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One photo that shows the difference between amateurs and pros hitting a golf ball

If you’ve ever played golf before, you’ll know how maddeningly difficult it is. It may be the most difficult sport around, but people play it anyway because of the thrill in the moment it goes right. Ask any golf addict, and they’ll tell you it only takes one good shot to catch the bug.

Which brings us to what actually happens during those good shots. It may not feel like it at times, but golf balls are designed to compress during the moment of impact with the golf club, and then expand as it flies off the face. The faster the swing, basically, and the more the golf ball will compress. More golf ball compression means more velocity, which means more distance.

Physics!

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Which brings us to this Titleist video. It’s from 2013, but it’s so cool that we wanted to highlight it again.

One way Titleist sets about illustrating this is by comparing the moment of impact with the club traveling at four different speeds. It’s fascinating to see the sight difference between the compression imparted on the ball in the frame on the top left (175 mph, which was about Jason Day’s ball speed in 2016) compared to the one on the bottom right (120 mph, which is on the low end of the average amateur’s level). But as they point out, it’s also interesting to see how much the ball compresses even on a slower swing speed.

It may not always feel like it, but even on the bad shots, the technology is trying to help you.

Pretty cool. The full video:

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