V
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FLIGHT OF THE GOLF BALL
Double Motion is Imparted by Every
Stroke of the Club. .
Interentiiigr . Data Keffarding- the
Value of liOiigr Driving
and Studied Stroke.
THE FLIGHT of a golf ball and its
behavior in the air after the player
has delivered his shrewdest blow pre
sents elements of attraction to all classes
. of players. No golfer, however skillful
or however experienced, can quite get
rid of the feeling that though it may be
exhilarating to win a hole by a difficult
and bold approach shot or a brilliant
piece of tricky put-
ting, it is the tee shot
at each succeeding
hole which lingers
longest amid the lav
endar of the mem
ory, and is recounted
with the greatest
zest in a subsequent
narrative of the vary
ing fortunes of the
match.
Every golfer has
hi3 own particular
method of striking
the ball, which, in
its subsequent flight
through the air,
curves to right or
left "docks," or
keeps straight in its
line of initial tra
jectory according to
the player's stance,
the velocity of his
swing, and the abso
1 u t e 1 y true hori
zontal impact of the
club. Yet few play
ers theorize about
the why and the
wherefore of the
toed or slice ball, or
while the truly hit
ball keeps a straight line and soars
in graceful parabola until it drops
to the ground. All that they are
content to know i3 that the ball
which curves to the right or left has
been badly as well as unscientifically
struck, and the resolve is made either to
correct the stance or to emphasize the
follow through of the swing when the
next teeing ground is reached.
The majority of golfers are careless of
the fact that the golf ball in its flight
through the air has had imparted to it a
double motion one progessive, the
other rotary. That this is so is never
theless the fact, and it is one of the
charms of the game that it is so inex
pressibly full of variety in many of its
scientific problems as well as in rich en
joyment of its changing playing aspects.
The flight of the golf ball has been
frequently studied experimentally, and
two of the latest investigators who add
their little stone to the growing cairn of
our scientific knowledge are F. Broad-
bent and II. Smith in an interesting
article in this month's Strand Magazine.
The illustrations in the article show the
ingenuity with which the experiment
alists have attained their object of prov
ing the main point of their paper, which
is that every ball in its flight through
the air has had an underpinning motion
imparted to it by the stroke of the
player. That fact is not, of course,
scientifically new, for it was revealed to
a somewhat incredulous golfing world
by the late Professor Tait more than a
dozen years ago. But what is new
is the ingenious method which the
investigators adopted to show by means
of snapshot photography the behavior
of the ball and the clubhead at the mo
ment of impact.
Beyond demonstrating to the eye of
the observer that the ball, when struck
from the tee, acquires underspin, the new
head driven by a twenty-eight pound
weight and a pulley, the ball did not
leave the club at a greater speed than
from sixty to eighty feet per second.
It has been proved, however, in rigid
mathematical formulae by Professor
Tait that even medium drivers among
the ranks of golfers get a speed of nearly
250 feet per second, like Braid or Var
don. the initial speed is as high as five
hundred feet per second. Few players
realize, therefore, the tremendous ex
penditure of muscular force needed to
obtain a carrying ball of one hundred
and forty orone hundred and fifty yards,
even when the air is perfectly calm. But
if, in addition to the very slight curva
ture of flight which even the most ac
curate strikers unconsciously impart to
the ball, there is added the constant re
sistance of the air and the disturbing
breezes which the ball has to overcome
. v 'J-' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' f -
A LARGE GALLERY FOLLOWED THE MATCHES THROUGHOUT THE WEEK.
investigators do not add much to the
scientific knowledge already at the golf
er's disposal as to the flight of the golf
ball. The "Unwritten Chapter on Golf,"
upon which the late Professor Tait was
wont to comment, has yet to be written,
though it may be acknowledged that
progress is being made in that direction.
If, however, we are to get much beyond
the state of knowledge in which Newton
left the subject 237 years ago, when he
noted the curved line depcril ed by a ten
nis ball after being struck by an oblique
racket, the experiments on the flight of
the golf ball must be carried out in the
patient spirit of Professor Tait on the
links, amid everyday players of all
grades of driving excellence. Mr. Broad
bent and Mr. Smith carried out their ex
periments in a lofty room, where the air
was, of course, still and undisturbed.
They invented a piece of mechanism
which might be described as a "ballistic
driver," to propel the ball off the tee;
but even with the terrific swish of a club
in its path, the wonder really is that the
general standard of tee shots is so high
as it undoubtedly is in these days. It is
the presence of these unknown factors
in the air, and the difficulty of gauging
their influence, that has hitherto made
the task of observers and experiment
alists such a difficult one. Nothing puz
zled Professor Tait more than the sin
gularly inconsistent results which he ob
tained in his efforts to determine the
resistance which the air offered to the
golf ball.
It may be accepted as a well estab
lished scientific fact that the movement
of the ball known as underspin is the
very life of every creditable tee shot.
Without it there would be no long car
ries and no really fine drives, and to get
golfers in these days to accept the fact
almost without question shows very
strikingly how great a length we have
advanced since the early days when ex
periments were made, and when the
prominent golfers of St. Andrews re
sented the theory of Professor Tait that
every really fine golfer imparted rotation
to his ball when he drove it of! the
tee.
There is one fact connected with the
theory of underspin which seems to be
conclusive against the contention of the
old school of players, who maintain
that long driving was just as much a
feature of contemporary play with the
feather ball as it is to-day with the
gutta or the American ball. The feather
ball was smooth in its outward surface,
and experienced gained through the
efforts of generations of golfers proves
that a smooth ball has much less under
spin than one that is grooved or nicked.
The roughness of the golf ball is essen
tial to a long carry and a steady flight in
the air. This was demonstrated when
the first gutta ball was experimented
with in 184G at Musselburgh. That ball
was made smooth
and without nicking,
and when driven by
professionals a n d
amateurs experi
mentally it was
banned because of its
invicible tendency to
"dock." The curious
fact was revealed
later, however, when
the ball was dis
carded as a failure,
and handed over to
the caddies, that the
more its suifaoe was
cut with cleeks and
irons the better it
flew ; and out of that
hint came first of all
the hand-hammered
ball and then the
nicking machine
mold. The nicking
inut be judiciously
done, for a shallow
nicked ball "docks,"
and lias very little
carrying capacity.
Therefore, well nick
ed balls should be
selected. Another
useful hint which
the golfer should
embody in his golfing creed if he wishes
to prevent curvature in the flight of his
ball is to take up a square position at the
tee, thereby securing by the horizontal
impact of his club more uniformly
straight shots.
jiii. i,i:acii i:xkjita i a.
lMcnic In OlMervance of Her Daugif
ter'H JBlrthriay.
Mrs. James E. Leach of Brookline,
who is spending the spring months at
The Ivy cottage, celebrated the ninth
birthday of her little daughter, Miss
Elizabeth, by a delightful afternoon pic
nic in the pine grove last week. There
were all sorts of merry games, potato
races and sports, after which a dainty
lunch was served and a birthday cake
bearing nine candles, cut.
The guests included : Miss Elizabeth
Lawrie, Miss Marion Sherrard, Miss
Julia Lancaster, Master Willie Ketcham,
Master Arthur Ketcham, Master Glen
wood Sherrard, Miss Caroline Colby,
Miss Pea, Miss Elizabeth Macfarlane
and Mr. Pichard Hale, Boston, and Mr.
Andrew II. Lane.