Golf Shot Acoustic Analysis

Skilled golfers have subjective impressions of golf ball constructions. When struck, balls are judged as "soft" or "hard" feeling, and this perception affects their perception of ball quality as well as their ultimate selection and purchasing decisions. The ball's sound at impact is a major determinant of a ball's feel, and construction and material selection can be altered to affect this acoustic signature.

While employed at Titleist, Ed Hebert (Principal at The Blue Ocean) created a test method to accurately capture and objectively quantify the acoustics of ball impact. I wrote a custom web/mobile app to capture and analyze the acoustic signature of a shot as it's struck, in the field, in real time. The software—partnered to a specialized microphone—listens for impact and immediately processes the shot, performing a Fourier transform (FFT) analysis to determine frequency distribution and amplitude. The data is plotted to the screen graphically and numerically, and the data is compiled with a plurality of other shots to determine a statistical distribution.

With this data in hand, golf ball designers can objectively quantify what makes a golf ball sound "hard" or "soft", and modify ball materials and constructions to match known performance goals.