Being tall an advantage?

[tdiii]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

By like an inch or two, dude, c'mon. You're farther from the ball the same way I'm farther from the ball when I hit my 4I instead of my 7I or something.

T

 

Thank you for making my point for me.  My misses with a 4i are huge compared to my misses with a 7i.  Same with everyone I know. 

And it is not an inch or two.  If you are 5'10" and I'm 6'6", I'm 8" farther away from the ball than are you.  Maybe even a bit more because the ball is probably farther away from our feet. 

Edited August 8, 2016 by tdiii

[natureboy]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

Any media guide or source that lists him as anything above 5'10" either used a broken ruler, measured him on cement floors with super long steel spikes, or is just exaggerating and/or reporting whatever was told to them. Tiger is 5'10". Maybe less now with less disc between a few of his vertebrae…

'Official' listing is 6'1", but I'll take your word for it. Can fanboy @colin007 confirm?

Edited August 8, 2016 by natureboy

[ZappyAd]

2 hours ago, natureboy said:

Interesting perspective. Possibly a contribution? Probably depends on what your definition of 'advantage' is. Do you have any relevant studies of average height by income / profession?

I wouldn't consider Tiger to have been 'advantaged', but middle class. Don't think DJ was 'priviliged' either. Nick Faldo would probably have been considered 'working class'. Those are anecdotal examples, but I personally wouldn't expect a big correlation between the top 200 OWGR and family income being well above average growing up. Also that income / height relationship would be the parents'. To what degree is a parent's height heritable?

Even if there's a golfer social selection effect, I'd expect any difference in U.S. golfer height from average U.S. height to be smaller than the gap between average PGA player and the U.S. average height.

 

The reason I thought about it is that there was a study released recently about which countries have the tallest population:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-36888541

and I happened to hear one of the authors talking about it on the radio.  He basically said some part of height is genetic (one third?) but that most is environmental.  Health care and nutrition of both the individual and their mother during pregnancy were major contributing factors.  I am pretty sure he talked about being 'middle class' was enough to get you in the taller bracket.  So it wouldn't have to be super rich background I guess it means 'on average not poor' which might also overlap with 'people who can afford to play golf'. 

[natureboy]

1 hour ago, tdiii said:

Thank you for making my point for me.  My misses with a 4i are huge compared to my misses with a 7i.  Same with everyone I know. 

But I think that's more related to the lower loft's impact on dispersion and spin axis tilt than the length. I bet Bryson DeChambeau has about the same dispersion differential as the average pro between 7i and 4i even though his irons are the same length.

Edited August 8, 2016 by natureboy

[natureboy]

On 8/5/2016 at 1:35 PM, iacas said:

To be fair, you can probably subtract two inches from all of those. They must have been wearing some big cleats the day they were "measured." But that adjustment probably exists right down the line, so they're still the taller players.

Probably about right. Rory is officially 5'10 and he looks about 3 inches under Tiger's official 6'1", and I've seen 'reality' estimates for Rors at 5'8".

[CyboNinja]

2 hours ago, natureboy said:

Probably about right. Rory is officially 5'10 and he looks about 3 inches under Tiger's official 6'1", and I've seen 'reality' estimates for Rors at 5'8".

So if we subtracted 2" from all the player's listed heights that would skew the average of all of them to exactly the national average male height. Interesting. 

[iacas]

8 hours ago, tdiii said:

Thank you for making my point for me.  My misses with a 4i are huge compared to my misses with a 7i.  Same with everyone I know.

As @natureboy said, you're not comparing like to like. Spin axis and loft considerations take care of most of that.

8 hours ago, tdiii said:

And it is not an inch or two.  If you are 5'10" and I'm 6'6", I'm 8" farther away from the ball than are you.  Maybe even a bit more because the ball is probably farther away from our feet. 

You're not 8" farther away. Arm length + shaft length will not reach 8".

My 3W is longer than my 7I but I can hit both solidly.

[CyboNinja]

46 minutes ago, iacas said:

As @natureboy said, you're not comparing like to like. Spin axis and loft considerations take care of most of that.

You're not 8" farther away. Arm length + shaft length will not reach 8".

My 3W is longer than my 7I but I can hit both solidly.

But if your eyeballs are 8" lower to the ground then your eyeballs are 8" closer to the ball. Arm length and shaft length are irrelevant. 

A golfer who is 6'6" will have more trouble making consistent contact than a golfer who is 5'10" (skill level being equal). There are several reasons for this. Most of which have been mentioned already. 

The laws of physics don't change for golfers. 

Based on the numbers there seems to be a threshold between 5'10"- 6'2" where the extra height is an advantage. But once players get to be too tall the SS gained is offset by consistency issues. Perhaps its balance or less control because of longer arms or it could be a distance away from the target issue. My guess would be that its a combination of all these as well as other factors that haven't been mentioned. 

Bottom line is the numbers don't lie. In the NBA virtually all the players would be considered tall. This is because being tall is an advantage in basketball. In MLB virtually all the pitchers are tall. This is because height is again an advantage. In horse racing we see a much smaller build because that is an advantage. 

Looking at golf the only place tall people dominate would be long drive competitions where max SS is critical for success. Does that mean tall people can't be good at golf? Of course not. It simply means they will have more trouble with consistent contact. 

Sure there are outliers but if one looks at the bigger picture you will see the data supports what physics predicts. 

[tdiii]

Just now, iacas said:

As @natureboy said, you're not comparing like to like. Spin axis and loft considerations take care of most of that.

You're not 8" farther away. Arm length + shaft length will not reach 8".

My 3W is longer than my 7I but I can hit both solidly.

You're the one who made the comparison.  My eyes are at least 8" farther away than the 5'10" -- a bit more because of the diagonal.  Of course you can hit both solidly, but you are more consistent with your 7I. 

[iacas]

13 minutes ago, CyboNinja said:

But if your eyeballs are 8" lower to the ground then your eyeballs are 8" closer to the ball. Arm length and shaft length are irrelevant.

Arm and shaft length are more relevant as they're the parts swinging.

And my eyeballs are likely not 8" closer to the ball either: taller people tend to bend over more, shorter people tend to stand up more.

Nobody's hitting a golf ball with their eyes while standing straight up and down.

13 minutes ago, CyboNinja said:

A golfer who is 6'6" will have more trouble making consistent contact than a golfer who is 5'10" (skill level being equal). There are several reasons for this. Most of which have been mentioned already.

Minimally more trouble. Not enough to offset the distance advantage gained. I've hit my daughter's clubs. The distance advantage is quite large.

13 minutes ago, CyboNinja said:

Bottom line is the numbers don't lie. In the NBA virtually all the players would be considered tall. This is because being tall is an advantage in basketball. In MLB virtually all the pitchers are tall. This is because height is again an advantage. In horse racing we see a much smaller build because that is an advantage. 

That's abusing statistics. There are no tall golfers? Maybe because there are few tall people, and they tend to get involved with basketball if they're tall. Plus, there are tall golfers, like Dustin Johnson. Even Bubba is relatively tall.

7 minutes ago, tdiii said:

You're the one who made the comparison.  My eyes are at least 8" farther away than the 5'10" -- a bit more because of the diagonal.  Of course you can hit both solidly, but you are more consistent with your 7I. 

The diagonal actually reduces distance a bit…

And I'm more consistent because I'm a better golfer. I'd take the distance advantage if I could get it.

I'm not arguing that the added length doesn't lead to slightly more inconsistency. I'm saying you're overblowing how much the added height is to blame for your inability to hit the ball solidly.

[CyboNinja]

22 minutes ago, iacas said:

That's abusing statistics. There are no tall golfers? Maybe because there are few tall people, and they tend to get involved with basketball if they're tall. Plus, there are tall golfers, like Dustin Johnson. Even Bubba is relatively tall.

How exactly is that abusing statistics? Also I never said "there are no tall golfers". But a handful of outliers does not disprove my point. Yes I realize there are a handful of tall pro golfers. You guys have named maybe 5 out of the thousands in the history of the PGA. They are the outliers. 

The average height of an NBA player is 6'7". In the 100+ years of the PGA there probably haven't even been 5 golfers that height or taller. Sure maybe all of the tall athletes in the world simply chose a different sport or maybe they chose a sport where their height was an advantage. 

We can all agree that a longer lever will create more speed. But with any object, as its speed increases seemingly small forces are exponentially magnified. Again, physics. 

A handful of outliers or an NBA study on the injury rates of "bigmen" do not discount the laws of motion. Again... physics...

Its worth noting that physics would predict that taller athletes would excel at basketball (because closer to the rim) as well as pitching in baseball (because the ball is released on a higher plane with more deception due to vertical movement). Physics would also predict that taller golfers will struggle with balance and consistent ball striking. The seemingly small forces become exponentially magnified in a person with a taller build. 

 

http://golf.clickon.co/2015/11/10/body-extremes-of-pro-golf-the-fattest-shortest-and-tallest-men-to-ever-play/

""A quick look at the average height of the top 10 major winners of all time and you wouldn’t believe me when I told you. Can you guess what it is? Here’s a clue, Tiger Woods is the tallest on the list at 6ft 1 .

So here it is, the average height of the 10 best players in history is just under 5ft 9!"" 

And a lot of people claim Tiger is closer to 5'11" than 6'1".

[saevel25]

5 minutes ago, CyboNinja said:

So here it is, the average height of the 10 best players in history is just under 5ft 9!"" 

And a lot of people claim Tiger is closer to 5'11" than 6'1".

It kinda hurts the average when 30+ majors are won by two guys ;)

Also, tall golfers are rare. No other time in the history of golf have we had so many golfers in the 6'3-6'5 range. 

In the end, driving distance is an advantage. This has been studied and documented. Being as such, being tall is an advantage in that regard. The fact Bubba can hit 9 iron while other golfers hit 7 iron is an advantage in accuracy. 

 To claim that just because Jack and Tiger were shorter that makes shorter golfers better at winning disregards the fact that there wasn't many tall golfers to begin with.

 

[CyboNinja]

12 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

It kinda hurts the average when 30+ majors are won by two guys 

 

That would be true if that's what was stated, except that's not what was stated. 

""the average height of the 10 best players in history is just under 5ft 9!""

Total number of majors was not taken into account. Just simply the "average height of the 10 best players in history"

Also I think the reason we are seeing more tall golfers now days is because of technology. Custom fitted clubs were rare until the past 15-20 years or so. That and modern golf clubs are much more forgiving. 

[Piz]

If being tall is a disadvantage; then being short is an advantage.  That simply isn't the case.  

[CyboNinja]

You guys can argue with science all you want. I'm simply pointing out the fact that the numbers line up with what one would predict using the laws of physics. 

[CyboNinja]

3 hours ago, Piz said:

If being tall is a disadvantage; then being short is an advantage.  That simply isn't the case.  

That's not what anyone said either. 

There is an advantage in golf in being slightly taller than average. When you are taller it is easier to generate SS and you can achieve a higher maximum SS. But only to a point is this an advantage. If someone is too tall the advantage of their higher SS is offset by physics and consistent ball striking becomes less achievable. 

 

 

I believe I get what Tdiii is trying to explain. 

Imagine you're using your 9i but the shaft is the length of your 3i. If your arms were longer it would have a similar effect of an increased difficulty achieving good contact. Just like it's a little harder to hit your 3i vs 9i (nevermind the loft, just talking about the shaft length) it is probably a bit harder for someone with longer arms. 

Edited August 9, 2016 by CyboNinja

[iacas]

3 hours ago, CyboNinja said:

Just like it's a little harder to hit your 3i vs 9i (nevermind the loft, just talking about the shaft length) it is probably a bit harder for someone with longer arms. 

That disadvantage is more than offset by the advantage of distance gained.

Good players don't mishit their 3W all the time because it's longer than their 8I.

That's all I'm saying. Height, overall, is an advantage.

[saevel25]

4 hours ago, CyboNinja said:

I believe I get what Tdiii is trying to explain. 

Imagine you're using your 9i but the shaft is the length of your 3i. If your arms were longer it would have a similar effect of an increased difficulty achieving good contact. Just like it's a little harder to hit your 3i vs 9i (nevermind the loft, just talking about the shaft length) it is probably a bit harder for someone with longer arms. 

I disagree with this, The arms can not be compared to a golf club shaft. They work completely different. Since the point of control for the club is the hands. The overall length of the club itself is what determines the ability to control the club not the length of the club plus the length of the arms. By including the arms you are disregarding bio-mechanics. 

The different between a 3 iron and a 9 iron is about 3 inches. The recommended club length addition from Ping's fitting chart from a 5'7 person to a 6'4 person is +1/2", and at most maybe 3/4" This comparison of 3 iron to 9 iron is bogus. It's more like comparing a 9 iron to an 8 iron. 

Also, the loft is important, probably more so than club length. The more loft you have the less likely it to start off line and the less likely it to curve as much.