STEM News: Game On!
1
BREAKING ON THE GREEN
lthough golf courses
may appear flat,
most have hills and dips
On a flat, level surface,
the ball can be hit
towards the hole as a
direct shot.
that prevent a ball from
traveling in a straight line. Golfers
must take these surface slopes into
consideration. Gravity will always pull
the golf ball downward.
But the more the
surface is tilted,
the more BREAK
a ball will need to
reach the hole.
The golfer must make the ball curve, or
break, toward the hole.
Weight is actually the result of gravity
pulling on the mass of an object.
(Everything–including you–is made
of stuff. Mass is the stuff.)
A ball hit
straight
towards the
hole on a tilted
surface will miss.
If you travel to another planet, your
mass would stay the same, but your
weight would change depending
upon the planet’s gravitational pull.
If you weigh 100 pounds on
Earth and visit a planet with twice
the gravitational pull, you would
weigh 200 pounds there!
A 100 pound person would weigh:
VENUS 90.7 lbs.
THE MOON 16.6 lbs.
MARS 37.7 lbs.
JUPITER 236.4 lbs.
SATURN 91.6 lbs.
THE SUN 2,707.2 lbs.
When a golf ball is hit towards the hole,
the slope of the green will cause it to
break (curve) as it rolls over the unlevel
ground. A golfer might need to hit the
ball slightly uphill to use the tilt of the
ground to make the shot.
TRY THIS MINI
EXPERIMENT:
Draw an X at one end
of a long sheet of
cardboard. Stack books
under one edge to
create a tilt. Notice how
much break you need as
you gently roll a ball
toward the X.
STEM News: Game On!
2
To do well in a game of golf, a golfer wants to control
the speed and direction of the golf ball. The spin of a
golf ball affects its speed and direction. Different
angled clubs will produce different results.
A golf bag contains a variety
of clubs. The face of each
club has a different angle or
slope to it. For long drives, it
is best to use a club with a
face that is only slightly
angled, or nearly vertical.
For higher, shorter shots a
club with a more angled
face is better.
For a long drive, a golfer needs to
understand _____________________
to get just the right amount of backspin.
Spin creates friction, so the ball stays in
the air __________.
With more hang time, the ball travels
farther. Too little spin, and the
ball doesn’t lift enough to
travel down the fairway.
However, too much spin increases the
wind ________________, which makes
the ball slow in the air. When the ball
__________ down too much, it falls
down. Getting just the _________
amount of spin is important to make sure
the ball will reach the maximum distance.
For short hits on to the green, more spin
can control the ball. If the ball doesn’t
spin ____________, it can bounce and
roll too far. With a lot of spin, the ball
can actually roll backwards.
Controlling spin lets players control
where the ball will ____________,
so that they can get the ball close to or
in the _______________.
Use the data below that is from the
USGA Test Center to answer this question. The data below illustrates results
for a test that measures a golf ball’s
spin speed when it hits different angled
surfaces at 55 miles per hour.
ANGLE
(degree)
10
20
30
40
50
60
Spin
(RPM)
1100
2300
4000
6000
7200
7500
STEM News: Game On!
3
HISTORY OF GOLF CLUBS
In my day, when
People have been
we said a club was
hitting balls with
made of wood, we
sticks for a long time.
meant it!
In the 1400s, the Scots
invented a game played by hitting a
little ball with a stick over a course
with 18 holes. This was the beginning
of the game of golf.
The earliest golf clubs
were carved from a
single block of wood.
They were handmade –
often made by the
golfers themselves – and
there was no standard
design. Golfers called
their clubs “woods.”
A smooth,
shiny ball
or
A used ball
with scuffs
and dents?
Through the years,
players discovered that
balls with dings and
dents flew farther. Those
bumps and dents
reduced wind resistance
causing golf balls to
travel farther.
When clubs were made
out of metal, they were
still called “woods.”
Golfers discovered that
when they hit a golf ball
with a hollow steel club,
they had more control
over the ball.
Today clubs are made with titanium because it
is very strong and much lighter than steel. This
makes it possible for the club head to be larger,
which distributes the weight even farther away
from the center, making it possible for a golfer
to hit the ball more accurately.
STEM News: Game On!
4
SCIENTIST’S NOTEBOOK
Find an Object’s Volume
In professional and amateur golf, the head of
the club can be no more than 2.8 in (7.1 cm)
high and 5 in. (12.7 cm) wide. The volume can
be no larger than 28.07 cubic inches (460 cc).
1. Breaking on the green is
when your golf ball splits
in two.
Measuring the height and width of a club is
pretty simple. But how do you measure the
golf club’s volume?
2.
Archimedes, the ancient Greek mathematician,
discovered that the volume of an object can
be determined by measuring the change in
water level (displacement) when an object is
placed in it.
3.
A dimpled golf ball travels
farther than a smooth one.
Putting greens are always
perfectly flat.
4.
The spin of a golf ball
affects its speed and
direction.
5.
1. Record the level of the water before each object is dropped into the graduated cylinder.
2. Record the level after it is in the water. The difference between these two is the object’s volume.
mL
mL
mL
mL
mL
mL
mL
mL
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Today golfers prefer clubs
made with titanium heads.
6. When people started
making clubs out of metal,
they were still called
“woods.”
Putting Green
Pick up a putter and a golf
ball and take to the putting
green in Chevron’s STEM
Zone to explore how slope,
acceleration and gravity
affect a player’s putt.