The chit-chat in the office today turned to baseball and golf, as it usually does. Somehow we got to talking about hitting a golf ball with a baseball bat. The golfer that I’m talking to says that no one, no how could ever hit a golf ball with a bat, further than he can drive it with a 1 wood. OK, perhaps he’s right, but I know not to accept or dismiss claims outright without some evidence, so here’s the question:
The golfer in my office can drive a golf ball 280 yards.
Can a major league player, any player you’d like to use, using any bat of his choice, hit a golf ball further than 280 yards? He can have it served up any way he chooses - fast ball from a pitcher, off a tee, whatever.
I know for sure that it will go farther than a baseball. When I was in Little League, we found a bucket of golf ball and started hitting them over the fence. None of us could hit a real baseball over the fence. But I doubt that they could go even close to the length generated by a driver. You could never achieve the same club head speed. Plus baseball bats, whether aluminum or wooden, aren’t as flexible as golf club shafts.
Standing on the corner of the schoolground at Yupon and Fairview, I hit a golf ball all the way over the school building and wound up breaking a car window in a driveway on Michigan St. (in Houston, TX). Ah, the things we do when we are young…
On a surface of his choice, with roll included? No problem - have him hit the golf ball downwind on a frozen lake.
But in a fair comparison with the golfer (e.g. on a grass fairway, with roll included), it’s harder to say. Google produces numerous websites addressing the question of the longest-ever baseball hit, but there is no strong consensus on exactly how long that would be. Nevertheless, some (including this site) suggest it’s over 600’, and that’s without roll.
Since a golf ball will almost certainly travel substantially further (higher velocity from the same swing than a baseball, lower drag), and will also roll a respectable distance it seems there’s a good chance the answer is yes. Rather tough to prove, though.
If the golf ball was pitched right over the middle of the batter’s personally-preferred strike zone, at 90+ mph, and the batter got ahold of it with the sweet spot of their favorite bat, I bet he could hit it more than 300 yards. That’s a complete opinion, but I’d put 10 bucks on it.
I hit 200 yards with a 2 iron when the planets are alligned right. Barry Bonds or Mickey Mantle could hammer a golf ball so hard… I’d love to see it.
I guess I’m assuming that the speed of the ball coming in affects its speed after it’s hit…
I really don’t know. Those sites all seem to assume that the baseball hitter is hitting off a tee as well.
So your friends 280ft can be beaten by up to 100ft by a decent baseball player, though as the quote states with greater difficulty than using a club so in all likelihood the golf club would come out on top if it was a pro golfer vs. a pro baseball player.
Many years ago I took a wooden baseball bat to a driving range. Those of us that tried hitting golf balls with the bat hit them much further than anyone was hitting balls with a golf club. The farthest sign was a 300 yards and the net at about 320 yards, we were easily clearing the 50 foot tall net.
Off of a tee, I think the golf club wins hands down. A golf ball is light enough that the extra mass of the bat won’t make a big difference, so it’s mostly about speed of the part that’s hitting the ball. I don’t see any reasons to assume hand speed swinging a bat is much faster than hand speed swinging a club. With the same hand speed, the longer item will be moving faster at the point where it hits the ball, so the longer club comes out ahead of the bat.
However, if the golf club is hitting off of a tee, and the bat is hitting a ball coming in at 90 mph, the batted ball gets a lot more energy, I think more than enough to balance out the slightly slower bat, so I think a bat on a pitched ball would beat a club off of a tee.
(Do we think different spins would have a large effect? Does a club give a better spin than an unmodified bat?)
Oh yeah, the club face would give the ball way more backspin than the bat would, if both were hit properly. That’s what the horizontal grooves on a club’s face are for. I don’t know how much the spin directly affects distance. I think, though, that if you hit the ball poorly, a lot of backspin will help straighten the shot out by overpowering the side (and possibly top) spins from a hook or a slice. So I think the grooves are there to make the club more “user-friendly”, not to physically add more distance to the shot. But I could be wrong…
Spin does have a big effect on distance. The spin impacted on a golf ball gives it lift. A driver will typically hit a golf ball at approximately 10 degrees above horizontal. Because of lift, the ball will “ignore” gravity and continue along that trajectory for the majority of the distance it travels until the spinning of the ball slows down. A baseball bat will not be able to impact the same spin, so to maximise distance it will need to hit the ball at a higher angle. This will work against it in the distance competition.
Spin is absolutely vital for the longest distance out of a golf ball (Magnus effect). Balls hit by a driver will backspin at 2,000 to 4,000 rpm and this rate is tuned to get the best distance out of the driver (see e.g. this article). I would think that the chances of acheiving this off a bat is unlikely (but not impossible). I don’t know if a dead spin ball struck with higher energy (bat) would travel a comparable or higher distance than a driven ball.
I’m not sure what a “Carry” is but would hazard a guess it is the distance to where the ball first landed, i.e. not including how far the ball rolled. Either way, 458 yards is one heck of a long drive!!
