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Driver vs. Alunminum Baseball Bat


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What makes a a golf ball travel farther
What hits a ball farther same person under the same conditions golf ball just tossed up to hit with the baseball bat and hit normal off a tee with a driver. Which will hit it farther the bat or the driver?
Just a random discusion witha co-worker. Whats your opinon?
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A major league home run can be as little as 400 feet, thats roughly 133-135 yards, it's really not even a fair fight.

Right, but a golf ball off an aluminum bat travels much farther than a baseball. All things constant, same golf ball, same swing speed, I think the driver and baseball bat could have a challenging fight. Probably give my vote to driver just because that's what it's made for, but I'd be interested to see a machine swing a bat around at 100mph and see what happens. It would dent like crazy, but would be pretty cool.

Driver: Ping G30
3-Wood: Ping G30
Hybrid: Adams Idea Pro
Irons: Mizuno JPX921 Hot Metal Pro
Wedges: Scratch 1018
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In my experience, baseball bat. Now, YMMV since my baseball swing is much better than my golf swing. I'm trying to find the COR of a baseball bat online but the mass of the bat v. golf club will be seriously in the bats favor. Also, in reality (v. theory) the much larger sweet spot of the bat would be significant.

 

The COR of a baseball against a hard surface is about .55 so a baseball against a bat would be higher and I would imagine that a golf ball against a bat would be even higher than a baseball.

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Sounds like a homework assignment for someone...

 

Who's got an old aluminum bat they can take to the range with them tomorrow?

 

I have done this a bunch but never paid attention to the distance... Used to play softball adjacent to a golf course... I would pick up all the errant shots and smack them back onto the golf course with an aluminum softball bat so nobody would turn an ankle stepping on a golf ball... and it was a lot of fun..

 

a golf ball does go a long way when hit with a bat... My guess is not as far as a driver though.

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I actually tried this a while back. I have my own practice range so it was no problem. The only poor part of the test was that the bat, while aluminum, was one that I found in a bale of hay a year or so ago. Anyway it is intact although I'm sure not some high end one but didn't really have a good "ping" to it. Anyway, I could only manage about 180 yards with a golf ball.

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Honestly it's pretty simple and the answer will be given the same individual (assuming they're as good as baseball as they are at golf) the driver will win every time.

 

Here's a few factors:

1. Length: Driver length will be around 44"+ from your hands vs say <40" for the bat even if you hit it on the very end. Both swings torque around your torso so you'd have similar hand speed #'s thus giving you a higher head speed numbers with the driver. Second is that the sweet spot for the bat is NOT at the very end it's probably 3-6" from the very end of the bat.

 

2. Weight: Driver weighs less than a bat period. You'll have a higher head speed with the driver period. Unless you think you need the additional mass to change the inertia of the golf ball the additional weight of the bat don't help.

 

3. Impact point: A bat has a cylindrical surface vs a nearly square surface for a driver. Which one transfers energy to the ball more efficiently and more consistently? Driver face. That being said with a bat (unless you're better than the best baseball player ever) you're going to struggle with all the #'s most ppl here buy their equipment on... spin rates, launch angles, yada yada.

 

There's a lot more factors that favor the driver and while it IS fun (guilty of doing it) you won't out hit yourself using a bat.

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General formula for Initial Velocity of a golf ball:

 

V = U*(1+e)/(1+m/M)

 

U = club head speed, e = COR, m = mass golf ball, M = mass golf club

 

Driver mass is roughly 220 grams compared to a baseball bat at 907g (32oz.) and a golf ball at 45 grams. I'm going to use a rough guess of 100 mph for a driver and 70 mph for baseball (both a high averages. 75 - 80 seems like a reasonable average for MLBers but they are using heavier wood bats).

 

Using the above formula with identical CORs yields 150 mph ball speed with a driver and 122 for the baseball bat. It is extremely unlikely that the COR will be higher for a baseball bat (a golf ball won't compress a bat very much which is what generates the trampoline effect). Therefore under ideal conditions a driver will hit the ball noticeably further.

 

However, hitting it the maximum distance assumes hitting it right on the screws to achieve the ideal COR and an ideal launch angle. It is much easier to hit the sweet spot of a baseball bat and perhaps to hit it on a better trajectory and with less harmful side spin.

 

So . . . . technically a driver hits it further but for average golfers it may be close and for above average baseball players (higher swing speed) a bat may go further.

 

What are people thinking about this analysis? 150mph is an average ball speed for a driver so my formula and math look spot on.

 

- Josh

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I think this debate always comes up because of the fact that when you hit a golfball with a bat, it goes so much further than a baseball goes. It is all in your mind. If you are used to hitting a baseball and it goes 350 feet, then you hit a golfball and it goes 400 feet, one believes a bat is the way to go. But there is no way you are going to hit a golfball 900 feet with a baseball bat. Zero.

 

A few years ago espn had a tracker on batter's swings and I remember Griffey being up in the high 90's, so thats possible. However, the fact that a bat is shorter and stiffer, it would lose to the driver. A driver is about 10 inches longer than a bat, with the added power the shaft delivers by flexing.

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  • 11 years later...

See you have variables that factor in with this discussion. Firstly how well does the person swinging the bat know his or her swinging mass of the bat. Same goes for the driver and person swinging it as well. The golf ball mass also takes a play in this too. As golf balls tend to vary +/- a few grams. A nine iron and a baseball bat have different means of transferring the energy put into then by the person swinging each item. The average nine iron weighs in at around 0.95 lbs or 434 g. The average baseball bat weighs in at around 1.75 lbs or 793.787g.

Assuming that the person can swing both the bat and the club at the same force and speed you can easily calculate the distance by first finding out how much force it takes to send a golf ball flying one foot. Take then and find out how much force is put through the bat and golf club. Leverage and length start to take a play here as golf clubs and baseball bats ain't exactly the same. Your loft angle vs sweet spot of the bat also take in a portion of distance to be traveled by each ball. I haven't hit many golf balls with a standard club but I have knocked a few across a 100 plus acre field with a youth aluminum bat. Nonetheless as I said earlier many factors play into just exactly how far a golf ball will travel. A major league batter swings at an average speed of 70 mph the average golfer with a handicap of 11 to 15 with swings a 7 iron of speeds between 70 and 75 mph. That major league batter is used to hitting balls with a bit larger mass at around 5 ounces or 141.75 grams. However, it can also weigh as much as 5 ¼ ounces or 148.83 grams. The average golf ball weight may not exceed 1.620 ounces 45.93 g. Given the maximum for each ball you can easily see how a golf ball could possibly travel father depending on who is holding the bat and who's holding the golf club. Now if you were to get someone with major league arms to swing that golf club and hit the sweet spot of the driving face then yes it's safe to assume that the club struck ball would go further. However if the person holding the bat were to toss the ball in the air and hit it, which is actually easiest to do, then the added velocity of the ball falling to the ground would also be added to the amount of energy put into the bat through the swing versus a stationary ball being struck by the moving club. Unless you could get the club to transmit more energy into the ball than the bat swing plus toss in the air the batted ball will theoretically go further.

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I'm not sure if all the scientific formulas, etc. , but it's not even close. I'll bet any major league ball player his paycheck that I can hit a golf ball farther with my 3 iron than he can hit one with his favorite bat.

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Titleist 915F 15.5 HZRDUS Smoke
Titleist U500 3 iron
Titleist 718CB 4 thru PW
Titleist Vokey SM7 50-08, 54-08, 58-08

Scotty Cameron Phantom X6

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