Driver shafts and lofts

[birdieman]

Commence ramble....

Was looking at Lorena Ochoas website to see what gear she is playing with and was surprised to see she plays only 7.5 degrees of loft on the driver with a 53 gram stiff flex diamana shaft. She is top of the driver distance stats in 2008 on 269 yards average. For me 269 yds is good but not that far by mens standards so why aren't more of us playing a lower lofted driver?

Anyway there is a lot of talk on here about people playing too low a loft on their drivers and they should be playing 11 or 12 degrees. I've always jumped between 9.5 and 10.5 as driving is an ok part of my game and I don't seem to have any problem getting the ball high enough, so don't feel I want a higher loft. If I'm not driving great I'll revert to 3 wood instead.

How would you determine what the best loft is for you?

My current driver has MWT which alters the spin imparted on the ball. I can get a high spin high trajectory shot or a low spin low trajectory shot according to where I place the weights. If it was very windy how would you set it up? - in the wind I would have thought a low spin lower trajectory set up would be better?

My idea being I turn up to play and set up the driver weights according to wind conditions.

Remember even if I got custom fitted I could still move the weights around.

Any thoughts?

 

[The23rdman]

I think it has a lot to do with swing characteristics, mate. I guess Lorena has a pretty good positive AoA on the ball meaning she can launch it pretty high with low spin from that set-up.

It's also worth bearing in mind the heads the pros use will be spot on loft wise unlike the heads we buy which may be 2 or 3 degrees out. Your 9.5* may easily be 11.5*. It's a nice way to massage our egos!

 

[USER1999]

The other thing is, she doesn't slice. A mid handicap hacker with a 7 1/2 degree driver is a reciepe for lost balls.

 

[mansell]

unlike the heads we buy which may be 2 or 3 degrees out. Your 9.5* may easily be 11.5*.

as much as that, how come? mass production

 

[Twire]

It's also worth bearing in mind the heads the pros use will be spot on loft wise unlike the heads we buy which may be 2 or 3 degrees out. Your 9.5* may easily be 11.5*. It's a nice way to massage our egos!

If it's made in china, there is a posibility the heads could be out. But even the chineese can mass produce heads better than 2 degrees. I never say never, but it does seam a long way out.

Do the pro's only use prototype equipment then? I know they are all custom fitted, but I would have thought they would have been fitted up using standard parts the same as we would.

 

[SammmeBee]

Do the pro's only use prototype equipment then? I know they are all custom fitted, but I would have thought they would have been fitted up using standard parts the same as we would.

Prototype stuff - Yes.....the wood heads are all standard that we get but they are bent so they are right for whoever is using it, same with the irons really....they just spend days and days getting the right thing in their hands....

Their clubs are a bit like Trigger's broom in Only Fools and Horses.....

 

[Twire]

Thats what I thought, it's standard stuff with extra tweeks and weights and so on. I can't see them machining from solid or tooling up just to produce a few sets.

 

[USER1999]

Titleist 907 D4 was used by a few tour pro's, but never made it to market.

A mate of mine had a TM driver from a tour player, and that never came out either.

My guess is the manufacturers try a lot of designs out with their pro's, so yes, they do play with prototypes sometimes, and also limited editions which are never sold.

 

[Adjani]

How would you determine what the best loft is for you?

Your really looking for that optimum launch angle and spin rate, between 14 and 17 degrees (i think) spinning at about 2400 rpm, to give you that ideal trajectory. This could be obtained with a variety of lofts and shafts with differing kick points, you just need to find the right combination for your swing.

The pro`s can manipulate the flight path off their ball by teeing it up or down slightly and adjusting the swing to impact the ball differently.

For us mere mortals, a launch monitor, a range and a custom fitter is the best route.

 

[The23rdman]

unlike the heads we buy which may be 2 or 3 degrees out. Your 9.5* may easily be 11.5*.

as much as that, how come? mass production

Well, that depends on point of view. I, along with some others, believe it's deliberate in order to massage our egos. We want to say we play with a 9* head and it may have 9* of loft somewhere on the face, but unless that face is dead flat, which it isn't, the effective loft on the sweetspot is probably nearer 11*. You can easily get your driver checked by a clubfitter.

 

[bobmac]

It's also worth bearing in mind the heads the pros use will be spot on loft wise unlike the heads we buy which may be 2 or 3 degrees out. Your 9.5* may easily be 11.5*. It's a nice way to massage our egos!

I'm afraid I have to disagree with comments of the last speaker.
I went to the Ping factory recently to see how the clubs are put together and the care that is taken has to be seen to be believed.
Yes, I agree that not all heads are exactly the same, but the the differenc is absolutely tiny.
For example, when the irons are all assembled, the overall club is weighed and then a weight is added to bring the club up to a standard weight.
They even take into consideration the weight of the glue used to hold the weight in.
So when you see Ochoa hit her Ping clubs, you can be sure your Ping clubs are just as well put together.
I cannot however vouch for other perhaps cheaper makes of club.

 

[The23rdman]

It's also worth bearing in mind the heads the pros use will be spot on loft wise unlike the heads we buy which may be 2 or 3 degrees out. Your 9.5* may easily be 11.5*. It's a nice way to massage our egos!

I'm afraid I have to disagree with comments of the last speaker.
I went to the Ping factory recently to see how the clubs are put together and the care that is taken has to be seen to be believed.
Yes, I agree that not all heads are exactly the same, but the the differenc is absolutely tiny.
For example, when the irons are all assembled, the overall club is weighed and then a weight is added to bring the club up to a standard weight.
They even take into consideration the weight of the glue used to hold the weight in.
So when you see Ochoa hit her Ping clubs, you can be sure your Ping clubs are just as well put together.
I cannot however vouch for other perhaps cheaper makes of club.

Bob, I'm only saying what I learnt from Tom Wishon, who knows a thing or two about these things.

 

[fastmover2]

It's also worth bearing in mind the heads the pros use will be spot on loft wise unlike the heads we buy which may be 2 or 3 degrees out. Your 9.5* may easily be 11.5*. It's a nice way to massage our egos!

I'm afraid I have to disagree with comments of the last speaker.
I went to the Ping factory recently to see how the clubs are put together and the care that is taken has to be seen to be believed.
Yes, I agree that not all heads are exactly the same, but the the differenc is absolutely tiny.
For example, when the irons are all assembled, the overall club is weighed and then a weight is added to bring the club up to a standard weight.
They even take into consideration the weight of the glue used to hold the weight in.
So when you see Ochoa hit her Ping clubs, you can be sure your Ping clubs are just as well put together.
I cannot however vouch for other perhaps cheaper makes of club.

Was that the Ping factory in Phoenix, Arizona? We went there. Good factory tour and very interesting but I thought it was pretty much a production line thing. Albeit they are turning stuff out to custom fit specs for (retail) customers. Being somewhat of the club ho persuasion we started asking questions. They do fit their Tour pros at that facility but were evasive about the clubs and processes involved.They have it that they turn out everything themselves, yes the iron castings, but when we asked about wood/driver heads there was a lot of hemming and hawing and basically please do not ask that question. This was just before the Rapture was released and oh look what is over here? Rapture heads in a Made in China box, we got caught peeking and got a reprimand!

WRT tour pros and what they use, their gear is quite a long way from retail. Many of the forged clubs you see used are actually done by specialist forging houses in Japan, one of them being Miura (they also do their own high end retail gear) this applies to a lot of the big OEMs. Miura made heads have actually won several majors but one of the conditions is they are not allowed to say which or which OEMs name was stamped on them when they did.

The Tour Proto heads in drivers/woods and retail versions of the same can be quite different in weight distribution loft and other characteristics. Also as mentioned they frequently have further adjustments made to hosel etc as well as hot melts etc etc to get them "just so".

You can buy the Proto spec gear and you will notice a difference in performance (and cost!). I have a tour proto head in my 3 wood and it is a completely different feel/flight to the retail versions I have tried, same with my hybrid.

My son has just bought an R9 tour spec head and that came with the markings on it from testing showing actual true COR/Loft (measured to 0.1 degree) etc. on it. The heads the pros use are apparently tested like this so that they use drivers that are right at the max allowable COR.Cost of head only over 500 quid.

The shafts you see the pros use may look like the ones fitted in retail but they are often something completely different custom painted to look like the retail version you can buy.

WRT the loft you use. My understanding is that the critical thing is the dynamic loft and not the static loft and this will depend on AoA/swing etc. As others mentioned it also depends where and how the loft is measured on the clubface, there is, to my knowledge no industry standard for this.
Allegedly the OEMs do put flattering numbers on drivers especially where they say the loft is 9.5 but may actually be a couple of degrees more than this.

I did once own a 7.5 loft driver (Callaway), it did the rounds at our club. Several of us tried it and sold it on. We all were looking for a lower,penetrating, ball flight and all found it flew too high! It was an easy club to hit though I have to say.

Whatever the advertising says please do not believe that the clubs that the majority of tour players use are the same as you can buy in your Pro Shop, or dare I say it AG. They may look superficially the same but they are a world away.