Stop Lying About Your Distance - It's Pissing Me Off (Rant Thread)

[Lihu]

56 minutes ago, IowaGreg said:

There were really tall trees along the fairways and a lot of them.  If his shots weren't in the trees, they were close enough to the trees that it would have been difficult to try to put in over the trees.  The other 2 people had only played 2-3 times in their life and were just out there for fun and a paid day off of work.  Believe me, we would have much rather used his if we could.

I know a lot of long hitters who end up in other fairways, and end up hitting towering shots or at least they’re generally forced to learn by the aforementioned circumstances. 😊

Edited April 25, 2019 by Lihu

[billchao]

Let's stay on topic, please 😀

[Cantankerish]

Yes.  Back to complaining, folks.

For reference I found this.

 

And this...

 

--Those are CARRY distances.

--Check out the differences in attack angles for PGA and LPGA drivers. Are you hitting down on the ball?

--And look at the spin differences for 3-wood.  33% more spin for the guys.

[billchao]

21 minutes ago, Cantankerish said:

Check out the differences in attack angles for PGA and LPGA drivers. Are you hitting down on the ball?

The more important difference is Club Speed and thus, Ball Speed.

22 minutes ago, Cantankerish said:

And look at the spin differences for 3-wood.  33% more spin for the guys.

A faster swing will generate more spin than a slower one.

[Cantankerish]

Are you suggesting that the guys are swinging comparatively faster on a 3 wood than every other club?  The spin differential is not in line with the general trend of other clubs.

[Lihu]

1 hour ago, Cantankerish said:

Are you suggesting that the guys are swinging comparatively faster on a 3 wood than every other club?  The spin differential is not in line with the general trend of other clubs.

I think they’re swinging a lot faster according to the trackman measurements... 😁

[billchao]

2 hours ago, Cantankerish said:

Are you suggesting that the guys are swinging comparatively faster on a 3 wood than every other club?  The spin differential is not in line with the general trend of other clubs.

I'm not sure what you're saying. The speed numbers are on both charts.

[phillyk]

4 minutes ago, billchao said:

I'm not sure what you're saying. The speed numbers are on both charts.

Maybe he’s trying to say that for spin across the clubs and when comparing to the ladies, the 3wood has a bigger difference in rpm. Which is most likely attributed to the attack angle not just swing speed. 

[Pretzel]

Men swing 2 degrees steeper with a 3 wood than women do, and they swing 17 mph faster. The lofts of 3-woods are the same for both ladies and men, usually, at about 15-17 degrees.

The reason the driver spin numbers are so similar, by comparison, is that men tend to use lower lofted drivers than women. Despite the larger difference in attack angle, when you use a 10.5 or even 12 degree driver instead of an 8.5, 9, or 9.5 degree driver like many men do it will cause your spin rate to go up (and also your launch angle).

[PerfectStriking]

This thread may be old, but it's still a lot of fun. So just to annoy OP even more I'm going to post, today I went out and hit 3 drives over 300 yards, all were on elevated, not downhill slopes just elevated tees with a moderate breeze behind. Two were straight down the middle at about 300 yards exactly (297-303) and a third was 50 yards from the middle of the green in middle fairway on a dogleg fly over trees on a 390 yarder. Now if that doesn't annoy the G out of OP's golfing then I don't have any better. 

So to summarise my obvious findings:

1. Elevated tees help distance

2. Moderate breeze behind helps distance

3. You can't hit it long (to my standard) at my age (49) or probably any age, unless you really lag the club head, if you pull hard or even pull moderately on the way down anytime before you are just about to make contact you will just grab it and hit it short and wayward, at least that's today's epiphany

4. My average drive on two holes on the same 9 uphill into the same moderate wind was 240-245 yards, but I was happy with that, so what's my average drive based on that very hilly 9 holes, who knows or cares because I think I just found 20 yards, more accuracy and consistency, a more relaxed and interesting way of swinging and playing the game and improved the fun of my golf without changing clubs, that's my idea of a great golf day!

[Nagah]

I hit a 7 iron yesterday 190 yards pin high. I hooked the face to make it more like a 5 iron. But hey I hit a 7 iron 190 yards, problem is that I usually hit my 7 iron ( carry about 143 yards of carry).

I also opened the face of my 7 iron and hit it 128 yards and it stopped on a dime. 

[dennyjones]

This was on my Facebook feed today.

 

If he can gain distance, so can you

[Cantankerish]

On 4/28/2019 at 11:22 PM, Pretzel said:

Men swing 2 degrees steeper with a 3 wood than women do, and they swing 17 mph faster. The lofts of 3-woods are the same for both ladies and men, usually, at about 15-17 degrees.

The reason the driver spin numbers are so similar, by comparison, is that men tend to use lower lofted drivers than women. Despite the larger difference in attack angle, when you use a 10.5 or even 12 degree driver instead of an 8.5, 9, or 9.5 degree driver like many men do it will cause your spin rate to go up (and also your launch angle).

Pretzel, when you say "will cause your spin rate to go up" are you talking about side spin or back spin or some aggregate?  My understanding is that back spin is a desirable result of extra loft while side spin is the devil.

[Pretzel]

3 hours ago, Cantankerish said:

Pretzel, when you say "will cause your spin rate to go up" are you talking about side spin or back spin or some aggregate?  My understanding is that back spin is a desirable result of extra loft while side spin is the devil.

Your spin rate is your spin rate. Side spin and backspin are not independent from one another, more backspin with the same angle between the club face and the swing path (and hit in the same place on the face) will always result in more side spin.

Side spin, as most people think of it, isn't really a thing. The golf ball doesn't spin completely backwards and completely sideways, the golf ball simply spins at an angle. You can factor out the angled spin into backwards and sideways components, but it's just an angle - called the spin axis. It's also affected by how centered your strike is on the face of the golf club, through the gear effect.

This angle is altered by changing the difference between the angles of your club face and your swing path. Bigger difference in those those two measurements means a bigger angle to the spin axis, as well as being increased by a strike that is further off center (more gear effect).

Increasing your spinrate will increase the speed the ball rotates at, but not change the spin axis. This means that, if you were to break it down into backspin and side spin components, both backspin AND side spin would be increased by the same proportion.

This video explains it graphically. It shoes how monitors like Trackman don't measure backspin and sidespin, but simply spin rate and spin axis as well as explaining how this correlates to the curvature of the golf ball.

 

[Cantankerish]

My friend, that was very instructive.  Thank you very much.

[PerfectStriking]

15 hours ago, Cantankerish said:

Pretzel, when you say "will cause your spin rate to go up" are you talking about side spin or back spin or some aggregate?  My understanding is that back spin is a desirable result of extra loft while side spin is the devil.

Hi Cantankerish, I went to try a new M6 3 wood today on the monitor in the store bay where I really feel uncomfortable hitting it but had no choice, interesting thing is my club head speed was greatly improved from a week ago, I've changed my swing to lag more and I was doing 98-103 MPH for the 3 Wood when I couldn't get above 99 MPH with my M2 Driver or a new M6 Driver I was trying it against the week before. The most interesting thing though was my spin rate which blew around everywhere from 3100 to 4500. This kind of difference showed a huge difference in distance with a 99 MPH swing at 3100 going the furthest of all the shots, much better than a lot of the 100+ MPH swings. I now know that the next part of my improvement is trying to get spin rate as close to 3000 as possible on a 3 Wood and under 3000 on a Driver. I bought the 3 Wood this week but, not the Driver last week, maybe a few more weeks of swing improvement will get me to buy the Driver?

[Farangster]

On 8/26/2018 at 2:09 AM, AltGolfer said:

Let's say you actually average out to 270 yds. That would require around 105 MPH swing. Which doesn't factor in smash factor/angle. By being a 34 handicap you don't have the fundamentals/mechanics to achieve a consistent strike. The distance your proposing to me is of someone who swings at 120 MPH+ Since you claim you hit it 300 at times. Damn didn't know you swung faster than Tiger Woods. Why aren't your friends and you on tour? Should be smashing it 350 down the fairway.

Your exactly what im talking about in my rant thread. All the articles i listed are not even 2 years old. 

I guess all the statistically data over 20,000 golfers on trackman and what-not are bullshit and your friends and you are the 0.1% minority?

I think I almost broke 120 swing speed once, you won't believe the distance I got  !!!!!!!!!!................................just nicked the ball and it rolled out a few yards (carry maybe one yard) but hey at least I made contact with the ball right, not a total wiff?  Personally, I am sure if I had the right driver I would have clocked it 300+ yards, I blame the equipment!!

Edited June 14, 2019 by Farangster

[CharlieB]

I hit my driver 170 yards straight. I’m 75 YO and that’s all I’ve got.

 

The woods are full of long drivers....Harvey Penick