Mickelson Call Driver Limit Length Pathetic

[imsys0042]

https://golf.com/gear/phil-mickelson-roasts-usga-for-driver-limit/

 

I kind of think it’s silly to limit driver length.  To my current understanding, longer than 46 is hard for most golfers because it just gives more room for error.  I remember the “Killer Bee” infomercials, they were 48 inch length drivers.   Don’t think that caught on.  I imagine gifted PGA players could work with some extra length for distance, but this feels like outlawing 12 inch tees.

[iacas]

I posted about it here:

57 minutes ago, imsys0042 said:

I kind of think it’s silly to limit driver length.

I don't. We have a limit right now, they're just looking to shorten it 2". More and more people are talking about using longer drivers. Phil's is 46.5" I think, Bryson has talked about using a 48" driver at Augusta, etc.

It's a step.

57 minutes ago, imsys0042 said:

To my current understanding, longer than 46 is hard for most golfers because it just gives more room for error.

Tour players are not "most golfers."

57 minutes ago, imsys0042 said:

… but this feels like outlawing 12 inch tees.

Surely you know that tees are limited to 4".

[imsys0042]

4 minutes ago, iacas said:

I posted about it here:

I don't. We have a limit right now, they're just looking to shorten it 2". More and more people are talking about using longer drivers. Phil's is 46.5" I think, Bryson has talked about using a 48" driver at Augusta, etc.

It's a step.

Tour players are not "most golfers."

Surely you know that tees are limited to 4".

I didn’t know people were actively looking at longer drivers.   Bryson and Phil have a tendency to hit it all over the place so…..

and didn’t know tees were limited at 4 inches.    That’s pretty funny actually.   I have 3.25 inch tees that almost seem like putting a ball on an ice cream cone.   Can’t imagine more than that.   But that’s interesting.

[DaveP043]

IT seems like Phil is just looking to get his name in the news, he's aghast at something that was first mentioned at least 6 months ago.  To be honest, I never noticed the mention of further limiting driver lengths, although I thought I had read most of the USGA Distance Insights Report.  Now I've looked back and see the three specific measures that were open for comment from "stakeholders".  Even so, this seems to be in line with the general idea of forestalling future increases in driving distance, rather than decreasing it.  

I guess I wonder whether Phil, as a "stakeholder" in the game, responded to the USGA/R&A when invited, or whether he prefers to wage his war in the Twitter-verse.  As for inviting injury, its up to the player to learn to swing in a way to maximize his performance while minimizing the chances for injury.  While I'm not a Bryson fan, he said that a big part of his body transformation was intended to build up muscles that would decrease the chances of injury, injuries that the increased swing speed could make more likely.

[iacas]

Oy. No.

[mcanadiens]

Seems like a pretty reasonable thing to me. 

In the quest to control distance, I've heard of a lot worse ideas. 

[iacas]

19 minutes ago, mcanadiens said:

Seems like a pretty reasonable thing to me. 

Do you deeply understand the science here and think that everything Phil said is possible and/or correct?

[mcanadiens]

4 minutes ago, iacas said:

Do you deeply understand the science here and think that everything Phil said is possible and/or correct?

I meant that I think limiting driver lengths is pretty reasonable. 

Sorry that wasn't clear.

[NotThatRobLowe]

Believe Phil has recently played some tournaments with a 47.5 driver. It looks like Bryson isn't even playing longer than 46 right now, so may only impact guys like Phil trying to keep up. It isn't like Bryson or Phil are dominating tournaments. Stats seem to show that more people are playing and watching golf than ever before. Love or hate Bryson, he has generated more interesting discussion around the game than anyone in a long time. PGA is fun to watch right now. If reducing the driver length levels the playing field, it could level the competition, but it wouldn't be as fun to watch the tee shots. 

[Pretzel]

Regarding liquid-core golf ball physics, Phil is incorrect but I'll leave that in a spoiler because it is mostly irrelevant to the core idea he presented

Spoiler

So here's the breakdown of what Phil said happened with old liquid-core golf balls:

• Liquid-center golf balls had more weight in the center of the ball than they did around the perimeter
• At impact, the core of a liquid-center golf ball had a lower spinrate than the cover of the ball
• At some point during flight, the spinrates of the core and cover were equal to one another
• Near the end of the ballflight, the cover had a slower spinrate than the core as it was slowed by external forces (air resistance)

Here is what Phil claims that caused:

• The golf ball curved at an increased rate when the cover was spinning at a slower rate than the core

Right off the bat, Phil is incorrect here. The curve of a golf ball is caused purely by aerodynamic forces, not the rotational momentum of a golf ball. A golf ball that spins faster will create a larger pressure differential between the opposing sides of the ball, and that pressure differential is what causes the ball to curve. This means the spinrate of the core is entirely irrelevant to the behavior of the golfball in flight - the only spinrate that matters is the spinrate of the cover (the part that actually interacts with air). The frictional forces between the core and the cover are larger than the frictional forces between the cover and the air, meaning once an equilibrium is reached between cover and core spinrates you won't see much deviation at all in spin between the two until the ball lands and the cover's spin is abruptly stopped. The only time you'd see a substantial difference in spinrates is at the start of ballflight, where you'd have extra lift because of a faster moving cover that quickly disappeared once the two spinrates equalized.

Phil has a bit of a misunderstanding of the physics here, but that's not the egregious part of this misunderstanding. The most egregious part has to do with spinrates. 

Shifting the weight of the golf ball to the center would potentially serve to increase the overall spinrates of the golf ball simply by decreasing the golf ball's moment of inertia, and thus making it easier to change its spinrate, but the only thing that would change is causing an increase in the spinrate of the golf ball. The spin axis of the golf ball will remain unaffected, because that is solely determined based on the geometric relationship between loft, face angle, and club path.

The main issue with what Phile is trying to argue here is that spinrate has very little to do with how much a ball will curve - that's governed primarily by the spin axis. More or less spin with the same spin axis will have very little effect on the measured curvature of a golf ball, because most reasonable spin axis values (ball not dramatically hooking or slicing) are 10% or less. Going from 2500 RPM to 5500 RPM, which is MASSIVE on a tee shot, will produce the following curvatures with a 5% spin axis and PGA Tour-level ball speeds (180 MPH):

The difference is so tiny you have to zoom in REALLY close to even see the grey line that shows the path of the 2500 RPM tee shot, because they both curved very nearly the same distance off line.

Also notice that other little thing there? Phil won't be hitting the same bombs when the spinrate goes up, it will have the same net effect on distance as rolling back the ball (for distance) or cutting down driver length would - players of all skill levels will hit the ball shorter than they used to. The whole point of Phil's suggestion was to make it harder without making players hit it shorter, and yet his proposed solution will both not make it harder AND will make all players hit the ball shorter.

[Vinsk]

Phil isn’t near as intelligent as he thinks he is. 

[GolfLug]

33 minutes ago, Vinsk said:

Phil isn’t near as intelligent as he thinks he is. 

Yeah, but he is very spintelligent, when it comes to spinning tales to suit his narrative. $10 says he will run for the office of the Govnah of Califohnyah in the next 10 years. 

[Pretzel]

Here's another couple images that help show the effects going from 2,500 RPM to 5,500 RPM (again, a very large change) on a tee shot would have for an average amateur golfer with 130mph ball speed and a larger 10 degree spin axis:

Just like the groove rule changes, amateur golfers would see more of a negative affect than professionals. Professionals can better control their swing to reduce spin, so they would lose less distance, and their spin axis is not tilted as dramatically. Amateurs can't control their swing to easily produce less spin, and the larger spin axis will create a larger difference in curvature for higher spinrates. Distance is also at a premium to amateurs, because they already have less of it so any reduction becomes more important.

Phil's proposed solution is all of the things that he says he hates in a rule change - ineffective, and disproportionately hurts amateurs compared to professionals. By contrast, reducing driver length would affect very few amateurs who play off-the-rack 45-46" drivers compared to the pros who tweak driver shaft length to a much greater degree. That's not to say I'm in favor of reducing the maximum shaft length, since I don't believe distance is even a problem (everybody plays the same course with the same rules for equipment, who cares if scores are lower), but it is to say that reducing the maximum driver length would more appropriately target professional golfers compared to amateurs.

Edited September 2, 2021 by Pretzel

[dzjc]

I say let him have at it.  At his age now, he's having trouble controlling his current driver, so any additional length will be that much harder to control.