September 20 /10

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If you check out "how to play the wind" tips on the internet, you'll find quite a few. There are a number of great youtube videos which help. After observing a number of them, I discovered that none gave any advice of how much more or less club to hit, based on the wind. Isn't that one of the most important points?

My wind tips give you a sound method to estimate the speed of the wind, and then determine how much more or less distance the shot will play. As we head into the winter months, wind speeds generally increase (for those of us playing), thus modifying your club selection becomes even more important.

Download my wind tips by going to this page for more explanation. Or, if you have an iPhone or iPod, download my app below.

Wind Caddy App Wind Caddy helps the golfer always select the right club for the conditions. Wind Caddy works by collecting 4 inputs and recommending a club and correct Aim for the hole based on a proprietary algorithm developed by me. Wind Caddy will advise you on aim, distance and club so that you can play the wind successfully. It takes the guess work out of club selection. Click Here to Learn More ....

Click on any of the following Newsletter topics or just scroll down the page:

Missing the Sweetspot
Golf Ball Trajectory Software
Putting Statistics -- Track & Improve
Comparison of Expert & Novice Putters

Going away on a golf holiday with a group? Need a golf draw that pairs each player with each other player exactly once? or twice? or not at all? I have developed draws that meet those requirements. Take a look at them by CLICKING HERE, Golf Draws.

Please provide me some feedback about my newsletter and future newsletters. What do you like? What would you like to see? Please complete this Golf Newsletter Feedback form.

Looking to do some serious putting practice? Remember improvement in putting can make the more improvement in score than any other part of the game. I found a really neat putting green system. Take a look below.

Missing the Sweetspot

Missing the sweetspot on any shot usually results in the ball not quite going where intended. The farther off the sweetspot, the greater the miss.

When hitting the ball with a putter, if the contact point is towards the toe, the blade will twist open resulting in the ball deflecting to the right of target. As well, maximum energy isn't transferred to the ball, so the ball falls up short as well.

Hitting an iron off the toe usually results in a significant loss in distance (5-15 yards). And, the club also twists which imparts sidespin on the ball. Learn more about the effects of mis-hitting an iron HERE.

The topic of this article is the effect of not hitting the sweetspot with the Driver. How much distance is lost? Does the ball go left or right? What can be done to reduce the damage?

The main objective with the Driver is to hit the ball as far as possible, yet keep the ball on the short grass. Statistically, the shorter your next shot, the lower you will score.

How does a golfer get maximum distance from the Driver? Maximum distance depends on the following:

	Club Speed -- as high as possible. Click HERE to learn how to increase yours.
	Club Angle of Attack -- ideally one's club path must be upwards at the point of contact with the ball (swinging up on the ball). Swing upwards increases launch angle and increases carry distance. Most amateurs club path is downwards when hitting the Driver. Learn more HERE. See this graphic.
	Optimum Loft -- the optimum loft for the Driver depends on club speed and angle of attack. Most amateur's use Drivers with too little loft. Thus, they are better off using a 3-wood off the tee. Learn more HERE.
	Sweet Spot -- point of contact with the ball must be the sweet spot to get maximum energy transfer. Missing the sweet spot means less distance and errant shots. This is the main topic of this article.

 

A. Hocknell of Callaway Golf Company published the results of a study into the Journal of Sports Sciences in 2002. The study analyzed the size of the sweet spot for old and new drivers as well as the variation in misses by different handicap groups.

Below are diagrams of expected ball speeds from different parts of the club face for old and new drivers.

Old Driver

New Driver

Both Drivers were given speeds of 100 mph. The old Driver produced a ball speed of 130 mph off the center of the face (sweet spot) and less speeds off other parts of the face. The new "high performance" Driver, produced greater speeds (due to the spring like effect of the face). In fact, a mis-hit with the new Driver produced greater speeds than a solid hit with the Old Driver. Notice how small the sweet spot is on the Old Driver.

The New Driver clubface is about 3.2 inches (8 cm) wide at center. The sweet spot is about 1.3 inches (3.2 cm) wide. So, a golfer can mis hit off the face by just over a 1/2 inch towards the heel or toe of the club without sacrificing much ball speed.

Below is a table of values of ball speed resulting from hitting off parts of the face at different distances from the center of the face.

distance to center (inch)	0	0.65	0.98	1.22
ball speed (mph)	150	145	140	135

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On average, the amount of ball speed lost per 1/2 inch of miss is about 6 mph. For a golfer with a swing speed of 100 mph, that translates into about 12 yards of carry. Miss the center of the face by 1 inch, and the losss is 24 yards of carry. Pretty signficant, right?

So, even though new Drivers produce more distance, there is still a significant loss when the contact point is not the sweet spot.

Hocknell also found that not only do lower handicappers have higher club speed (thus more ball speed), they also have fewer misses away from the sweet spot, meaning their misses are not as bad as higher handicaps. The graphic below shows this relationship. It also indicates the loft angles of the Drivers used by the participants in the study. Lower handicappers tend to use lower loft Drivers (as they maximize their distance with such lofts).

And, observe the shape of the oval which indicates where most of the shots hit the club face. The low handicappers misses fall within a horizontal oval, while the higher handicaps have ovals that are slanted towards the upper part of the club face near the toe.

The table below shows the misses of a typical mid to high handicap golfers (left) and a typical low handicap golfer. The oval drawn in each graphic contains approximately 95% of the hits made by each group of golfers. Note that the higher handicap group misses by a larger margin than the low handicap group.

Mid-High Handicap

Low Handicap

So, what can one conclude from this analysis?

Higher handicap golfers miss the sweet spot more often and by a greater amount. They also have lower club speeds. These are to two greatest determining factors for hitting it long: speed and solid contact.

So, higher handicap golfers should do their best to hit the ball off the center of tht club face. They can do this by:

1. Focusing on swinging with good tempo, not swinging too hard or fast. Solid contact will create way more distance than a little more speed.

Have you ever had the experience of hitting your really long balls when least expecting it; when swinging easily?

2. Shorter length Drivers. The shorter the club, the easier it is to get closer to the sweet spot. Don't buy those extra long Drivers. In fact, you'd be better to shorten the standard Driver length by an inch or two.

In fact, even lower handicap golfers would benefit from hitting shorter length Drivers, as they still tend to miss quite a few shots. Yes, there will be those rare days where you're hitting it purely for most of the round, and thus would benefit from the little extra club speed a longer shaft "might" give you, on average, you'll be hurt more by playing a long shafted Driver.

Moral of the story is .......

Go short to hit it long!!

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Golf Ball Trajectory Software

Are you looking for some software you can use to model the flight of the golf ball? In addition to my own, there are a few others out there ....

Currently, the version I sell deals with Driver shots only, unlike the version I use for my consultation business. This winter, I'll be working on a second version for sale.

This article summarizes some of the software programs out there.

1. The Tannar Golf Ball Trajectory Model

The spreadsheet will provide you with these additional features:

	Discover backspin rates resulting from different lofts and club speed.
	Explore optimum distances on soft fairways and firm fairways. Would you use different loft Drivers?
	Determine launch angles resulting from different lofts and club speeds.
	How does air temperature affect carry and total distance with different lofts?
	Coefficients of Restitution, COR, for all club speeds.
	Time of flight for all trajectories.
	Impact angles the the resulting roll along the fairway.
	Many of the measured values are plotted against one another on graphs.

Order a copy of your own spreadsheet, that does all explained here, by using the following secure link:

Putting Statistics -- Track & Improve

Keeping track of the number of putts per round is not the best method of measuring your putting ability. The number of putts you make depends largely on the length of the putts. If you hit 14 greens one day and then 5 greens the next, it is highly likely that you had fewer putts when only 5 greens were hit because the average putting distance was shorter. I much better measure is how many putts you make from various distances, whether they be for birdies, pars or bogeys

I find that most golfers are unrealistic about they're putting and so are very hard on themselves which leads to more putts and a negative effect on the rest of the game. For example, a golfer hits the first 8 greens and has quite a few chances for birdie inside of 15 feet. He makes none of them, grows frustrated, puts more pressure on himself to hit it even closer. The result? His ball striking deteriorates and his score skyrockets. Sound familiar?

How many 10 or 15 footers does one typically make? Take a look at this graph of Putting % versus Length of Putt (the graph will open in a new window). For a 10 footer (or about 3 metres), a touring pro averages 40%.
A high handicapper (15 - 30) averages 24%. A touring pro makes almost twice as many. Take a look at how much time those pros spend on their putting. These are averages. What we usually view on TV are the best players on the weekend. They have the lowest scores because they are sinking the most putts. They're having exceptional putting rounds. They are not putting their average.

When many golfers set their expectations for putting, however, they think of what they've seen on TV, yet few putt in anywhere near the time required to become that good of a putter. The golfer that hits the first 8 greens and doesn't sink a putt, their putting average to that point is 0% instead of the average 24%. On another day, their average may be 50% of the putts

One putt percentages don't give a true reflection of overall putting ability. Two players may sink 10% of their 15 footers, but one may 3 putt more of them. A better statistic is the average number of strokes taken from different distances. Here is a sample of stroke averages.

I encourage you to keep your putting statistics like I do above so that you can monitor your progress. It will give you an accurate measure of how you're doing. You can compare your stats to the table above. All you need to do on your scorecard for each round is record the length of each putt and how many strokes it took to hole out. Pace out your distances trying to take 3 foot paces. As you gain experience, you'll be able to estimate many putts without pacing.

I've written a little spreadsheet program to keep track of your putting statistics. Make a purchase of anything I sell from my site and I'll send it to you as a BONUS. Just send me an email after your purchase to let me know you'd like it. OR, you can purchase it for only $5.99.

Trying to find answers on my website? Here's how.

1. Go to my Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page. There's a link to it on my pages from the left hand menu near the top of the page, just below the Search icon. It's called "FAQs." You then click on the graphic icon and you'll be taken to my database page. For your convenience, here it is:
FAQ

I've answered hundreds of questions over the past 6 years and have created a fairly large database. You can search it out. If you can't find the answer you're looking for, submit a question and I'll answer it.

2. On all of my web pages, there is a search feature in the top left section, right underneath my LOGO. Just place your search keywords in the search box, select "This Site" below it, and then press "Search." What will come up is a Google search of the pages on my site with relevance. You can also search the entire internet by selecting "Web" instead.
Go to my main page now: Home or just check the top left menu of this page.

3. Also, directly under the Google Search area, you'll find a pop down menu called "Your Topic." Select the topic of interest and press "Go."

I would suggest you bookmark my main page and/or your specific areas of interest so that you can find them easily in the future. On each page at the very top, there is a link you can click on:
"Click here to add this page to your favourites"

Hope you find all you're looking for.

You can learn more from NEW Titleist Pro-V1 by clicking HERE.

Ken Tannar