A wedge shot to be analyzed

Hello, I need a skilled Trackman or FlightScope operator to help me to understand what happened during this shot?

It was pretty huge so I decided to keep a picture of the FlightScope's screen. I made it with a 56° Nike forged wedge on a demo day.

I'd like to know the correlation between "angle of attack" and "dynamic loft".

Plus , who knows what is a "correct" smash factor for a wedge, 7 iron and driver?

Thank you guys for answers.

I guarantee that shot is a good wedge shot. All the guys around the scope were pretty impressed and the demoman told me it was an impressive shot. (Why I made a screen picture). I swing my driver about 115/120 mph. I use to throw javelin, so I kept some rapid fibers from that time!

It 's possible the datas are erroneous, but it 's for sure the ball traveled those 140 yds or so, as we observed it on the range.

It really was a pure shot, but how can we explain a 1.17 smash factor with a wedge? Is it feasible?

I agree a 65° dynamic loft seems unlikely. The setting on the radar was "wedge", can it read all the datas properly at this speed?

So....basically you are hoping that people who don't know you are going to be amazed and impressed that you hit a wedge that distance but have framed it in a question. Have I got that right?

Tad harsh :)

Let me give it a go. The dynamic loft is a bit of a mystery. You should be hitting down on the ball but getting more dynamic loft than the club loft - this would be a neat trick and I'm trying to work out if it's possible. Not sure it is really. Your angle of attack being negative would suggest you're massively scooping the ball rather than hitting down on it (if I'm reading it right) which I guess is a possiblilty.

Ball speed of 102mph with that much launch angle on the ball (loft of the club - angle of attack ....... or closish to that) and you'd have to be only spinning the ball at 1000rpm or below to achieve that sort of distance. To put it in perspective I get about 9,000-10,000 rpm on a pitching wedge shot and at 2mph more ball speed than you got it drops the ball 10 yards short of what the Flightscope says your ball went. In a nutshell it didn't read the spin and so recorded it as zero is my guess. Knowing how the kit works I'd be surprised if it wasn't in 'indoor' mode if I'm honest.

Anyway, with sensible spin on a wedge with that sort of ball speed you're looking at a shot of maybe 126yards which is perfectly respectible in my book. In fact a very good yardage for the club in hand :)

Essentially the kit recorded the shot incorrctly and then extrapolated the yardage based on bad numbers. No, it's not possible to get a dynamic loft of 65.3 with a 56 degree wedge unless you massively scoop the ball and getting almost no spin  with a wedge (which is what you'd need to do to get a ball traveling at that sort of launch to go 141 yards) is basically impossible given the difference between dynamic loft and club loft is relatively high.

If you want to check any of this, plug the numbers into Flightscope's own ball flight model here http://flightscope.com/products/trajectory-optimizer/ You'll find you need close to zero spin to achieve the yardage the kit says you got. It got it wrong :)

Guessing the energy went into spin? I'm a bit surprised that the ball did not back up.

I have some trackman results from when I was in Erie. I spin one of my 50 degree PW about 8800 rpm with a SM of 1.36, the ball carried 93.6 yards and rolled -0.6 yards for a total distance of 93 yards on Flightscope.

If you can do it 10 times in a row, we can look at the averages. Spin would be one of the important numbers to record.

Yep, it's all about spin and that's why it matters what 'mode' the kit was in. In indoor mode the radar systems determin distance from measuring spin, ball speed and trajectory and extrapolating the distance that the ball would fly. In outdoor mode they work differently. The only way for the kit to think the ball flew that far is if he didn't spin it at all. That's confirmed by the fact it thought the ball kept rolling - something none of the radar systems can measure they just deduce it given spin.

These are the sorts of numbers I'd get with a wedge  (taken earlier) and although I maybe spin it more than some, spinning it not at all with a wedge is absolutely impossible given the physics of the colision involved. In a nutshell the kit got it wrong, possibly because the operator had it set up wrong (but that's just a guess).

Thank you for those answers. It certainly is an explanation. And  grumpy Shorty, sorry but I'm not a braggart, I absolutly agree when you say in other terms that nobody give a shit about how far I can hit it. That 's not the question and I know a bunch of athletic guys able to achieve such distance.

Nosevi, your constructive approach helps a lot, and probably the setting is involved.

My club pro owns a FlightScope, I will try to recreate the shot being sure the mode is outdoor. I will let you know the numbers, including spin this time.

You will here of me on Friday.

No probs and look forward to hearing how you get on.

When Flightscope (which I use quite a bit in lessons I get) gives an interesting result it's useful to be able to plug the numbers into their online trajectory optimiser to try to fill in the blanks and try to work out how the kit came to that conclusion. The kit I use more often though is a GC2 (as per the picture above) and the ball flight model is slightly different - in the GC2 model the distance falls off quicker as spin increases than in the Flightscope model. With both though you'd have to get crazy low spin numbers in order to launch it that high, with that ball speed and get that carry. Then you look at the smash factor which is about in line with what it should be for a good strike with that club and none of it makes sense. If you got a good contact the ball would spin, if it spun going at that speed it wouldn't go that far.

it's just physics and I'm afraid I'm a bit of a geek when it comes to physics in golf :)

Yep, I agree Erik, it doesn't add up. I was just looking at a 56 degree wedge with an angle of attack of almost minus 10 degrees (which I'm guessing is 10 degrees upwards), giving a dynamic loft indicating a backwards shaft lean but a reasonable smash factor and then no spin....... All in all the numbers don't make sense. I guess I was just looking at HOW the kit could get it wrong and given that the only way to get the ball to go that far given that ball speed and that sort of trajectory is with almost zero spin, I'm guessing that was the snag. It seemed better than just telling the OP "You didn't hit it that far, the kit was wrong." although in essence you're right - that's more or less what I'm saying :)

Doh! My mistake :) That makes the numbers even more 'squirly' as he'd need to have the shaft leaning back but the club face moving down. Now that would be tricky to do. My launch monitor just has ball data (at the moment). The point of the optimiser is the number not given on the OP's picture is spin and the only way to get a ball to fly that far given the other ball launch numbers is not to have any. If we're talking 10 degree down through impact with a wedge I'm guessing there was some and putting a sensible number in for spin for a good contact with a wedge puts the number back at 120yards or a tad over....... Unless all the other numbers are wrong too of course :) You're right though, the numbers don't add up. To be honest I've seen more data like this on a flightscope than on my kit at home. With a GC2 when it gets it wrong it seems to generally know it's got it wrong and so doesn't display anything. Doesn't happen all that often to be fair.

Personal preference I guess, Erik. I use a launch monitor for at least a couple of hours a day and I far prefer pretty much everything about the GC2 to either a Flightscope or Trackman. Our R&A; recently tried both radar systems and decided to use a GC2 instead. I tested Doppler radars for the military (far more sophisticated ones than we are talking about here) so have a little idea about the limitations of the systems. Knowing that I went for a GC2.