Mass
 

Does body mass directly transfer to clubhead mass?
In other words two golfers swing the same club exactly the same speed.
Will the 250lb golfer potentially impart more mass to the ball than the 150lb golfer?

Depends on who has more pivot and accumulator lag.....

I helped my friend who is 6'5" 260lbs to go from about 95mph to about 120mph in about 6 months with a better swing and just lag. Once he got the "heavy feeling" he figured out how to make it heavier and thus have more mass and more speed.

everything else being equal (lever length, speed, accumulator load/release, rhythm) yes, the heavier person has an advantage - but not as big an advantage as a TALLER person would have (longer lever).

Hit a baseball with a wiffle bat

Now hit one with a standard bat

The 'lever' in the golf swing is BOTH the body, and the club, so at minimum a heavier person would have more mass in their 'lever'

Of course there is a relationship between how heavy and how fast. Assuming the same speed, more mass = more distance.

Re: Mass
 

i vote no...

potentially, yes...but not definitely...my personal feeling is that the equation F=ma (Force=massXacceleration) essentially describes how much force is put on a ball (assuming equal ball contact on the sweet spot)...i think the "m" is the mass of the clubhead, no more, no less...now how you accelerate that mass is what makes the difference and this is really what folks are describing when they talk about "effective mass" , "transfering mass", etc as the "m" and "a" terms in F=ma carry equal weight (no pun intended)...in general bigger golfers have bigger muscles and can accelerate the club better...but that doesn't mean always...so i think whoever has the highest acceleration at impact (which i believe comes mostly from maintaining the lag, but the pivot helps out too) will hit the ball farther...whether it be the 150 lb. golfer swinging easy, but holding the lag or the 250 lb. one swinging for the fences but experiencing some throwaway.
-hcw

Highest acceleration at separation, not impact, remember the resistance to deceleration of impact is a very important point that is often overlooked.

Todd

hmmmmm...ok i see your point that you want to continue accelerating thru impact until separation...but hey, what's 400-500 microseconds between friends!?

-hcw

Micro seconds yes, but the improtant point is the ball hits the club just as hard as the club hits the ball. A stressed clubshaft with acceleration will have a much better result than an unstressed clubshaft with the same acceleration at impact. Avoid as much impact decelaration as possible!!!

Sustain the Lag!!!

Todd

actually, i don't think this is true, the ball has less mass and is not moving...if it did exert the same amount of force on the club then the club would stop...

well, i've never been absolutely sure what the term "stressed clubshaft" means, but my best interpretation is that it is the bending of the shaft as the clubhead lags behind the hands and is due to the hands continuing to accelerate...if the hands stop accelerating, the shaft will lose it's stress...

amen to both of those....

-hcw