Why size matters as it pertains to distance

[cxx]

Yes negligible. It's best to think of the shaft as a rope delivering the clubhead to the ball. The velocity of the clubhead and the impact location determine the flight of the ball. The MOI of the head dominates any influence the shaft might have during impact.

[GolfChannel]

Following

[Ri_Redneck]

As many have mentioned. Using the ball clubhead speed analogy is only using part of the equation. We're talking about what benefits the process of applying the club to the ball. Strength, flexibility and timing all play a roll. Yes, there are skinny guys who have learned to swing the club fast and there are portly guys who have learned to swing the club fast. My question is which of those two body types seem to last the longest out there swinging fast? I am a firm believer that you need a certain amount of muscle mass to support your skeletal structure. Whether your running, lifting swinging or whatever. Here is why.

I'm an old guy now, but eons ago when the long drive stuff was just starting and winners were swinging clubs made of wood, I aspired to give it a go. I was in my early 20's, just shy of 200 lbs, could max bench well over 400 and max squat close to 700. I loved to hit it long and was working really hard to get my speed up. I worked out and stretched profusely so that I could get the max X factor (it was the thing then) when swinging. As I got up close to 130 CHS, I started suffering back pain that were caused by excessive flexibility. Fortunately, I had a great doctor and he explained to me that I had stretched too much and my muscles were so elongated that I was able to twist far more than my spine could support. He recommended that I stop the stretching and lay off golf for a while. I took several months off to let the back heal and stopped stretching all together. Once my muscles had shortened some, I was able to go back to swinging hard and my muscles worked as the break to stop my swing instead of my vertebrae. I never got back to the same speeds, but as I am now nearing 60, I can still break 110 if I put my mind to it. Stretching is still in my workout, but I know how to limit it so that the muscles take the strain instead of my back.

I've always compared Nicklaus and Tiger in this way. Nicklaus was chubby and big-boned and Tiger was slim. Both could knock the crap out of the ball and didn't hold anything back when playing. To the best of my knowledge, Nicklaus has never had to have golf related surgery and played until age 65. Tiger has had how many back and knee surgeries and I wonder if he will be able to play to 50.

BT

[ebrasmus21]

Came here to say how phucking dare you question Tiger as anything other than a lock for HOF as an inside linebacker.

[ebrasmus21]

This post makes a lot of sense to me, granted, I don’t know a lot about the sciences. Good post, per usual TP

[Hawkeye77]

Nicklaus had a really bad hip forever because of golf and finally had surgery at age 59 that kept him out of the ‘99 U.S. Senior Open in West Des Moines. I cried for years until getting to see him at the Par 3 in ‘16 at The Masters!

[BeerPerHole]

I have to apologize for my flippant, sarcastic tone. I'd actually calculate it for a beer rather than $220/hr. This is a very interesting topic to me. Like I said my background involves lots of lifting, etc. I love lifting and even at my age my frame is still pretty strong. Now that I'm acquiring a better swing I want to get back in the gym. Our head pro and my TPI trainer both say, "You don't need to get stronger." Either way, It's interesting to see what Bryson is doing with his transformation. I don't really think it will become the norm. Maybe slightly more common. I marvel at the short game we see from these guys on tv. I can't imagine doing that...

[bscinstnct]

 

I knew you were goofing around ; )

 

As far as lifting, I had to change my workout completely with the gyms closed *but, I discovered an entirely new way to do strength training and I think I like it better. You may want to consider.

 

I was previously doing a pretty standard lifting routine. Flat bench/seated cable rows on Monday. Squats and deadlifts on Wed. Incline bench/lat pull downs on Friday. Then, cycling on the off days. At 50 years old, I was staying with the upper end of the rep range (6-12). I was hitting 205 on flat bench for 10 reps, didn’t see any need to go crazy trying to recapture Uncle Rico days ; )

 

But, with the lockdown I had to change. Instead of rows/pull downs, I do wide grip pull-ups twice a week. I’m up to 4 sets of about 10. And my lats look better than before, lol.

Instead of bench, I bought a 40 pound weighted vest. I’m up to using 26 pound in it. I do slow pushups twice a week, all the way to the floor and all the way to lockout. I could probably do 50+ push-ups in a row fast and bouncing up and down but with the vest and doing slow, I’m in the 10-15 rep range for 4 sets. Then I do 3 sets with my feet on the bed.

Obviously, I’m not as strong as far as pounds but it feels fantastic. And I wasn’t eating a ton so the muscle mass hasn’t dropped. I think my delts are actually bigger, lol.

For legs, I put the vest on and do Bulgarian split squats. And single leg deadlifts. Again, I’m losing strength but I feel that functionally, I’m just as strong and my balance is even better. Plus, it doesn’t kill my legs as much and I can cycle the next day.

 

Overall, it all just feels more natural and better on my joints. I think I’m gonna stick with it even when the gym opens. I’ll just need like a 100 pound vest at some point but that will take a while ; )

 

 

[Ri_Redneck]

You are correct. Missed that one.

BT

[Christosterone]

FWIW, Barry Bonds has the most beautiful rhythm since ted Williams swinging a bat...

I will argue to my death his swing was every bit as artistic and fluid as Griffey Jr...

 

[chipa]

As I mentioned earlier the difference in the weight between the two impacting objects can be important if the weight of the larger object is not much greater than the smaller object. However, in our case the club is alreadier much heaveir than the ball so the additional mass from a larger player will have a diminshed effect. The additonal velocity can actually be calculated with some simple assumptions about the moving weight of the golfer but I expect it would have less effect on speed than a marginal increase in clubhead speed. That's why you see skinny young ladies on the LPGA tour blasting drives that most men would aspire too. I'm an engineer and feel sure there must be more on this forum (or physicists) who can vouch for this.

[forrester_fire]

Size doesn't matter; speed matters. If being bulkier helps a player generate speed, then size is a positive contributor. If bulk impedes a players speed, then size is a negative.

[forrester_fire]

He's not hitting the ball with his body, he's hitting it with the golf club, thus the added bulk doesn't equate to more force... If he increases the mass or acceleration of the club it creates more force.

[chipa]

Actually the arms and the club act as one so if the arms are heavier the additonal mass would increase the speed of the ball due to inertia, however, it would probably be minimal. Same goes for the other moving parts of the body that are indirectly connected to the club,

[chipa]

Everything you wanted to know about golf ball impact physics: Linear Momentum: Collisions: Problems | SparkNotes

[Fade]

During the downswing, the arms and club do not act as one, energy is exchanged between them, in a manner not dissimilar from the clubhead-ball collision. The mass of the arms comes in play there, as does the muscle-mass that moves the arms.

[bscinstnct]

 

Interesting, but does an increase of mass of the arms/body in any way increase the mass of the point of contact on the club head that transfers energy to the ball?

 

 

[Fade]

Not directly. The mass of the arms/body influences clubhead-speed attained at impact. But the ball does not experience the mass of the arms/body during impact. The ball is gone before the shock of impact is transmitted through the shaft.

[chipa]

I never said the mass of the arms was irrelevant - look at my post. Also, there is only one type of mass so I assume "muscle mass" would be acceleration. Yes that acceleration has an effect too. However, not as much as clubhead speed due to the reasons I mentioned. Please see the link regarding the physics of similar collisions.

[forrester_fire]

The added mass of his arms is so minimal, and so far away from the ball in the lever arm, as to add an infinitesimal amount of additional mass impacting the ball. I would call that minuscule amount of "added bulk", and its effect, irrelevant.

[Jc0]

[Yuck]

Personal experience. Most of my adult life I have weighed between 280 & 290. I am only six feet tall. I was always a relatively long hitter, ball speed was in the mid 170’s which is not considered long any more, but it was back in the day. When I was around 40 My executive physical included body composition scan. Turned out that I was obese. My lean body mass was about 225 lbs, so I was carrying more than 60 lbs of fat. I was pretty active for my size, but opted to drop about 100 lbs over the next year. I spent several years in the mid 190 range. And I absolutely never got nearly as strong as I was when obese. The reason was basic math. At 195 lbs, even with low body fat I could not ever have 225lbs of lean mass. In fact at 195, my lean mass was in the 170s, so I had lost 50+ of muscle. Bottom line if you gain 100lbs and half of it is muscle, you are much stronger, even with the blubber.

[Jc0]

He's got the body over a power lifter right now.

To the physics questions, it's just the collision between the head and ball that matters. Reason being is because the shaft is not a rigid object. Yes it is stiff, but from a physics definition for this type of colision it's not stiff enough to transfer mass into the ball. Also, in a collision with a golf ball what matters is transfer of kinetic energy, not force, not momentum, which is why he is so obsessed with club head speed. In kinetic energy velocity is squared which is why lighter and faster always goes farther than heavier and slower. Bryson took 10g off his driver head trying to get more speed for this reason. Myth busters has a great demonstration on this as well.

 

As for why bulking helps there are two reason. First, it's as simple as more muscle allows for more muscle fibers to help generate power. There are some funny videos of strong men swinging golf clubs, and they generate a considerable amount of speed even though it looks like they barely move. Second reason is to support that speed. Remember he is swinging the golf club down to the ground. He needs strong leg, back, and core to make sure he doesn't get pulled down to it.

[puttingmatt]

Excellent post, and a very good summary of what

Is needed for an effective golf swing .

[clevited]

One thing I would love to see studied is grip strength. I don't mean positioning of the hands on the grip, I mean phyiscal squeezing pressure needed to swing a certain speed. When my grips are getting slippery and need cleaning, my swing speed suffers a lot. I tried calculating this out once. I got something like 140 lbs of force needed per hand to keep a typical driver from slipping due to centripetal force at 120 mph swing speed. I made heavy assumptions regarding coefficients of friction. If my quick calculations are correct (I am definitely not confident they are due to assumptions I had to make), then I think we should all start buying wide reciever gloves or push manufacturers to make velcro grips and gloves lol.

[ThinkingPlus]

What value did you use for the coefficient of friction? Based on a quick check, something like 0.5 - 0.6 should be in the ballpark.

[clevited]

I used .7 I believe. If grip strength does apply to things, and I calculated it accurately enough, it would at least partially explain my abilities. I was curious about this and purchased Iron Minds brand hand strength springs. If their calibrations are right for peak force needed to close them, I can do 195 lbs with each hand 1 time. As far as I know, that is quite above average. This makes me want to go test a bunch of tour guys and long drive pro's lol.

[clevited]

@ThinkingPlus If you find the time, I would be curious to see what you come up with to see if you get something in the same ball park. I did this a while ago and certainly could have made a mistake somewhere.

[ThinkingPlus]

0.7 is probably pretty good.

[ThinkingPlus]

Heading home the end of this week. Hate trying to do anything semi-serious on the tablet. Will try to do the calc once I can get to a real computer.