Costello’s Driver Panacea

Carry vs Launch Angle

You can see how closely related these are if you keep clubhead speed in a tight range. Changing the launch angle matters a ton. I excluded duck hooks and the “spinners” which come from hitting the bottom of the club and float as if they’re riding on a cloud. Tim is good friends with “spinners”

GSP <- fread('R:/Equity_Quant/BrianB/R/Misc/gspro-export02-18-22-11-36-52.csv') %>% 
  mutate(ClubSpeed = BallSpeed / 1.5) %>% 
  filter(BackSpin >1800, BackSpin <3500, BallSpeed >155) %>% 
  mutate(SwingSpeedRange = if_else(ClubSpeed > 100,'105 - 107','Other'),
         SwingSpeedRange = if_else(ClubSpeed > 107,'107 - 109', SwingSpeedRange),
         SwingSpeedRange = if_else(ClubSpeed > 109,'109 - 111', SwingSpeedRange),
         SwingSpeedRange = if_else(ClubSpeed > 111,'111 - 113', SwingSpeedRange))



p <- GSP %>% 
  plot_ly(x=~rawCarryGame, y=~VLA,type='scatter',mode = 'markers', color=~SwingSpeedRange, hoverinfo = 'text', marker = list(size = 10),
          text = paste0('<b>Club Speed - <b>',GSP$ClubSpeed,'\n',
                        '<b>Ball Speed - <b>',GSP$BallSpeed,'\n',
                         '<b>BackSpin - <b>',GSP$BackSpin,'\n',
                        '<b>Launch Angle - <b>',GSP$VLA)) %>% 
  layout(title = '<b>Launch Angle vs Carry',title = list(font = list(size=18)),
         xaxis = list(title = '<b>Raw Carry (yards)'),
         yaxis = list(title = '<b>Vertical Launch Angle'))
 
p

Swing Speed vs Carry

You can see that club speed vs carry is a bit more predictive of course, but not that much. Look at the carry of 2 of the 3 drives that were in the 105-107 club speed range; they still carried 280 because they have launch angles north of 13 degrees with very low spin (~2000 rpm)

p2 <- GSP %>% 
  plot_ly(x=~rawCarryGame, y=~ClubSpeed,type='scatter',mode = 'markers', color=~SwingSpeedRange, hoverinfo = 'text', marker = list(size = 10),
           text = paste0('<b>Club Speed - <b>',GSP$ClubSpeed,'\n',
                        '<b>Ball Speed - <b>',GSP$BallSpeed,'\n',
                         '<b>BackSpin - <b>',GSP$BackSpin,'\n',
                        '<b>Launch Angle - <b>',GSP$VLA)) %>% 
  layout(title = '<b>Clubhead Speed vs Carry',title = list(font = list(size=18)),
         xaxis = list(title = '<b>Raw Carry (yards)'),
         yaxis = list(title = '<b>Clubhead Speed'))
 
p2