Golf is as much science as it is art. While players may create strokes with minor differences in style, they must use the basic biomechanics to generate the most accurate and long shots. Swing movements affect ball spin, club acceleration and other aspects of physics that determine where your ball will go and how far it will travel.
Power
German tennis researcher Richard Schonborn determined that professional-level tennis strokes, which use the same basic striking mechanics as a baseball, golf and hockey swings, require about 4,000 watts of power to execute. You generate approximately 100 to 150 watts of power per kilo of body weight, so we know that the larger areas of the body create most of the power on sport swings. This means the legs, hips, core and trunk generate most of the watts of power during a golf swing. Power does not come from gripping the golf handle tightly and forcefully swinging the arms and snapping the wrists.
Angles
Where your clubface is pointing at impact largely determines where the ball will go after it's hit. Additionally, the direction from which your club arrives at the ball also affects its flight path. If your club comes from directly behind the ball, traveling straight, and your club face is straight, your ball will move forward, reacting as described in Newton's first law of physics: An object at rest will stay at rest until it's acted upon. If your clubface is pointing to the left, your ball will travel to the left, if your swing path is straight. If your face is pointing to the right, your ball will travel to the right if your swing path is straight. To get balls out of deep grass and sand, players use "lofted" clubs or those with a more open face. These pop the ball up when you make contact with the ball, allowing you to maintain a simpler golf swing, rather than having to chop at the ball or flick your wrists.
Slice and Hook
If you stand too close to the ball, you will create an inside-to-out swing path to the ball. If you are a right-hander, this will cause your club to hit the right side of the ball, moving to the left. This causes the ball to spin from left to right, creating slice and a left-to-right flight path, based on the Magnus Effect, which dictates how round objects rotate in the air. If you hit the ball with an outside-to-in swing, you'll hook the ball to the left. Depending on how you swing, you will create less-pronounced variations of the slice and hook.
Force
If you'd like to hit the ball far, you'll want to hit it with as much force as you can. Force is defined as mass times acceleration. The mass part of this equation for golf is the ball and the golf club. Acceleration refers to how fast your club is traveling. If your club is traveling at 100 mph at impact, you will hit your ball with more force than if the club is traveling at 80 mph. To get the most acceleration, begin your swing by moving your hips forward. This will accelerate your trunk and shoulders, which will pull your arms and hands into the shot. If you try to push your shoulders and trunk forward with your arms and hands, you'll accelerate the club less.
Reactive Power
Reactive power is created by coordinating two or more muscle movements, such as a basketball player bending down before he jumps up to dunk a ball. During golf, the knee bend and subsequent foot push off the ground creates reactive power, which is transferred to the upper body to help create club acceleration. The coordination of the end of the backswing and the start of the forward swing is another example of reactive power.
Member Comments