Quote:
Originally posted by stlbob
I wonder how far Tiger's ball would have traveled? Someone smarter than I could probably figure it. We'd only need the height, given by Undertoad at 1000ft, Tiger's normal driving distance, assume no wind, hmmmmm. Sounds like too much work for me. Bet the ball went at least 1000 feet, eh?
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Nope. That would be complicated. It's easier to take the normal velocity of his golf balls after being struck by the club and their angle respective to the ground.
According to
The Physics of the Golf Swing, Tiger Woods' shots usually travel at 180 miles per hour, or 80.46 meters per second. 12 degrees is apparently the typical angle for golfers. The vertical component of the velocity of his golf ball would be 80.46sin(12°), or 16.72 meters per second. This means that the ball rises another 14 meters and gives it 1.7 seconds before it starts to fall.
If the ball were simply placed in the air at 319 meters, it would take 8.06 seconds to hit the ground.
2 * distance = gravity * time squared
The horizontal component, 80.46 meters * sin(12°), is 78.7 meters per second.
78.7 m/s * (8.1 s + 1.7 s) = 771.3 meters (half a mile) before the ball will splash into the ocean - assuming no air resistance. That'd be one mighty splash.
I surely didn't make any
more errors, but if I did I can count on you to correct me.
[edit: I did mess up. When the ball returns to 1000 ft above the surface, it's already going 16.72 m/s - fixed.]