Golf Balls

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 01:19:12 PST

According to what I have learned by researching golf balls, there are four kinds of balls, balls with shallow dimples, balls with deep dimples, balls that have wide dimples, and balls with narrow dimples. Shallow dimples make a ball have a lot of spin, causing the ball to have more lift , leaving the ball in the air longer, but when it lands it will not roll very far. The deep dimples cause the ball to have less spin, causing the ball to have a low trajectory, and roll much longer when it does hit the ground. Wide dimpled balls, give a ball long hang time. Small, narrow dimples cause a ball to go very straight causing you to have wonderful control in conditions such as wind.

A basic golf ball is made up of two layers, consisting of solid rubber, and a material called thermoplastic, or ionomer resin.

When a ball is hit it and flies into the air, a ball goes through two aerodynamic forces, which are lift and drag. The drag is created by the air, passing by the ball. Lift occurs when a ball is hit hard enough that the air pushes it upward into the sky. It is often mistakenly said that these two forces are created by the dimples on a ball. This is false. Dimples only make the forces greater or lesser effect of a ball. Dimples help a ball fly, because rather than a flat ball it carries with the wind.

With all this said, the less expensive balls may have less complex dimple structure, causing it to have less of an effect on the wind currents. More expensive balls may have more complicated dimples causing the ball to have more of an effect on the air currents. These differences may very well be the drastic difference in price.

Golf Ball Dimples

Sun, 20 Jan 2008 04:20:02 PST

Basically it means the dimples help the ball fly through the air. The early golf balls were made from cow skin and stuffed with goose feathers, they did not have any dimples. As time passed the golf balls became more advanced. Now modern golf balls have small dimples on them in specific patterns.

There are generally 300-400 dimples per ball, but there can be more. The record for most dimples on a ball is 1070. The dimple on the golf ball makes the top of golf ball go faster than the bottom part. This creates turbulence. This might seem like dimples will slow a golf ball down if it creates turbulence, but this makes the air around the golf ball follow around the ball, which reduces the wake (which is the air behind the golf ball). That makes the ball experience less drag. This is similar to how an airplane flies.

The golf ball with the dimples has a smaller wake than the smooth golf ball. This reduces drag. Also note that the air follows the shape of the dimpled golf ball, but not the smooth one.