If possible, go to a pro shop and have a professional club fitter determine the best loft for your driver. If you tend to hit shots off the heel of the clubface the portion closest to the shaft the solution likely lies in your address position. A too flat lie angle causes the face of the club to point right. Changing loft and face angles golf clubs team titleist. Now that we understand what the lie angle is, lets talk about the effects of having clubs with the wrong lie angle. The club fitter will analyze your swing speed and angle of attack to help determine the optimal loft for your driver. The upright lie angle will help you turn the face over through impact. How to determine which loft you should get on your driver. Some drivers are designed to take further spin off the shot too. The correct lie angle is determined by many factors such as height, arm length, leg length, grip, posture and so on. Effects of flat and upright lie angles if a clubs lie angle is too flat for an individual players swing, the clubs toe will strike the ground first, resulting in shots pushed to the right. The longer the club the flatter the lie angle is needed.
If the lie angle is too far upright the clubs heel hits the ground first and the player will tend to pull the ball to the left. The cause and effect of a change in loft can be clear. From this position youll extend the arms on the downswing past their address position, pushing the club outward and initiating heel contact. Hit drivers with several different lofts and see which club produces the best result. Most golf companies publish their lie angles, for each model of driver head, on the internet, but a simple protractor out of your tool box will do. The face angle on a driver is basically defined as the clubface angle when the driver is soled on a hard surface with the shaft held perfectly at a 90 degree angle to the line of flight.
A change in face angle comes from the fact that when you change loft angle, you also change the ground contact point on the sole. Also keep in mind that there are a slew of other adjustments made possible with modern drivers, such as lie angle settings, and sliding or moveable weights that can tune center of gravity location. When the leading edge of a clubface is set back from the hosel or neck, the club is said to have offset. An upright lie angle means that the angle between the shaft and the ground is larger than it should be, making the club shaft more upright compared to the ground. Things you should know about your adjustable driver. The adjustment that most manufacturers have, but few talk about, is lie angle. Ping has always been a company comfortable in a leadership role in terms of research and custom fitting. When you add loft, the ground contact point shifts back and when the driver is soled, the face angle closes please note, the face angle only changes if you sole the driver. How lie angle affects ball direction golf in my kingdom. Lie angle is the angle formed between the sole of the club and the shaft as indicated by the blue lines in the picture to the left. Club length and lie angle club fitting team titleist. Meaning that if your driver is 59 and your optimal lie angle is 55, there wouldnt be more than a small offline effect. Long clubs have flatter lie angles than shorter clubs, so the angle formed with a driver is going to be lower than with a pitching wedge, for instance.
Understanding and fitting driver face angle and loft. How adjusting your driver loft changes your ball flight. If i added 2 inches to my 7 iron it would still have the same lie angle. To get an idea of how these new drivers perform, i put them to the test in the cluboratory at miles of golf ann arbor. But you need to know what is the right lie angle for you, at a given length, because there really is no norm here. So if you are much taller than average, you might want to consider picking the driver with upright lie angle. Effects of lengthening a golf club shaft by mike southern. Lie angles almost always range from the mid50 degrees in drivers to the mid60 degrees in short irons. Now, to get that face square at impact, you need to open that 10 degree driver a couple degrees, thus adding loft. They can make even more of an impact on your launch conditions. Many of todays drivers have adjustable hosels, which will allow you to make small lie angle adjustments if needed. However, i do suggest decreasing the length of your driver to approximately 44 inches rather than using what has become standard length of more than 45 inches.
Lie angle is, for most people, more important than club length. The hosel also adjusts to three lie angles giving the exs 16 different settings between the two fts weights and the eight different loft and lie settings. Shaft length and lie angles brian manzella golf academy. Its a frequently asked question and one that will vary from person to person and depend on a number of factors that could get very technical and indepth. Your lie angle is the angle between the centre of the shaft and the sole of the club, and its important as it can affect how your club enters the turf at impact, and consequently, which direction the ball travels in. Tips for changing your loft on an adjustable driver golf. If your club is too flat for your swing then it means that during your swing, the toe of the club will be lower than the heel normally you want them level at impact. When you do that, depending on how you grip the club, the face angle may change a bit, but by less than degree.
For this driver there are 84 different settings that you can make for loft, face angle, and lie angle with this driver. When i was originally fitted 5 years ago i was fitted at 12 in over standard length but the lie angle was standard. Place your driver so that the sole is flat on the floor, rest the club against the wall, and measure the lie angle. If the lie angle is too flat for you, you will tend to hit a push or push slice. The exact lie angle of your clubs is going to depend on the make and model you use, but woods are usually in the 50s in.
Driver shafts being longer tend to droop more than irons. The lie angle is the angle between the shaft and the sole of the clubhead. If you are between 53 and 62 then lie angle will be more of a consideration than club length. Does lie angle matter for drivers clubs, grips, shafts. Length of any particular club has no effect on lie angle. Instead of calling it a lie angle adjustment, most. The first thing to know is that lie angle being incorrect is the most important on clubs with more loft. Effect of lie angle on drivers japanese golf clubs. Title charlie rymer demonstrates what happens when you change your loft on an adjustable driver. And i play with 12 increments between all my clubs. Our testers shrunk their lefttoright dispersion by an average of 5.
Lie angle can affect both quality of contact and the direction of the ball flight. Lie angles change from club to club, getting steeper as we go from driver to wedge and stand further from the ball. Most adjustable drivers allow you to rotate the hosel to decrease loft. No, the lie angle is not that important with a driver, especially compared to irons. A cursory look at the data shows that lie angle can have a huge effect on accuracy.
There are many different degrees of lie angle but the aim is to have the sole of your club sitting flat to the ground at impact when hitting the ball. In many ways, the biggest effect of lengthening a club shaft is how it affects your ability to swing the club. The reason is effects ball flight is because with lofted club the more loft, the more effect lie angle that is too uprgiht automatically causes the face of the club to point left. For every 12 inch you add to a club, the lie angle is effected by 12. Drivers do not have an effective lie angle as are not made to hit off the ground. Understanding how lie angle affects your golf swing. Does the lie angle mean that much when selecting a driver. The sole of the club does not strike the ground and the face has such little loft, it really doesnt get aimed much left or right when laid upright or flat, like, for example, a 9 iron would. So, the face angle can be perfectly square 0 degrees to the line of flight, open to the line of flight called slice face or closed to the line of flight called hook face.
What is the correct driver loft for the average senior golfer. I just recently got refitted and the fitter wanted me to stay with the 12 inch of standard but said the lie angle needed to be 1 upright to compensate for the the extra 12 inch. In irons, the range is typically from 59 or 60 degrees to around 64 degrees. The average driver length on the tour is approximately 44 34 inches. Another way of saying it is that the shaft appears to be in front of, or ahead. For example, if you add 1 inch, the club needs to be 1 flatter. Matching the lie angle of clubs to the specific golfer is one of the goals of a clubfitting session. Finally, to further dial in the driver to the needs of the player the hosel has two degrees of adjustability, as much as any driver on the market. This new three driver family combines aerodynamic shaping with an angled keel in the sole. In turn, these changes will affect your timing and even your mechanics, perhaps without you. Your lie angle is the angle between the centre of the shaft and the sole of the club, and its important as it can affect how your club enters the turf at impact, and consequently, which direction.
We saw a slightly lower launch angle with more efficient carry and a flatter trajectory for a more energetic landing angle that produced more roll. If a club is too upright for your swing this means that during the swing, the heel of the clubhead will be lower than the toe. Many others allow players to shift some weight laterally. What is the correct driver loft for the average senior golfer when choosing a driver, senior golfers should be careful to select the correct loft. How adjustable drivers can fix your swing flaw golf digest. There is no standard lie angle, and every golfer should play the lie that fits their swing the best i. Some drivers help golfers achieve a draw bias through lie angle, pushing the toe in the air to make it more upright and promote a draw. The single axis swing does not need more upright lie angles in clubs. It is the one adjustable driver that can possibly be set up, in my opinion, to provide loft and face angle settings that can help a driver fitting.
One of the biggest trends seniors fall into is selecting a driver with a lower loft, the theory being the lower. Ping makes the effort to lead again with the new ping g410. In addition to the effects on your shots telling you there might be a problem with the lie angles of your clubs, your divots can also offer clues. Rick shiels senior pga golf coach at trafford golf centre talks with nick hibbs at tour x golf about incorrect lie angle and how it can affect the golf ball flight. An ideal lie angle would have the sole of the club parallel with the ground at impact. Whereas if your 8irom was 3 degrees off, it would be further offline. Offset is design feature in golf clubs that was first a feature specific to gameimprovement clubs but is now found in most irons and many woods and hybrids. If you swing with a shallow or positive aoa that may help reduce backspin too. So theres potential for a builtin compensating effect for the very upright lie angle in the driver vs. The combined changes in length and swing weight make the club feel different. If your divots are deeper on the toe side than the heel side toe down, heel up at impact or deeper on the heel side than the toe side toe up, heel down at impact, thats a sign your lie angles might be too flat or too upright. On the other hand, the flat lie angle can cause slice because the face tend to open at impact.
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