Spin, I Don't Get It

[xamilo]

Originally Posted by Pa Jayhawk

A thin soft cover, assuming you are refering to spin off a wedge or iron and not side spin on say a driver. Although this would be influenced by comparing a two-piece to three-pieced golf bal.

Yes indeed, the fact is I don't understand technically why would a softer cover give more spin. I can understand a rougher dimple patern might spin more, but the cover...

[zaphod]

Originally Posted by LyleG

Exactly, everything spins good with full shots. Its the short shots, inside 50 yards, where the premium balls earn their keep.

Lyle's right on here. Spin is more important the closer you get. Even 5 foot chips.

Try that Pinnacle against a Pro V1. the feel and trajectory difference will be noticeable with say a 10' chip. Just want an consistent stroke so stick with one or the other. For me its more spin around the green.

[SilverUberXeno]

Originally Posted by xamilo

Yes indeed, the fact is I don't understand technically why would a softer cover give more spin. I can understand a rougher dimple patern might spin more, but the cover...

The grooves in your clubs grab the ball, or BITE it. The softer the cover, the deeper the sharp grooves can dig into the ball to spin in. Better grip.

This is also why you should clean your clubs to keep the grooves CLEAN.

[PureStroke]

Nobody said that you have to spend a ton on high end golf balls . Try shopping online and youll find some great deals on golf balls. I spend 280 dollars a year on golf balls and thats for 12 dozen prov1x. Reason is I very rarely lose a ball. Any ways spin is achieved by compressing or trapping a golf ball between the turf and the club face as a result you either have the grooves grip into the balls surface( prov1, prov1x, b330s, Tx4.). Or you have the grooves shave upon the surface of a ball( Top flight, Pinnacle, Maxfli, or distance driven balls.) Your ball simply dropped and stopped due to the trajectory of the shot. The average seasoned golfer player usually has a low trajectory on his wedge shots and as a result will have actually 2 divots on an approach shot that has maximum back up spin. The first divot is made upon contact to the putting surface( which usually looks like a deep skip mark). The second divot is usually a shallow indentation as in where the ball has landed after the skip and then decides to bite and backup. If you attempt to try this low trajectory spinner with a ummm lets say a 1 piece distance ball like a pinnacle or top flight. The ball would simply skip and skip and release forward due to its very hard outer layer that is geared toward straighter, low spin , Low swing speed features, In other words you really cant compress or deform this kind of ball on contact. If anything these balls shorten the life span of your wedges, irons and driver.

[xamilo]

Originally Posted by SilverUberXeno

The grooves in your clubs grab the ball, or BITE it. The softer the cover, the deeper the sharp grooves can dig into the ball to spin in. Better grip.

This is also why you should clean your clubs to keep the grooves CLEAN.

Let's put it other way to see if I make myself clear lol. I don't understand why a cover would make a technical difference when hitting a different ball with the same shot at the same distance with the same wedge with the same swing, etc.

I know it happens; if I hit a One Platinum I can completely see the difference with some other balls. My question is just theoretical, just wanting to understand the physics behind a softer cover causing a spin rather than a lost of distance...

[JEFF4i]

Originally Posted by xamilo

Let's put it other way to see if I make myself clear lol. I don't understand why a cover would make a technical difference when hitting a different ball with the same shot at the same distance with the same wedge with the same swing, etc.

I know it happens; if I hit a One Platinum I can completely see the difference with some other balls. My question is just theoretical, just wanting to understand the physics behind a softer cover causing a spin rather than a lost of distance...

The cover has less to do with it than the mantle. It still matters, but it is logical to think that the mantle makes a bigger deal. Why? It allows for more give, which allows for more "gripping" on the clubface.

It was in a few different mags, spread throughout my apartment.

[Bignose]

Originally Posted by PureStroke

Nobody said that you have to spend a ton on high end golf balls . Try shopping online and youll find some great deals on golf balls. I spend 280 dollars a year on golf balls and thats for 12 dozen prov1x. Reason is I very rarely lose a ball. Any ways spin is achieved by compressing or trapping a golf ball between the turf and the club face as a result you either have the grooves grip into the balls surface( prov1, prov1x, b330s, Tx4.). Or you have the grooves shave upon the surface of a ball( Top flight, Pinnacle, Maxfli, or distance driven balls.) Your ball simply dropped and stopped due to the trajectory of the shot. The average seasoned golfer player usually has a low trajectory on his wedge shots and as a result will have actually 2 divots on an approach shot that has maximum back up spin. The first divot is made upon contact to the putting surface( which usually looks like a deep skip mark). The second divot is usually a shallow indentation as in where the ball has landed after the skip and then decides to bite and backup. If you attempt to try this low trajectory spinner with a ummm lets say a 1 piece distance ball like a pinnacle or top flight. The ball would simply skip and skip and release forward due to its very hard outer layer that is geared toward straighter, low spin , Low swing speed features, In other words you really cant compress or deform this kind of ball on contact. If anything these balls shorten the life span of your wedges, irons and driver.

There are several misconceptions in this post here.

Firstly, spin is NOT caused by compressing the ball against the ground. Here's what happens when the club hits the ball. The ball actually will slide up the club face (because of the loft on the clubface, it is an oblique impact). The ball will slide until the edge of the ball encounters enough friction with the clubface to start to roll. From then on, it will roll up the face. At the same time, the ball is compressing and decompressing. It compresses against the face only, it doesn't encounter the ground at all. As far as the ball is concerned, there isn't even any ground there at all. Then, it decompresses and springs off the face. Any spin the ball has picked up while it was sliding is the spin that the ball has during its flight. All this occurs in a really short time span of 0.0005 seconds.

Searching for the feeling that you are compressing the ball against the ground is good. It encourages the accelerating crisp shot that is required, and taking the appropriate divot in front of the ball's initial position. But, it isn't actually what happens. If you actually did squish the ball against the ground, how could anyone play golf when the ground is wet? Unless at impact the club has a negative dynamic loft, the ball will go up, not down. Look for some of the high speed video of a wedge impact, you'll see the ball slide up the clubface, not down off the ground.

Now, on a full high-speed impact, the grooves actually don't matter very much at all. This has been known since the 1960's when Cochran and Stobbs measured the spin from a machine hitting normal irons, irons with half sized grooves, and irons with no grooves. The normal grooved irons only had about 2% more spin than a grooveless iron. The spin on the ball comes entirely from the oblique impact at high speeds. This is from the compressibility of the balls.

Where grooves do start to matter is on slower speed swing. Half pitch shots or chips. They also matter when there is moisture trapped between the ball and clubface -- whether it is moisture from the ball itself being wet or from the moisture in the grass between the clubface and ball is the ball where nestled down in the rough. Grooves channel that moisture away from the impact area, allowing the ball to experience the friction of the clubface. At slower speed shots, the cover of the ball has the time to actually bite into the grooves. During high speed shots, there isn't time to do so.

Both the cover and the mantle layer are important here. The cover is important, because it is friction between the cover and clubface that causes the ball to stop sliding on the face and instead roll. The mantle is important because a soft mantle allows the ball to deform more and allow more of the ball's surface to be touching the clubface, so that again, more friction is experienced between the ball and club.

The distance balls aren't one peice, they are two piece. They have a cover and a core. But, their cover usually is hard, and doesn't deform as much. Every golf ball deforms -- in fact every single object deforms -- there is no such thing as a perfectly elastic object. It just doesn't deform as much. The ball, even the distance rocks, are still much softer than the metal of golf clubs. You won't wear your golf clubs out any more using a harder ball or a softer ball. The amount of fatigue hitting a golf ball does to the metal is so small, that you'd have to hit literally millions of ball before the difference in the types of balls would make a significant difference. Clubs with spring-like faces, like the modern 460cc driver and many of the fairway woods and hybrids now, will wear out after a something around 100,000 impacts. But that is a function of the mass of the ball and the swing speed of the golfer. How much the ball deforms on the face of the club does not change how deep the ball impacts into the face of the driver. The is determined by the speed the clubhead is moving and the mass of the object it is hitting. All golf balls today have the same mass, so it doesn't matter if it is a hard ball or soft ball.

The main difference between the distance balls is that they have a cover designed for low spin. That means it will be low spin off the driver (helps mellow slices and hooks) and it will also be low spin off the wedges. They also don't have that mantle layer that helps flatten the ball against the clubface. Most distance balls also are made of a cover material designed more for durability than picking up friction from the clubface.

Even most driving range balls are two piece today. There are probably a few one piece balls left, but they are pretty few and far between now.

Sources: Cochran and Stobbs' Search for the Perfect Swing (study of grooved versus grooveless irons, and some of the clubface/ball dynamics) and Jorgensen's The Physics of Golf (lots more on the clubface/ball dynamics).

[JEFF4i]

Good post Big. One question though, if the turf doesn't affect ball spin, why would you get varying spins from bunker, fairway, and rough?

[PureStroke]

Originally Posted by Bignose

There are several misconceptions in this post here.

Firstly, spin is NOT caused by compressing the ball against the ground. Here's what happens when the club hits the ball. The ball actually will slide up the club face (because of the loft on the clubface, it is an oblique impact). The ball will slide until the edge of the ball encounters enough friction with the clubface to start to roll. From then on, it will roll up the face. At the same time, the ball is compressing and decompressing. It compresses against the face only, it doesn't encounter the ground at all. As far as the ball is concerned, there isn't even any ground there at all. Then, it decompresses and springs off the face. Any spin the ball has picked up while it was sliding is the spin that the ball has during its flight. All this occurs in a really short time span of 0.0005 seconds.

Searching for the feeling that you are compressing the ball against the ground is good. It encourages the accelerating crisp shot that is required, and taking the appropriate divot in front of the ball's initial position. But, it isn't actually what happens. If you actually did squish the ball against the ground, how could anyone play golf when the ground is wet? Unless at impact the club has a negative dynamic loft, the ball will go up, not down. Look for some of the high speed video of a wedge impact, you'll see the ball slide up the clubface, not down off the ground.

Now, on a full high-speed impact, the grooves actually don't matter very much at all. This has been known since the 1960's when Cochran and Stobbs measured the spin from a machine hitting normal irons, irons with half sized grooves, and irons with no grooves. The normal grooved irons only had about 2% more spin than a grooveless iron. The spin on the ball comes entirely from the oblique impact at high speeds. This is from the compressibility of the balls.

Where grooves do start to matter is on slower speed swing. Half pitch shots or chips. They also matter when there is moisture trapped between the ball and clubface -- whether it is moisture from the ball itself being wet or from the moisture in the grass between the clubface and ball is the ball where nestled down in the rough. Grooves channel that moisture away from the impact area, allowing the ball to experience the friction of the clubface. At slower speed shots, the cover of the ball has the time to actually bite into the grooves. During high speed shots, there isn't time to do so.

Both the cover and the mantle layer are important here. The cover is important, because it is friction between the cover and clubface that causes the ball to stop sliding on the face and instead roll. The mantle is important because a soft mantle allows the ball to deform more and allow more of the ball's surface to be touching the clubface, so that again, more friction is experienced between the ball and club.

The distance balls aren't one peice, they are two piece. They have a cover and a core. But, their cover usually is hard, and doesn't deform as much. Every golf ball deforms -- in fact every single object deforms -- there is no such thing as a perfectly elastic object. It just doesn't deform as much. The ball, even the distance rocks, are still much softer than the metal of golf clubs. You won't wear your golf clubs out any more using a harder ball or a softer ball. The amount of fatigue hitting a golf ball does to the metal is so small, that you'd have to hit literally millions of ball before the difference in the types of balls would make a significant difference. Clubs with spring-like faces, like the modern 460cc driver and many of the fairway woods and hybrids now, will wear out after a something around 100,000 impacts. But that is a function of the mass of the ball and the swing speed of the golfer. How much the ball deforms on the face of the club does not change how deep the ball impacts into the face of the driver. The is determined by the speed the clubhead is moving and the mass of the object it is hitting. All golf balls today have the same mass, so it doesn't matter if it is a hard ball or soft ball.

The main difference between the distance balls is that they have a cover designed for low spin. That means it will be low spin off the driver (helps mellow slices and hooks) and it will also be low spin off the wedges. They also don't have that mantle layer that helps flatten the ball against the clubface. Most distance balls also are made of a cover material designed more for durability than picking up friction from the clubface.

Even most driving range balls are two piece today. There are probably a few one piece balls left, but they are pretty few and far between now.

Sources: Cochran and Stobbs' Search for the Perfect Swing (study of grooved versus grooveless irons, and some of the clubface/ball dynamics) and Jorgensen's The Physics of Golf (lots more on the clubface/ball dynamics).

Lol several ....I think its basically a matter of my opinion and your opinion .. You basically explained everything I said but in your own words, lol thanx for the revamp. All in all ill just keep spinning my balls and stiking them close. I still dont see how you cant compress a ball against the turf , if your not doing this than your 8 out of 10 times hitting some very thin wedge shots or you just have a perfect sweeping motion through impact with no divot.

[xamilo]

Originally Posted by PureStroke

Lol several ....I think its basically a matter of my opinion and your opinion .. You basically explained everything I said but in your own words, lol thanx for the revamp. All in all ill just keep spinning my balls and stiking them close. I still dont see how you cant compress a ball against the turf , if your not doing this than your 8 out of 10 times hitting some very thin wedge shots or you just have a perfect sweeping motion through impact with no divot.

I think he actually said a lot of different things from what you said, and made much more sense to tell the truth... I gues math and physics don't leave place for opinion s you say...

Thanks Big Nose, great post...

[Esox]

Originally Posted by xamilo

I think he actually said a lot of different things from what you said, and made much more sense to tell the truth... I gues math and physics don't leave place for opinion s you say...

Thanks Big Nose, great post...

I agree. Great post. He even cited his sources. I hope he comes back and answers Jeff's question.

Kevin

[Bignose]

Originally Posted by JEFF4i

Good post Big. One question though, if the turf doesn't affect ball spin, why would you get varying spins from bunker, fairway, and rough?

In the bunker, you hit the sand first (not the ball). In the fairway, the ball-face contact is going to be dry (unless raining or the ball is really wet from the dew), and in the rough, you're going to have the grass between the ball and face, and that grass contains moisture. The grooves help a lot (hence the non-conforming status of the max U grooves today), but they aren't perfect. Sometimes the grass will slow up or deflect the speed and direction of the clubhead, too.

=================

xamilo, It isn't a matter of opinion. And we said very different things. You said you pinch the ball between the ground and clubhead. And I said that this is NOT what happens.

Again, the feeling or intention to try to pinch the ball against the turf is a good image to have in your mind. It encourages the downward strike, it encourages acceleration through impact, and these are good things. But, the image or feeling of the pinching the ball against the turf doesn't reflect reality.

Again, if you really pinched the ball against the turf, how can anyone play golf with a wet ground? Shouldn't the ball just pushed into the ground? Again, unless the club is coming through with a negative dynamic loft (that would be the angle of the clubface less the angle of attack coming into impact), the ball will not travel downward.

Physics says it doesn't happen, and high speed videos of the impact confirm this. I have a few videos, but this forum won't allow uploads of the size they are, so I can't post them directly here. I have one with a wedge, and the ball clearly goes up the clubface, it doesn't go down.

You don't have to take my word for it, you can find the books I cited above and read about it yourself.

====

Here's a few videos I found on the Internet: http://www.engr.colostate.edu/~dga/high_speed_video/ (scroll down to the golf section)

[JEFF4i]

Originally Posted by Bignose

In the bunker, you hit the sand first (not the ball). In the fairway, the ball-face contact is going to be dry (unless raining or the ball is really wet from the dew), and in the rough, you're going to have the grass between the ball and face, and that grass contains moisture. The grooves help a lot (hence the non-conforming status of the max U grooves today), but they aren't perfect. Sometimes the grass will slow up or deflect the speed and direction of the clubhead, too.

Hmmm, I should've been clear. Fairway bunker is what I had in my mind, and usually where I get a lot of spin. It makes sense though, thanks Bignose!

[Youngun5]

about the 40 second mark.

should support the view that the ball isn't trapped against the turf.

[xamilo]

Originally Posted by Bignose

xamilo, It isn't a matter of opinion. And we said very different things. You said you pinch the ball between the ground and clubhead. And I said that this is NOT what happens.

Hey hey! Don't blame it on me! I was actually supporting you. I was the one who said it wasn't a matter of opinion, don't confuse me here with the other guy who thinks he's Tiger Woods next reincarnation

(I have wanted to use that horse for so long and I finally have the opportunity )