The ideal launch angle to get the most distance is 45 degrees, so why does a 20 degree club go further?
In: Physics
Lots of good answers here but everyone is missing the biggest one. Lower lofted clubs contact the ball more directly, resulting in more energy transfer into the ball. Higher lofted clubs impact the ball with a more glancing strike, causing the ball to go launch higher and spin more. Dig into some stats and you’ll see that an ideal strike with a driver has a ball speed 1.5x faster than the clubhead speed, this is called smash factor. So a driver swung at 100mph will produce a ball speed of 150mph. On the other end of the bag, a wedge will have a smash factor of 1.0. So even if you can swing a wedge 100mph, the ball speed produced will only be 100mph. Think of it as a direct blow vs a glancing blow.
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