This Rocket-Powered Golf Club Has a Heck of a Swing

Professional golfers can swing a club as fast as 150mph, and drive a ball more than 350 yards. That’s incredibly impressive when you consider that they have to get the club moving up to that speed in the span of just a few feet. But, as with all physical actions, we can build a machine to do it even better. That’s what YouTuber Mark Rober has done in his latest video by attaching rocket motors to a golf club.

As you’d expect, this project wasn’t as simple as just duct taping some hobby rocket motors onto a regular old golf club. A considerable amount of engineering skill — and trial and error — went into making this work. The first step was to mount the golf club on a pedestal that would allow it to swing freely, and with as little vibration as possible. To achieve that, Rober used counter weights near the handle to keep the weight of the club’s head balanced.

The next step was to devise a way to attach the rockets to the head of the club. Rober started with a simple 3D-printed mount that was epoxied to the head. But that didn’t provide enough surface area for the epoxy to adhere to, and the mount came off. For the next mount, Rober started by 3D-scanning the golf club’s head. That allowed him to design a new mount that closely followed the curve of the head and provided a lot more surface area for the epoxy.

That new mount design held on well, but then the shaft of the golf club snapped because it was too flexible to keep the rocket’s thrust vector straight. So, Rober got a new golf club and used aluminum C-channel to strengthen the shaft and add rigidity. The new design was able to hold up to the forces from the rockets and was ready to actually hit some golf balls.

Setting up the golf ball for a strike proved to be the final challenge. The golf club needed to make about 10 rotations before it was up to its top speed, so the golf ball couldn’t just be placed before hand. The solution Rober came up with was to create an Arduino-controlled mechanism that lifts the ball into place. An optical encoder detects each rotation of the club, and an actuator pops the ball up when the golf club is at its top speed. That resulted in one powerful swing that puts even the long drive pros to shame.