Golf Ball Distance project

[Beyersdoerfer]

Experiement Explaination

The experiment that will be taking place requires three things, golf balls, a hard surface, and a tape measure. We will be bouncing different compression and different layered golf balls against the hardest and most bouncy surface we can find, which happened to be a smooth finished concrete. We will one by one drop the golf balls at a controlled height, and film the results of the bounce back with a high definition slow motion camera. The data will then be reviewed and the end results will be recorded into a graph that shows which golf ball bounced back at the highest height. The ball with the highest bounce back will correlate as the ball that will travel the farthest off of the golf clubs face. The lineup of golf balls will include the most regularly bought tour performance golf balls, and amateur golf balls. This will give those reviewing this experiment the answer to the simple question of which golf ball will travel the farthest total distance. The golf balls will be dropped by hand and will be dropped on the same ground spot on the smooth concrete, making contact with a part of the ground that does not have a different pattern or slanting angle, which will assure the results. The golf balls will be dropped three times each from the same height to insure that the results are relatively the same then the data will be averaged.

Experiment Results

Our experiment went just as planned with no setbacks as we calculated the bounce back of the golf balls. We started out by finding a level smooth area of concrete to bounce the golf balls off of. Once we found the best available area we made a 4/4 inch square on the ground with tape to insure that we were hitting the same spot on the ground from where we were dropping the ball. We decided to drop the balls from 50 inches, we measured the height with a 4 foot measuring stick and dropped the balls from 2 inches higher than the measuring stick (50 inches). The project started with the Wilson staff Duo-U ball and finished with the Titleist Pro V-1. We recorded the droppings with a high definition slow motion camera and reviewed all of the videos to come up with the height of the bounces. Each golf ball was dropped three times to assure the accuracy of the data. These are the numbers we came up with.

                                                Wilson Staff Duo-U – 41 3/4”

                             Srixon Soft Feel Yellow- 43”

                             Taylor Made Tour Preferred X- 41”

                             Wilson Staff Duo- 43 3/8”

                             Titleist NXT Tour S- 44”

Feedback would be greatly appreciated, 

Thank you. 

 

[No Mulligans]

How do you conclude that how high a ball bounces in your experiment correlates to distance when hit with a driver?

I think a superball will bounce higher than any of your test balls.

 

[boogielicious]

7 hours ago, Beyersdoerfer said:

Experiement Explaination

The experiment that will be taking place requires three things, golf balls, a hard surface, and a tape measure. We will be bouncing different compression and different layered golf balls against the hardest and most bouncy surface we can find, which happened to be a smooth finished concrete. We will one by one drop the golf balls at a controlled height, and film the results of the bounce back with a high definition slow motion camera. The data will then be reviewed and the end results will be recorded into a graph that shows which golf ball bounced back at the highest height. The ball with the highest bounce back will correlate as the ball that will travel the farthest off of the golf clubs face. The lineup of golf balls will include the most regularly bought tour performance golf balls, and amateur golf balls. This will give those reviewing this experiment the answer to the simple question of which golf ball will travel the farthest total distance. The golf balls will be dropped by hand and will be dropped on the same ground spot on the smooth concrete, making contact with a part of the ground that does not have a different pattern or slanting angle, which will assure the results. The golf balls will be dropped three times each from the same height to insure that the results are relatively the same then the data will be averaged.

Experiment Results

Our experiment went just as planned with no setbacks as we calculated the bounce back of the golf balls. We started out by finding a level smooth area of concrete to bounce the golf balls off of. Once we found the best available area we made a 4/4 inch square on the ground with tape to insure that we were hitting the same spot on the ground from where we were dropping the ball. We decided to drop the balls from 50 inches, we measured the height with a 4 foot measuring stick and dropped the balls from 2 inches higher than the measuring stick (50 inches). The project started with the Wilson staff Duo-U ball and finished with the Titleist Pro V-1. We recorded the droppings with a high definition slow motion camera and reviewed all of the videos to come up with the height of the bounces. Each golf ball was dropped three times to assure the accuracy of the data. These are the numbers we came up with.

 

                                                Wilson Staff Duo-U – 41 3/4”

 

                             Srixon Soft Feel Yellow- 43”

 

                             Taylor Made Tour Preferred X- 41”

 

                             Wilson Staff Duo- 43 3/8”

 

                             Titleist NXT Tour S- 44”

Feedback would be greatly appreciated, 

Thank you. 

 

I would recommend eliminating the hand drop and find a way to automate the drop. I am in R&D and we developed a drop method for our products that eliminated hand dropping (I cannot share the information). The variability of the human hand may sway your results.

[acerimusdux]

I think this would only be of interest if you have a swing speed of about 12 mph.

In other words, this test might possibly give you a clue about "feel" of a ball on short chip shots or putting, but I don't think it can tell you anything at all about ball performance.

 

[Beyersdoerfer]

We tried to get the most accurate results with the resources available

[natureboy]

There's more to golf ball flight than simple collision rebound. This is an okay experiment for grammar school or early high school (probably not HS physics).

As shown in the posted superball video a smooth bouncy ball doesn't go very far because without dimples it has more drag and produces less lift. Different balls will have different dimple patterns.

The differing rebound may actually be good for swings of different speeds as a harder golf ball (http://sciencenotes.org/why-a-glass-ball-bounces-higher-than-a-rubber-ball/) at lower swing speeds may deform (compress) less which affects spin which affects lift and distance.

With a high speed camera available to you I'm surprised you didn't come up with something a little more sophisticated.

Edited May 3, 2016 by natureboy