Are club manufacturers fooling us into thinking we are good?

[madandra]

On a tangent to TonyN's post regarding X20's it got me wondering if club makers are ripping the preverbial p15h out of us by making their clubs loft angles stronger than ever before.

Does hitting a 9 iron 160 really make you think you have tamed the monster? Too right.

Are we really that good? No we are not.

Judging by the mixed variences of loft angles would it not be a good idea to use the loft of a club as its name rather than its number?


You would never call a Skoda Superb an old Passat so why should we call a bloody 9 iron a pitching wedge.


I would like to see all irons with the degrees of loft on the sole instead of a misleading number.

This could also explain why some manufacturers can brag about hitting the ball further.

Your thoughts please.

 

[USER1999]

Not sure the numbers matter much to be honest. Just because the bloke who hit before you hit an eight, and you hit a seven doesn't make you a worse golfer. As long as you know what club to hit, why care.

I agree it would make changing irons easier, as the bedding in period would be quicker, as you would have a better idea from day 1 which did what. But if you really cared, you would get the specs off the internet, and make a chart.

On the other hand, I may get customm fit next time, which if they add 1/2" to the shaft length would mess it all up again. Or I could change shaft flex, which again probably makes as much difference as loft.

I am happy as it is. It works for me.

 

[HomerJSimpson]

Totally agree that we are being taken for a ride. I don't mind hitting a 5 iron 180 yards and over a green when I know I have hit it well and it is downwind but I know that in normal circumstances that would be a hybrid or 4 iron.

It is always a good feeling to know you have hit it xx yards with such and suc club but at the end of the day it is about getting it in the hole in as few as possible. If my mate hits a 7 iron onto a par 3 and I use a 6 and stick it inside him what is the difference.

I think some form of loft accountability is required so we know when we purchase our clubs what the real lofts are. Maybe some sort of certificate could be included in the box or avaiable from the retailer. My TM R7's have a PW of 45 degree and my SW is 56 which meant I had to go out and get a 52 wedge to bridge the gap

 

[Ken_A]

My irons are strong lofted - but surley an Iron with a strong loft is harder to hit than a less lofted Iron - IE 19 deg 3 iron is harder to hit than a 21deg 3 iron. So a set withg strong lofts should be hard to hit.


I have often wondered the very same question, and as yet I have not convinced myself of an answer. The only thing I know is I hit 1-2 irons less now than I did before.

 

[DCB]

Some food for thought there.

I have a copy of an old book " How to Play Your Best Golf all The Time" by Tommy Armour. In it there is a description of the ideal set of irons and the distances that they should play. Even at that time, the strenght/loft of irons was a talking point. Based on that book, 1953 I think, all our modern clubs are stronger lofted than at that time. What was a five iron is now a six iron loftwise. If our current manufacturers ar selling even stronger lofted clubs in some cases, then we really are being fooled into thinking we are sending the ball further.

Technology has to play a part as well. Shafts are better, balls are better and keep their shape more consistently.

Anyway, why write a book with a title like that, its impossible to do that, isn't it?

 

[surefire]

I have just read this, so haven't had a chance to look anything up yet, but is it possible that modern technology creates higher launch angles, so stronger lofts can be used?

If a club has a lower centre of gravity, it can probably launch the ball higher. This being the case, in most peoples situations isn't it more usefull to change the loft and gain distance, rather than have the same distance but more height?

 

[USER1999]

I suppose what we are really getting at here is not the manufacturers convincing us we hit clubs further (although this may be part of the plan), but more selling us an incomplete set of irons, with some we don't want, and some missing, deliberately in order to sell us another club extra.

ie: a strong 3 and 4 iron, which will never be hit, as hybrids are easier, and a missing gap wedge to make up for the huge space between a strong pitching wedge and a soft sandwedge.

I know you can get sets without 3 and 4 irons, but the resale on a 'half' set is terrible. Also, sets without long irons (and sometimes sandwedges too) don't appear to be any cheaper.

 

[Kaizer_Soze]

There's a great story about Arnold Palmer in a pro am event some years back.

Palmer and his amateur playing partner were equidistant from the green, both hits shots onto the green.

When asked the question what club he had used Palmer replied "7 'arn", to which his partner replied "ha, I hit a 9"

Palmer responded be saying "c'mere son" and proceeded to pop a ball on the green with very club in the bag !!

Its not how far you hit a 9 iron etc, but It does look like manufacturers are manipulation the buying public by varying lofts of their clubs.

There sould be a standard loft for each club, or failing that the loft angle as previously suggested.

That said ot WOULD give me huge satisfaction to boom a 7 iron 170 yards +

 

[USER1999]

Yet we are happy to call our driver a driver, with anything from 7° to 12.5° loft. No one answers the what club did you hit there question with, 'yeah, hit my 9.5 with a 43" mid kick stiff'.

 

[John_Findlay]

My mate used to boom his wedge 160 yards until he changed clubs recently. I realized his old wedge was actually an 8.5 iron.

My wedge is 47 degrees. Isn't that an old 9 iron?

 

[madandra]

Perhaps this explains why more and more sets now either stop at a 5 iron or have included hybrids instead of 3 and 4 irons. A new 3 iron must have a similar loft to an old 2 iron and they were always a bugger to hit.

 

[viscount17]

murph, I'm not so sure that it is an easy job to get lofts off the net; for the bigger manufacturers possibly but not always, for the smaller almost never.

we could of course give the clubs names not numbers, anyone think of any?

 

[madandra]

I would call my 60* wedge The Mother in Law club, cos just when you think you know how to play it, it turns into a nasty peice of cold steel that should be thrown on a burning fire.

 

[theeaglehunter]

haha Mad I like it.

To be honest I really am not worried about the distance my irons travel in comparison to other peoples. MY G10s have strong lofts (46 degree pw) and they also have a 1/4 inch longer shaft than my previous irons so it took me a fair while to find my distances again but now I have done this why does it matter that I hit these further. What is also quite strange is that my G10s which are obviously cavity backs also seem to hit the ball higher as well as further than my old macgregor blades, despite having less loft.

Also this reminds me of when I was getting fitted for my irons, I could not deside between the G10s and MX-25s stating the fact that the MX-25s were slightly longer as one of the reasons why I liked them despite the fact that they were less consistent than the G10s. As my pro said it doesn't matter if one set is longer because you just use the next club. It doesn't matter what number there is on it.

It could be that because the modern clubs are more advanced they still hit the ball as high and they just hit it further. It would be interesting to see the variances in height achieved with an old standard set and a modern strong lofted set would be.

 

[GB72]

Perhaps the manufacturers have run out of technological ideas to make the ball go further with an iron so have now resorted to a bit of trickery to encourage us to change kit every year. After all, they need the average golfer to change kit every couple of years to keep sales up. The knock on effect of this has been to leave a large gap between wedges allowing them to extract a few extra quid out of us for the gap wedge.

Personally I would be more than happy to see standard lofts for irons then at least you would be able to see whether a new set of irons were really giving you those extra yards to warrant a purchase.

 

[USER1999]

Why would a new set be longer? Why do we want them longer? The one thing I want from a set of irons is consistency. I want my 7 to go 150, ideally every time I hit it. If I changed clubs, and the 8 went 150, then this would go through the whole set, so what would I hit from 120 when i run out of irons?

Tiger probably has this problem. Below a nine (which must go 170+, he has a few wedges, but I bet everything from 130 in is a half shot). Miclelson certainly does. I think I read somewhere that he carried 5 wedges in his last tournament. Now one of those was probably an 8 iron equivalent, one a 9 iron, etc.....

Why not take all the numbers off, and the lofts, and go back to mashies etc?

 

[MVP]

I think that the manufacturers are using new lofts to fool us. But A lot of people have cottoned on to this so to speak and i think it doesnt matter much now. What i dare say is that clubs should be sold in lofts as the special wedges are, so then everyone will know that they hit a 31 degree club x amount of yards rather then having to compare too much.

 

[Nico]

Lots of good stuff here again folks.

The only thing I would add in the mix is that we should consider the majority here and its not us!

Most of us probably dont worry about how far the next person hits a 9 iron but the vast majority of golfers do care. Most people will now try before they buy and if you hit one set a club further then notch up another sale!

As far as having stronger lofts making them harder to hit that doesnt really bear close examination.
If a shot is 150yds,its 150yds whatever the number on the bottom of the club so whether the club says 9 or 7 on the sole its irrelevant if their lofts are the same and they go that distance.

I deliberately had my irons set at traditional lofts because I happen to hit my 3 iron 200 which is all I want and I took the gaps from there. I know that not all of us can be so fortunate but Theagleh has it right,consistency is the key get that first and then learn your distances from there.

I do think that all manufacturers should be made to conform to a set series of lofts but can you see that happening? It would be like herding cats!

 

[toonarmy]

Just checked the lofts on my Callaway X Tours and compared them to their replacement, the X Tour 20.

What do you know, most of the clubs in X Tour 20s have 1deg less on the loft.

I'm all for loft only being on the sole of the club rather than a number - it's how I distinguish between my utilities after all, why not my irons?

 

[surefire]

Adding to what I mentioned earlier, if clubs launch higher, then having stronger lofts;

allows you to gain distance without losing height
AND
allows you to shape the ball more with each club (flatter face = more sidespin)

Not sure whether either of these things are especially good or bad. Depends what you want from your clubs.

Saying that as has been mentioned none of it really matters too much, because it doesn't matter what the number on the club says.