Tiger Says Adding Spin Will Help With the Distance Problem

[lastings]

Tiger Woods offers an idea on how to solve the distance debate | Golf Equipment: Clubs, Balls, Bags | GolfDigest.com

ive been saying it for years.  Nice to know Goaty McGoatface is in agreement. 

[iacas]

And… he's as wrong as you are.

---

And Tiger should know… because he's played spinny balls his whole career.

We've been over this in the distance thread. The bigger post that doesn't specifically address this is here:

The new topic is here (I may merge this topic into it eventually):

Let's say you do something crazy and DOUBLE the spin.

FlightScope Trajectory Optimizer

---

FlightScope's Trajectory Optimizer is a golf ball flight trajectory program. The program will plot the flight of the ball in real time after the user's input of the initial launch conditions of the golf ball. Based on scientific...

Let's see what going from 2200 RPM to 4400 RPM does. Let's ignore entirely that:

• Golfers would figure out how to take spin off.
• More importantly, the engineers would figure out how to take spin off.
• This would completely screw with wedges or irons.

Look at what they did with wedges… pros got spin back pretty quickly.

But let's look at some numbers ignoring those things above.

I did that under these "standard sea level" conditions:

That's less than 20 yards change (including the roll-out, which is over 6 yards alone), and virtually no difference on the amount of curve (both balls started 2° left and had 6° tilt to the spin axis).

And again, that assumes that pros (golfers and/or engineers) don't find a way to knock that 4400 back down to 2900 or something.

Spin is not the solution here. Never has been.

[ChetlovesMer]

I'm still on the side of grow the grass taller, tighten the fairways where you don't want the ball to land, if they can make the US Open play several strokes more difficult, then just do that all the time. OR... let the guys shoot low scores. 

I really don't feel like distance IS a problem. 

[saevel25]

18 minutes ago, ChetlovesMer said:

I'm still on the side of grow the grass taller, tighten the fairways where you don't want the ball to land, if they can make the US Open play several strokes more difficult, then just do that all the time. OR... let the guys shoot low scores. 

I really don't feel like distance IS a problem. 

That means less mowing, so less overhead😉

 

[iacas]

Again, this assumes nobody could do anything to reduce the doubling of the spin rate, which is a very bad assumption.

[Big Lex]

23 minutes ago, ChetlovesMer said:

I'm still on the side of grow the grass taller, tighten the fairways where you don't want the ball to land, if they can make the US Open play several strokes more difficult, then just do that all the time. OR... let the guys shoot low scores. 

I really don't feel like distance IS a problem. 

The ruling bodies DO. They don't care about scoring. It's all about _distance_, it is more the R&A than the USGA but they are both in on it, and it has alot to do with the Old Course and "protecting" certain prestigious courses from becoming obsolete for major championships. That's really all it is, and it's stupid. A good hedge might be a radically reduced flight tournament ball for high level play, but there are many legitimate objections to that approach, many of which have been covered in various threads on this site I think. 

 

[saevel25]

2 minutes ago, iacas said:

Again, this assumes nobody could do anything to reduce the doubling of the spin rate, which is a very bad assumption.

Like, what would the USGS regulation be? Ball must spin at 4000 rpm, then the ball is launched at 170 mph, at 10 degrees of loft, while the club is swinging at zero attack angle? Even then, CG matters a ton. Bring back the OG SLDR. 

Why not then get a sub 6 degree driver and swing up like 5-6 degrees? I think you could get that down to sub 3000.

[Darkfrog]

The current era of golf has really advanced engineering and players who know how to take advantage of it. I kind of think that this is just called progress, and the USGA/R&A just need to accept this rather than try to reverse the current game back to a previous standard.

I still am not sure why golf's governing bodies care about protecting certain courses, or what they need to be protected from. I thought The Open at The Old Course was great.

I guess my thought is who cares if the winning score is +5 or -30 if the best player wins.

[DaveP043]

35 minutes ago, ChetlovesMer said:

I'm still on the side of grow the grass taller, tighten the fairways where you don't want the ball to land, if they can make the US Open play several strokes more difficult, then just do that all the time. OR... let the guys shoot low scores. 

I really don't feel like distance IS a problem. 

None of those are within the ability of the USGA/R&A to regulate, just as they cannot regulate training and fitness, or fitting drivers to optimize distance for each individual player.  What's left is the equipment, clubs and golf balls.  I don't necessarily agree that distance must be reduced, but if that's the goal of the Ruling Bodies, the only thing they have the ability to regulate are golf clubs and golf balls.  

[Big Lex]

10 minutes ago, Darkfrog said:

The current era of golf has really advanced engineering and players who know how to take advantage of it. I kind of think that this is just called progress, and the USGA/R&A just need to accept this rather than try to reverse the current game back to a previous standard.

I still am not sure why golf's governing bodies care about protecting certain courses, or what they need to be protected from. I thought The Open at The Old Course was great.

I guess my thought is who cares if the winning score is +5 or -30 if the best player wins.

Yes, exactly. +100 

They have their heads up their butts, or hidden under their blazers, or whatever metaphor you prefer. They need to get over it. 

[lastings]

53 minutes ago, iacas said:

And… he's as wrong as you are.

 

I don't know.   sometimes, all the data adn analytics in the world aren't quite as informative as just asking the best ball striker in the history of the world.   

[iacas]

28 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

Why not then get a sub 6 degree driver and swing up like 5-6 degrees? I think you could get that down to sub 3000.

They'd get back down to a "good" spin rate in no change.

10 minutes ago, lastings said:

I don't know.   sometimes, all the data adn analytics in the world aren't quite as informative as just asking the best ball striker in the history of the world.   

Uhhhhh… No.

Tiger is wrong.

[DaveP043]

2 hours ago, lastings said:

I don't know.   sometimes, all the data adn analytics in the world aren't quite as informative as just asking the best ball striker in the history of the world.   

Jack Nicklaus says the rules should be changed to allow free relief from divot holes.  Nuf said.