Optimal Parameters to Circumvent Obstacles

with a Golf Ball

K. Higginbotham, S. Jinesh, T. Khawaja
15 November 2015
Abstract
This paper investigates the required initial conditions and club
to ball interaction to hit a golf ball around an obstacle using Magnus force calculations to solve Problem B of the University Physics
Competitions problem B. Our calculations relied upon Matlab computation and numerical approximation for our range of values. We
determined that for this particular obstacle and target (tree and green
respectively), that the club must hit the ball with a speed between the
ranges of 25 m/s and 29 m/s, at an angle of the golfers stance between
the ranges of 0.48 radians and 0.68 radians, and between the angles
of swing of 0.015 radians and 0.219 radians, or the mirror if shooting
for the opposite side, all with respect to the golf balls initial position.

Contents
1 Background

2 Assumptions

3 Calculations

4 Methods

5 Problems and Approximations

10

6 Results and Discussion

10

7 Computation and Code

11

8 References

13

Background

The problem of a golf ball stuck behind a tree is a common one. The physics
of getting the ball out from behind the tree is one that requires the application
of the aerodynamic properties of spheres. In particular the most challenging
part is the application of the Magnus Effect - the effect that curves a rotating
objects trajectory based on size, shape, velocity, angular velocity etc. (refer
to magnus equation in eqns 1). In addition, one must take into account the
clubs torque, angle of golfers stance, angle of hit, etc. to deliver the proper
parameters to the golf ball.
In this particular problem, we have a golfer whose golf ball is stuck 10
meters from the center of a tree with 5 meter long branches protruding from
all sides. His golf ball must reach the green area that is 10 meters in diameter
and 120 meters from the green. This problem is diagrammed below in Figure
1.

Figure 1: Diagram of the problem setup (top view)

In addition, there are 3 types of fields present in golf - rough, sand,
fairway. To make calculations simpler, we will assume that there is no rough
or sand between the ball and the green (as it would almost certainly ensure
that the ball would not make it to the green). We assume that the stretch
of field between the green and the golf ball is all fairway (relatively well kept
grass).
An essential part of this problem is to find the trajectories that would
allow the ball to curve around the tree and into the green. For this, there
are multiple test cases that must be solved. One in which the ball lands on
the green and stays in the green (Figure 2), and one where the ball is outside
the green and then ends up inside the green (Figure 3). The same is for the
other side (because the golfer can hit either to the right or to the left of the
tree).

Figure 2: Diagram of golf ball landing in green and staying in green example
(top view)

Figure 3: Diagram of golf ball landing on the fairway and ending up on green
example (top view)
With these two observed test cases, we begin making assumptions and
simplifications to make the analysis more relevant to the final solution.

Assumptions

To simplify analysis of the problem, our model makes several assumptions.

Firstly, we assume that the green is at a constant elevation, and that the
green is perfectly level and not tilted. Furthermore, we shall assume that the
terrain and course features between the start and green do not hinder or alter
the balls air trajectory in any way (with the exception of the tree we try to
circumvent). Wind velocity is assumed to be negligible, and will not factor
into the analysis. The numbers for density of air assume a temperature of
288K.The tree is simplified to be a cylinder with radius 5m, as is the green.
For computational purposes, we also assume the type of ball and club
being used. The dimensions for the golf ball we use throughout our model
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are based on a generic competitive golf ball, with a radius of 21mm, a mass of
45 grams and 400 dimples on the surface, with dimple diameter of 0.39mm
and dimple depth of 0.003mm. The impact times and constants used are
those determined experimentally for the Titleist Pro V1. The club used in
our calculations is a 3-iron with a mass of .27 kg, which would provide both
sufficient range and spin. For our calculations we can properly assume that
the effective mass of the club is in its head, for a perfectly elastic collision
with the golf ball.
In addition, we made assumptions of our drag coefficients as it largely
depends on the constant shape of the golf ball. This is a reasonable approximation as the velocity of the ball, which contributes to the Reynolds
number and in turn contributes to the coefficient, will remain relatively constant. NASA experimentally found that the shape of the ball will contribute
largest, and then speed, and as such we decided that our drag coefficient
would be 0.5. We assumed a relatively spherical object, because a sphere
and rough golf ball behave almost interchangeably when the Reynolds number is below or equal to a magnitude of 104.
For the green, we assumed a medium-speed surface as defined by the
USGA, with a stimp reading of 2.6m (8.5ft). This value is consistent with
most other publications. For bouncing motion, we used a coefficient of restitution er = 0.83 between the ball and the green, which lies well within the
range calculated experimentally. We also simplified our motion by terminating bounce at the 10th impact with the ground, after which the ball would
begin rolling motion. We make this assumption because golf balls have a
high amount of elasticity with the ground, but will eventually have bounces
so small that it would be physically more accurate to neglect bounce.
For the maximum speed that a player could feasibly hit, we took the
highest hit speeds for the PGA tour and rounded them down for convenience.
The rounded figure is still higher than the speeds hit by all but the top ten
competitors, and thus gives an accurate estimate for the maximum speed any
human could impart to a golf ball on a regular basis. This value we used is
80 meters per second.

Calculations

In order to effectively measure the trajectory of the golf ball in motion, we

defined a set of coordinate axes (Fig. 3). With this coordinate axis in place,
a formula for the general forces on the ball could be found (Equations 1 and
2). This was simply done by summing up the forces of gravity, the Magnus
Force, and the drag force.
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Figure 4: Our coordinate axes defined

Ftotal = Fg + FD + FM

(1)

1
1
(2)
Ftotal = mb a = mb g + CL Av 2 CD Av 2
2
2
However, because the forces acting upon the ball all acted upon it in
different directions, it was evident that it would be necessary to decompose
this into a vector form as per the selected coordinate axes. The resulting
decomposition is displayed below.
i
1
Fx = CD Avx2 + CL R
2
vx

(3)

k
1
Fy = CD Avy2 + CL R
2
vy

(4)

1
i
Fz = mb g CD Avz2 + CL R
(5)
2
vz
With further simplification, it becomes evident that we must solve a series
of nonlinear differential equations:
x =

1 1
i
( CD Ax 2 + CL R )
mb 2
x

(6)

y =

1 1
k
( CD Ay 2 + CL R )
mb 2
y

(7)

i
1 1
( CD Az 2 + CL R )
(8)
mb 2
z
To circumvent the issue of a difficult nonlinear differential equation, we
numerically solved for values that would give us thetas, and velocities to land
us in the green. However, even with numerical methods, a solution would be
z = g

hard to come by because of the four free variables, hence, we approximated

further.
In order to find the minimum speed the golf ball must be hit at, we derived
a formula to calculate the amount of time the ball would be in the air. Using
the following equation, we solved for the minimum velocity. In order to
find the absolute minimum distance the ball could travel, we separated the
trajectory into two straight line paths as shown below:

Figure 5: Minimised trajectory for the ball

Using trigonometry, we can find the length of path 1 as shown in the
magnified diagram below (Figure 6). Theta is 0.47 radians, gotten from trig
relations and relatively easily calculated. By this, path 1 is calculated to be
11.23 m. Path 2 is 115 m, so the total path length is 126.23 m.

Figure 6: Path 1 calculation

Plugging in the values into the range equation below, and maximizing it
will return a minimum velocity of 35m/s.
d( min) =

2
vxy
sin(2)
g

(9)

These constraints will be used in the methods portion of the paper.

With the aerodynamic portion of the balls trajectory complete, the following will be calculations for the bouncing portion of the trajectory.
We are able to extrapolate the range of angle values and velocities the
golf ball could be shot at to land in the green. With the extrapolated data,
we could then move on to finding the effective distance a bouncing ball could

travel. The equation for this is shown below:

dground

k
350
2v12 X 2n
)
cos(ek+1
=
er sin(2enr ) +
mv1 RSek+1
r
r
g n=1
3

(10)

Here, v1 is the velocity of the ball when it first hits the ground, S is the
stimp reading of the green, m and R are the mass and radius of the ball
respectively and is the angle at which the ball first strikes the ground,
measured between the ground and the balls velocity vector. The constant er
is the coefficient of restitution and k is the number of times the ball bounces
before beginning roll. We chose a value of 10 for k as successive bounces
after this became extremely small, and the primary motion was horizontal.
The equation is based on the simplifying assumptions that all motion stays
within a 2-dimensional plane, that each bounce could be modeled as parabolic
projectile motion, and that the bounces are immediately successive - that is,
the ball does not skid between bounces, and the impact duration is negligible.
Furthermore, once the ball stops bouncing, we assume that it enters a state
of pure roll - again assuming that it will not skid or slip in any way. The first
term uses the simple Newtonian range formula for projectile motion summed
over k successive impacts. After the kth impact, we make the assumption
that there is no more vertical motion, and the ball exhibits pure roll, which
the second term accounts for using an equation for the rolling motion of a
golf ball with friction.
Later we will need to add a further constraint on the maximum linear
velocity of the golf ball. This can be calculated by assuming a circular trajectory about a central circle such that the chord between the initial golf
balls starting point and the maximum possible distance it could travel (130
meters) gives us the maximum possible angle of launch.
The reason we can assume a circular trajectory is because the Magnus
force would be equal to the centrifugal force about the central circle. With
this in mind, the rest is trigonometric analysis to find the maximum possible
launch angle.

Methods

To do our computational methods, we decided to find optimal values that

followed set constraints on variables of interest. In particular we restricted
our i , k , v, and with upper and lower bounds. i was restricted to 0
rad/s because its value would have no effect on the Magnus force that would
return the ball to a trajectory on the green. The upper and lower bounds
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for the other variables were direct results of our approximations and case
reduction. Below, we list our constraints:
q
j2 + k2 300 rad/s
35 m/s v 80 m/s
0.47 rad 1.4 rad
With these constraints, we attempted to compute the most optimal values
that would get the ball into the green without intersecting the tree.
We did this by numerically approximating the solution to the differential
equation given these constraints and looped through all possible values. We
approximated the solutions to 100 points between each constraint (a higher
degree of accuracy would require more computation time).
In our final code, the outputs returned the values within our range that
satisfied the condition of being both within the green and not intersecting
the tree obstacle. Because solving nonlinear differential equations tends to
be quite difficult to produce an analytical solution, we decided to take the
numerical approach and use approximations. The computational power required to solve a differential equation with multiple free variables using numerical approximation is infinite. This is because when we are given a free
variable in the differential equation, it will produce a new space of results.
For this paper, we had 3 free variables theta, velocity, and net angular velocity. For these, approximations were required to produce a result. However,
a logical error in our code resulted in bad outputs, and due to the limited
time, we decided to take a simpler approach by reducing the number of free
variables.
To approximate the range of velocities, angles and spins which would
land the ball in the green, we assumed a minimum and maximum trajectory,
which were arcs of circles beginning at the tee and ending at opposite ends
of the green. On these arcs, the Magnus force would always act towards
the center of the circle, allowing us to cast the equation in terms of circular
motion. Thus, we have the simplified expression for the Magnus force:
FM =

mb vy2
R

(11)

To find the range of values which would give us trajectories ending in the
green, we defined to be half the length of a chord of the circles, such that
2 was the distance from the tee to a point of the green.

Figure 7: Illustration of circular approximation and the range of

Given this definition of , we could constrain our equation such that the
values of always fall between max and min . We first find an equation for
, which follows from expanding (11) and some simple trigonometry.
2mb vcos(l)sin2 ()
(12)
Rk A
The angle l used here is the loft angle of our golf club, and all other
variables are as they have been used before. Given this, we can constrain
our system to always remain between max and min . We used MATLAB to
find all possible values of , v and k which satisfied our constraints on .
We then restricted these values to those which would allow the ball to travel
all the way to the green using simple equations of projectile motion,
Based on the values for k , total velocity, and launch angle on the xy
plane of the golf ball that would land the ball in the green, we were able to
determine the behavior of the head of the golf club just as it was striking the
ball. This was quantified using two variables: the total velocity of the club
head and the angle of the velocity with respect to the clubs x-axis. (The
clubs x-axis was offset from the original x-axis to align with the velocity of
the ball. The angle between the x-axis of the club and that of the ball is
=

equal to the launch angle of the golf ball on the xy plane.) These variables
can be determined by the equations that govern the behavior of the ball-club
interaction:


mb
v
1+
(13)
vcx =
2
mclub
vcy = k R

(14)

Here vcx is the x-component of the club heads velocity, and vcy is the ycomponent. We then used the results from the motion of the ball to calculate
the components of the clubs velocity, which then allowed us to also calculate
the swing angle of the golf club, which would determine the spin. The final
results of our computation are discussed in the Results section.

Problems and Approximations

For our final results, we decided to compute the range of possible trajectories
while neglecting drag. This is a reasonable result to save computational
resources, reduce the number of free variables, and still have a relatively
accurate solution. The reason we approximated drag to be negligible was
because the net work done by the drag force was relatively small. Drag effects
the time of flight of the golf ball, which will cause values we calculated to be
slightly undershot. Hence, our method of approximation is meant to slightly
undershoot the green, as the rolling motion of the ball would then carry it
into the green. We therefore did not calculate the pressure drag (due to the
non-linearity of the differential equations for drag) and found the viscous
drag (which we could solve for analytically) to be very small.
For our club to ball interaction, we assumed a perfectly elastic collision,
which is not necessarily always the case, because the impulse delivered from
the club to the golf ball matters largely on the trajectory, however, it is
usually on the order of magnitude of thousandths or less. In essence, this is
a minor approximation that would barely affect the results, if at all.

Results and Discussion

The minimum total velocity, velocity angle on the xy plane, and x-axis offset
angle of the club head were computed to be 25.0577 m/s, 0.0151 radians,
and 0.4843 radians, respectively. The maximum total velocity, velocity angle
on the xy plane, and x-axis offset angle of the club head were computed to
10

be 29.7701 m/s, 0.2191 radians, and 0.68 radians, respectively.These ranges

were computed for a shot taken to the left of the tree. A shot taken to the
right of the tree will use the same range for total velocity, but will use the
negative of the angles.
These ranges will produce a minimum k , total velocity, and xy plane
launch angle of the golf ball to be 18.2758 rad/s, 50.101 m/s, and 0.4843
radians, respectively. The maximum k , total velocity, and xy plane launch
angle of the golf ball would be 300 rad/s, 58.1818 m/s, and 0.68 radians,
respectively. Any combination of values within these ranges should place the
golf ball approximately on the green. Again, these ranges are calculated for
a shot taken to the left of the tree. If a shot is to be taken to the right of the
tree, the k and xy plane launch angle should be negative.

Figure 8: Plot of the x-component of the club heads velocity versus the
y-component of the club heads velocity versus the offset angle of the club
heads x-axis for a shot to the left of the tree

Computation and Code

This was the code used to find our values for the club and golf ball (MATLAB):
function [data, clubdata] = magnusgolf
% setting constants
ballrad = 2.1.*10.(-2);
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ro = 1.225;
A=.00138543;
ballm=.04593;
clubm = 270;
lang = .3316;
% spreads for omega k, total velocity, and angle
of shot for ball
w_k = linspace(0.1, 300, 100);
v_t = linspace(0, 80, 100);
theta = linspace(.4637, 1.4835, 100);
% output container for data
data = [];
% creating every combination of three spreads
for ind_w_k = 1:length(w_k)
for ind_v_t = 1:length(v_t)
for ind_theta = 1:length(theta)
% determining if velocity and theta
produce enough distance
% in x direction to reach green
if v_t(ind_v_t).*cos(theta(ind_theta))
>= sqrt((120.*9.8)./sin(2.*lang))
& v_t(ind_v_t).*cos(theta(ind_theta
)) <= sqrt((130.*9.8)./sin(2.*lang)
)
radius = (2.*ballm.*v_t(ind_v_t).*
cos(lang).*sin(theta(ind_theta)
).*cos(90-theta(ind_theta)))./(
ballrad.*w_k(ind_w_k).*ro.*A);
% determining if ball will fall
within green
if radius >= 60 & radius <= 65
% if it does, output data
datasing = [w_k(ind_w_k), v_t(
ind_v_t), theta(ind_theta)
];
data = [data; datasing];
end
end
end
end
end
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% creating container for club data

[rows, cols] = size(data);
clubdata = zeros(rows, 5);
% club v_x
clubdata(:,1) = (data(:,2)./2).*(ballm./clubm + 1)
;
% club v_y
clubdata(:,2) = data(:,1).*ballrad;
% angle that clubs x-axis is offset from balls x
-axis (how far the golfer has turned)
clubdata(:,3) = data(:,3);
% total velocity of club
clubdata(:,4) = sqrt(clubdata(:,1).2 + clubdata
(:,2).2);
% angle of velocity on new axis
clubdata(:,5) = atan(clubdata(:,2)./clubdata(:,1))
;
end

References

Ideal Lift of a Spinning Ball. Ideal Lift of a Spinning Ball. NASA, n.d.
Web. 15 Nov. 2015. www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/k-12/airplane/beach.html.
This was used to get some background about the Magnus Force, and Nasas
derivation of it for a spinning ball.
Equipment Rules. USGA: Guide to the Rules on Clubs and Balls.
USGA, n.d. Web. 15 Nov. 2015. www.usga.org/Rule-Books/Rules-onClubs-and-Balls/Appendix-III-%E2%80%93-The-Ball. This source was used
to get a background of golf and to find official information about ball dimensions.
ACTUAL LAUNCH CONDITIONS OVERALL DISTANCE AND SYMMETRY TEST PROCEDURE (PHASE II). United States Golf Association
and R&A Rules Limited (n.d.): n. pag. Usga.org. USGA, 28 Feb. 2011.
Web. 15 Nov. 2015. www.usga.org/content/dam/usga/pdf/Equipment/
TPX3006-overall-distance-and-symmetry-test-procedure.pdf. This document
was used to get insight into how golf balls were tested and how the maximum
distance was calculated with experimental data.
2007, Colloquium Fluid Dynamics, and Institute Of Thermomechanics As
Cr, V. V. I., Prague, October 24 - 26, 2007. MAGNUS AND DRAG FORCES
ACTING ON GOLF BALL A. Kharlamov, Z. Chara, P. Vlasak Institute of
13

Hydrodynamics AS CR, V.v.i., Prague Abstract (n.d.): n. pag.www.it.cas.cz/.

26 Oct. 2007. Web. 15 Nov. 2015. www.it.cas.cz/files/fluid-dynamics2007/033-Kharlamov-PT.pdf.This document was used to get background information on the different types of forces we would need to take into account
for golf ball.
Flight Model of a Golf Ball. (2007): n. pag. Users.csbcju.edu. Csbsju,
Mar. 2007. Web. 15 Nov. 2015. users.csbsju.edu/jcrumley/222 2007/
projects/awwerner/project.pdf. This document was used to start on the
computational side of the research. It was used as a reference to model as
we worked.
Roh, Woo-jin. Golf Ball Landing, Bounce and Roll on Turf. Golf Ball
Landing, Bounce and Roll on Turf. Science Direct, 2010. Web. 15 Nov.
2015. www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877705810003929. This
document was used as reference for equations and modelling when the golf
ball hit the green or fairway.
Golf Balls. Golf Balls. Data Genetics, n.d. Web. 15 Nov. 2015.
datagenetics.com/blog/november12015/index.html. This was used to calculate our surface and cross sectional areas of the golf ball.
Burglund, Brett, and Ryan Street. Golf Ball Utilizing Graphite Materi
als. 4 (n.d.): n. pag. 13 May 2011. Web. 15 Nov. 2015. home2.fvcc.edu/dhicketh/DiffEqns/Spring11projects/Brett Burglund Ryan Street/Diff%20Q/pdfscreen/projectoutline.pdf. This report is very similar to the problem we
are presented with, and has been used in multiple places in the paper.
Drag of a Sphere. Drag of a Sphere. Nasa, n.d. Web. 15 Nov.
2015. www.grc.nasa.gov/www/K-12/airplane/dragsphere.html. This graph
was used to approximate the Cd value of the sphere.
Hill, Brian P. A Finite Element Method Study of Coefficients of Restitution in Golf Driver Clubfaces. (n.d.): n. pag. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Dec. 2010. Web. 15 Nov. 2015. http://www.ewp.rpi.edu/hartford/
ernesto/SPR/Hill-FinalReport.pdf.This was used to get the coefficient of
restitution for our golf ball.
Weber, Arthur P. The Laws of Physics Applied to Golf Course Maintenance Practic. (n.d.): n. pag. Print. This was used to get the coefficient of
friction of the fairway on the field for the golf ball.
PGATour,. Stats Ball Speed. N.p., 2015. Web. 15 Nov. 2015.
MATLAB and Statistics Toolbox Release 2015b, The MathWorks, Inc.,
Natick, Massachusetts, United States.

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