I Got Balls Brady Haering 10 th Grade New Castle Jr./Sr. High School

OBSERVATION When golfing with my grandparents I watched my grandpa hit his drive on several occasions and throughout the game he lost balls. So, I watched him hit three drives all with different brands of balls, and every time he had a different drive distance. My grandma also lost a ball during the game and she had different drive differences with different brands of balls. I began to wonder if the brand of ball made a difference in the distance of someone’s hit.

RESEARCH The five brands of golf ball that I am using (Nike CRUSH, Top Flite XL, Taylormade Rocketballz, Callaway Warbird, and Maxfli Tour LC) are all balls made for distance with hexagonal dimples. The core of each of these balls is solid, made of a blend of urethane, plastic and pressurized rubber. The golf balls each have a white plastic cover. The club I used to strike the ball was a Genex six iron. This club is made of forged iron with a cavity back that makes the weight of the club more even and therefore more consistent in terms of the experiment.

HYPOTHESIS I think that the Taylormade Rocketballz will travel the furthest because they are the newest brand of ball.

INDEPENDENT/DEPENDENT VARIABLE Independent Variable Brand of golf ball Dependent Variable Distance the ball travels

MATERIALS 1 six iron golf club 5 different brands of golf ball (Nike CRUSH, Top Flite XL, Taylormade RBZ, Callaway Warbird, Maxfli Tour LC) 1 ring stand and clamp with additional clamp used to hold the club at an approxiametly 45° angle. 1 30cm by 30cm square of carpet 1 meter stick

DATA SAMPLE (TRIALS 1-15) Nike Crush (m)Top Flite XL (m)Taylormade RBZ (m)Callaway Warbird (m)Maxfli Tour LC (m) Trial Trial Trial Trial Trial Trial Trial Trial Trial Trial Trial Trial Trial Trial Trial Average

Data Analysis (cont.) The Nike CRUSH balls had an average distance of 7.6 meters. The Top Flite XL balls had an average distance of 8.6 meters. The Taylormade Rocketballz had an average distance of 10.2 meters. The Callaway Warbird balls had an average distance of 7.9 meters. The Maxfli Tour LC balls had an average distance of 7.3 meters.

Conclusion In my experiment the results agreed with my hypothesis. The Taylormade Rocketballz traveled the furthest on a consistent basis. This makes it plausible that the Taylormade Rocketballz are the best brand to use when hitting for distance.

Further Research If I were to run this experiment again I would test balls with dual cores, I would use a driver instead of a six iron, and I would like to test different versions of the same golf ball brands.