Video Summary

In a fascinating experiment, a golf club was attached to a shaft and allowed to swing freely, dropping 90 degrees from vertical. The club then swung down like a pendulum, aiming to hit a ball placed on a table across the room. The goal was to land the ball in one of several cups, but which one was the question.

Using physics to estimate the launch distance, the expected distance was calculated to be 2.6 meters (8.5 feet), roughly the average distance a friend's tee shot would travel. The Center cup was placed accordingly, surrounded by an arbitrary formation of cups. The challenge was to predict which cup the ball would land in, taking into account any bounce shots or bank shots that might occur.

To analyze the collision, the conservation of energy was used, along with the conservation of angular momentum and the coefficient of restitution to account for energy losses. The trajectory of the golf ball was then solved using Newton's Second Law, factoring in drag on the ball. The estimated distance was calculated, and now it's time to see what actually happened. Can you predict which cup the ball will land in?