implies a certain degree of unfairness to me - would they custom design a ball for me?). If they could do that, how tough could it be to simply design a rolled back ball to experiment with?
As for the prov1 and prov1x for women, I don't know what the balance is, it's anecdotal for me that when I look at GD's or TGC's What's in the Bag snippets, there seem to be a lot of women playing either. I have always been under the impression that the prov1x was simply a slightly lesser spinning version of the prov1, so the player is asked to make the decision of whether the increased distance off the tee is worth the lessened control around and into the greens. I'm not aware that the prov1x requires any special launch characteristics that lesser swing speed golfers aren't capable of, while providing a bonus to those who do (hope that made sense).
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Wouldn't the difference between the ProV1 and the ProV1x be pretty simple? If I need a little more backspin on the ball to launch off the tee at an optimum angle, I should use the ProV. If I don't need that extra backspin, then the ProV1x would be better for me. That could be because of swing speed, or preferred loft, or preferred shaft, or ball flight shape, or swing plane, or that I like the red numeral better than the black one.
That doesn't mean the ProV1 is made for slow swingers; it is just another way that players optimize. If you can get a pattern from the men's list on the Titleist website as to who uses which one and why, I'd love to know what it is.
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Dave, my concept of fairness is that we all have the opportunity to play the same clubs under the same conditions, and that unfairness implies the discontinuity that many had thought existed. If the increases are linear, that implies fairness to me. That a better player should be forced to play a higher spinning ball to "restore balance" implies unfairness to me.
George, Surely you don't think I want to bifurcate the rules and force the better player to play different equipment, do you? Where on earth did I ever say anything like that? I've never been much of an advocate of a tournament ball. I dont think it is necessary or a good idea.
As for a linear distance curve implying fairness I don't get what you mean or why you would think this. What if a distance curve was completely flat, where we all hit it the same distance regardless of swing speed-- would you consider this type of linear distance curve fair? Or what if a distance curve was linear but very, very steep, so each tiny increase in swing speed produced huge jumps in distance-- would you consider this linear distance curve fair? Would you consider everything fair and fine if a 90 mph swing speed produced 1/2 the distance of a 120 mph swing speed, so long as the chart was linear?? Is it unfair to better players that the actual curves fall slightly short of linear?? What ever happened to the principle behind playing it as it lies?
The discussion of linearity is a red herring and a non-issue. All of these conversations over the past months have assumed linearity. It isnt the shape (linearity) of the line that matters, it is the slope. The steeper the line, the more the ball incrimentally benefits the faster swing. Even John V. has acknowledged this in past threads! I havent seen him change his mind on this, even with this new article.
As I said, I don't know what the answer to restoring the balance of accuracy versus power is.
The "balance of accuracy versus power?" No wonder we are at speaking past each other! The growing importance of power vs. accuracy is a symptom of the distance problem, but not the problem itself. The balance to which I was referring was simply the balance between how far short hitters hit it when compared to how far longer hitters hit it. If this gap becomes too great we no longer effectively fit on the same courses, and arent really even playing the same game.
I know I'd very much like to see a rolled back ball tested in some tournament, and I don't think it would be that tough to do. Nike has made a big deal out of how they specially designed a ball for Tiger (and DD when he was on top of his game)(come to think of it, that implies a certain degree of unfairness to me - would they custom design a ball for me?). If they could do that, how tough could it be to simply design a rolled back ball to experiment with?
Titleist has applied for a patent on their reduced distance ball. It looks as if the ball will, among other things, reduce the COR of the collision, which I believe will flatten the distance curve, meaning that the big hitter will have less distance advantage over the shorter player.
As for the prov1 and prov1x for women, I don't know what the balance is, it's anecdotal for me that when I look at GD's or TGC's What's in the Bag snippets, there seem to be a lot of women playing either. I have always been under the impression that the prov1x was simply a slightly lesser spinning version of the prov1, so the player is asked to make the decision of whether the increased distance off the tee is worth the lessened control around and into the greens. I'm not aware that the prov1x requires any special launch characteristics that lesser swing speed golfers aren't capable of, while providing a bonus to those who do (hope that made sense).
Not sure I understand what you are saying. My understanding is that the bulk of female tour players and many male tour players hit the ProV1 over the ProV1x because at their relatively slower swing speeds the ProV1x does not fly any further than the ProV1, or at least it doesnt fly far enough by the ProV1 to justify the change.
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Wouldn't the difference between the ProV1 and the ProV1x be pretty simple? If I need a little more backspin on the ball to launch off the tee at an optimum angle, I should use the ProV. If I don't need that extra backspin, then the ProV1x would be better for me. That could be because of swing speed, or preferred loft, or preferred shaft, or ball flight shape, or swing plane, or that I like the red numeral better than the black one.
That doesn't mean the ProV1 is made for slow swingers; it is just another way that players optimize. If you can get a pattern from the men's list on the Titleist website as to who uses which one and why, I'd love to know what it is.
While some players may choose the red number because they like red or because of ego (more likely because of ego) this isnt the type of decision making that will necessarily enhance performance.
My understanding is that the primary reason that some players cannot properly launch the ProV1x is because they do not generate sufficient force to create the ball velocity necessary for proper lift. So while the ProV1 certainly wasnt made for "slow swingers" the ProV1x was made for "very fast swingers."
Earlier this year I tried to look in detail at the driving performance of those who switched to the ProV1x in 2003, compared to the rest of the field. While imperfect date rendered the results somewhat "anecdotal," the ProV1x users generally gained significantly more distance that year than the rest of the field. I think something like 23 out of the top 25 gainers that year used the new ProV1x.
Out of curiosity I am trying to work on something like what you suggest but havent had the time to put it all together yet.
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Wouldn't the difference between the ProV1 and the ProV1x be pretty simple? If I need a little more backspin on the ball to launch off the tee at an optimum angle, I should use the ProV.
The launch angle is largely influenced by the loft of the club face and the swing angle of attack. The spin on the ball, combined with launch angle and launch speed determines distance. The optimum launch angles and spin rates to achieve maximum carry for given swing speeds are fairly well known. Selecting a ball such as the V1 or V1x or other to achieve an optimum spin rate to go with your launch angle and swing speed would be the way to go.
If I don't need that extra backspin, then the ProV1x would be better for me. That could be because of swing speed, or preferred loft, or preferred shaft, or ball flight shape, or swing plane, or that I like the red numeral better than the black one.
That doesn't mean the ProV1 is made for slow swingers; it is just another way that players optimize.
Yes, it's a way to optimize. What many people are not aware of is that low spinning and high launching only works well for high swing speeds. In that context the V1 is better suited than the V1x for relatively slower swing speeds. Following is a quote from the Wishon golf site that addresses this point:
"Even though much has been said in the past year about the combination of higher launch angle, lower backspin and high ball velocity being the key to greater distance, TWGT research has also shown that this combination including a low spin rate is only right for golfers who are able to generate a ball speed of 155mph and higher (approx. swing speed of 105mph and above). For all other golfers with a ball velocity of less than 155 mph, MORE backspin will help increase distance, with the lower the ball speed, the more spin is required for optimization."
If you can get a pattern from the men's list on the Titleist website as to who uses which one and why, I'd love to know what it is.
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Wouldn't the difference between the ProV1 and the ProV1x be pretty simple? If I need a little more backspin on the ball to launch off the tee at an optimum angle, I should use the ProV. If I don't need that extra backspin, then the ProV1x would be better for me. That could be because of swing speed, or preferred loft, or preferred shaft, or ball flight shape, or swing plane, or that I like the red numeral better than the black one.
That doesn't mean the ProV1 is made for slow swingers; it is just another way that players optimize. If you can get a pattern from the men's list on the Titleist website as to who uses which one and why, I'd love to know what it is.
While some players may choose the red number because they like red or because of ego (more likely because of ego) this isnt the type of decision making that will necessarily enhance performance.
My understanding is that the primary reason that some players cannot properly launch the ProV1x is because they do not generate sufficient force to create the ball velocity necessary for proper lift. So while the ProV1 certainly wasnt made for "slow swingers" the ProV1x was made for "very fast swingers."
Earlier this year I tried to look in detail at the driving performance of those who switched to the ProV1x in 2003, compared to the rest of the field. While imperfect date rendered the results somewhat "anecdotal," the ProV1x users generally gained significantly more distance that year than the rest of the field. I think something like 23 out of the top 25 gainers that year used the new ProV1x.
Out of curiosity I am trying to work on something like what you suggest but havent had the time to put it all together yet.
David,
Is another possibility that players to have a more upright swing tend to launch the ball higher, and so a lower spinning ball (the X) would be a better fit? Meanwhile, a player with a lower launch due to a flatter swing plane might benefit from the lift of the ball with more spin, even though his or her swing speed was identical or even faster than the X user? When talking about professional golfers, I would think there could be at least as much variation in swing plane as in swing speed, and the testing that the various companies do with their pros is to get the optimum launch angle.
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Now we're gettin' somewhere! At least in terms of me understanding your position.
Easy questions first:
No, I don't want a flat slope, nor an almost vertical one. In fact, I don't have a big problem with the current slope, but maybe subconsciously that's because I don't have a distance problem. I'll have to think more about whether or not I think the current slope is "wrong".
v1 vs. v1x:
As I said, my understanding of the difference was simply that you're giving up a little spin in all areas. If you want a little more off the tee, you choose the "x", if not, you go with the regular v1. I was under the impression that was why Phil, for example, returned to the regular v1 after dabbling with the x - he had all the distance he needed, so he preferred the extra control with the regular. You may be correct on the launch thing, with the ball being designed for higher swing speeds, but I don't think so. I think it's simply a matter of opting for a little more distance at the price of control.
The real question:
It occured to me, after my last post, that maybe people ought to give their reasons for what they perceive the "distance problem" to be, or if it even exists at all for them (JohnK certainly doesn't seem to think there's a problem at all, for example).
For me, there are two real issues:
1) lengthening courses, both through stretching older classics and building newer unwalkable beasts; and
2) re-establishing some choice into the game, some recognition of the old tortoise/hare question the old designers spoke of. The first is clear cut (at least I think it is), the second goes back to making the game more interesting and more entertaining, at least to me. I hate flogging and I hate aerial drop and stop golf, where the only real decision is which club to hit. I loved the Open at Shinnecock.
You seem to feel the big problem with distance is flattening the slope of the distance curve. I really don't care what other people are doing (but again, that could be because I hit it okay distance wise). The only reason I don't like seeing Tiger/Phil/Bubba/JB Holmes/whoever hit it 350 is that, each time it happens, I know someone somewhere is either planning on the next destruction of a classic course or planning on the next 8,000 yard "masterpiece".
The common story about the changes to this year's Augusta was that yardage was added to #11 because Hootie didn't like seeing Phil hit a sand wedge into the hole. That's about as immature and ill thought out a reason for changing a classic hole I've ever heard, imho. It was one shot, get over it. But this view happens again and again. That's what scares me, not the actual difference between Phil's drive and mine on the same hole. He's a golf pro, I'm a regular guy with a wife, a child and a real job. :)
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Since I see a 10 yard difference between two current tour balls tested under the same conditions, I guess I would think a disproportionate gain would be something greater than that. If you think 5-6 yards is disproportionate that's fine. I was just trying to establish the meaning of the word in your terms.
Again Bryan I remind you that the the numbers in my hypo are rather meaningless. I understood that Looking at the USGA chart we can see that at least two of the lines seperate by at around 10 yards in around 20 mph increased swing speed(100 to 120.) Surely we can agree that a 10 yard difference between balls is significant, can we not? Sure, we could agree a 10 yard difference is significant. Do you agree that 10 yards would be your definition of disproprtionate? If there is as much as a 10 yard difference in 5 conforming modern Tour-played balls of similar construction, then would you not agree that disproportionate would need to be larger than that?
As to swing speeds, I think you are seriously under-estimating average swing speeds. Amongst other things, I make clubs for people, and have used Beltronic swing speed monitors to measure swing speed. At my course last fall, I measured half a dozen people, between mid 50's and late 60's in age. Even the shortest, oldest of them was above 90 mph. At 85 mph you're only getting 200 yards off the tee. Most people I've seen play get at least 200 yards.
I may be underestimating average swing speeds, but I don't think I am too far off. I havent found a definite answer but various sources online put the average for males at between 80 and 85 mph. I am not sure but I think this may exclude senior males. Someone here must have reliable numbers for this. Hasnt someone on here claimed on multiple occassions that most players drive the ball well less than 200 yards, on average?
How many people have you played with or seen play, that were unable to reach a 200 yard par 3 with a driver in hand, if they hit it square? Not many in my experience, but perhaps yours is different.
Even if we assume that the average male swing speed is 85 mph then a chart starting at 90 mph does not go nearly low enough to show anything meaningful about how balls perform across a true spectrum of golfers. Are you suggesting that the disproportionate gain you think is there is only applicable between tour pros at 120 mph vs weekend warriors at 80 mph?
My guess is that there aren't a lot of balls out there today that would cross these lines and be flatter. On that I guess we'll disagree.
I am curious, on what basis do you make this guess? Probably the same basis as you make your conjecture that they do cross. Well, actually based on the statement in the USGA paper that: "Actually, there is no extra distance “bonus” for high swing speeds. This is true for the new tour balls, and all others as well." Do you really believe that a golfer with swing speed of, say, 75 or 80 mph will get just as much distance from a ProV1x as from a ball geared toward slower swings, like the Lady Precept, or whatever is this year's equivalent? No. Such a golfer would get the maximum distance by optimizing the ball based on its spin rate for his swing speed and launch angle. Generally at that swing speed more spin would be good, V1x would be bad. How much worse? I'd have to research that one. Do you really believe that a Pro with a swing speed of 130+ would hit a ball like the Lady Precept close to as far as he hits a ProV1x? I don't know. What do you mean by "close to as far"? Do you mean 10 or 20 or 30 yards less? I'd need to know what the ball's spin rate is at that speed and the launch angle and the COR.
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David,
Is another possibility that players to have a more upright swing tend to launch the ball higher, and so a lower spinning ball (the X) would be a better fit? Meanwhile, a player with a lower launch due to a flatter swing plane might benefit from the lift of the ball with more spin, even though his or her swing speed was identical or even faster than the X user? When talking about professional golfers, I would think there could be at least as much variation in swing plane as in swing speed, and the testing that the various companies do with their pros is to get the optimum launch angle.
I don't know that this is a realistic possibility. I dont understand all the physics, but my understanding is that you need to produce quite a bit of ball velocity to make the switch to the ProV1x worthwhile from a distance perspective.
I think Bryan explains this better than I can in his post to you immediately above.
By the way, of the Titleist players listed in the final stats of the 2005 PGA season, the ProV1x (from the titleist website) users hit it over 7 yards further than the ProV1 users.
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v1 vs. v1x:
As I said, my understanding of the difference was simply that you're giving up a little spin in all areas. If you want a little more off the tee, you choose the "x", if not, you go with the regular v1. I was under the impression that was why Phil, for example, returned to the regular v1 after dabbling with the x - he had all the distance he needed, so he preferred the extra control with the regular. You may be correct on the launch thing, with the ball being designed for higher swing speeds, but I don't think so. I think it's simply a matter of opting for a little more distance at the price of control.
I think it is a little simpler than this. I don't think that slower swingers get a distance benefit (or much of one) from using the ProV1. That being said, there may be a trade off between distance and control, but really only for very fast swingers.
You seem to feel the big problem with distance is flattening the slope of the distance curve.
My problems twofold. Both are both related architecture.
1. Same as you, I dont like our great courses getting ruined or new 8000 yard courses being built.
2. The distance gap between big hitters and short hitters has grown to the point where many courses no longer work well for both groups, especially when a long hitter and a short hitter are close to the same ability. Think of the changes at Augusta . . . whatever people think of how the changes work for the tournament play, there should be no doubt that they make course worse for the members.
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Do you agree that 10 yards would be your definition of disproprtionate? If there is as much as a 10 yard difference in 5 conforming modern Tour-played balls of similar construction, then would you not agree that disproportionate would need to be larger than that?
Huh? In the context of this discussion, I dont really consider "disproportionate" to be a subjective value term. In terms of this discussion, a 1 yard net increase is disproportionate, 10 yards is disproportionate, 20 yards is disproportionate. We can talk about what degree of disproportionality we should be concerned with, but the meaning of "disproportonate" is what it is.
As an aside (I do think it is an aside) I dont read much significance into the fact that there is 10 yards difference in the balls used by the Pros, especially when only one of the balls the outlier across the range. This ball must either feel very good to some players or it is evidence that some player put their sponsors above their max. performance.
Ever since we first started discussing this stuff you keep trying to get me to commit to some specific distance disparity (usually 10 yards) with which we should be concerned. Given the lack a complete data set, I just cant and wont throw out numbers.
How many people have you played with or seen play, that were unable to reach a 200 yard par 3 with a driver in hand, if they hit it square? Not many in my experience, but perhaps yours is different.
Some, but my playing partners are not an accurate cross section of the golfing public. Anyway, I was just telling you what I read on the web and what I seem to recall reading on this board.
Are you suggesting that the disproportionate gain you think is there is only applicable between tour pros at 120 mph vs weekend warriors at 80 mph?
Not sure what you are getting at here. I can tell you that I don't give a hoot about the driving distances on Tour, except that these guys are often used to the justification for ruining courses. I focus on the Tour stats because those are the stats we have. As to why the USGA focuses on Tour swing speeds, I have no idea. There paper would have been much more enlightening had they used a wider variety of balls and swing speeds.
I am concerned with how well golfers fit together on golf courses, and think a segment of golfers-- mostly but not exclusively recreational golfers-- have been left behind by technology.
My guess is that there aren't a lot of balls out there today that would cross these lines and be flatter. On that I guess we'll disagree.
I am curious, on what basis do you make this guess? Probably the same basis as you make your conjecture that they do cross. Well, actually based on the statement in the USGA paper that: "Actually, there is no extra distance “bonus” for high swing speeds. This is true for the new tour balls, and all others as well."
Don't you agree that this portion of the the USGA paper is talking about the curves for individual balls, and simply stating that they don't slope upward even at high swing speeds? If so, then this has absolutely nothing to do with whether the distance curves of two different balls will cross. In fact look at their data. On one of the charts two of the distance curves do cross. Two others come together, then move apart again.
Do you really believe that a golfer with swing speed of, say, 75 or 80 mph will get just as much distance from a ProV1x as from a ball geared toward slower swings, like the Lady Precept, or whatever is this year's equivalent? No. Such a golfer would get the maximum distance by optimizing the ball based on its spin rate for his swing speed and launch angle. Generally at that swing speed more spin would be good, V1x would be bad. How much worse? I'd have to research that one. Do you really believe that a Pro with a swing speed of 130+ would hit a ball like the Lady Precept close to as far as he hits a ProV1x? I don't know. What do you mean by "close to as far"? Do you mean 10 or 20 or 30 yards less? I'd need to know what the ball's spin rate is at that speed and the launch angle and the COR.
I didnt have a specific amount in mind. How much less do you think it would be? However much, if you agree that the 130+ swinger would hit the other ball less far by any distance, then you agree that the respective distance curves of these two balls would cross and only those with swing speeds faster than this point would benefit from the ProV1x, compared to the other ball.
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We can talk about what degree of disproportionality we should be concerned with, but the meaning of "disproportonate" is what it is.
I guess that was the point I was trying to address with you. I took your previous comments on disproportionate to mean significantly large. So, at what level of disproportionality do you think we should be concerned?
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Ever since we first started discussing this stuff you keep trying to get me to commit to some specific distance disparity (usually 10 yards) with which we should be concerned. Given the lack a complete data set, I just cant and wont throw out numbers.
You have previously taken a position that there is disproportionality and implied that it is significant. I just keep trying to understand what constitutes significant in your mind.
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Are you suggesting that the disproportionate gain you think is there is only applicable between tour pros at 120 mph vs weekend warriors at 80 mph?
Not sure what you are getting at here. I can tell you that I don't give a hoot about the driving distances on Tour, except that these guys are often used to the justification for ruining courses. I focus on the Tour stats because those are the stats we have. As to why the USGA focuses on Tour swing speeds, I have no idea. There paper would have been much more enlightening had they used a wider variety of balls and swing speeds.
I guess I misunderstood your previous posts. You lamented that it's too bad that the USGA study didn't go to lower speeds than 90 mph, because there might be some instructive information at those lower speeds. From that I assumed your point of comparison was low speed swingers below 90 mph, as compared to high speed swingers at 130 mph. The Tour players and only a few of them are the most visible players at that swing speed.
I am concerned with how well golfers fit together on golf courses, and think a segment of golfers-- mostly but not exclusively recreational golfers-- have been left behind by technology.
Now, I'm confused again. Are you saying the slow swinging recreational golfer has been left behind the high speed swinging recreational golfer? Or the competitive amateur? or the pros? As it relates to golfers fitting together on golf courses, shouldn't slow swing recreational players play the white tees. The competitive amateurs the blue tees, and the pros, the tips? Surely most people can fit most courses if they select the right tee blocks to play from.
I didnt have a specific amount in mind. How much less do you think it would be? However much, if you agree that the 130+ swinger would hit the other ball less far by any distance, then you agree that the respective distance curves of these two balls would cross and only those with swing speeds faster than this point would benefit from the ProV1x, compared to the other ball.
I've never disputed that the V1x will go further than a V1 or other higher spinning balls, for example, at optimal launch conditions for high speed swingers. According to the Wishon Trajectory Software, a ball launched at the same ball speed and launch angle by a 110 mph swing, but, with 1000 rpms less spin would gain 1 yard in carry distance. I don't know what it would be at 130 mph.
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David,
My problems twofold. Both are both related architecture.
1. Same as you, I dont like our great courses getting ruined or new 8000 yard courses being built.
2. The distance gap between big hitters and short hitters has grown to the point where many courses no longer work well for both groups, especially when a long hitter and a short hitter are close to the same ability. Think of the changes at Augusta . . . whatever people think of how the changes work for the tournament play, there should be no doubt that they make course worse for the members.
Regarding your second point, not to keep carping on this, but, according to the USGA study from 2000-2005, and John V's comparison of 1995 to 2005, for the PGA Tour, there is no increasing distance gap between the slow and fast swingers.
Re Augusta, are you referring to the increased length? If so, how does that impact the members? Surely they aren't foolish enough to play the Masters tees are they? If you're referring to the second cut, is that kept in place for member play? Is its impact significant? Now, the trees may have a negative impact on the members. Are they in play from the members tees?
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The real question:
It occured to me, after my last post, that maybe people ought to give their reasons for what they perceive the "distance problem" to be, or if it even exists at all for them (JohnK certainly doesn't seem to think there's a problem at all, for example).
For me personally there is no distance issue. I've played the same course from the same 6600 yard tees for 15 years. When I play away, which is often, I play courses from 6400 to 6600 yards where possible. I'm longer now than then, but I certainly can't overpower the course, and my scores have improved somewhat because I have the opportunity to play more rather than any distance increases. If I want to punish myself I can go back to the 7000 yard tees or the 7300 yard ones, but I don't do that often. What's the point. It's not fun.
For me, there are two real issues:
1) lengthening courses, both through stretching older classics and building newer unwalkable beasts; and
Lengthening old classic courses is regrettable, but not a real issue for me since I don't get to play them. If the membership wants to do it to entertain the Tour, that's their decision. They "own" it. If I did play them it wouldn't be from the tips anyway, so pure lengthening wouldn't be an issue for me. My course, now 15 years old, was one of the newer beasts I guess. It can play up to 7300 yards. It's no different from a walkability point of view than the 6600 yard tees. In my opinion walkability is not so much a function of pure course length as it is the routing and the extent to which housing and topography dictate distance between holes.
2) re-establishing some choice into the game, some recognition of the old tortoise/hare question the old designers spoke of. The first is clear cut (at least I think it is), the second goes back to making the game more interesting and more entertaining, at least to me. I hate flogging and I hate aerial drop and stop golf, where the only real decision is which club to hit. I loved the Open at Shinnecock.
I'm not so sure that flogging and aerial golf is a function necessarily of new technology or especially the ball. Perhaps, in the absence of the technological advances so many hate, Vijay and others might have still decided to flog. I have a hard time believing that Vijay would stop flogging, if the ball was dialled back 25 yards and courses returned to 6900 yards. Flogging is really a course management strategy. They could certainly do it with balata balls and shorter (than now) courses. Aerial golf seems to me to have resulted from American course design approaches rather than as a result of technology advances. Who can we blame for target golf courses - Pete Dye and Sawgrass? I am a much bigger fan of Scottish links courses than American aerial tour courses. So many more options and unfair bounces and fun. But, I wouldn't relate this issue to technolgoy.
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DM: We can talk about what degree of disproportionality we should be concerned with, but the meaning of "disproportonate" is what it is.
I guess that was the point I was trying to address with you. I took your previous comments on disproportionate to mean significantly large. So, at what level of disproportionality do you think we should be concerned?
. . .
You have previously taken a position that there is disproportionality and implied that it is significant. I just keep trying to understand what constitutes significant in your mind.
I think we could be concerned when the game becomes out of balance (by which I mean the architecture no longer functioning well across a broad playing spectrum of abilities.) I know that is not what you are looking for but I just cannot put a number on it because I just don't have the data or the technical ability. Since we are really dealing with not just one number but comparing a changing slope over a large speed spectrum, it is just too burdensome, complicated, and pointless to speculate on specifics without real numbers, and if I try I'll just be accused of making stuff up. It is more of a feel thing from playing, watching, listening and reading about the game.
If the USGA would give us the numbers I'd be glad to try and quantify it, but I wont hold my breath for the numbers.
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Now, I'm confused again. Are you saying the slow swinging recreational golfer has been left behind the high speed swinging recreational golfer? Or the competitive amateur? or the pros? As it relates to golfers fitting together on golf courses, shouldn't slow swing recreational players play the white tees. Surely most people can fit most courses if they select the right tee blocks to play from.
Yes, the slower swinging recreational golfers has been left behind by technology, compared to the high speed swinging recreational golfer. Some top players with slower swings are being left behind as well, but I just dont care about them as much. Probably petty jealousy.
As for choosing tees, you are making an assumption that doesnt always apply yet is always assumed in these discussions. You suggest the shorter hitters move up, yet the shorter hitters are not necessarily worse golfers. I can drive it out there with numerous low digit index players, yet they crush me every time. If players of the similar overall abilities cannot enjoy the game from the same tees, then in my opinion, the game is out of balance. Unfortunately I think we are at or past that point.
Further, even multiple tees can only make up for so much of distance discrepency The course on t.v. this weekend (around 7,500 yds I think) has 122 tees for 18 holes. That is almost seven tees per hole. I do not think it is possible for architecture to work well from seven different tee boxes per hole. This is no insult to the architect. I doubt too many architects are good enough to build golf holes that work from what must be well over an average of 100 yards of tees per hole.
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I've never disputed that the V1x will go further than a V1 or other higher spinning balls, for example, at optimal launch conditions for high speed swingers. According to the Wishon Trajectory Software, a ball launched at the same ball speed and launch angle by a 110 mph swing, but, with 1000 rpms less spin would gain 1 yard in carry distance. I don't know what it would be at 130 mph.
I know you havent ever actually disputed this, which is why I was surprised when you said that you didn't think the distance curves of many balls would actually cross. If one ball performs better at high speeds and another ball performs better at low speeds, then their distance curves will necessarily cross at some point in between. With the USGA stats we are looking at very similar balls, and even there we see at least two balls crossing paths.
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Regarding your second point, not to keep carping on this, but, according to the USGA study from 2000-2005, and John V's comparison of 1995 to 2005, for the PGA Tour, there is no increasing distance gap between the slow and fast swingers.
I asked you this above, and I'll ask again, because I am very curious as to your answer. What do you think of the methodology behind this small portion of the USGA's study? Did they actually control for slow and fast swings? Did they actually control for the level of technological advancements these golfers adopted? What are the shortcomings of the methodology? What do you think the USGA actually proved?
I would very much appreciate it if you would critique this portion of the USGA "study" as if it had been my handiwork, and not the USGA's. Thanks.
Re Augusta, are you referring to the increased length? If so, how does that impact the members? Surely they aren't foolish enough to play the Masters tees are they? If you're referring to the second cut, is that kept in place for member play? Is its impact significant? Now, the trees may have a negative impact on the members. Are they in play from the members tees?
I was more referring to the narrowing of the tree corridors, the changes to some of the playing angles, and the rearranging of many of the sand traps. I havent been there but based on Bob Crosby's insightful write-up from a few weeks ago, I' believe that these changes definitely have impacted the course from the members' tees.
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Quote from: Bryan Izatt on Yesterday at 07:07:57pm
Do you agree that 10 yards would be your definition of disproprtionate? If there is as much as a 10 yard difference in 5 conforming modern Tour-played balls of similar construction, then would you not agree that disproportionate would need to be larger than that?
Response from David Moriarty;
"Huh? In the context of this discussion, I dont really consider "disproportionate" to be a subjective value term. In terms of this discussion, a 1 yard net increase is disproportionate, 10 yards is disproportionate, 20 yards is disproportionate. We can talk about what degree of disproportionality we should be concerned with, but the meaning of "disproportonate" is what it is."
Bryan:
Let me ask you something. Do you really want to carry on a discussion on this distance issue with a guy who says something like that? ;)
David Moriarty continues to say to Bryan Izatt;
"Ever since we first started discussing this stuff you keep trying to get me to commit to some specific distance disparity (usually 10 yards) with which we should be concerned. Given the lack a complete data set, I just cant and wont throw out numbers."
Bryan:
Isn't that interesting? Here's a guy who's been complaining about a "distance problem", particularly in the context of a disproportionate distance gain of high swing speed players vs slow swing speed players; here we have a guy who creates his own "hypothetical" graphs and data to apparently show what a "disporportionate" gain in distance of high swing speed players vs slow swing speed players IS. And here we have a guy who now refuses to commit to any number at all that represents distance, much less what a "distance disparity" means to him?! :)
Bryan, do you really want to continue to try to have a discussion with someone like that or someone who says things like this? I'm pretty sure you know as well as I do what constitutes a total waste of time. ;)
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I guess I should expect another useless response but I suppose a reasonable thing to ask David Moriarty at this point is if he feels there was a disproportionate distance advantage for high swing speed players or some disporportionate "distance disparity" between high swing speed players and slow swing speed players during that time (probably pre-1995) when most all high swing speed players used high spin rate (soft balls) golf balls and most all low swing speed players used low spin rate (hard balls) golf balls? ;)
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Bryan Izatt said;
"Following is a quote from the Wishon golf site that addresses this point:
"Even though much has been said in the past year about the combination of higher launch angle, lower backspin and high ball velocity being the key to greater distance, TWGT research has also shown that this combination including a low spin rate is only right for golfers who are able to generate a ball speed of 155mph and higher (approx. swing speed of 105mph and above). For all other golfers with a ball velocity of less than 155 mph, MORE backspin will help increase distance, with the lower the ball speed, the more spin is required for optimization."
Bryan:
I am not very technically minded but if that quotation from Wishon golf is factual in the world of golf I&B physics, do you not see at least a potentially interesting effect on distance production across the swing speed spectrum in that quotation?
In other words, could a ball speed of 155mph (a swing speed of 105mph) be some interesting "breaking point" in the world of golf I&B physics distance increase-wise when some factor of spin rate is applied?
Let's say a ball that reputedly spun as much as the old three piece balata (apparently app 3,000rpm) was the required MINIMUM spin rate a golf ball could have (assuming 3,000rpm is off a driver of a 105mph and above swing speed (155mph ball speed) player under fairly optimum conditions).
If this were true perhaps it is at that point when high swing speed players begin to generate that flight trajectory with the old high spin rate balls (app 3,000rpms) that is practically the opposite of distance enhancing.
If this were true it should also mean that slower swing speed players (104mph and below) should be using increasingly higher spin rate balls as swing speed decreases for optimum distance production for them. (It of course goes without saying that slower swing speed players never could generate enough swing speed anyway to produce that high swing peed trajectory that was basically the opposite of distance enhancing).
If all this is true it would also appear that pre-1995 both slow swingers and high swingers (above and below 105mph) were using golf balls that had almost precisely the opposite type of spin rate that was optimal for them distance-wise.
Why was that? How could that have been? The answer probably lies in the fact that they may not have been that aware of the specific distance meaning of this spin rate phenomenon or else they were simply looking for something else in the golf balls they used.
This may be true because there's little question that high spin rate balls were the only balls back then that felt soft (that better players required around the greens) while the low swing speed players (less good golfers) were basically looking for a ball that was cheaper and more durable against cutting etc (the low spinning hard ball) and they frankly really didn't notice or care much about the different performance characteristics around greens.
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This is an interesting discussion and a very interesting study.
What the USGA data show and what the Wishon site is alluding to is that fortunately for all of us, the current equipment speed/distance curve is beginning to flatten and will quickly flatten just beyond what is shown in the graph. This is because wind resistance (air density and drag) are overcomming any continuing advantage with club head speed alone.
The USGA study also indicates that the swing speed increases do not show a clear advantage UNDER THE SAME TEST CONDITIONS. What this means is that adjustments must be made to capitalize on any improvements. This would mean specifically adjusting the COR to offset the deminished COR at higher swing speeds. This is of course against rules now because any adjustment such as this would test above the allowable COR in a static test.
The other adjustment that can be made is to increase the launch angle to compensate for the reduced launch angle and increased spin at higher swing speeds. This could produce the results of longer distance but I think what the USGA is saying (although not directly) is that this would be considered an equipment change and not an attribute related directly to the ball.
Remember, the problem statement was to prove whether the new ball created an advantage at higher swing speeds. To prove this it must be done under the same conditions.
The most interesting part of this report to me was the fact that we may be seeing the horizon on equipment advantages period. (Excluding the truly revolutionary and hotly debated things that come around every few decades or so) It appears that it will be more and more difficult to overcome the forces of air resistance if developments follow their current course.
Aside from the obvious fact that current solid core balls have made a huge difference in distance over the old wound balls, the clubhouse bar talk of additional advantages for the pros seems to be debunked here. Chalk another up to "urban legend"?
Cheers.
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David,
As for choosing tees, you are making an assumption that doesnt always apply yet is always assumed in these discussions. You suggest the shorter hitters move up, yet the shorter hitters are not necessarily worse golfers. I can drive it out there with numerous low digit index players, yet they crush me every time. If players of the similar overall abilities cannot enjoy the game from the same tees, then in my opinion, the game is out of balance. Unfortunately I think we are at or past that point.
I agree short hitters are not necessarily worse golfers. I play on and off with a guy who's a few years older than me, but a whole lot shorter (260 vs 220 off the tee). His index is a stroke or two better than mine. He regularly beats me from the same tees, because he can get up and down from anywhere, and he expects to make putts from anywhere on the green. My strength is length, his is short game. We play from the same tees. He beats me. He seems to have fun. I don't see how this is out of balance. If we played a shorter version of the course would it make any difference to our competitiveness? I don't think so. If we used balls that brought our relative distance closer together and played a shorter course, would it be equally competitive? Nope, he'd probably kill me. Where's the fairness in that. I have one skill, he has another. How would you fairly decide which one trumps the other.
I know you havent ever actually disputed this, which is why I was surprised when you said that you didn't think the distance curves of many balls would actually cross. If one ball performs better at high speeds and another ball performs better at low speeds, then their distance curves will necessarily cross at some point in between. With the USGA stats we are looking at very similar balls, and even there we see at least two balls crossing paths.
It's possible they could cross. You must have better eyes than mine to see a crossing in the USGA data.
For your consideration, let's hypothesize that we could create a composite line that is based on the optimal ball and launch conditions at each swing speed. For example you believe a Lady Precept would go further than a V1x at 85 mph swing speed and conversely the V1x goes further at 125 mph. If we found the optimal ball and launch condition for each mph across the spectrum, what do you suppose the curve would look like. I'd hypothesize that it is an elongated S. The bottom would be slighty flattened as would the top (matching the USGA charts). Now, the question is, if we rolled back the ball as many want to do around here, how would you change that S curve. Would you flatten the top of the S more to bring the long hitters back more to centre? Would you steepen the bottom part to make it more linear? Or would you make it linear with a flattened slope? Which would be the fairest? What are your criteria in determinig what's fair?
I asked you this above, and I'll ask again, because I am very curious as to your answer. What do you think of the methodology behind this small portion of the USGA's study? Did they actually control for slow and fast swings? Did they actually control for the level of technological advancements these golfers adopted? What are the shortcomings of the methodology? What do you think the USGA actually proved?
I don't recall you asked before, but here goes. The USGA study's main point was to address the question of whether a modern tour ball went disproportionately further at higher swing speeds. Their study methodology to address that point looks fine to me.
The methodology does not address your point of how much further a modern tour ball goes at high speed than another ball might go at lower speeds.
In terms of their comparison of Tour distances from 2000 to 2005, the methodology does not control for the variables that are likely involved. What the results indicate is the difference that all technology changes and player changes and agronomy changes and weather changes made to overall distance in that time frame. In respect of swing speed, did they control for that? Not scientifically, unless they measured the swing speeds of the involved players in the two time periods. I'm guessing they didn't. However, if you look at the graph it clearly states that it is distance gain vs "distance rank". In that context of distance rank they controlled. So, in that context the data and conclusion are valid.
The problem I have with many of your hypotheses and statements and assertions is that they are generic in nature and emotive in tone. That is why I keep digging in to try to focus your hypotheses. Then we can assess whether your data or anybody elses is controlled enough to support or disprove the hypotheses.
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TEP,
Bryan, do you really want to continue to try to have a discussion with someone like that or someone who says things like this? I'm pretty sure you know as well as I do what constitutes a total waste of time.
I know, I know. But it's cold and rainy here. And I've been recovering from surgery the last few days, so this discussion helps to keep my mind active. And, I do see some movement in David's position.
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TEP,
If all this is true it would also appear that pre-1995 both slow swingers and high swingers (above and below 105mph) were using golf balls that had almost precisely the opposite type of spin rate that was optimal for them distance-wise.
Why was that? How could that have been? The answer probably lies in the fact that they may not have been that aware of the specific distance meaning of this spin rate phenomenon or else they were simply looking for something else in the golf balls they used.
This may be true because there's little question that high spin rate balls were the only balls back then that felt soft (that better players required around the greens) while the low swing speed players (less good golfers) were basically looking for a ball that was cheaper and more durable against cutting etc (the low spinning hard ball) and they frankly really didn't notice or care much about the different performance characteristics around greens.
I believe the whole phenomenon of optimization is fairly recent - certainly post 1995 for the masses. So, I'd guess that there wasn't a whole lot of intelligent analysis in those days.
It'd be hard to say that the Pinnacle was the wrong ball for the average (not necessarily slower) swinger from a driving perspective. It was definitely wrong from a softness/spinning ability around the greens.
I don't have any data on what the spin rate was with the equipment of that day. And optimizing spin relates to increasing carry distance. So the spin rate may have been sufficient. Roll out distance is better with the lower spinning balls. So, overall distance might still have been an improvement over balata balls, but still not optimal. The current optimization craze is about optimizing carry distance, not necessarily rollout distance, by the way.
I believe in those days most amateurs who played Pinnacles did so for price, durability and maybe distance third.
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"It'd be hard to say that the Pinnacle was the wrong ball for the average (not necessarily slower) swinger from a driving perspective."
Bryan:
But that seems to be precisely what Wishon Golf is saying in that quotation from them you offered above. They seem to be saying one technical or physics method of enhancing distance of progressively slower swingers (below 105mph) is with higher rather than lower spin rate. I have no idea if that's true or not. To be honest, that's the first time I've ever heard some tech people say that. But one of the reasons may be because I never thought to ask that question specifically.
Or did I? Perhaps I did without exactly knowing it. I think I recall the USGA Tech Center telling me that if a regulation was placed on the MINIMUM amout of spin rate a golf ball could have (That was my question as to what that would mean regarding excessive distance) that that would not necessarily negatively effect lower swing speed players distance-wise although it almost certainly would negatively effect very high swing speed players.
"I don't have any data on what the spin rate was with the equipment of that day."
May be you don't but I believe the USGA certainly does. It could be something like 3,000 rpms vs 2,000 rpms. At least that number was mentioned at one point during my conversations. To me that's a big difference or should make a big difference, I would think.
Although they have never actually regulated the spin rate of golf balls I believe they have monitored the spin rate of golf balls for years. (and that may've been the very thing that promoted me to ask about spin rate in the first place when we were standing next to the Initial Velocity Test machine around which the issue of spin rate must have been mentioned. BTW, Initial Velocity is one of the five factors the USGA has regulated for years).
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would also appear that pre-1995 both slow swingers and high swingers (above and below 105mph) were using golf balls that had almost precisely the opposite type of spin rate that was optimal for them distance-wise.
Why was that? How could that have been? The answer probably lies in the fact that they may not have been that aware of the specific distance meaning of this spin rate phenomenon or else they were simply looking for something else in the golf balls they used.
This may be true because there's little question that high spin rate balls were the only balls back then that felt soft (that better players required around the greens) while the low swing speed players (less good golfers) were basically looking for a ball that was cheaper and more durable against cutting etc (the low spinning hard ball) and they frankly really didn't notice or care much about the different performance characteristics around greens.
TEPaul, All of this should be of no surprise to you, as some of us have been saying exactly this for some time now. As opposed to rehashing the same ground here, perhaps you should go back and reread some of the old distance threads where we discussed this at length.
For example in the "Ruination" thread, a few posters (including me) made this exact point. In fact here is one of our exchanges:
DMoriarty said: "But the slow swing player is subject to the opposite phenomenon. The slow swing player needs spin to get the lift necessary to maximize his carry.
. . . [L]ift is created by backspin, ball speed, or some combination of the two. Slow swingers dont generate the ball speed so spin is a positive in getting the necessary lift to acheive more carry. With the low spin balls, they are stuck with their usual slow ball speed plus they lsose spin which gives them lift.
I dont understand why this is such a sticking point for you. . . .
Excerpts from TEPaul's response:
I'll tell you precisely why it's a sticking point with me. It's because I believe it is total horseshit and I don't care what that Titleist website says about spin rate, drag, lift, trajectory, carry distance, roll or whatever.
. . .
If you feel like telling me I must have been seeing things for twenty years or that I'm not telling the truth----then fine---in that case this discussion on this subject between you and me is over.
By the way Tom, I was looking at the charts in the USGA technical report and observing that there may be as much as 10 yards distance difference between some of the balls. Which of these balls' distance curves most closely represents that of the old Pinnacle, which you have repeatedly and vehemently claimed would have had essentially the same distance curve as the modern distance ball?
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Bryan said:
I agree short hitters are not necessarily worse golfers. I play on and off with a guy who's a few years older than me, but a whole lot shorter (260 vs 220 off the tee). His index is a stroke or two better than mine. He regularly beats me from the same tees, because he can get up and down from anywhere, and he expects to make putts from anywhere on the green. My strength is length, his is short game. We play from the same tees. He beats me. He seems to have fun. I don't see how this is out of balance. If we played a shorter version of the course would it make any difference to our competitiveness? I don't think so. If we used balls that brought our relative distance closer together and played a shorter course, would it be equally competitive? Nope, he'd probably kill me. Where's the fairness in that. I have one skill, he has another. How would you fairly decide which one trumps the other.
Fairness? I dont care about fairness. I care about how well the golf course architecture works across the spectrum of swing speeds.
It's possible they could cross. You must have better eyes than mine to see a crossing in the USGA data.
They do cross. Take another look at the chart on page 7.
For your consideration, let's hypothesize that we could create a composite line that is based on the optimal ball and launch conditions at each swing speed. For example you believe a Lady Precept would go further than a V1x at 85 mph swing speed and conversely the V1x goes further at 125 mph. If we found the optimal ball and launch condition for each mph across the spectrum, what do you suppose the curve would look like. I'd hypothesize that it is an elongated S. The bottom would be slighty flattened as would the top (matching the USGA charts).
I think the curve would consist of a number of segments from the curves of different balls, and that the general trend would be from flatter to steeper, so that the distance benefit increases as swing speed increase. The individual segments (including the last/top one) might have a diminishing slope curve, but overall the slope would be steepening.
I've been considering just such issue and planned to ask you the same question.
Now, the question is, if we rolled back the ball as many want to do around here, how would you change that S curve. Would you flatten the top of the S more to bring the long hitters back more to centre? Would you steepen the bottom part to make it more linear? Or would you make it linear with a flattened slope? Which would be the fairest? What are your criteria in determinig what's fair?
I'd lower the top end and get rid of the increasing slope so the slope was more consistent throughout. I'd base this on looking at the great architecture and looking on past proportions of long and short swingers to see what worked best.
I dont give a hoot which would be fairer as long as it worked with the architecture.
I dont want to get sidetracked so I'll address the rest of your post at a later time. Thank you for answering my question.
DM
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David Moriarty:
If you want to delve back into the deep back pages and pat yourself on the back by proving me wrong on some point then please be my guest. That seems to be your intention with me on these threads anyway.
You most certainly did say that slow swingers are benefited distance-wise by higher spinning golf balls. As I recall that's what came from the Titleist web-site, and now the Wishon Golf website. My point with you on that response, however, was at the other end of the spectrum higher speed swingers using high spin rate golf balls were getting deleterious results distance-wise for so many years. High swing speed players almost exlusively used to use high spin rate golf balls.
I kept mentioning that to you because you seem to think that when they finally switched en masse to a lower spinning ball that was NOT deleterious to them distance-wise you kept maintaining that the higher swing speed players got some disproportionate and unfair distance advantage compared to other lower swing speed players.
For the life of me I just can't understand how you think that high swing speed players are getting some unfair advantage when basically EVERYONE (slow and high swing speed players alike) began using a much lower spin rate ball? If everyone is basically using a low spin rate golf ball or even the same kind of golf ball spin rate-wise for the first time after all these years I just can't see why you think high swing speed players got some big advantage all of a sudden compared to the rest. To me that would basically be bringing all swing speeds back into a logical AND FAIR progression distance-wise.
Or so I thought because I'd always assumed that low swing speed players were never effected deleteriously distance-wise by low spin rate golf balls. That would certainly appear to be what all low swing speed players thought too because they always used low spin rate golf balls (the "rock" or two piece solid core ball). Matter of fact, slow swing speed players still are using low spin rate balls.
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David Moriarty:
To follow up on that thread above about high and low spin rate golf balls, I became aware a couple of years ago from the USGA Tech Center just how and why high swing speed players were negatively effected distance-wise by high spin rate golf balls.
That's when I first thought of the idea that putting a new regulation (a sixth regulation) on the MINIMUM amount of spin rate a golf ball could have would be a way of effectively stopping and even rollbacking the excessive distances high swing speed players have been hitting the ball in the last ten or so years (By the way, the R&A/USGA has never regulated a golf ball's spin rate).
That would solve the distance problem with the high swing speed player. But I thought like apparently almost everyone else did that if a regulation was put on the MINIMUM amount of spin rate a golf ball could have that that would hurt all golfers distance-wise as much or more than it would the high swing speed player.
And then I asked the USGA Tech Center again if a higher spin rate regulation on golf balls would commensurately hurt lower swing speed players distance-wise. They basically said no. So to me that made implimenting a MINIMUM spin rate regulation even better.
I just frankly never thought that if the spin rate was increased progressively as the swing speed decreased that that would actually benefit the distance of low swing speed players.
So, now understanding that I can't imagine how putting a MINIMUM spin rate regulation on the golf ball could NOT be the perfect answer to both the excessive distance problem with high swing speed players today as well as the increased disparity in distance between players at either end of the swing speed spectrum.
But the thing that really blows my mind is how almost all low swing speed players all these years have assumed that those low spinning rocks like the two piece hard core ball was helping them distance-wise because I can pretty much guarantee you that's what they all thought.
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Fairness? I dont care about fairness. I care about how well the golf course architecture works across the spectrum of swing speeds.
David, that's a good one. I think the part I've highlighted should be your new signature line - forget the Dan Pohl thing. ;D
I think you will never get your wish that an architecture will work across a whole spectrum of swing speeds. There will always be(and have always been) players that can carry a hazard, or fly a bunker, or cut a corner, or hit a high, long, soft landing shot that will defeat architectural features that will impact shorter players. Unless you can legislate balls that fly further for slow swingers and shorter for fast swingers, i.e. a ball that goes the same distance (or thereabouts) no matter how hard you hit it. I suppose there's no use in me saying, where's the fairness in that.
It's possible they could cross. You must have better eyes than mine to see a crossing in the USGA data.
They do cross. Take another look at the chart on page 7.
I forgot that I could enlarge the Acrobat file. Yes, I see that ball C crosses ball A below 100 mph. One point for you. ;) Personally I'd like to know what Ball B is. It's longer across the spectrum than any of the others. And keep me away from Ball D, it's 10 yards shorter at my swing speed. I bet the manufacturers would be aghast and in lawsuit mood if the answers as to which ball is which ever came out. Who's got the lousy designer?
For your consideration, let's hypothesize that we could create a composite line that is based on the optimal ball and launch conditions at each swing speed. For example you believe a Lady Precept would go further than a V1x at 85 mph swing speed and conversely the V1x goes further at 125 mph. If we found the optimal ball and launch condition for each mph across the spectrum, what do you suppose the curve would look like. I'd hypothesize that it is an elongated S. The bottom would be slighty flattened as would the top (matching the USGA charts).
I think the curve would consist of a number of segments from the curves of different balls, and that the general trend would be from flatter to steeper, so that the distance benefit increases as swing speed increase. The individual segments (including the last/top one) might have a diminishing slope curve, but overall the slope would be steepening.
I've been considering just such issue and planned to ask you the same question.
I was thinking 1 mph segments which would make the line fairly smooth, but segmented it is. It sounds like you see it the same way I do, but I'm not sure.
Now, the question is, if we rolled back the ball as many want to do around here, how would you change that S curve. Would you flatten the top of the S more to bring the long hitters back more to centre? Would you steepen the bottom part to make it more linear? Or would you make it linear with a flattened slope? Which would be the fairest? What are your criteria in determinig what's fair?
I'd lower the top end and get rid of the increasing slope so the slope was more consistent throughout. I'd base this on looking at the great architecture and looking on past proportions of long and short swingers to see what worked best.
If you had time, you could draw a hypothetical chart so we could agree or disagree. If you see the bottom end as flattish, but with some slope, and the USGA shows the top end as flattening a little bit, do you see the slope at the bottom end as being the same as the slope at the top end. For arguments sake, if the bottom end was 1 yard per MPH, and the middle was 2 yards per MPH, would you see the top end as 1 yard per MPH? Or do you really want a linear line that has a constant slope of 1 yard per mph (200 at 80 mph vs 250 at 130 MPH)? We've got to help the USGA here in what the target criteria should be, although we're not likely to agree.
I dont give a hoot which would be fairer as long as it worked with the architecture.
I've lost track of your golfing background. Do you play only to manage your way around the architecture of a course? Is success of a round to you, your ability to manage your game to avoid the hazards and plot your way around the course according to your interpretation of the design intent of the architect? What do you do when the design intent is defeated by weather conditions? Do you play in competition - against friends and buddies informally or in formal tournaments? Do you not want that competition to be fair? Is not golf always competition, against somebody or against the course and par?
I dont want to get sidetracked so I'll address the rest of your post at a later time. Thank you for answering my question.
DM
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Since it's raining and you guys have nothing better to do, perhaps one of you can tell me whether the following that appeared as a comment on Geoff's website is reasonable.
" Um, just breezed through it, but this report is seriously flawed."
"The launch angle people typically aim for is about 15-16 degrees, not 9-10. At such a low launch angle, the ball will land too early. This test seems to assume people are aiming at hitting the ball using only the loft of the clubhead, not on a tee and at an ascending angle."
"Quick cut and paste from the folks at Bombsquad:
Clubhead speed/launch angle/spin (ideal)
100mph 16-18.5 3900-4200
110mph 15.5-17.5 3800-4050
120mph 15-17 3750-3900
130mph 14-16 3500-3800
140mph 13-15 3300-3550
150mph 12.5-14 3000-3300
160mph 12-13.5 2750-3200
170mph 11-12 2500-2700"
"Another thing: I just blew through it, not reading every last word, but I don't remember seeing too much about ball construction. If anyone found this, let me know. They say "use on PGA tour", but they use a variety of balls."
"Naturally, they are not going to say whose was used, but anyone reading this report and looking to make sense of it would need to know ball construction, material hardness, etc, before it made any sense. We don't know if the USGA testers used balls that would produce these results, or if they did, in fact, go out and find a variety of balls with greatly differing constructions."
"Last: could not get relyable test results at 130mph and over? Sorry, cop out. The guys at the top end of the driving spectrum hit it at 130mph plus. The long drive guys are getting upward of 150."
"I fear if this was a grad student, his prof would be wearing a frown right now..."
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So, now understanding that I can't imagine how putting a MINIMUM spin rate regulation on the golf ball could NOT be the perfect answer to both the excessive distance problem with high swing speed players today as well as the increased disparity in distance between players at either end of the swing speed spectrum.
Have you crossed to the other side? Are you now accepting that there is an increased disparity in distance between players at either end of the swing speed spectrum? :P
Here's one way that establishing a minimum spin rate wouldn't work. You could ask your USGA contacts about it. They would have to set the minimum rate (let's say 3000 rpm, and then they'd have to establish the baseline conditions for measuring it. What club? What club head loft? What dynamic launch angle (the loft of the club + the angle of attack)? What swing speed? Then after all balls are tested and approved it becomes clear that if you swing at a different speed than the test condition you can impart a different spin. So, you need a minimum spin rate for each swing speed. Presumably the same for all swing speeds (except for unfair Moriarty). Then players would optimize in a different fashion than they do today. Today the use higher loft drivers and low spin balls to get high flat low spinning trajectories. Tomorrow they would opt for lower loft drivers played further forward in their stance to create a positive angle of attack to launch the ball higher than the stated loft of the club. The lower loft driver would impart less spin to the ball but the positive angle of attack would launch it higher. We could be back to where we are now. I think the distance regulation is going to be much more complicated than we think.
But the thing that really blows my mind is how almost all low swing speed players all these years have assumed that those low spinning rocks like the two piece hard core ball was helping them distance-wise because I can pretty much guarantee you that's what they all thought.
And they were probably right that they got more distance. Total distance depends on roll too. Low spin balls run further after landing, so they might have seen that. Also the distance a ball carries depends on more than just the spin. Perhaps the dimpling on the Pinnacles helped more than the lower spin hurt. Also the Pinnacle was a 2 piece ball with a solid core. The Tileist balata was wound with a small liquid filled rubber ball in the centre. I think that the compression/restitution of the 2 piece balls was significantly better than that of the wound balls, leading to a higher ball speed for a given club speed. A higher so-called smash factor. The manufacturers have not only modified spin rate, but also the core and the aerodynamics on the modern ball. I'm sure that the core of the Pinnacle contributed to its improvement in length over wound balls. The trick with the V1's of the world is that they figured out how to use the high velocity cores with soft, sturdy covers, and mantle layers of different materials to impart different spin characteristics with diiferent clubs. They don't have all those PhD's working for mothing. I'm sure most of us here feel that we could make a fair pass at designing a golf course, but I'd bet there's nobody here who could design a golf ball.
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Also, there is this bit on Geoff's homepage that some crackpot came up with you guys might be interested in picking apart.
"I've only skimmed it (I see equations on page 1, eh), but reader G. Bayley writes:"
The paper starts by giving trajectory formulae, but then never uses or references them again. The paper gives references to experiments showing that COR declines with higher swing speed. The largest portion of the paper then replicates this result with five unidentified tour balls. A clear explanation of the previous results would have been enough for me, why replicate an accepted result. Is that doing science? This replication is the first of three results claimed. The second result being that launch angle decreases with increased swing speed. It is totally unclear as to how this came about. The final result claimed was the astounding (satire) result that ball spin rate increases with increasing club speed.
In an appendix, tour driving distance is charted for distance ranges and implicated to agree with the COR result. Since this data has no controls, no reasonable assumption as to what it correlates to can be made and is of little scientific value. Also, the paper claimed that 2000 data was from pros using wound balls, but a graph on the Titleist website would seem to indicate that at the beginning of 2000 27% of the tour players were using the modern ball and by the end of the year 42% were using the modern ball.
The article could stand a little better writing given that it was referenced as the lead item on the USGA home page. For example, I would appreciate it if someone could explain what the following means, "some specification had to be made in how the ball would be positioned on the tee. The tee position was first set at the highest speed in accordance with the ODS" which gives me visions of a tee streaking through space with a ball sitting on it. Perhaps it has no meaning and is just poor writing.
What I would have liked to see was graphs of ball trajectory predicted by the equations that were presented and then ignored, and graphs of ball trajectory as seen in experiments with balls. I would also like to have seen what the model would predict for older balls.
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"I think you will never get your wish that an architecture will work across a whole spectrum of swing speeds. There will always be(and have always been) players that can carry a hazard, or fly a bunker, or cut a corner, or hit a high, long, soft landing shot that will defeat architectural features that will impact shorter players. Unless you can legislate balls that fly further for slow swingers and shorter for fast swingers, i.e. a ball that goes the same distance (or thereabouts) no matter how hard you hit it. I suppose there's no use in me saying, where's the fairness in that."
Bryan:
It has occured to me that is what David Moriarty may be driving at on all these threads about distance. But the prospect of that is so perposterous I haven't mentioned it as yet.
The true irony is the USGA Tech Center in their $10 mil ball study begun in 2002 just may've looked into the possiblility of that (only in a technical sense that is). If the regulatory bodies ever entertained doing something that foolish (in a rules and regs context) I really do feel it would be the total ruination of the game of golf.
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Garland,
I can't see the comment you're quoting on Geoff's site. The only one I see there is yours. Who was the poster? What were his credentials? Are you espousing these as your opinions? If so I'd debate them with you.
Two points though - his table from bomb squad is erroneous. The first column is ball speed, I believe, not club head speed.
The writer of the USGA article was a PhD - so I doubt that he is a grad student anymore or has a prof to frown on him.
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"Have you crossed to the other side? Are you now accepting that there is an increased disparity in distance between players at either end of the swing speed spectrum?"
Bryan:
No, I certainly have not crossed to the other side. Disparity in driving distance across the swing speed spectrum is not a concern of mine and I don't think it should be a concern period.
What concerns me is that the elite player and high swing speed player today is just hitting the ball too far for too many golf courses and that's creating a far bigger problem than it probably should be.
I feel a NEW regulation on spin rate----something the R&A/USGA has never done before should be considered and obviously it would be particularly effective in controlling or rolling back distance for the high swing speed player only if a MINIMUM spin rate regulation was adopted.
The additional good news is technically it would not effect the distance of low swing speed players (like it would high swing speed players) as everyone seemed to think---even if most all low swing speed players obviously have no real idea what type of spin rate would be best for them distance-wise. ;)
Let's just say there is a ton of irony in all this both in the past and still today.
Having said all that I have no idea at all if the regulatory bodies are considering a new regulation on the MINIMUM amount of spin rate a golf ball could have. I am not unaware of the fact that if they did that they would be rendering as "non-conforming" most all golf balls in use today. If they did something like that they would have to bring the regulation in over a period of years just as they did with the old small ball and the large ball.
But as for David Moriarty's apparent point, I just think that is making a mountain out of a molehill or a tempest in a teapot in the extreme.
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Also, there is this bit on Geoff's homepage that some crackpot You should be easier on yourself ;) came up with you guys might be interested in picking apart.
"I've only skimmed it (I see equations on page 1, eh Good to see that Geoff understands his limitations on the subject ), but reader G. Bayley writes:"
The paper starts by giving trajectory formulae, but then never uses or references them again. The paper gives references to experiments showing that COR declines with higher swing speed. The largest portion of the paper then replicates this result with five unidentified tour balls. A clear explanation of the previous results would have been enough for me, why replicate an accepted result. Is that doing science? This replication is the first of three results claimed. The second result being that launch angle decreases with increased swing speed. It is totally unclear as to how this came about. The final result claimed was the astounding (satire) result that ball spin rate increases with increasing club speed.
I'm not sure I get your point above. There were three results he wanted to report from the study, and he did. Why is that replication?
In an appendix, tour driving distance is charted for distance ranges and implicated to agree with the COR result. Since this data has no controls, no reasonable assumption as to what it correlates to can be made and is of little scientific value. Also, the paper claimed that 2000 data was from pros using wound balls, but a graph on the Titleist website would seem to indicate that at the beginning of 2000 27% of the tour players were using the modern ball and by the end of the year 42% were using the modern ball.
We've already agreed that the PGA stats are flawed if the intent was to show only the difference in distance created by balls in that time period. That doesn't invalidate the primary conclusion that there is no disproportionate distance gain in modern tour balls for high speed swingers.
The article could stand a little better writing given that it was referenced as the lead item on the USGA home page. For example, I would appreciate it if someone could explain what the following means, "some specification had to be made in how the ball would be positioned on the tee. The tee position was first set at the highest speed in accordance with the ODS" which gives me visions of a tee streaking through space with a ball sitting on it. Perhaps it has no meaning and is just poor writing.
I assume it has meaning to those people who understand the baseline specifications for the ODS. I would infer that the tee needs to be set at a certain height and position forward or back to achieve the ODS standard at a given swing speed. He did explain in follow up why he needed to be concerned about tee height and position. You're being a little too critical here I think. Who ever said that PhD's should necessarily be good writers. Maybe English wasn't one of his majors.
What I would have liked to see was graphs of ball trajectory predicted by the equations that were presented and then ignored, and graphs of ball trajectory as seen in experiments with balls. I would also like to have seen what the model would predict for older balls.
The USGA hypothesized one question, and then answered it. You, and others, have other questions. Why don't you ask them. Maybe they'd do what you request. What would be the point of graphing the equations vs the experimental results? The experimental results are reality; formulas are generally mathematical simplifications of the reality.
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This thread gives me a headache.
Bryan
Have you ever made a post on golf course architecture or are you all about equipment and technology?
Ran needs to do a better job screening.
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I think some of you dudes should probably check out of GolfClubatlas.com or even any golf website and get yourselves over to some website that deals strictly in science and the processes of scientific testing methods.
If any of you want technical info on the physics of golf balls and golf clubs (not policy opinions on what the R&A/USGA may do in I&B in the future) I suggest you all just call the Tech Center up and ask them.
Some of you guys are acting like there is no USGA Tech Center nor was there ever one and that the world needs your "hypotheticals", graphs, and testing methods to even begin to understand and collect information and data on any of this stuff.
Frankly, it's becoming comical. Some of you guys seem to be frustrated scientists as much as Patrick Mucci is a frustrated courtroom lawyer. ;)
Eckstein:
Like you, maybe all this technical stuff is giving me a headache too but it seems to me Bryan Izatt is by far and away the best and most credible tech minded guy we have on this website and that's a very good thing, in my book. It lends some credibiltiy to this website on these kinds of threads. I'm just glad I'm not the only one who's calling into question some of these guys' convoluted assumptions, premises and conclusions on this distance issue. ;)
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"but it seems to me Bryan Izatt is by far and away the best and most credible tech minded guy we have on this website"
TEP
Great. Its too bad he can't find a tech website. We need more contributors who are interested in golf course architecture.
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"but it seems to me Bryan Izatt is by far and away the best and most credible tech minded guy we have on this website"
TEP
Great. Its too bad he can't find a tech website. We need more contributors who are interested in golf course architecture.
Of course, this begs the question of why you are commenting on this thread...
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"TEP
Great. Its too bad he can't find a tech website. We need more contributors who are interested in golf course architecture."
Eckstein:
Come on now---haven't you heard---this distance problem and how it relates to golf course architecture is the big hot topic in the world of golf and golf architecture and has been for nigh onto ten years now? We need Bryan Izatt.
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Garland,
I can't see the comment you're quoting on Geoff's site. The only one I see there is yours. Who was the poster? What were his credentials? Are you espousing these as your opinions? If so I'd debate them with you.
Two points though - his table from bomb squad is erroneous. The first column is ball speed, I believe, not club head speed.
...
The comment was in response to Geoff's original post alerting readers to the USGA paper. Yesterday it was near the end of what was visible on the home page. By now it might be on one of the archive pages. The poster signed Scott S. Do posters there give credentials? I am not espousing them as my opinions. They did not make a lot of sense to me. Your correction about ball speed helps.
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This thread gives me a headache.
Bryan
Have you ever made a post on golf course architecture or are you all about equipment and technology?
Ran needs to do a better job screening.
Yes, check out the write-up on Casa de Campo in the My Courses section. Or even in this thread on the impact of technology on architecture.
Welcome to the site. If it gives you a headache, then don't read it.
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"TEP
Great. Its too bad he can't find a tech website. We need more contributors who are interested in golf course architecture."
Eckstein:
Come on now---haven't you heard---this distance problem and how it relates to golf course architecture is the big hot topic in the world of golf and golf architecture and has been for nigh onto ten years now? We need Bryan Izatt.
The cheque's in the mail. ;D
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Garland,
I can't see the comment you're quoting on Geoff's site. The only one I see there is yours. Who was the poster? What were his credentials? Are you espousing these as your opinions? If so I'd debate them with you.
Two points though - his table from bomb squad is erroneous. The first column is ball speed, I believe, not club head speed.
...
The comment was in response to Geoff's original post alerting readers to the USGA paper. Yesterday it was near the end of what was visible on the home page. By now it might be on one of the archive pages. The poster signed Scott S. Do posters there give credentials? I am not espousing them as my opinions. They did not make a lot of sense to me. Your correction about ball speed helps.
I looked around Geoff's site and couldn't find it anywhere. Maybe Geoff deleted it. It was flawed in its comments on flawed. 'nuff said.
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The USGA has just published a scientific paper on their website that shows that the ball does NOT get "super-sized" at higher swing speeds.
Please read: http://www.usga.org/news/2006/april/distance.html
Balls don't even exhibit straight-line gains as the swing speed increases because the COR of the driver goes down as swing speed increases and while lift increases as ball speed goes up, drag increases even faster.
Glad to see the Laws of Physics still apply. ;)
Dick Rugge, Head Technoogy Guru, for the USGA spoke on this very subject at the USGA Regional Affairs meeting on Friday in San Mateo.
Interesting results from all their studies.
Best
Dave
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Also, there is this bit on Geoff's homepage that some crackpot You should be easier on yourself ;) came up with you guys might be interested in picking apart.
"I've only skimmed it (I see equations on page 1, eh Good to see that Geoff understands his limitations on the subject ), but reader G. Bayley writes:"
The paper starts by giving trajectory formulae, but then never uses or references them again. The paper gives references to experiments showing that COR declines with higher swing speed. The largest portion of the paper then replicates this result with five unidentified tour balls. A clear explanation of the previous results would have been enough for me, why replicate an accepted result. Is that doing science? This replication is the first of three results claimed. The second result being that launch angle decreases with increased swing speed. It is totally unclear as to how this came about. The final result claimed was the astounding (satire) result that ball spin rate increases with increasing club speed.
I'm not sure I get your point above. There were three results he wanted to report from the study, and he did. Why is that replication?
From the paper. "Experiments have shown that the coefficients of restitution of impact between a golf ball and a clubhead is a smoothly declining (nearly linear) function of clubhead speed (Chou, et. al., 1994; Cochoran, 1998; Lemons, 1998)." This is the work he replicated without giving us clear indication why he chose to do so. Upon reflection, my best guess is that his intent was to update the experiment with modern balls. However, he made no explanation of why it would be necessary to do that.
In an appendix, tour driving distance is charted for distance ranges and implicated to agree with the COR result. Since this data has no controls, no reasonable assumption as to what it correlates to can be made and is of little scientific value. Also, the paper claimed that 2000 data was from pros using wound balls, but a graph on the Titleist website would seem to indicate that at the beginning of 2000 27% of the tour players were using the modern ball and by the end of the year 42% were using the modern ball.
We've already agreed that the PGA stats are flawed if the intent was to show only the difference in distance created by balls in that time period. That doesn't invalidate the primary conclusion that there is no disproportionate distance gain in modern tour balls for high speed swingers.
There is no primary conclusion to invalidate. The data has so many uncontrolled variables that no conclusion can be drawn. For example, one of the uncontrolled variables is the physical training the athletes underwent. If the short hitters perceived that the best thing they could do to get better was to lift weights, and the long hitters concluded that the best thing they could do was to practice their short games, then the results could be attributed to the differences in workouts.
The article could stand a little better writing given that it was referenced as the lead item on the USGA home page. For example, I would appreciate it if someone could explain what the following means, "some specification had to be made in how the ball would be positioned on the tee. The tee position was first set at the highest speed in accordance with the ODS" which gives me visions of a tee streaking through space with a ball sitting on it. Perhaps it has no meaning and is just poor writing.
I assume it has meaning to those people who understand the baseline specifications for the ODS. I would infer that the tee needs to be set at a certain height and position forward or back to achieve the ODS standard at a given swing speed. He did explain in follow up why he needed to be concerned about tee height and position. You're being a little too critical here I think. Who ever said that PhD's should necessarily be good writers. Maybe English wasn't one of his majors.
Who ever said that Ph. D's should necessarily be good writers? My science Ph. D. committee! Writing is one of the primary responsibilities of Ph. D.'s If they are going to continue to research as they have been trained to do, they have an obligation to write, and let people know their results!
What I would have liked to see was graphs of ball trajectory predicted by the equations that were presented and then ignored, and graphs of ball trajectory as seen in experiments with balls. I would also like to have seen what the model would predict for older balls.
The USGA hypothesized one question, and then answered it. You, and others, have other questions. Why don't you ask them. Maybe they'd do what you request. What would be the point of graphing the equations vs the experimental results? The experimental results are reality; formulas are generally mathematical simplifications of the reality.
[/b]
Yes they answered the question posed. So why did they waste my time by making me read the mathematical model that they made no use of? I have sent questions to them and gotten the automated, we'll answer in 10 to 15 days response, but no answers. So I know they got my questions. Why didn't they respond? Probably because they don't see me or my questions as being important enough. Or, perhaps they saw my questions as thinly veiled attemts to elicit data from them that could be used to counter their company line.
What would be the point of graphing the trajectories predicted by the mathematical model and the trajectories produced in the experiments? It would be the way science is done. You make a model or hypothesis, explain what it shows, and then you do the experiments to show whether or not the model holds. For this paper the mathematical model was just fluff, a way of saying look at me, I have a Ph. D.!
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This thread gives me a headache.
Then why are you reading it?
Bryan
Have you ever made a post on golf course architecture or are you all about equipment and technology?
Ran needs to do a better job screening.
I don't know about Bryan, but I have made posts on golf course architecture. You know what? Very few people seem to be interested. Maybe you can help us out by linking us to the illuminating threads on gca that you have initiated. Then we can better spend our time replying there.
:P
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From the paper. "Experiments have shown that the coefficients of restitution of impact between a golf ball and a clubhead is a smoothly declining (nearly linear) function of clubhead speed (Chou, et. al., 1994; Cochoran, 1998; Lemons, 1998)." This is the work he replicated without giving us clear indication why he chose to do so. Upon reflection, my best guess is that his intent was to update the experiment with modern balls. However, he made no explanation of why it would be necessary to do that.
You misunderstand the purpose of the study. The author knows good and well what the COR versus clubhead speed curve for modern Tour golf balls look like. He presents that as background. Then he goes on to perform tests to show the curve of distance versus clubhead speed for modern Tour golf balls. And he explains at length that distance is a function of both COR and aerodynamics. He wants to be able to make a statement that draws a soup-to-nuts conclusion about the distance that modern Tour golf balls travel with high clubhead speeds. I think he made that case pretty succinctly and adequately.
Personally, I think the study was a waste of resources. There is nothing in his COR or aerodynamics results that he didn't go would be there before he started (as would any of a couple hundred professionals in the golf equipment business as well as many well-informed laymen). Yet for political reasons, the USGA obviously thought a complete study was necessary to shut up all the bullshit about "exponential" this and "disproportionate" that. What I believe they underestimated was the willingness of know-nothings to ignore anything they don't understand in pursuit of their continued bullshit. But maybe I'm just cynical.
What I would have liked to see was graphs of ball trajectory predicted by the equations that were presented and then ignored, and graphs of ball trajectory as seen in experiments with balls. I would also like to have seen what the model would predict for older balls.
Garland, the equations have unknown parameters that vary by golf ball characterstics. There is no one curve shape predicted by an equation written out with symbols instead of actual parameter values. Once the experiment is done, working backward to get the parameters and then tracing out curves corresponding to those values will get you a curve that looks so much like the empirical curve as makes no difference. Hell, you can't really tell the different balls apart because they're so similar. Nothing would be gained by twice as many almost-identical curves on the plot. The equations he presents aren't something that needs testing, they are known, settled, accepted by anyone who has bothered to become educated on the subject and not needed at all once you have actual experimental data in front of you.
Yes they answered the question posed. So why did they waste my time by making me read the mathematical model that they made no use of?
It is standard in technical literature to give the theoretical background that you are stating as underlying your experiments. It's like quoting Marbury vs. Madison when you go argue a case in front of the Supremes. It simply establishes the frame of reference in which the discussion takes place.
It would be the way science is done. You make a model or hypothesis, explain what it shows, and then you do the experiments to show whether or not the model holds. For this paper the mathematical model was just fluff, a way of saying look at me, I have a Ph. D.!
The formulas they presented were not a hypothesis or a model to be tested. It was the technical underpinnings that someone might need to understand the experimental results. The experimental results were a laborious undertaking to demonstrate a trivial physical relationship. They phrased it like an experiment but it was really more like a demonstration that you would perform in high school physics class where the result is not in question.
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"Balls don't even exhibit straight-line gains as the swing speed increases because the COR of the driver goes down as swing speed increases."
Hey DaveM, my good little buddy from Bean Town---did you know that when swing speed increases to a super high point that the COR in some drivers goes down to less than nothing??
Yep, that's right. You take a J.B. Holmes or a Tiger and their driver COR specs are not that near the USGA/R&A max COR legal limitation. This comes from some of my moles in the walls of the USGA too.
You want to know why? OK, I'll tell you why. Because neither one of them wants to be out there in the heat of battle in a tournament with a collapsed driver face and at the max COR legal limitation the danger of that happened if they crank one up into overdrive is very real.
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Hey DaveM, my good little buddy from Bean Town---did you know that when swing speed increases to a super high point that the COR in some drivers goes down to less than nothing??
...
And then the ball goes backwards instead of forwards? ;) ;D
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Brent Hutto said:
"Personally, I think the study was a waste of resources. There is nothing in his COR or aerodynamics results that he didn't go would be there before he started (as would any of a couple hundred professionals in the golf equipment business as well as many well-informed laymen). Yet for political reasons, the USGA obviously thought a complete study was necessary to shut up all the bullshit about "exponential" this and "disproportionate" that. What I believe they underestimated was the willingness of know-nothings to ignore anything they don't understand in pursuit of their continued bullshit."
Brent, you go dude! Chase these mindless and caviling little gnats all over the place---step on them and squash them all--I don't care a jot. At the very least send them all to their rooms with no supper.
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"And then the ball goes backwards instead of forwards? ;) ;D"
Yes, in a manner of speaking. How would you feel if you ripped at a golf ball at 130 mph like El Tigre and had to manage your super fast finish to a dead stop with a golf ball trapped in your collapsed face before you ripped your arms off? That would be one of those swings where Tiger actually leaves his feet and does one of his semi-pirouettes. One must be in pretty good shape and damned strong to do that without hurting ones-self.
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...
Hey DaveM, my good little buddy from Bean Town---did you know that when swing speed increases to a super high point that the COR in some drivers goes down to less than nothing??
...
And then the ball goes backwards instead of forwards? ;) ;D
I think it means that the clubhead implodes. ;)
In another life, I was in a presentation that IBM made about multi-processing computers. He put a graph that showed the type of multi-processor that they were dissing's performance curve quickly turned downwards which was ok. But when it passed below 0, I had to point out that this meant that the computer was undoing work that had already been done. I asked if they undid the first work first or the last work first. ;D
Once he understood what I was saying, he tore up the slide and swore never to use it again.
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Brent:
Are you and Bryan a tag-team? ;)
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Garland,
As for multiple variables, there certainly are lots of them. Unfortunately there really is no simple way to get rid of them in a comparison of PGA Tour stats.
You are probably correct that Fred Funk works out more than John Daly. :)
Funny, for years, people like Geoff have mocked the whole workout thing. Now they are starting to try to use it as a way of discrediting any numbers.
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JohnV:
Is that like when matter goes faster than the speed of light and time as we know it begins to run backwards?
;)
"Funny, for years, people like Geoff have mocked the whole workout thing. Now they are starting to try to use it as a way of discrediting any numbers."
Geoff's right---that whole workout thing making these guys strong that results in them hitting the ball farther is a crock, and it always was.
Maybe Tiger did change the way all modern tour pros approach the game by leading them all into the gym, but Tiger has admitted he didn't go into the gym in the first place with the intention of getting strong. He only went into the gym because someone told him that's where the really hot chicks are.
This is just the damn irony of life. He goes to all the trouble of sweating his ass off in the gym not realizing the hottest chick of all is taking care of some other tour pro's babies just about next door to his house.
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Brent,
As you probably figured out, I am not a physicist, nor do I play one on TV. I guess my biggest problem is that the paper was put up accessible from the home page of the USGA and yet a resonably educated person, like I think of myself, could make so little sense of it much of it (other than obvious results 1 and 3). The writer probably did not know who his audience was going to be (people like me), so he couldn't write to his audience. As you wrote, "They phrased it like an experiment but it was really more like a demonstration that you would perform in high school physics class where the result is not in question." The result seemed trivial, and I think you have captured why. Part of what made it seem so trivial was that it would logically seem to me that the 5 balls under tests would show no significant difference (you either have to have a radical new idea to cause a market discontinuity, or you are just following the market leader trying to get a piece of the pie). The equations seemed to have a fudge factor, the two aerodynamic coefficients that they could graph in a graph that I couldn't make much sense of (I printed it in black and white). Couldn't they provide equations for them?
I do think you underestimate me when you write, "You misunderstand the purpose of the study."
I guess I'll send the USGA another email and see if I get put in their ignore file (is it round?) again.
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"(you either have to have a radical new idea to cause a market discontinuity,......... "
Oh God help us, I sure hope we never see another 'market discontinuity' or the world as we've know it will likely be at an end.
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"(you either have to have a radical new idea to cause a market discontinuity,......... "
Oh God help us, I sure hope we never see another 'market discontinuity' or the world as we've know it will likely be at an end.
;D ;D ;D ;D
I assume you meant the "golf" world. I am in the business of trying to provide and or keep up with market discontinuities in the EDA world.
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Garland:
If you took the euphemism out of "market discontinuity" what would it mean to normal people who speak English?
;)
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Garland,
In an appendix, tour driving distance is charted for distance ranges and implicated to agree with the COR result. Since this data has no controls, no reasonable assumption as to what it correlates to can be made and is of little scientific value. Also, the paper claimed that 2000 data was from pros using wound balls, but a graph on the Titleist website would seem to indicate that at the beginning of 2000 27% of the tour players were using the modern ball and by the end of the year 42% were using the modern ball.
We've already agreed that the PGA stats are flawed if the intent was to show only the difference in distance created by balls in that time period. That doesn't invalidate the primary conclusion that there is no disproportionate distance gain in modern tour balls for high speed swingers.
There is no primary conclusion to invalidate. The data has so many uncontrolled variables that no conclusion can be drawn. For example, one of the uncontrolled variables is the physical training the athletes underwent. If the short hitters perceived that the best thing they could do to get better was to lift weights, and the long hitters concluded that the best thing they could do was to practice their short games, then the results could be attributed to the differences in workouts.
I think you missed my point. The primary conclusion I'm referring to is that modern tour balls don't exhibit disproportionate distance gains for high speed swings. The PGA Tour stats are interesting, but scientifically unsound, as I've pointed out several times. Enjoy them for what they are. Everbody else seems to.
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Garland:
If you took the euphemism out of "market discontinuity" what would it mean to normal people who speak English?
;)
What it would mean is that if the ball manufacturers could figure out a way to harness Flubber (trademarked by Disney) in a golf ball, there would be a market discontinuity as other manufacturers tried to figure out how to compete on a new plane. Sort of like when Apple invented the Apple II microcomputer. It took IBM, and others years to catch up.
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Brent:
Are you and Bryan a tag-team? ;)
No, but I do like the frank approach Brent takes to his comments.
Just as a slight side track, Wishon is marketing a slow swing speed driver, apparently targeted primarily to women and seniors. It's designed with a very thin face to allow someone with a swing speed of 75 MPH to flex the face enough to achieve something approaching the 0.830 COR at that swing speed. Two caveats, the face will cave in if hit at 85 MPH; and it's non-conforming, because the USGA says that it fails the new characteristic time COR test. The CT test of course doesn't cause the face to fail, although a real hit would at the speed contemplated by the COR standard.
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I think you missed my point. The primary conclusion I'm referring to is that modern tour balls don't exhibit disproportionate distance gains for high speed swings. The PGA Tour stats are interesting, but scientifically unsound, as I've pointed out several times. Enjoy them for what they are. Everbody else seems to.
Yes, you switched gears so fast I assumed you were still in the same gear, i.e., you will still writing about the tours stats instead of the overall study.
I sent my latest query to the USGA after work last night. They have 10 to 15 days to follow through and meet their promise made in their automated response.
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I think its great the USGA is really studying this, and the results are very interesting, but the thing that was missing was some comparison to the launch conditions of real world pros (since they were talking about the tour)
The launch angles they were attaining during their tests in the paper were several degrees lower than the values that golfers strive for today via optimization, and given that guys like Phil, Tiger and friends have been optimized their launch conditions are probably fairly dissimilar to those generated in the USGA's tests. I'm surprised and disappointed that the USGA didn't point this shortcoming out, surely they were aware of it.
Now maybe the end result would be the same, but maybe not. If I was prez of the USGA for a day I'd have them redo that study with the following changes:
1) get a few real world pros (don't have the give their names, just pick 3 guys from the top 10 in distance) and show their swing speed, launch angle, spin rate and distance under the same conditions as the Iron Byron tests (on the same day if possible to make them more comparable)
2) "optimize" Iron Byron so his launch angle is correct for a given spin rate then redo those tests
3) show distance figures in terms of carry as well as overall distance, since carry is what pros are optimizing for
Carry distance has increased a lot more than overall distance and is most of the problem. If all the distance increases were on the ground it wouldn't be nearly as much of an issue as hitting in the rough would still be a bad thing because you wouldn't get that extra distance since balls don't roll much in the rough. In addition, fairway bunkers would be a greater problem today than they used to be rather than a lesser one as they are today since you wouldn't be flying over them any better than in 1985 but your ball would be on the ground looking for a bunker 25 yards more on every drive.
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Garland,
Were you polite in asking your question? Have you considered phoning them as Tom does, if you don't get an answer?
Why don't you post the question you've asked them. At least I'm curious.
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Doug,
The launch angles they reported in Table #2 are those of their first test. They are certainly not optimal, especially for the lower swing speeds. The higher swing speeds are closer to optimal. The second test result graph was for swing speeds where the launch angles at all speeds were made the same as the one for 120 mph. The third test results, in Figure 6, were for optimal launch angles at each swing speed.
I think it would be safe to say that optimal launch conditions at any swing speed are fairly well agreed on. They are a product of aerodynamics, not who is hitting the ball. In that context I don't see how your additional experiment with a few tour pros would add to the validity of the findings. It is a flaw in the reporting of the results that they didn't say what the optimal parameters are. But I see no reason to think they are conspiring to fix the numbers to make some point.
They do note in the findings on the optimal launch angle that: "It is interesting to note that the distance increase due to optimization at the 125 mph (7.5 yards) is less than half the optimization increase at 90 mph (19 yards)." As I mentioned above the initial launch angles they used were not optimal at all for the lower swing speeds.
I agree on your points on the benefits of low balls vs high balls. Is it your perception that in the old days all the pros hit low balls, and it is the new generation of optimized pros who are hitting high balls? I saw an article that said the average pro launch angle in 1971 was just over 6 degrees. What were they thinking? It's not that they couldn't hit it high. Nicklaus was a noted high ball hitter when he came on tour, for instance. I think again that the players of that era just had a different concept of how to play the game. Low vs high. I don't see any way to regulate back to a lower game, especially with so many tour courses now being aerial target courses.