How the Golf Ball Flies

The idea of task is very important to grasp in your quest to become a superior ball striker. Humans learn best through task oriented learning, particularly when learning a motor skill. If one is given a tool, and shown how it is used to accomplish a task, they would assume that they could get better at it. Here is the tool, here is how you use it, now get better with it.

 When the club strikes a golf ball it starts spinning due to the loft or pitch of the club face. This spin is what gives the golf ball its capacity for flight. The spin of the ball provides lift, which allows the ball to counteract gravity for a short time so that the ball can fly further down range. Without spin hitting golf balls would be like launching cannon balls, the ball would travel on the same parabolic curve as a cannon ball and would only go as far as a given amount of gunpowder allowed. Without lift only the biggest and strongest people would be able to play, as they would be the only ones with enough “gunpowder”. The clubs job then is to hit the ball up. By hitting the ball up the club robs you of distance. This means that the player has, as one of their tasks, to gain back distance by using the club in a particular way. To hit the ball further with a given club you must reduce the manufactured loft during impact. If you add loft during impact you just rob yourself of even more distance.