![]() Tilting the spin axis left will cause the ball to curve left through the air, because the lift produced by the spin will be directed more to the left – like banking an aircraft.įor a normal shot from the tee or fairway, backspin is imparted on the golf ball primarily by club head speed and the loft of the club. The ball curves through the air, not because of sidespin, but because the spin axis is tilted. That direction may change over time, as other forces such as drag are applied during the ball’s flight and its later interaction with the ground, but you can’t possibly have backspin and sidespin – and striking the ball with a golf club creates so much backspin that sidespin is impossible. With anything remotely like a normal golf stroke, it is impossible to put sidespin on the ball.īasic physics (the principles of angular momentum) tells us that, if a ball is reasonably balanced, it will spin in only one direction at any point in time. There is no such thing as sidespin on a golf ball. ![]() Let’s start by clearing up a common misunderstanding. It’s a specious argument “all else” is never equal, and this sort of misleading instruction makes us furious because it hinders students’ progress.Ī draw and a fade are about far more than spin direction, and the impact conditions required to create either will produce very different results. Well, it’s true to say that the direction of the spin, left versus right, draw spin versus fade spin, won’t in itself change the distance that the ball travels.īut to infer from this that a draw and a fade are equal is a big mistake. Therefore a draw is just a mirror of a fade, all else being equal. ![]() The argument, basically, was that the ball doesn’t know whether it’s spinning to the right or to the left. This student had seen some instruction on the internet that claimed that a draw and a fade were the same, in terms of distance. We were recently challenged by a new student, when we were teaching the laws of ball flight. Yes, generally, drawing the golf ball will make it travel a longer total distance than hitting a fade.Īpologies to the lefties out there, but, for simplicity, this article will describe shots from a right-handed golfer’s perspective.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |