Backspin

Wow, I couldnt disagree with that more.
The groves on the club are what grip the ball and you need grip to generate the high levels of back spin people here are looking for.
Try hitting a shot with a club that has no groves on it and see how you get on...
probably wont get airbonre as backspin is what makes a ball fly via the bernoulli effect.
Air flowing over the top of the ball must travel faster than the air flowing under the ball, and so there is less pressure on the top than on the bottom, resulting in lift.

Ralph Maltby (one of the modern fathers of clubmaking) played irons that had no grooves to prove this point.

Where grooveless clubs fall down is in bad lies - where all the grass/sand/scrub/**** actually gets between the clubface and the ball, sapping energy.

But the ball got up, none the less. Which means it spun, none the less.

Now, it would be interesting to see how much spin is generated between the two.

There is no doubt that a club with no grooves will create spin - it is near impossible to strike a ball and NOT create spin.

That being said, the grooves will create more spin as the edges of the grooves accelerate the spin rate. I just recently re-grooved my sand wedge and it went from hitting and sticking on the green to spinning up to 10 feet back from the divot.

Hmm from this article
"Grooves make a difference, but only out of the light rough where they increase friction. Sharper or more grooves won't increase spin. As in the illustration below, pros produce high spinning shots by striking the ball cleanly with a descending blow on an oblique angle (that's why a 9-iron produces 8,000 revolutions per minute and a driver only about 2,500). Research has shown that when the clubface is dry and no grass gets between the clubface and ball, a sand-blasted face does as well as a grooved face"
it would appear that you are right, though I have to agree with gord, grooves have to make some difference in the grip on the ball, why were they Ping Square Grooves outlawed if they dont grip the ball better?

And this is where I'd like to see a side-by-side comparison. It could very well be that grooves up the ante, so to speak, compared to a flat face. And I agree that they're good for something. Mostly reducing energy-sapping material from between the clubface and the ball.

But I'm sure there's more to the story - otherwise Pelz wedges wouldn't promote their 'long lasting' grooves, I would figure. (Unless, of course, it's marketing hype).

Grooves are much like treads on tires.. it allows moisture, grass, and other muck a place to go so that decent contact can be made. Sticking with the tread comparison, one would expect to have "grip" on a wet road, but not as much as a clean dry one.

I have been reading all these responses on generating spin...why? On most public courses you can generate much if any spin, there just isn't quality in the greens to allow spin. Realistically you should focus more on course management. Realistically why would you want to hit past the pin and risk running off the green, hit short, let the ball release to the pin. Golf is a very complex game, why complicate matters. I have been playing this game for 17 years, I have found the more I think about my swing the more I get in my own way. COURSE MANAGEMENT, think about the proper shot, the proper club, the proper distance, don't start thinking about shaping shots, creating spin, stun, or stop....the average golfer does not need yet another thing to think about while addressing the ball. Rather, concentrate on grip, set-up, alignment and a constant and consistent preshot routine. When you reach that single digit handicap index, then start seriously thinking about generating spin. Myself, I am a scratch golfer, and honestly I don't worry about generating backspin on the ball. I am more concerned, and concentrate on playing the proper shot, club selection, and leaving myself in a good position if I do miss. My advice...keep it simple...

The best story I ever heard regarding backspin was the following (the story is from harvey Pennick's Little Red Book).

An amateur was playing with Sam Snead, and he asked Sam how to get backspin on his iron shots.

"When you hit an iron approach, do you usually come up short of the pin or hit it past it?" asked Sam.

"I almost always come up short."

"Then what do you need backspin for?"

Well theres no point trying to get backspin, because just say you leave it short its gonna spin back, unless you have pin point accuracy, i'd just work on other things such as consistency. Anyway if you strike it well enough it should stop quick in my case but not spin back which is good enough for me. You'd have to play a hell of a lot anyway to do it. You need a fluent swing and like people have said immaculate ball striking.

Backspin is a result of hitting down sharply on the ball. However, no matter how well you execute this, backspin also depends on your ball and club. A prov is going to spin better than a DT solo, and a wedge is going to spin more than a three iron. Also, take into consideration the course and weather. If the course is too firm of greens it is going to be tough to spin it no matter how much backspin is applied, (US OPEN), but that can all change with water in the form of rain or grounds crews (US OPEN again, ha ha). But just hit down more steeply and take a reasonable divot.

Hi all, this is my 1st post.

Spin. Hmmm. Grooves / no grooves putting spin on a ball. It all depends on the relationship with the point of contact of the club and the centre of gravity of the ball, which, seeing as it is spherical is, well, at the centre. If you hit below the equator of the ball - you WILL impart back spin. If you hit above the equator of the ball you WILL impart top spin - grooves or no grooves. I can't say how much - that depends on the quality of contact and the distance of that contact from the equator of the ball. It's just physics - Steven Segal side kicks you in the chest - your upper body shoots back and your legs come up forwards (top spin). He sweeps the legs from under you - your legs go up backwards, your upper body falls forwards (back spin). [You can insert Jackie Chan for Steven Segal if you are younger than me. Or even Chuck Norris if you are older than me. ]

I have to say what interests me is the spin used by pros in their short games - being able to hit a low, 20 yard chip that checks up sharply then releases only a foot or so is one I'd like in my bag.

I think you can prove/disprove this quite easily.

Pull a driving range mat over to the chipping green, and hit a few shots.

OR

Make several markings on a ball and borrow a highspeed camera to check the rpm's.

This might be one of those things that don't make sence, but are actually true. This kinda reminds me about dropping items with different weights, and realizing that they will hit the ground at the same time regardless. If you don't belive me, try it. If you drop a 1000kg ball, and a 1kg ball, they will hit the gound at the same time. This is true for any weight, as long as air, or shape doenst interfere. (for instance, you can't drop a feather, and a ball. You can drop a ball thats the same weight as the feather though, and it will work.)

I rarely used to achieve real backspin, under the right conditions the ball normally stops on the spot or thereabouts.

However - I bought two new wedges recently - Titleist Spin Milled 60 and 56 degs, first time I used the 60 on the course I had to lob the ball over some trees to hit the green after a particularly ambitious attempt to hit a par 4 from the tee, anyway, I had about 40 yards to hit the green and the pin was in the middle of the green, I hit ball with my usual action and to my suprise it hit the green about 10 feet in front of the hole and then spun back another 4!

This continued on my round - I just kept backspinning it (always the wrong way though - away from the hole)

So equipment does seem to makes a difference, ball was a ProV1x by the way.

I go along with what others have said here too - you've also got to make sure that you hit that small ball before the big one (the earth)

Good Luck!

I recently overheard a scratch golfer at my favorite course say that he had a ball spin back on him from the tee-box onto the fairway. I thought he was blowing smoke where the sun don't shine, but....
A few weeks later I hit a sweet drive on a par 5 hole there and when I got to my ball, it had indeed spun back about 2 feet from the "impact crater". The course has bent grass fairways that are kept in pretty good shape.
Just a little anecdote, slightly on-topic.
And, yes, I have had several spin backs on the greens there, though I'm not sure how or why.

-Clay

At this stage in my life and game, I don't want to see the ball spinning back. I use different kinds of balls depending on the softness of the greens.

Most golfers think seeing the ball back up is so cool. I have had them back up further away from the hole a lot more often than back up closer to the hole.

I played with one guy that didn't care where the ball ended up, he just thought it so cool that the ball spun back. He really was tickled when he spun one back off the green and back down the fairway... I really didn't know what to say...

Some high handicappers are carrying these wedges with the illegal faces to make the ball spin back. Then there was that infomercial on TV for a while about those wedges with the inserts so that you could spin it back 10,20 feet.

Then they get into a tournament and have to use the regular wedge and are completely lost.