CigarStone
For once, knowledge is making me poor!
- Joined
- Mar 7, 2007
- Messages
- 11,706
I have seen periodic questions and discussion about golf clubs and what to buy so I thought I would share some of my knowledge in hopes it will help some BOTL’s and SOTL’s to enjoy the game.
It is truly fascinating what actually happens to a golf club during the swing and an understanding of some of it may help people avoid buying the wrong clubs. The vast majority of golfers play their entire life with clubs which are not right for them and they never know it, they simply don’t play as well as they could with the right clubs and some give up the game prematurely because they don’t enjoy it.
Up until the perfection of the launching machines, which can tell you a great deal about your swing, you had to go to a pro and be fitted by hitting hundreds of balls with clubs of all different specs. A launching machine being monitored by the right person can tell you even more in 10 minutes, however, this can still be a fun couple hours if spent with the right pro. Be careful of going to places like Dick’s Sporting Goods or Golf Galaxy to get the help you need; the golf pro is there (and not at a club) for a reason and they typically are full of a lot of wrong information. And remember this, their goal is to convince you to buy one of the sets of clubs they have in stock which are all standard anyway. Speaking of standards it is helpful to know that every club manufacturer has different standards. Titleist irons have different standard loft and lie angles than Taylor Made or Callaway or Cleveland, etc. and these differences can be significant. For example there is typically 4 degrees difference in loft angle between clubs, i.e. a seven iron to an eight iron, and manufacturer’s standards can vary as much as 3 degrees so, for example, a Callaway 8 iron can virtually be a Taylor Made 7 iron.
The very most important thing to do if you are contemplating buying clubs is matching your swing speed to the proper shaft flex but this is just the tip of the iceberg. Buy shafts which are too stiff and every shot will feel like hitting an anvil with a sledge hammer………buy shafts which are too soft and you can not control the ball. The shaft determines 95% of the performance of the ball, so make sure the shaft is the proper flex for you. After the shaft flex, the next most important thing is probably the lie angle, this is the angle made up of the shaft and the sole of the club (the part that rests on the ground). See the below pic.
A club which is too upright for you will impact the ground with the heel first (the part of the clubhead closest to you where the shaft is inserted,) just prior to contacting the ball, and the club face will close producing low and left ball flight and increase distance uncontrollably. A club which is too flat for you will impact the ground with the toe of the club first (the part of the clubhead farthest from the heel), just prior to contacting the ball, and the club face will open producing high and right ball flight with very weak, and again, uncontrollable distance. To make this even more confusing the shaft of the club bends during the swing so what looks like a perfect lie angle during your stance is changed as the club approaches contact with the ball. In the picture below you can see how the shaft is bent which slightly changes the lie angle at impact.
This is how the shaft bends for most people but not all, for some people the shaft bends the other way…….confused yet? If not, let me add this……..this is all controlled by your swing plane angle which changes with posture and muscle tension. In the below picture you see a representation of a swing plane angle and you can see how this would effect everything described above.
Practicing enough to develop muscle memory, stretching before and during play, and learning to relax while swinging can allow you to replicate your swing and create consistency.
A couple other things that enter into shaft selection are less critical until you have grooved your swing and can routinely produce similar results but since I am inundating you with trivial information, why not continue. The flex point, or kick point, of the shaft is the point of the shaft most susceptible to bending during the swing. Some shafts are made to bend closer to the club head and some are made to bend closer to the grip, each produces minor changes in ball flight trajectory. A shaft with a high kick point, or flex point, will produce lower ball flight because the club head is being de-lofted more so than with a shaft which has a low kick point. The amount of offset in a club head is the distance the actual face of the club lags behind the shaft, see diagram below.
During the swing the club is actually rotating on the axis of the shaft like a fan blade, the toe is, in essence, orbiting the heel. For those who always push or fade the ball, a set of irons with high offset can help because it allows a couple more milliseconds to get the club pointed at the target before contacting the ball. Although this is really little more than a band aid to compensate for a flaw in the swing it does work well for many people. A better way is to practice until you have fixed it yourself. This brings me to another very important key to better golf. It takes approximately 1/10th of a second longer to swing each iron as you progress from the shortest clubs to the longest clubs, i.e., it takes 1/10th of a second longer to swing a 7 iron than it does to swing an 8 iron. Most golfers attempt to swing each iron in the same amount of time and this is why most golfers struggle with long irons…….slow down and allow the club to work for you.
One last point on shaft selection…….. Graphite or steel? This is often toyed with by beginning golfers regarding what shaft to put in their set of irons. Graphite shafts are lighter than steel and some think this allows you to swing the club faster, the opposite is true. The proper swingweight is critical to timing your golf swing. Swingweight is the ratio of weight in the clubhead vs weight in the shaft and since graphite shafts are lighter you must either get clubheads which are also lighter or lengthen the shaft. Swingweight has a very precise impact, for example, adding the weight of a dollar bill to the clubhead will change the swingweight one point and moving three or four swingweight points can drastically effect your swing. Since irons are intended to be the accuracy part of your game, either lightening the overall club weight or lengthening the shaft is seldom a good idea.
Here is a simple test that will help you to understand your golf clubs and maybe improve your game. Take your 6 iron (it works the same for all irons) and a pencil with an eraser on the end. Holding your 6 iron at the farthest end of the grip, as lightly as you can, poke what you think is the sweetspot of the club face with the eraser end of the pencil. If you miss the sweet spot the club will rotate in your fingers and damn near jump out of your hand, if you hit the sweetspot the club will simply swing away like a pendulum. This will tell you where the ball should be impacting the face on contact. At the practice range, place a piece masking tape on the face and see how often you are hitting the sweetspot. Ben Hogan said the average amateur golfer strikes the ball perfectly once, on average, in a round of golf.
One last tip………the biggest flaw in most golfers game is the mis-conception of distance, the importance of it and how to achieve it. On any given golf hole, the further you progress from tee to green the less room there is for recovery. What this means is, you can still make a birdie after a poor drive, you are less likely to make a birdie after a good drive but poor second shot and it is virtually impossible to make a birdie after a two good shots followed by a poor third shot. And equally important is an understanding of how distance is achieved in a golf swing. Clubhead speed is what determines distance; and clubhead speed is not created by strength but by timing and flexibility. Tiger Woods changed how touring pros approach golf by working out and building muscle mass, not for strength but to create muscle mass which, when taught the proper muscle memory, could be relied upon to produce the same results repeatedly. Clubhead speed can only be generated once in a golf swing, if you watch the pros their swing looks almost lazy until just before impact. Look at the picture below and note where his hands are and that his wrists are still cocked.
The ensuing wrist release into the ball, when coupled with all the right body movements, will produce incredible distance. Believe it or not, this is a much toned down swing from when Tiger first came on the scene, his original swing, while capable of producing more length was inconsistent and he had to calm it down to find the balance of accuracy and distance. You may remember early in his career, he would occasionally completely airmail a green from 100 yards……this was due to an explosive wrist release which produced inaccurate results.
It is truly fascinating what actually happens to a golf club during the swing and an understanding of some of it may help people avoid buying the wrong clubs. The vast majority of golfers play their entire life with clubs which are not right for them and they never know it, they simply don’t play as well as they could with the right clubs and some give up the game prematurely because they don’t enjoy it.
Up until the perfection of the launching machines, which can tell you a great deal about your swing, you had to go to a pro and be fitted by hitting hundreds of balls with clubs of all different specs. A launching machine being monitored by the right person can tell you even more in 10 minutes, however, this can still be a fun couple hours if spent with the right pro. Be careful of going to places like Dick’s Sporting Goods or Golf Galaxy to get the help you need; the golf pro is there (and not at a club) for a reason and they typically are full of a lot of wrong information. And remember this, their goal is to convince you to buy one of the sets of clubs they have in stock which are all standard anyway. Speaking of standards it is helpful to know that every club manufacturer has different standards. Titleist irons have different standard loft and lie angles than Taylor Made or Callaway or Cleveland, etc. and these differences can be significant. For example there is typically 4 degrees difference in loft angle between clubs, i.e. a seven iron to an eight iron, and manufacturer’s standards can vary as much as 3 degrees so, for example, a Callaway 8 iron can virtually be a Taylor Made 7 iron.
The very most important thing to do if you are contemplating buying clubs is matching your swing speed to the proper shaft flex but this is just the tip of the iceberg. Buy shafts which are too stiff and every shot will feel like hitting an anvil with a sledge hammer………buy shafts which are too soft and you can not control the ball. The shaft determines 95% of the performance of the ball, so make sure the shaft is the proper flex for you. After the shaft flex, the next most important thing is probably the lie angle, this is the angle made up of the shaft and the sole of the club (the part that rests on the ground). See the below pic.
A club which is too upright for you will impact the ground with the heel first (the part of the clubhead closest to you where the shaft is inserted,) just prior to contacting the ball, and the club face will close producing low and left ball flight and increase distance uncontrollably. A club which is too flat for you will impact the ground with the toe of the club first (the part of the clubhead farthest from the heel), just prior to contacting the ball, and the club face will open producing high and right ball flight with very weak, and again, uncontrollable distance. To make this even more confusing the shaft of the club bends during the swing so what looks like a perfect lie angle during your stance is changed as the club approaches contact with the ball. In the picture below you can see how the shaft is bent which slightly changes the lie angle at impact.
This is how the shaft bends for most people but not all, for some people the shaft bends the other way…….confused yet? If not, let me add this……..this is all controlled by your swing plane angle which changes with posture and muscle tension. In the below picture you see a representation of a swing plane angle and you can see how this would effect everything described above.
Practicing enough to develop muscle memory, stretching before and during play, and learning to relax while swinging can allow you to replicate your swing and create consistency.
A couple other things that enter into shaft selection are less critical until you have grooved your swing and can routinely produce similar results but since I am inundating you with trivial information, why not continue. The flex point, or kick point, of the shaft is the point of the shaft most susceptible to bending during the swing. Some shafts are made to bend closer to the club head and some are made to bend closer to the grip, each produces minor changes in ball flight trajectory. A shaft with a high kick point, or flex point, will produce lower ball flight because the club head is being de-lofted more so than with a shaft which has a low kick point. The amount of offset in a club head is the distance the actual face of the club lags behind the shaft, see diagram below.
During the swing the club is actually rotating on the axis of the shaft like a fan blade, the toe is, in essence, orbiting the heel. For those who always push or fade the ball, a set of irons with high offset can help because it allows a couple more milliseconds to get the club pointed at the target before contacting the ball. Although this is really little more than a band aid to compensate for a flaw in the swing it does work well for many people. A better way is to practice until you have fixed it yourself. This brings me to another very important key to better golf. It takes approximately 1/10th of a second longer to swing each iron as you progress from the shortest clubs to the longest clubs, i.e., it takes 1/10th of a second longer to swing a 7 iron than it does to swing an 8 iron. Most golfers attempt to swing each iron in the same amount of time and this is why most golfers struggle with long irons…….slow down and allow the club to work for you.
One last point on shaft selection…….. Graphite or steel? This is often toyed with by beginning golfers regarding what shaft to put in their set of irons. Graphite shafts are lighter than steel and some think this allows you to swing the club faster, the opposite is true. The proper swingweight is critical to timing your golf swing. Swingweight is the ratio of weight in the clubhead vs weight in the shaft and since graphite shafts are lighter you must either get clubheads which are also lighter or lengthen the shaft. Swingweight has a very precise impact, for example, adding the weight of a dollar bill to the clubhead will change the swingweight one point and moving three or four swingweight points can drastically effect your swing. Since irons are intended to be the accuracy part of your game, either lightening the overall club weight or lengthening the shaft is seldom a good idea.
Here is a simple test that will help you to understand your golf clubs and maybe improve your game. Take your 6 iron (it works the same for all irons) and a pencil with an eraser on the end. Holding your 6 iron at the farthest end of the grip, as lightly as you can, poke what you think is the sweetspot of the club face with the eraser end of the pencil. If you miss the sweet spot the club will rotate in your fingers and damn near jump out of your hand, if you hit the sweetspot the club will simply swing away like a pendulum. This will tell you where the ball should be impacting the face on contact. At the practice range, place a piece masking tape on the face and see how often you are hitting the sweetspot. Ben Hogan said the average amateur golfer strikes the ball perfectly once, on average, in a round of golf.
One last tip………the biggest flaw in most golfers game is the mis-conception of distance, the importance of it and how to achieve it. On any given golf hole, the further you progress from tee to green the less room there is for recovery. What this means is, you can still make a birdie after a poor drive, you are less likely to make a birdie after a good drive but poor second shot and it is virtually impossible to make a birdie after a two good shots followed by a poor third shot. And equally important is an understanding of how distance is achieved in a golf swing. Clubhead speed is what determines distance; and clubhead speed is not created by strength but by timing and flexibility. Tiger Woods changed how touring pros approach golf by working out and building muscle mass, not for strength but to create muscle mass which, when taught the proper muscle memory, could be relied upon to produce the same results repeatedly. Clubhead speed can only be generated once in a golf swing, if you watch the pros their swing looks almost lazy until just before impact. Look at the picture below and note where his hands are and that his wrists are still cocked.
The ensuing wrist release into the ball, when coupled with all the right body movements, will produce incredible distance. Believe it or not, this is a much toned down swing from when Tiger first came on the scene, his original swing, while capable of producing more length was inconsistent and he had to calm it down to find the balance of accuracy and distance. You may remember early in his career, he would occasionally completely airmail a green from 100 yards……this was due to an explosive wrist release which produced inaccurate results.
