[Physics FAQ] - [Copyright]

Updated 1997 by PEG.

Updated 1993 by CDF.

Original by Craig DeForest.





Why are Golf Balls Dimpled?

The dimples, paradoxically, do increase drag slightly. But they also increase "Magnus lift", that peculiar lifting force experienced by rotating bodies travelling through a medium. Magnus lift is present because a driven golf ball has backspin. The same Magnus effect can cause a ball to hook or slice if it has sideways spin.

Contrary to simple ideas of trajectories in a vacuum, golf balls do not travel in inverted parabolas. They follow an "impetus trajectory":