Understanding The Spin Of Golf Balls (Video) - by Pete Styles
Understanding The Spin Of Golf Balls (Video) - by Pete Styles

When a golfer strikes a ball, it’s quite important we understand that the golf ball will have spin. The point of impact is you hit the golf ball impulse spin, it might be backspin, it might be what we class as sidespin, which isn't ever pure sidespin, it’s just tilted backspin. But if we focus on the backspin element on the time being, that’s why the ball will land on the green and for some golfers it will track backwards and for some golfers it will land or roll over the back of the green. And I think we all want to see that one that lands and it stops spinning backwards. So the fact is it relates to that, there's lots of small factors like the type of ball you're using and the cleanest of the grunge and that sort of thing. But actually the loft on the club is a primary factor, the more loft you'll generally generate more spin. The more club head speed you'll generally generate more spin. And the nice angle of attack, angle of attack is the direction that the club is coming down to the golf ball, so if you're coming down on the golf ball nice and steeply and you can keep the loft on the club face, you generate what we call quite a high spin loft.

So hitting down by five degrees with a 60 degree wedge would effectively create 65 degrees of spin loft and that’s going to really spin the ball very aggressively. You got to be careful you don’t hit down with loads and loads of angle of attack but take the loft off it. Because if you hit down loads of angle of attack but loads of delofting going all on as well then you won’t actually increase the spin you hit the ball with, you'll just hit the ball a little bit lower. So we want a good angle of attack, loads of loft held on the club face but also lost of club head speed. And that’s the best way for you to land the ball on the green and start to generate a good amount of backspin.
2015-11-03

When a golfer strikes a ball, it’s quite important we understand that the golf ball will have spin. The point of impact is you hit the golf ball impulse spin, it might be backspin, it might be what we class as sidespin, which isn't ever pure sidespin, it’s just tilted backspin. But if we focus on the backspin element on the time being, that’s why the ball will land on the green and for some golfers it will track backwards and for some golfers it will land or roll over the back of the green. And I think we all want to see that one that lands and it stops spinning backwards. So the fact is it relates to that, there's lots of small factors like the type of ball you're using and the cleanest of the grunge and that sort of thing. But actually the loft on the club is a primary factor, the more loft you'll generally generate more spin. The more club head speed you'll generally generate more spin. And the nice angle of attack, angle of attack is the direction that the club is coming down to the golf ball, so if you're coming down on the golf ball nice and steeply and you can keep the loft on the club face, you generate what we call quite a high spin loft.

So hitting down by five degrees with a 60 degree wedge would effectively create 65 degrees of spin loft and that’s going to really spin the ball very aggressively. You got to be careful you don’t hit down with loads and loads of angle of attack but take the loft off it. Because if you hit down loads of angle of attack but loads of delofting going all on as well then you won’t actually increase the spin you hit the ball with, you'll just hit the ball a little bit lower. So we want a good angle of attack, loads of loft held on the club face but also lost of club head speed. And that’s the best way for you to land the ball on the green and start to generate a good amount of backspin.