iacas said:
I just finished reading (well, a month or two ago) some studies dealing with golfers and feel, and they found that 50% to 90% of "feel" was actually hearing, not the vibrations golfers got in their hands, arms, etc. when striking a golf ball.
Golfers, good ones anyway, care very much how their driver (in particular) sounds when they tee off. The composite drivers (carbon/titanium blends) seen in recent years have a "muffled" sound that lead many to outright believe that they don't go as far because the sound isn't as "explosive" or "crisp" or "powerful." It's muted and "muffled." That then gets into psyche and confidence and whatnot, but the simple fact (and the point of my post) remains: feel is more sound (hearing) than actual feel (tactile).
Interesting. Do you know where you saw those studies?
Ron Shepard (from RSB) has been saying something similar for years. Here is an exerpt from one of Ron's posts from years ago:
****
I got some water in one of my ears while swimming a few years ago. *There was
no infection, no physical damage to my ear, no dizzyness, it was just water
that got trapped in some ear wax. *The doctor gave me some ear drops to slowly
dissolve the wax and told me that it would take a couple of weeks for
everything to clear up. *During that time, I was almost totally deaf in that
ear. *At first, I couldn't tell directions, and I had trouble hearing most
low-volume sounds.
I was playing pool regularly in tournaments and leagues, and something that
surprised me was that my speed control was completely gone. *I had trouble
shooting and getting the ball to stop at the right end of the table. *Soft
shots, hard shot, and everything in between were just out of control.
I realized that I had been using the sound of the tip hitting the ball, and of
the stick vibrating afterwards, as feedback in my speed control. *Without this
feedback, I had lost my speed control. *After a week, I started to compensate
and started to get my speed control back. *I was hoping that when my ear
cleared up, I would suddenly have "super" speed control. *Of course, it didn't
work that way. *When my ear cleared up after a couple of weeks, I was pretty
much just back to normal.
I learned from this how important the sound is to my subconscious feedback
mechanisms. *I did not realize this before. *I believe that there are some
players who could go through this same kind of thing without their games being
affected at all. *They don't use the sound feedback, so if they lost it
temporarily, it would have no affect on their games. *I also believe that if I
had played longer this way, I could have adjusted to the loss. *There is other
feedback for speed control, visually and from the vibrations that you feel, and
all of these give you some reduncancy.
Because much of this is subconscious, it may not be clear to an individual
player exactly what kinds of feedback are important. *One of the local players
here, who makes cues too, told me once that the best way to determine what kind
of stick is best for you is to play with it when you are in a slump, and to see
how long it takes to get back in stroke. *It doesn't matter how well you can
play with it for just a couple of hours. *If you are in stroke, you can play
with anything for a short period of time and play well. *But when you get in a
slump, your mind is looking for the necessary feedback in order to get back in
stroke. *The best stick for you is the one that gives you that necessary
feedback at the optimal levels. *It is likely that the best stick, by this
measure, is different for each player. *This is why a "good hit" is so
subjective.
****
mike page
farrgo