In memoriam: Ken Venturi

Ken Venturi

In honor of Mr. Venturi, I have found this montage of slow motion swings, which includes him, Palmer, Player, and Byron Nelson — in the days where slow motion meant the swing looked like it was slow.

Several years ago, the wife of an economist friend – she a piano teacher – told me that if one watches all sports there is a rhythm to the motions of the best athletes.  Of course, I found it to be an interesting, and eye-opening, observation, clearly a very astute woman.  I believe that the montage does tribute to the elegance, grace and timing of Mr. Venturi’s great swing.  It is also one of the better visual lessons I have seen in a long time — good for all of us to watch:

Here is a little Venturi, on Venturi’s life.  Very interesting.

God rest his soul.

Golf Is Not Life: I sense a disturbance in the force, Master Luke . . .

As Jimenez is known as the “mechanic,” Woods is known as the “accountant,” for his meticulous ability to keep track of his penalty strokes.

This site is not published for editorial content.  One of the unique aspects of the game of golf, however, is that it is a game of honor.  You have the “honor;” you are called upon to call penalties upon yourself; you must know the rules – no one else is responsible for that.  It is not a difficult task for almost everyone.

I was a bit surprised when I heard Mr. E. Woods, Jr., , in a post-round interview during the Players Championship, make not one, not two, but three derogatory remarks about Sr. S. Garcia. As a friend puts it, “the Golf Gods do not smile on such things.” To compound it, his justification for making noise during Sr. Garcia’s backswing turned out to be a … well … perverication seems not to do justice to the two Marshalls who said that Mr. Woods did not do what he said he did. Such a . . . respectful word. I did not “murder my boyfriend by stabbing him 25 times with a knife and shooting him three times,” I “ended his life.” Accidents happen.  ”I am sorry.”

Apparently accidents happen to Mr. Woods as well.  We will therefore call it a “lie.”  One syllable.  Not much space.  And very descriptive.  Your five-year old could understand it.  Your five-year old probably does.  It seems Mr. E. Woods, Jr., does not.  Nor does he understand the words, “I am sorry.”

Here is what the two Marshals with Mr. Woods said about his claim that they had told him Mr. Garcia had made his stroke:

“Nothing was said to us and we certainly said nothing to him,” said chief marshal John North. “I was disappointed to hear him make those remarks. We’re there to help the players and enhance the experience of the fans. He was saying what was good for him.  It lacked character.“

It lacked character.

I am thinking about the choice of those words, by a chief Marshal of one of the most important tournaments other than the Majors.  “It lacked character.”  

I don’t know.  What do I know?  Who is to say?  I mean, it is not as if Tiger committed an error early this year when he took an illegal drop from an unplayable lie in Dubai.  Nor did he improve his lie, when taking an illegal drop in the Masters.  As near as I can tell, he has led an honest and forthright life in all aspects of his life, not just in golf.  Who am I to judge?  I suppose the honorable thing is to extend to him the grace he seems unable to extend to anyone else.

A character

Getting the Ball to the Hole: To Die or Drive on By (Lesson 3, Part 6A)

Getting the Ball to the Hole: To Die or Drive on By (Lesson 3, Part 6A).

Getting the Ball to the Hole: To Die or Drive on By (Lesson 3, Part 6A)

Live fast, die hard — summer golf camp for the Upper East Side crowd.

This is an introduction to a familiar debate in golf:  whether to try to die the ball at the hole on your putts (e.g., Nicklaus’ preference) or to try to give it enough force to go 17 inches by in case it misses (the “engineering” solution Pelz tells us drops the most putts).

We all have our own putting weaknesses, and it is most likely profitable to analyze our patterns before trying set up any general rule about how close to the hole one wants to be.  Having said that, there is something to said for a variety of views.  Of course, a putt that is short can’t go in.  We know that.  That will turn out to be a point of note, but not for the obvious reason, “never up, never in.”

Never up…

When one thinks about the problem methodically, three main factors come into play.  One is the desire to use the “entire hole,” which will give the ball the best chance of dropping.  We discussed this, complete with illustrations, last year in the post, “The Faster you Putt, the Smaller the Hole.”

The second factor of importance is variability.  The more consistently you can judge your stroke, the more routine it is, the less variability you will have in your distance judgments; and conversely.  We will see how variability enters into the equation of whether to try to die the ball at the hole or putt some distance by.

The last factor of importance is, of all things, direction.  Not only can a putt that never reaches the hole not go in.  But a putt that starts off-line, can never fall into the cup.  That much is obvious.  What is less obvious is the trade-off between this factor and the other two factors, using the entire cup, and variance.

In our next parts of this lesson:  understanding in turn direction, variance, and using the entire cup before pulling it together with a practical application of the principles we learn.

Sir Isaac Newton

I. Newton

Editor Note:  Mr. Pelz is an engineer and a fine one.  In many circles there has been an attempt to minimize much of what he has brought to the game of golf.  This is disappointing.  If one reads the USGA rules process on square grooves, one realizes that a lot of engineering and technical thought went into it.  I personally am disappointed that we have seen no similar approach with the belly putter.  People hurl claims back and forth, almost like epithets, and yet no real systematic thought or methodology has been brought to an issue that cries out for it.  Is it really an advantage, sometimes an advantage, only an advantage in some conditions or for certain players, or only a mythical advantage?  Could some players be better with it than a standard putter, while others are better the other way around?  We have no idea.  The USGA and R&A have not given us any information, which is how these things, in this day and age should be decided.  Lawyers can debate ad nauseum what a “stroke” is.  To me, such discussions are rather pointless.

There is a problem I have with engineering approaches — or perhaps developing rules of thumb about best practices from experimentation.  One needs to reason first from principles of physics and mathematics to have some hypothesis of what might work better, why, and when.  Only through a principled structure do people really learn how to adapt; a purely experimental one tends to lead to mechanical thoughts about how one should play golf, and golf is fun precisely because it is so complex — no two situations are ever alike.

Is there such a thing as a theoretical engineer?  I think, to those who know engineers, scientists, and mathematicians, the question answers itself.  I, however, digress.  And have you ever tried to play a round with an engineer?

In any event, appropriate kudos to Mr. Pelz for attempt to bring some rigor to the way we conceive of golf.  It is easy enough to criticize.  The path to knowledge, however, comes from starting down the right road, not from supposing that there is an end to that road or that all knowledge on even a fairly simple subject like the one we discuss here is possible to summarize in writing.

Getting the Ball to the Hole: Lip Outs (The Faster You Putt, the Smaller the Hole)

Getting the Ball to the Hole: Lip Outs (The Faster You Putt, the Smaller the Hole).

Golf’s One Constant: The Need for Consistency

Golf Instructor Jim Flick: Confidence in Golf

About this site: Golf as God Gave It To Us

[Ed. Note:  Most of our lessons are about the physical side of golf. But some of the math in golf is not about how the ball bounces down the fairway; it is about how we end up adding up the lowest score after our round. (A gambler would understand this, but we won't go there. This is a family site.) Some might think of this as optimal strategy.  As we stated at the outset, however, the most important lesson to remind oneself of is the need for consistency.  To play your best golf, everyone needs it.  This is another in that series, which will repeat every so often as a reminder, discussing different aspects of the issue.]

I could not put these ideas better myself.  They are ideas any pro should have in their own mind, and, if a teaching pro, should put in the mind of those players whom he teaches.

All credit due to Jim Flick in this Golf Digest article.  I therefore will not try to elaborate and will let you read for yourself.  Without confidence, consistency is impossible as a practical matter.

Getting the Ball to the Hole: Lip Outs (The Faster You Putt, the Smaller the Hole)

Alas…

About this site: Golf as God Gave It To Us

You’ve just got one problem. You stand too close to the ball after you’ve hit it.

- Sam Snead

This post is an addendum to the post “The Faster You Putt, the Smaller the Hole.”  We explain lip outs.  It is a somewhat obscure topic itself but it does help shed light on whether it is better to attempt to die a putt at the hole or, as one learned golf expert suggests, intend to putt it 17 inches past should it not drop.  At the end of this post, we will show some calculations that give one some idea of how fast a ball needs to be going, if heading for the dead center of the cup, to end up bouncing over the cup.

The first picture shows a ball near the lip.  As subsequent pictures will show, it looks like it hangs over the lip more than it does.  What would cause this putt to drop to the bottom of the cup, or leave it on the green?

A golf ball passes along the lip of the cup.

If we know the ball is where it is in the picture, not surprisingly, two variables will determine whether it falls into the cup.  One is its direction (in mathematical terms, the direction of its velocity vector), and the other is its speed (the magnitude of its velocity vector, in mathematical terms).

No speed

We have discussed in the main lesson how, if the ball has lost all velocity at the point that we see it in the picture, then it will fall if (as is barely true but may be hard to see), its center of mass is over the edge of the lip of the cup.

A Moving Ball

Example 1:  As most of these things go, it is easiest to see what will happen by taking an extreme case.  For direction, we have three consecutive pictures below, taken from directly overhead.  If the golf ball is moving at an angle away from the cup, it won’t drop.  Momentarily passing over the edge of a cup is not enough time for gravity to pull the ball into the cup … and that is what is happening when a ball drops … gravity is accelerating it downward at that (familiar to physics students) 32 ft per second per second.

Example 2:  If as in the second picture, the ball is headed directly for the center of the cup, and it is moving just ever so slightly, its center of mass will move farther over the edge of the cup and gravity will pull it down to the bottom of the cup.  This is no surprise, but we often miss the obvious when trying to understand a more difficult example.

Example 3:  If as in the third picture, the ball is headed at an angle just slightly inside a tangent to the lip of the cup, the speed of the ball will determine if it falls.  True enough, the center of mass will move farther over the edge of cup then as pictured.  However, the edge of the cup is circular.  As a result, the ball will want to continue to move in that direction and might again find itself on terra firma.  Whether it makes it to terra firma depends upon whether its downward velocity is sufficient to pull the ball down enough that, together with hitting the edge of the cup (because the ball has been pulled down a little below the level of the putting surface), it will be stopped and drop into the cup.  (Each overhead shot is from exactly the same perspective; the angle at which it is shown differs.)

Example 1

Example 2

Example 3

If the length of the arrows represents the speed of the ball — longer meaning faster, shorter meaning slower — it is fairly easy to see that the first two balls will not drop, and it is harder to see what will happen in the third example.  Will the speed of the ball along the surface of the green be great enough to overcome the pull of gravity and the ‘speed bump’ that the lip will create when the ball, having been pulled down a bit below green level, hits it as it attempts to move in the direction of the arrow in Example 3.

Why do putts “lip out”?

Lips

We have technically described why a putt may not drop even though its center of gravity passes over the cup.  Obviously, if it is moving too fast for its center of gravity to be over the “cup” for long enough to pull it down, it will not fall to the bottom of the cup.  A more interesting question is why does a ball putted in one direction rotate around the cup and seemingly come back at you?  An even more difficult question is why does the ball appear to start to drop (go down) and then come back up?

The first question is fairly simple.  When the putt in Example 3 strikes the lip, it is like a cue ball striking the edge of a pool table.  Its energy, or momentum, will be redirected.  One, if one knows pool and how firm the ground is, can figure out the angle at which our ball will bounce off the lip.  The way this works in golf, because the ground is a bit softer than the slate of a pool table, and the angle at which it strikes is usually fairly severe (because the edge is curved, and not straight), AND because the ball drops below the lip a bit, hitting the lip will cause it to spin around the edge of the cup.  The slower its speed, the more likely it is to drop (since gravity has an opportunity to pull it down for a longer period of time at 32 feet per second per second).

The second question is also not as difficult as it seems.  In fact, any time that a ball “lips out” its center of mass will have dropped below the level at which it would be were it sitting on the ground.  Some part of the ball will be below the edge of the cup.  How much of the ball goes below the edge of the cup will determine how visible that effect is to the eye.  In those cases that are most visible, and when the ball does not drop, it is because the speed of the ball coming into the lip of the cup was fairly fast, on a relative basis.  (There is in all these cases, something of a sling shot effect. it is just most visible in those cases where it appears the ball was about to drop . . . when our inability to “see” the angular momentum or spinning of the golf ball made us not realize that the ball had not a chance.)

We illustrate in Examples 4a and 4b how the relative speed of the ball versus that created by gravity will determine whether the ball drops.

Example 4a: The ball does not drop

Example 4b: The putt is sunk.

The ball that bounces over the cup

Finally, let’s try to see how fast a ball must be going, on a flat green, to bounce over the cup.  We know the cup is 4 inches wide, the ball is about 1.65 inches in diameter, and acceleration due to gravity is 32 ft/sec/sec.  We will make one assumption — that the ball will drop if it strikes the lip on the far side at a point that is 45 degrees below its equator on the theory that this is the point where the amount of the balls momentum that is directed more down/backward than up/forward.

This means that the ball will bounce over the cup if it is going fast enough so that it drops approximately .4124 inches in crossing the 4 inches of the cup.  There are equations in standard college physics texts that will tell us how long it takes gravity to pull something down .4124 inches (those equations will also tell us the downward velocity but we are interested in how long it takes).

And the answer is . . . that it takes just a bit over .16 seconds for gravity to “drop” an object by .4124 inches.  That means that the ball must travel 4 inches in .16 seconds.  That translates into 2.076 feet per second, or just 1.42 miles per hour.  Two feet per second sounds pretty quick … you can cover 4 inches in, well, .16 seconds, or a bit less than 1/6th  of a second.  That’s “green fast” but it’s not very fast at all.  (The problem is a bit more complicated than presented.  We do not know the elasticity of the dirt that makes up the edge or lip of the cup, which will determine how much of the ball’s momentum it absorbs and how much must be redirected in the ball.  We also do not know the rate at which the ball is spinning (or rolling) — that is its angular velocity, rather than just its linear velocity.  This will also affect the answer.  I mention these factors for those ‘purists’ who are reading this more as math and physics than as golf.)

Moral of the story:  it doesn’t take a lot of speed when the ball gets near the cup for it to lip out or bounce right over it.

We are getting closer, bit-by-bit, to the question:  to die the ball at the hole or to give it enough to go 17 inches by the cup?

A. Einstein

A. Einstein