Rory McIlroy may hit a lunar golf ball a staggering 4,582 yards, or 2.60 miles.
Picture specialist Andy Saunders analyzed archival stills taken by the astronauts and was capable of measure the gap of Shepard’s second shot. Credit score: NASA/JSC/ASU/Andy Saunders
Some 50 years in the past, Alan Shepard hit some golf balls on the Moon throughout the Apollo 14 mission. Simply how far may a tour professional hit a golf ball on the Moon in the event that they weren’t encumbered by a spacesuit?
Jim Knoll
Vancouver, Washington
Alan Shepard shanked his first shot right into a crater, however estimated that his second reached a distance of about 200 yards (183 meters). Nonetheless, proof from pictures taken throughout the mission and remastered in 2021 means that Shepard managed to solely hit his second golf ball some 40 yards (36.5 m).
To be truthful, Shepard was restricted by extra than simply his cumbersome spacesuit. His makeshift golf membership wasn’t precisely regulation — only a 6-iron head hooked up to a collapsible instrument designed to scoop lunar rocks.
An unencumbered golfer on the Moon would definitely be capable of do significantly better. In accordance with PGA Tour stats, execs averaged 299.9 yards (274.2 m) per drive throughout the just-finished 2022–2023 season. If they may replicate the identical ballstriking approach on the Moon, how a lot farther may they drive a ball?
To calculate that, we have now to dive deeper into the stats. For this previous season, the common tour professional was imparting a ball speed of 172.85 mph (278.18 km/h) and launching the ball at an angle of 10.49° off the tee. Factoring in lunar gravity — roughly one-sixth that of Earth’s — the legal guidelines of projectile movement inform us that a mean tour professional’s tee shot would carry about 1,four hundred and forty yards (1,317 m).
The shortage of air on the Moon hurts distance (a little bit)
Now, you will have seen that regardless of the Moon having solely one-sixth the gravitational pull of Earth, the gap we’ve calculated for an equal lunar tee shot is considerably much less than six occasions the gap of the common tour drive, which might be roughly 1,800 yards (1,646 m]. That’s as a result of on Earth, air helps a golf ball fly farther: a golf membership imparts backspin to a ball, which permits the ball to generate aerodynamic elevate and retains it aloft. The low launch angle of a driver is essentially the most environment friendly technique to maximize that elevate whereas additionally minimizing drag alongside the ball’s trajectory. So whereas the Moon’s lowered gravity helps a ball journey farther, maybe counterintuitively, the dearth of air on the Moon reduces that distance acquire — at the very least when assuming that our lunar golfer is utilizing gear and producing launch angles and ball speeds much like these on Earth.
With a purpose to really exploit the dearth of air resistance on the Moon, a golfer would want to launch a ball on the excellent ballistic angle of 45° — whereas additionally sustaining ball pace. That’s trickier than merely deciding on a membership with extra loft: A extra lofted membership would slide beneath the ball and impart extra backspin, changing much less of the power of the affect into ball pace. Our golfer would in all probability have to discover a technique to anchor themselves on a lunar upslope to let a driver rip whereas additionally reaching a forty five° launch angle.
But when a professional had been in a position to take action and obtain the tour common ball pace of 172.85 mph (278.18 km/h), the ball would journey about 4,023 yards or 2.29 miles (3.69 km). The tour’s longest hitter, Rory McIlroy, along with his common ball pace of 184.47 mph (296.88 km/h), may hit a lunar golf ball even farther: 4,582 yards, or 2.60 miles (4.19 km).
Mark Zastrow
Senior Editor
