Attitude or Altitude

Dear Frank,

I live in the Columbus, Ohio area, and frequently travel to the South Carolina coast and to the western coast of Florida, near Tampa, on golf vacations.  When playing golf on these coasts, the golf ball doesn't seem to fly as far as in Columbus.  When the PGA Tour played the International in Colorado, I heard that the players could hit the golf ball approximately 10% farther due to the thinner air in Colorado.  Now, I know that the International was played at approximately 5,000 feet above sea level, and Columbus is nowhere near that altitude, but can you approximate the distance that the change in altitude will have on the golf shot between Columbus, Ohio and sea level in South Carolina and Florida?

Thanks.

 --Kent

Kent,

Columbus Ohio has a listed elevation of 902 feet above sea level. This will have some effect on your ball flight simply because the air is less dense. The trajectory will not be as high as it would be at sea level all other conditions being equal but this is only different by about two or three feet. The reason is that the lift properties are less but the other contributing factor is that the drag properties are also less.  This low drag force and less lift will tend to give you a slightly lower trajectory in the air and a faster ball speed when the ball lands on the turf. The lower angle at which the ball impacts the fairway (if you hit the fairway) and the speed it is going will affect the overall distance.  

Rough calculations show that because of elevation change alone between Columbus Ohio (902 feet elevation) and Tampa (close to sea level) the ball should travel, in total about 5 yards father in Columbus, for a 250 yard drive, all else being equal. The hardness of the turf and height of fairway cut will also plays a very important part in the bounce and roll distance.

Kent, the normal changes in barometric pressure, from 30 in/Hg to 29 in/Hg, as pressure zones move in or out of the area in  Tampa or Columbus,  will have the same effect on the distance of your drives.

We need to understand that these differences exist and if possible take them into account, but also recognize that even Tiger’s ball finishes on average about 28 feet from the hole  when hitting shots from 175 yards out.

In many cases, we would be better off by going to the longer club and hitting it a little softer, than taking our best estimate about what we think we can do – on our best days – with a specific club and adjusting for a few yards.

It is a wonderful thing, however, to hit the ball perfectly sweet and having made the right calculations and getting it to stop exactly where we intended it to stop. Don’t let the lack of understanding of the effect of altitude to come between you and perfection.

I try to describe what the addictive forces are in our game, in my book “Just Hit It” released about a week ago, and am sure you will find this of some interest and fun to read. For more information click here

Attitude as well as altitude is an important part of our wonderful game.

Frank