Dawson's Theory Validated!*****

The higher the ball flight, the worse the landing on a fairway hillock, goes Peter Dawson's theory revealed yesterday in a story by John Huggan.

Now Mike Stachura has tracked down a professor who confirms. Fasten your seat belts!

But here's the bit that justifies Dawson's explanation of projectile motion. Basically, a projectile like a golf ball has two velocity components, a horizontal one and a vertical one, as Martin Brouillette, professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Sherbrooke and a member of the Golf Digest Technical Panel explains: "Assuming two cases with the same landing velocity but with different landing angles, the case with the steeper landing angle has a smaller horizontal velocity component, therefore a greater vertical velocity component. This greater vertical velocity component, upon interacting with a tilted landing surface, is more likely to produce a greater sideways velocity component."

Therefore, play the stinger...less sideways velocity component. Oh wait.

***** Stachura writes:

Of course, a ball that's rolling over those awkward angles is going to be dramatically affected; one that's flying by those humps and bumps won't be bothered by them at all.

Maybe we could read more about this theory in the USGA/R&A ball study? After all, we're 8 years in, I assume this theory is covered?