Do we need grooves?

garyinderry said:
if pressure = force / area


how can a club with the same force and more area inpart equal or more pressure on a golf ball to impart spin when you increase the surface area?
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The pressure doesn't increase. No-one is saying grooves reduce spin in dry conditions, just that they don't give a significant increase.


How do you get backspin on a driver?

How can I slice the bejeezus out of a 4 iron when there are no vertical grooves?



garyinderry said:
where is scienceboy when you need him? ​
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Will you believe it if a scientist tells you? ;) :p​
 
Region3 said:
How do you get backspin on a driver?
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you get backspin on a tilted axis due to cutting across it causing it to slice. ;)


Factors affecting the friction between surfaces

  1. Dry surfaces - For low surface pressures the friction is directly proportional to the pressure between the surfaces. As the pressure rises the friction factor rises slightly. At very high pressure the friction factor then quickly increases to seizing.


    :confused:


    At the microscopic level the surface of any solid, no matter how polished, is like the landscape of Switzerland. Two mating surfaces are in contact only on the tips of the asperities..

    frict_class.gif



    this shows that the actual area is very small so i cant help feeling that the grooves reduce this area even further.


    ill shut up when the men in white coats either explain it to me, or take me away! :o


    i understand the role the grooves play in the wet. it channels the water away.
 
They atempted to examine the effect of smooth clubs and grooved clubs in the search for the perfect swing by cochran and stobbs. I'm paraphasing with very few changes below.

They built a few identical clubs (except for grooves) and concluded many of the differences between the smooth and grooved clubs are not significant, that is to say they could have arisen by chance had 2 identical grooved clubs been used.

They suggested it appeared smooth clubs may send the balla littel further in both carry and roll and possibly with a little less backspin. They said they were consistent with results found in experiments carreid out for teh USGA who concluded smooth clubs could impart as much backspin as smooth clubs, but were less consistent in doing so and just a small amount of roughness would impart just as much backspin as normal.

They did mention a rougher surface might be expected to send the ball off on a lower trajectory than a perfectly smooth surface, supported by the US results but not their tests.

Out of juicy grass they suggested it may change contact to a pure sliding one. They wrote it didn't seem to happen with pure water, though did with soapy water which perhaps could be similar to juicy grass conditions. They didn't find any real difference though in the limited data they had as both cases didn't impart much backspin. They did say they didn't examine the effects of grass juice though.
 
Common sense would suggest that grooves (notably the edges) would 'grip' the cover of the ball (potentially ripping it too) and produce more spin... this MAY be the case however the question is just how much difference it makes.... how measurable is the difference of losing some contact surface area (friction) and replacing it with an edge. The ball is only in contact with the clubface for approx 10mm of club travel... but I guess that is still more than enough when you consider the effect that the 'gear effect' can have in such a short space of time.

I'm keeping an open mind but don't expect a significant difference for a club with grooves or without.
 
"God Doesn't Roll Dice"

einstein.jpg



ok then, maybe he does in the quantum world but surely there must be a definite answer when we are talking about ojects as big as a golf ball and club face !
 
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