Maximum Carry Distance

MacMia · June 11, 2009

Anyone have a table?

In the latest Golf Digest, there was a great article about why we miss greens and what we can do to fix it from a swing and gear perspecive. In a side bar, they mentioned a statistic that every fitter should know. It was something like Maximum Carry Distance, which said that if your swing speed was X, and you were hitting Club Y, the ball would carry Z yards.

Does anyone have a table for this?

doggboyy · June 11, 2009

Distance is a function of Ball Speed, Launch Angle and Spin. Ball Speed is a function of Club Head Speed and Energy Transfer (How solid hit is?) this equation can vary from player to player swing at same speed. So I do not think it is as simple as they make it out. Now you can have a distance range. I notice that to many golfers hit a club shorter because they always play to their maximum distance versus standard. Every golfer should practice on a course every once in a while trying to dial in their own distances and not what a book says.

TrufflePig · June 11, 2009

The laws of physics will definitely define a maximum carry based on initial ball speed and launch angle. There are a lot of variables (temp, altitude, humidity, etc...) though so its still probably going to only be an estimate. There are a lot of golfers on this forum who will dispute the numbers if anybody does find it though (guys with 105 SS who regularly carry the ball 280 - impossible). ;)

It'd be nice if someone would just build a website that fronts the physics model of a golf ball in flight. I'm sure all the video games, launch monitors, etc... have a similar engine - it shouldn't be a big secret.