How Happy gets his extra distance
off of his drive
His approach
(3)The way Happy Gilmore swings a golf club is very unique, to say the least. It's the kind of swing that everyone knows about, like Charles Barkley's swing. But what a lot of people don't get is how does Happy's swing help him hit the ball farther than everyone else. It's really quite simple when you think about it. It's the way he approaches his ball!
Normally in golf one would stand feet pointing where you want to hit the ball, with the ball located in the middle of their stance and placed on a tee just far enough away that it lies in the middle of their club face. Happy Gilmore is not a normal golfer. The way he approaches, with the run up, gives him more force that he can put into the ball. This is best explained by Newton's Second Law, F=ma(Force=mass*acceleration). You see, most golfers only get the acceleration that they can generate standing still. Happy on the other hand, adds the acceleration from him running into the equation. Having an increased acceleration means having more energy that he can transfer into the golf ball, hence the longer drives.
His approach also helps him get the appropriate launch angle for his ball, about 35 degrees. This helpful angle is shown in the picture below:
(How he crossed over his hockey skills to golf
First off let's just get it out there
that Happy was a pretty bad hockey player but he did have
one thing going for him, his crazy powerful slap shot. That
slap shot gave him more power to put into the ball,
especially on his drives. Even though Happy wasn't a very
good hockey player, having that experience helped him have,
slightly, better accuracy during his approach to hitting the
ball. Happy did miss a time or two during his swing but the
majority of the time he had a perfect shot. After awhile,
once he got his hockey stick putter, it even helped him have
more accuracy during his putting.