Super-Lightweight Drivers That Don't Hit the Ball as Far

[Mike Boatright]

2 minutes ago, iacas said:

I know it's so weird to me though were talking grams not 5 pounds vs 20 pounds dropping from a 2 story building and figuring which one will do more damage. I will say that a 2 pound ball dropped into a cement object would probably deliver more direct energy vs a 5 pound metal can,at least that's what I can see in my mind.

Again your just using a play on words it's trivial an irrelevant. 5 pound can,bucket etc.. The point being it's large hollow and weighs more than the compact lighter yet dense 2 pound lead ball.

Ill take the homer bucket falling on me all day vs that lead ball,but in a way that's irrelevant were talking golf ball x mass and energy transfer just an idea. I'm not saying iv'e tested this or have seen this as absolute. .

[iacas]

6 minutes ago, Mike Boatright said:

Again your just using a play on words it's trivial an irrelevant. 5 pound can,bucket etc.. The point being it's large hollow and weighs more than the compact lighter yet dense 2 pound lead ball.

Ill take the homer bucket falling on me all day vs that lead ball,but in a way that's irrelevant were talking golf ball x mass and energy transfer just an idea. I'm not saying iv'e tested this or have seen this as absolute. .

I'm done responding to you, @Mike Boatright, and for a few days now… you're done too.

[boogielicious]

6 hours ago, Mike Boatright said:

 I get it it just fine guy i'm just trying to think outside the lines and harness new concepts and new ideas. You guys are stuck in the idea that tech is as good as it's ever going to get syndrome.

Mike, 

You don't even know where the lines are.

[Big Lex]

On ‎4‎/‎11‎/‎2016 at 2:35 PM, Mike Boatright said:

I'm not saying I have the answer nor am I saying make it illegal. I'm saying make a club with 100 grams or less with the same energy transfer as the 200 gram head within usga legal limits. It seems impossible with the laws of physics i'm saying i'm sure it's not and someone will figure it out. Another topic could be what will golf equipment look like in 20 years?

I know what you are saying....that often things we think impossible end up being possible. But that's a very broad statement, and it doesn't apply to everything in the world. "Anything's possible" isn't really true...someone will never figure out how to make water boil at 0 degrees Celsius. Your common sense observations are certainly valid, but they are explainable by physics and/or they don't make your point. You are confused about extraneous phenomena that are explainable. For example.....

The tiny, 2 lb lead ball hitting your head v. a 2 lb plastic bucket. Yes! The ball would hurt more than the bucket. But let's look at what that really means.

The kinetic energy of each object traveling at the same speed is, by definition, exactly the same. Newton's laws of motion and the law governing kinetic energy cannot be violated. So the energy in both systems is the same.

So why would the ball hurt more than the bucket?

What your intuition is telling you about preferring to be hit by the bucket and not the ball can be explained by other properties, distinct from considerations of energy. The bucket is plastic, so it's elastic, and when it hit you, it would bend or deform. So some of the energy would be absorbed by the plastic itself, meaning less would be imparted to your head. But the total amount of energy in the system is the same.

And there are other factors. The ball, being smaller, concentrates the force on a smaller part of your head, producing more stimulation of a fewer number of pain receptors....and the more concentrated force has a greater chance to cause localized tissue damage, like a hematoma or a fracture. But, again, the total amount of energy in both systems is the same; whether the energy is delivered to a 1 cm surface casing a painful fracture vs. a 15 cm surface causing just a bruise does not change the fact that the same amount of energy was transferred in both systems. The subjective experience of pain does not correlate with the total energy transmitted. The difference is explained by how our nervous system and skeletal system works, not by a change in the fundamentals of physics.

In a ball-club collision, the relevant factors are the kinetic energy, the efficiency of the energy transfer, and then the aerodynamics of the ball flight. Kinetic energy is governed or capped by Newton's laws. The efficiency of the transfer is governed or capped by the COR test. Aerodynamics are also governed and capped by physics laws.

There ain't nothing left.

Science-based golf club R&D was virtually non-existent for over 100 years. It's exploded in the last 20 years. It's pretty much maxed out. I know that sounds sort of Luddite....but it is. Laws of physics are fairly simple, and although there are all of these fancy sounding terms (coefficient of restitution), materials (forged titanium), marketing schemes, etc., in essence the process of trying to maximize the performance of golf clubs is a simple task grounded in simple physics principles that have been known for centuries.

Between the COR limits and the other limits on the form and make of golf clubs, we are essentially at the limits of what's possible.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[acerimusdux]

The plastic bucket argument is absurd, but in any case, driver faces aren't made of soft plastic, they are made of titanium, and COR is already near the USGA limit, to transfer the maximal amount of force. So the formula for ball speed really only needs the clubhead speed, clubhead mass, and loft.

 

On 4/13/2016 at 5:54 AM, Mike Boatright said:

My test concluded that I could swing the 44.5 inch 60 gram shaft 155 gram driver head 119 mph with ease because of it's head weight vs my 200 gram standard club 110 with measurable effort

Thing is, if Mike really can get 119 mph with a 155g head, vs. 110 mph with a 200g head, then in theory he could probably gain almost 7 yards distance.

If we assume a 10.5 degree loft (so a cosine of .983), 0.83 COR (the legal max), 46g ball, then:

For a 110 mph swing with a 200g club:

1.83*110/(1+46/200)*.983 = 160.9 mph ball speed

For a 119mph swing with a 155g club:

1.83*119/(1+46/155)*.983= 165.1 mph ball speed

With optimal launch conditions, that 4.2 mph additional ball speed would add almost 7 yards.

Of course that's entirely theoretical, assuming a perfect strike, etc, and assuming Mike's somewhat unscientific measures were correct. Real world though, more important than the few theoretical mph that could be gained one way or the other would be which swing is easier to repeat, to control strike, to optimize launch conditions.

Still, while not the norm, some higher swing speed players do sometimes like a lighter club:

 

Quote

 

When Boo Weekley put Cleveland's XL270 driver in play earlier this season, its 44-gram shaft was the lightest ever used on the PGA Tour. With a 192-gram head and a papery 26-gram grip, the driver was about 20 percent lighter overall than those typically played on tour.

"Honestly, I wasn't expecting our tour staff to gravitate toward this product," says Nate Radcliffe, Cleveland's metal-wood development manager. "But we've seen that any swing speed might increase with a lighter weight. Golfers don't need to feel the individual components of the club, just the overall system."

link

 

 

[iacas]

On April 14, 2016 at 3:00 PM, Big Lex said:

The tiny, 2 lb lead ball hitting your head v. a 2 lb plastic bucket. Yes! The ball would hurt more than the bucket. But let's look at what that really means.

You've skipped ahead twenty steps. Originally it was a 2 pound ball (which could be a deflated play ball for all we know) versus a 5 pound metal can (perhaps filled with paint or wood glue or sheet metal screws… we don't know).

On April 13, 2016 at 7:34 PM, Mike Boatright said:

I will say that a 2 pound ball dropped into a cement object would probably deliver more direct energy vs a 5 pound metal can,at least that's what I can see in my mind.

[Buckeyebowman]

Mike reminds me of Penny's boyfriend Zach on "The Big Bang Theory". Once, while talking to Sheldon and the crew he says, "That's what I love about science. There's no one right answer!"  Unfortunately, there are far too many people who think that way.

I also enjoy archery, and bowhunting for whitetail deer here in Ohio, and am a member of an archery/bowhunting web forum. There are certain guys on the forum who are speed freaks. They shoot the lightest arrow/broadhead combo they can, to achieve as much speed as possible.

They are reminded, often, that this may not be the best in a hunting situation because at the lightweight extreme, they are losing Kinetic Energy (KE). In one post Mike wondered why you need both mass and velocity. Because mass is part of the KE equation.

This has been demonstrated graphically many times. As the arrow weight decreases beyond a certain point, the speed will, indeed, increase, but the KE will begin to drop. This is the point of diminishing returns. The arrow lacks "punch" for want of a better term. Taking that as a starting point, gradually increasing arrow weight will result in lower speeds, but increases in KE. This phenomenon will peak at a certain point, and any further increases in weight will result in further speed loss and lower KE.

So, it seems there's a happy medium after all. Which is why driver head weights seem to have settled at around 190-200 grams. I think it would be interesting to find an old persimmon driver head and weigh it, just to see how heavy it was. I used to have my old wood heads laying around somewhere, but I don't know if I still have them.

Edited April 17, 2016 by Buckeyebowman

[baller7345]

On 4/14/2016 at 3:00 PM, Big Lex said:

.someone will never figure out how to make water boil at 0 degrees Celsius.

Off topic.

This is actually possible. You just need a really low atmospheric pressure.  There is a reason why water boils so easily when put in a vacuum.

" If you take that air away then because you haven't got the pressure of the air pushing in on it, water molecules inside that material will actually want a bit more further space to part. That means they're more likely to want to be a gas or liquid than a solid. And so, ice melts and water boils at a lower temperature "

[natureboy]

I saw the HammerX infomercials for the first time. Anyone else find the 'actually hollow' vs. 'internally hollow' statements, lots of discussion of weight (mass factor?), the focus on the 'hollowed out' bottom of the Nike Covert driver,  and use of pictures depicting hammers in a golf discussion to be a possible tell? POWWW!

Edited June 14, 2016 by natureboy

[Aflighter]

I found out the hard way.I took a R9 and took the weights out of it.Used it in  trny.That driver felt sooo good because it way so light.Unfortunately though  could barely hit it 200 yards.I was like how can you hit a ball so good and it goes nowhere.

[Lihu]

1 hour ago, Aflighter said:

I found out the hard way.I took a R9 and took the weights out of it.Used it in  trny.That driver felt sooo good because it way so light.Unfortunately though  could barely hit it 200 yards.I was like how can you hit a ball so good and it goes nowhere.

Not surprised I suppose. It's likely that everything was optimized for the standard head mass?

[Lihu]

On 6/13/2016 at 9:28 PM, natureboy said:

I saw the HammerX infomercials for the first time. Anyone else find the 'actually hollow' vs. 'internally hollow' statements, lots of discussion of weight (mass factor?), the focus on the 'hollowed out' bottom of the Nike Covert driver,  and use of pictures depicting hammers in a golf discussion to be a possible tell? POWWW!

Don't forget, the louder you scream as you swing with the Hammer-X club the farther the ball goes. It's in the review. . .