What Affect Does Temperature Have?

We all know that the ball doesn’t travel as far when it’s cold and it seems to go a little farther when it’s really hot, but how much influence will temperature have on my carry distance?

Golf is a sport that requires skill, technique, and precision. One of the factors that can affect distance is temperature. Temperature can have a significant impact on the distance a golf ball will travel, as it can affect the ball's flight characteristics along with the golfer's swing mechanics. In this post, we will explore the effects of temperature on ball flight only. We don’t delve into the affect that all the extra clothing you’re wearing because it’s so cold will have on your ability to swing. This is only the effect of temperature on ball flight, not on our ability to swing the club normally when it’s either cold or hot.

Here is a chart that I created with the help of the engineers at PING. It’s super simple and easy to remember - just the way I like it!

Temperature Data:

• Most of our club carry distances are acquired in temperatures close to 75º F (24º C)

• For every 10º below 75º each club in your bag will CARRY (approximately) 2 yds shorter

• For every 10º above 75º each club in your bag will CARRY (approximately) 2 yds longer

• This is a rule of thumb to help you make better informed club selection choices

Please keep in mind that this does not factor in wind, altitude or the human factor of less/more speed generation in colder/warmer temperatures. This is strictly how the carry distance is affected in differing temperatures.

The primary reason for the differences we see is that temperature can affect the air density, which, in turn, affects the golf ball's flight. As the temperature increases, the air becomes less dense, resulting in a decrease in air resistance. This reduction in air resistance allows the golf ball to travel farther through the air. Conversely, as the temperature decreases, the air becomes denser, increasing the air resistance and reducing the distance that the golf ball will travel.

Temperature changes will affect the distance a golf ball travels. Golfers must be aware of the temperature, altitude, humidity levels, and their club selection to achieve the desired carry distance. Understanding how temperature affects your game can help you make better informed decisions on the course, leading to better scores and more enjoyable rounds.

A Better Way to Play in the Wind

This is my 4th version of a wind formula and for this one I recruited Chris Broadie, engineer with PING, for his insights and ability to model shots in windy conditions. Please note that we did not merely come up with an idea and throw it out there. We both put a fair amount of our expertise and understanding into this. I hope you take the time to watch this video and learn from the formula…

Wind Data:

•  Gauge the wind by deciding if it’s 5, 10, 15 or 20mph. There is no need to be overly specific. Practice with an anemometer/wind meter will help calibrate the accuracy of how you gauge the wind. I use this model from Kestrel which I purchased on Amazon. Most golfers typically overestimate wind mph, but a quick weather app check will often serve as a good guide.

• Headwinds: the mph of wind will be the yards to add to distance. For example, 10mph of wind adds 10 yards to the distance the shot will play.

• Tailwinds: take half the mph of wind and make it the yards of distance to subtract. For example, 10mph of wind will subtract 5 yards from the distance the shot will play.

The above wind formula was created using fairly standard launch and spin conditions for everyday golfers. Keep in mind that wind performance is highly sensitive to trajectory and a higher trajectory will always lead to greater wind effect. Also, please keep in mind this is a rule of thumb to help you make better informed club selection choices. I am confident in it being fairly accurate for most golfers.

My Thoughts on Arccos

Just so we’re on the same page, I want to make it clear that I am currently an Arccos Ambassador. I signed on at the behest of my friends at Ping and after using it for 11 rounds and learning what it can do for all golfers, I’m very excited! But I want you to decide, so here are the details….

My first experience using the system was in January as we kicked off our excursion to South Africa and then in February when we headed to Australia. During both trips I played 11 rounds of golf and used Arccos Caddie for each adventure out on the links. If you look carefully in the photograph from Royal Melbourne below you’ll see the very tiny sensor embedded into the grip of my club…

I must say the first few rounds took a little getting used to. I had to make sure that I had downloaded the course I was playing and keep the phone in my front left pocket - no problem there, but I noticed that there were some challenges with tracking putts as there were often times where I didn’t hole out (yes, casual holiday golf) or it would register 3 putts where I had only had 2. By the time I got to Australia I realized this could be rectified post round and I eventually got to a point where I wouldn’t even take my phone out of my pocket. Initially it also felt strange knowing that every shot was being tracked, however a few holes into the first round and I was off to the races.

So what did it do for me? And more importantly what can it do for you? Let’s get some background on Arccos first. They currently have 300K users, they’ve captured data on 3.8M rounds (that’s over 200M shots), have been used in 194 countries and the average user lowers their score by 4.2 strokes. It’s amazing how having a better understanding of your games’ strengths and weaknesses can improve your practice and on-course decision making! Here’s some of the data the system makes available to you…

I have a visual representation of every hole I played along with “Tour” style statistics from each round. This is a screenshot from the 8th hole at Barnbougle Dunes in Tasmania that shows my scorecard and driving distance on each of the holes. In the image below you’ll see every gory detail from every tee shot I hit on the trips…

The 50 yard tee shot was a top off the 18th tee box at Metropolitan GC in Melbourne and the 160 yard shot was a 3-wood that rolled back towards me down a massive dune at St. Andrew’s Beach on the Mornington Peninsula. The image below shows all my approach shots for the 11 rounds between 75 and 240 yards…

For me the statistics spoke loud and clear. I need to get longer and better off the tee box along with making significant upgrades to my chipping and pitching. As a result, I have adjusted my upcoming practice sessions accordingly so that I might turn weaknesses into strengths. The important thing is accurately quantifying which areas you’re weak in so that you might begin to practice more effectively. The image below shows my score for the last five rounds played along with a strokes gained analysis of each part of my game for the round…

There were so many neat little things I learned about my game…

• I hit my driver, 3-wood and hybrid more often than all my irons combined

• I have a definite tendency to miss approach shots to the left

• The total distances for each club are surprisingly accurate based off the TrackMan carry knowledge I have for each of my clubs

• I clearly need to work on my club speed

Another cool feature is the ability to “follow” golfers. As a coach I now have the ability to evaluate every round my students play and can give them a well-informed assessment of their performance. That being said if any of you would like to follow me please do so via the Arccos App - just remember I’m a golf professional and not a professional golfer! This system is powerful. It’s so much more than I ever imagined it would be and I know that, as both a player and a coach, there is much that I can learn from this data. I hope you will too.

To learn more about Arccos and what it can do for your game please visit Arccos Academy to better understand what the system can do for your game.

How to Stop Hooking

There are literally thousands of articles pertaining to getting rid of slicing or fading the golf ball, yet not much sound information to help golfers overcome hooking (and blocking)!

The video clearly illustrates what the primary causes are...

The dispersion drill will not only get you to improve the club path, but also encourage you to get the clubface pointing to the right of the target. Exactly the opposite of what you have been struggling with! With the feel from the dispersion drill you will no longer have the:

• club path traveling too far from in to out
• clubface closed to the path
• have to rely on perfect timing to quality golf shots

Give this simple drill a try if you tend to struggle with blocks and hooks. If you enjoyed this video and article please share it with a friend who you feel might benefit from it.

Thanks for tuning in!

Titleist's New 915's vs the Old 913 Driver

We recently received the 915 stock for our fitting cart here at Berkeley Hall and I thought it would be a good opportunity to test both the new 915 series drivers - the D2 and D3 against the older 913 series D3 driver I've used for the past few years. I was excited to see if there are any positive changes with the new line. 

The test I conducted involved the same shaft in each club (44.5' Motore Speeder VC 6.0 S) along with the same setting (B1) and the same loft (9.5). I hit seven shots (kept all shots) with each club on TrackMan. Here is the data:

Old Titleist 913 D3 9.5 with 44.5' Motore Speeder VC 6.0 S (B1)

Speed 99.8 - Smash Factor 1.48 - Launch 11.9 - Spin 2523 - Carry 226.7 - Total 248.6

New Titleist 915 D3 9.5 with 44.5' Motore Speeder VC 6.0 S (B1)

Speed 98.9 - Smash Factor 1.48 - Launch 13.1 - Spin 2341 - Carry 226.8 - Total 247.5

New Titleist 915 D2 9.5 44.5' Motore Speeder VC 6.0 S (B1)

Speed 100.5 - Smash Factor 1.47 - Launch 12.8 - Spin 2478 - Carry 232.9 - Total 254.3

My thoughts and observations:

• The first thing I noticed was the appearance of the newer club - from the golfer's perspective the clubhead has quite a different look than Titleist drivers of the past. The toe seems a little more pronounced and the head didn't seem quite as sleek as previous models. It didn't look bad, just different.
• The next thing that caught my attention was the sound. Definitely louder than the 913 model, but not to the point where it was offensive. 
• As you can tell the spin rates fell right where I anticipated them to fall. Word on the street is that the 915's spin the ball less and the results illustrated that.
• I did notice that mishits with the 915's seemed to do marginally better than commensurate mishits with the 913 model and there were a few mishits in each set.
• I was surprised to see the difference in launch angle as I had anticipated that the 915's would launch the ball lower - not so in this case! 
• Ball speed and smash were very similar for the three clubs.

As I looked over these numbers I noticed a few factors that are vital for longer tee shots - higher launch, lower spin and better performance on mishits. I liked the new club and also liked the fact that Titleist did not change the sleeve on the new model so older shafts can easily cross over into the 915 clubheads.

It does appear that Titleist has finally stepped up to the plate and joined Callaway, Ping and TaylorMade in the driver game.

The Facts on Shaft Flex

In the last decade all club manufacturers have invested heavily in club fitting and customization.  Each company offers a fitting cart where  golfers can decide on the clubhead, shaft and specifications that work best for them - in a very short amount of time.   They have stressed the importance of having equipment that fits along with building fitting carts that make it easy to find the right match.   The real question is - "How serious are the club companies about getting you into equipment, and more specifically a shaft, that fits your game?"

At Atlantic Golf Club we do a tremendous amount of club fitting.  So much so, that we have our own DigiFlex machine, which allows us to test each shaft to find it's frequency.  For years we have known that you simply cannot trust what the shaft label indicates - if it says its an S (stiff) flex, it could be anything other than an X (extra stiff) flex.  In fact in all our testing over the years we have only found one shaft that was actually stronger than it showed - a TaylorMade fairway wood.  All the other non-matches have been weaker.  Each year we test the new demo clubs and shafts and label them accordingly.  This year I have decided to share our findings with you.

It is important to keep in mind that each company has their 'stock' shaft offerings and various 'upgraded' or non-stock options - our results include both.  Our results also include tests done on 'whole' clubs and the individual shafts that can be interchanged with certain heads.

The Club Manufacturers we tested:

• 34 Titleist golf clubs and shafts: 10 (29.4%) matched the stated flex and 5 out of the 10 matches were non-Titleist shafts
• 6 Cleveland golf clubs: 0 (0%) matched the stated flex
• 7 Ping golf clubs: 1 (14.3%)  matched the stated flex
• 6 Cobra golf clubs: 2 (33.3%) matched the stated flex
• 56 TaylorMade golf clubs and shafts: 10 (17.9%) matched the stated flex and 5 out of the 10 matches were non-TaylorMade shafts
• 32 Callaway golf clubs and shafts: 11 (34.4%) matched the stated flex and 5 out of the 10 matches were non-Callaway shafts
• 5 Adams golf clubs: 0 (0%) matched the stated flex

Steel vs Graphite:

• Steel shafts won this showdown easily, albeit only with a 40% match rate, while graphite shafts only matched a woeful 20% of the time.  It seemed that when a steel shaft did not match it was off by only a few cycles per minute (CPM), whereas the graphite shafts seemed to range from a stiff flex that was truly a regular, all the way to a stiff flex that matched a ladies flex.  A shaft that performed remarkably well was the Memphis 10 steel shaft from Callaway and made by True Temper - it had 6 out of 7 matches.  If you want to be certain of what you're getting (or at least in the ball park) go with steel.

Stock vs. Upgraded

• In both the steel and graphite categories the overwhelming winner here was the "upgraded" category.   An upgraded shaft almost always costs more and their match rate was above 50% - in fact most often when they did not match they were almost always a few CPM's from being where they had indicated on the shaft label.  When it comes to graphite try to stay away from shafts that include both the club manufacturer and shaft maker's company name - this is invariably a lower quality shaft and is thus substantially cheaper for the manufacturer to install.  Get the real deal and always upgrade.

The overall findings showed that only around 25% of the time are you actually getting what you think you're getting when it comes to the flex of your shaft.  Chances are that if you're looking for a regular flex, then you are more than likely going to receive a senior flex and so on.  So what can you do?  The first option is to visit a world-class fitting operation like Hot Stix or Cool Clubs and have them fit and build you a set - not necessarily

the easiest or most cost effective way to get the job done.  The second option involves talking to the better golfers in your area and asking who they would go and see locally regarding club-fitting.  They will most often send you to a trustworthy fitter in your area.  The third option (and while I'm not a fan of this you'll certainly improve your odds) involves purchasing clubs that indicate they are stiffer than what you really need - hey, they have a decent chance of matching your required flex.

So, while the club companies appear to be concerned with ensuring a proper fit, the results of our little study indicates they might not be as concerned as we would like them to be.  My advice is that when you are ready to purchase new clubs, find the best fitter you can, go with steel shafts for your irons (and they do make viable lighter weight options these days) and always upgrade on the graphite options for the bigger clubs.  This way you can be fairly comfortable that you are getting what you paid for.

I would like to thank Patrick Bindel, Joe Downey, Matt Foster, Patrick Carter and Robby Fenton for their help with this article.  Great stuff guys!