When a Good Golf Club Hits Bad Shots
|
May 20, 2010 9:00 PM
Owen P. McClain, PGA Instructor
Here are real experiences which demonstrate a point:
- Struggling with chipping and other short game shots, a recent round found me hitting a full sand wedge from about 95 yards. Missing the green short and right left me thrilled—really! The mystery was solved as I recognized the erratic ball flight source….
- Practicing with a new set of irons, for some strange reason pitching wedge shots seemed to go well to the right. A ten minute trip to the pro shop solved the problem….
- My two iron is an effective tool for me, yet it almost got discarded as a totally unplayable club until a trip to a shop revealed why it was giving me fits….
- A student with a swing flaw self-corrects merely by changing the specifications of her clubs….
What is the common denominator to these stories? Lie angle! The sand wedge, over time, had deviated a mere 2 degrees from where it should have been. The pitching wedge was 3 degrees too flat. The two iron? Off by 2.5 degrees, The students golf clubs, 2 degrees.
What is lie angle? It is the angle of the bottom of the club compared to the shaft, and determines whether the club, at the moment of impact, will be level to the ground. If not, accuracy is affected, and it is surprising how little deviation it takes to cause a ball to go ten to twenty yards off line—and short, perhaps into the water.
The reality is that, unless you buy new clubs every year, most clubs will bend over the course of normal use. (The ability to bend a club is a good thing, allowing for custom fitting.) This bend cannot be detected with the naked eye, being a mere degree or two. And occasionally clubs are out of specification right out of the box. In the case of the student above, standard clubs were not the correct fit, something fairly easy to fix. These issues usually go undiagnosed because the player stubbornly believes looking into it to be a waste of time and money….then promptly spends hundreds of dollars on a new set of irons without knowing if they fit, hoping to improve.
Any PGA professional (myself included) can set you up with a fitting session, and assess whether your current clubs fit; both Ken Schnirring and myself can measure and re-calibrate your existing set for a small charge. (My charge is $1.50 per club to measure; $10 if a bend is made to correct specifications for you. Breakage is extremely rare depending upon make and model and you assume that risk, but the risk is well worth it to ensure that your clubs fit. Note than a few clubs, such as Ping, are not bendable.)
PGA Professionals in the area include:
At Moses Lake Golf Club: Mike Eslick, Owen McClain
At Lakeview Golf Club: Mike Schoner
At Desert Aire: Don Tracy
At Moses Pointe: Bill Porter, Joel Moberly