What Is Side Spin On The Golf Ball? (Video) - by Pete Styles
What Is Side Spin On The Golf Ball? (Video) - by Pete Styles

What is side spin on a golf ball is a really interesting question, because a lot of people in the golf industry will tell you that side spin doesn’t exist. What a golf ball actually does, is spin backwards, and then it spins backwards on an axis. I think we use the word side spin to kind of simplify the terminology because it makes a little bit more sense to it. But there’s a theory that says a golf ball can’t be doing two different rotations of spin at the same time. So let’s just concentrate about it a bit more closely.

Whenever you hit a golf ball with a lofted face, it will create some amount of back spin. And back spin is essential to keep the ball up in the air for a certain amount of the time. If you hit the ball without any back spin, it will just fall out of the sky very early. So every shot you hit has back spin, even that drawing driver shot. Don’t ever let anybody tell you that has top spin, it simply doesn’t, it just has a bit less back spin. But all shots that go in the air have some amount of back spin. But the back spin isn’t always a pure rotation backwards doing this as it flies through the air, because if you hit the club – sorry, you hit the ball with the clubface and the path not exactly travelling in the same direction, that back spin will not be pure, it will often be tilted. So if the clubface is on an open position when it swinging from out to in, the ball would tilt this way, which would create the draw – sorry the fading spin, the slicing spin, cutting the spin. So if the ball is spinning backwards, the ball flies straight. If the ball is spinning this way it will fade or slide for the right handed golfer, and if the ball is spinning on that axis, it would start to draw for the right handed golfer. Now the important thing to understand is that as that ball does that the more back spin it has, the straighter the ball will fly. That’s why you see you’re pitching wedging your sound wedge flying relatively straight. If you reduce the amount of back spin and that slows down, and you increase the amount of side spin, effective side spin tilting the ball, then the ball will start to curve more, that’s why your driver is less accurate than your sand wedge. The easiest way to consider this is imagine the ball is tilting its axis either way, and then consider how an aeroplane flies. If an aeroplane tilts its axis, and tilts, it goes round a corner, likewise if an aeroplane tilts it swings this way, it goes round the corner in opposite direction. So if a ball’s axis spin tilts that way, it will fade or draw. So when we hit a golf ball the ball always has back spin, it doesn’t necessarily have pure side spin like we would consider, it more just rotate off its axis to draw or to fade. And hopefully that gives you a better understanding of why we talk about side spin in the golf ball’s flight. 2014-08-13

What is side spin on a golf ball is a really interesting question, because a lot of people in the golf industry will tell you that side spin doesn’t exist. What a golf ball actually does, is spin backwards, and then it spins backwards on an axis. I think we use the word side spin to kind of simplify the terminology because it makes a little bit more sense to it. But there’s a theory that says a golf ball can’t be doing two different rotations of spin at the same time. So let’s just concentrate about it a bit more closely.

Whenever you hit a golf ball with a lofted face, it will create some amount of back spin. And back spin is essential to keep the ball up in the air for a certain amount of the time. If you hit the ball without any back spin, it will just fall out of the sky very early. So every shot you hit has back spin, even that drawing driver shot. Don’t ever let anybody tell you that has top spin, it simply doesn’t, it just has a bit less back spin. But all shots that go in the air have some amount of back spin. But the back spin isn’t always a pure rotation backwards doing this as it flies through the air, because if you hit the club – sorry, you hit the ball with the clubface and the path not exactly travelling in the same direction, that back spin will not be pure, it will often be tilted. So if the clubface is on an open position when it swinging from out to in, the ball would tilt this way, which would create the draw – sorry the fading spin, the slicing spin, cutting the spin. So if the ball is spinning backwards, the ball flies straight. If the ball is spinning this way it will fade or slide for the right handed golfer, and if the ball is spinning on that axis, it would start to draw for the right handed golfer.

Now the important thing to understand is that as that ball does that the more back spin it has, the straighter the ball will fly. That’s why you see you’re pitching wedging your sound wedge flying relatively straight. If you reduce the amount of back spin and that slows down, and you increase the amount of side spin, effective side spin tilting the ball, then the ball will start to curve more, that’s why your driver is less accurate than your sand wedge. The easiest way to consider this is imagine the ball is tilting its axis either way, and then consider how an aeroplane flies. If an aeroplane tilts its axis, and tilts, it goes round a corner, likewise if an aeroplane tilts it swings this way, it goes round the corner in opposite direction. So if a ball’s axis spin tilts that way, it will fade or draw. So when we hit a golf ball the ball always has back spin, it doesn’t necessarily have pure side spin like we would consider, it more just rotate off its axis to draw or to fade. And hopefully that gives you a better understanding of why we talk about side spin in the golf ball’s flight.