Shaft Length & Ball Position

[Scrindle]

Hi all,

I have a jumbled mess of questions and thought processes in my head about this. I'm going to get it all down and hopefully it'll make sense to a kind soul who may answer some of my questions and tell me why I'm wrong!

The shaft length of clubs gets progressively longer as you go up through the set. What is the reason for this?

If the ball position is the same for the majority of your irons until you start getting into the 'longer irons', why does the shaft length need to change at all?

Also, with the longer irons the ball position is being moved forward in the stance. Since the ball is nearer to your front foot, doesn't the effective distance between your grip and the club head reduce as a side effect of steepening the angle of shaft lean at address (all other things being equal), so why does the shaft length increase? I find this rather confusing.

Would irons of all lofts be easier to hit if they all had the same shaft length and you used the same ball position for each?

With your hands being forward at impact the dynamic loft of, say, a 7 iron, is lower than the actual loft of the club if I understand correctly? Taking the above assumptions about long irons into consideration, the steeper angle of shaft lean means that there is not as much reduction in dynamic loft as you would have with a mid iron when using something like a 4 or 5 iron instead?

Looking at the technical specifications of clubs from various manufacturers they all seem to have uniform gaps in terms of loft and shaft lengths obviously go up relatively uniformly so either this doesn't appear to be taken into account (very very unlikely) or I do not understand it correctly/am missing something (HIGHLY likely).

Where is my understanding/thinking going wrong?

Maybe with longer irons hitting down on the ball from the middle of your stance would make it impossible to get the ball airborne, but that still doesn't explain why the shaft length increases when the ball technically moves closer to your hands as it moves along the bottom edge of a triangle between the ball, your hands and the floor position of your hands at address.

I know this thread is a huge pain in the arse so a huge thank you for anyone that cares to comment in advance

 

[drdel]

Since any given person will be able to spin their body and move their hands and arms at maximum speed by using a longer shaft (or a reliable controlled swing speed); so their club-head speed naturally increases with the increased radius. The shallower angle of the so-called 'long' iron needs the extra club head speed to achieve an optimum launch angle for maximum carry and gives a reliable spread of distances.

With the 'shorter' irons the steeper face angle reduces the introduction of side-spin giving a better trajectory for close-up shot-making and less club-head speed is required so the shorter shaft length enables the golfer to maintain his/her natural speed of movement and still have a useful spread of distances.

 

[the_coach]

The simple answer is they are a different length to help with the differing loft to provide, distance.

Shafts become progressively a tad longer in the irons so that combined with the decrease in loft you get longer distances with the longer irons, & the step down in shaft length & increase in loft provides you with a common 'gap' in distances as you work back to the shorter in length clubs going back to the wedges.

There should be no really 'great' forward lean at address with any of the irons for any 'normal' full shot, the hands would just really be either level with the front target side of the ball or a an inch in front of the target side of the ball at most.

The forward leaning shaft is something that should happen during the swing to & through impact, when the ideal with a 6i would be 6º to 10º of forward lean giving you the reduced dynamic loft through impact, therefore optimum trajectory & distance.

Dynamic loft, forward lean happens, because you set an angle in the backswing then because through the lower body leading the downswing & the weight being on the leading leg, this combined with the hip clearance gives space for the hand & arms to move through to be level with the ball position first & the angle in the right wrist to be retained to the club head 'lags' behind & you get that forward leaning shaft & reduced face loft through impact.

 

[Foxholer]

With your hands being forward at impact the dynamic loft of, say, a 7 iron, is lower than the actual loft of the club if I understand correctly? Taking the above assumptions about long irons into consideration, the steeper angle of shaft lean means that there is not as much reduction in dynamic loft as you would have with a mid iron when using something like a 4 or 5 iron instead?

No it's not! The loft of a 7 iron is typically 30-35* (depending on the model). It would need a heck of a forward lean and downward Angle of Attack to get that back to 0 Dynamic Loft.

I believe you are correct that the longer lengths of longer irons helps combat the issue above - as does having a lower Centres of Gravity of the head. There is a single shaft length system - OneGolf from memory.

Google D-Plane for all you need to know about that area of the swing!

....
With the 'shorter' irons the steeper face angle reduces the introduction of side-spin giving a better trajectory for close-up shot-making and less club-head speed is required so the shorter shaft length enables the golfer to maintain his/her natural speed of movement and still have a useful spread of distances.

Not quite - in fact it's not the face angle that generates sidespin either (on a centred strike) - it's the angle between the swing path and the direction of the club-face. The greater backspin of the short irons masks the effect of sidespin - as does a 13* Driver compared to a 8* one. Of course, there is no actual sidespin/backsoin. It's an easily understandable concept though. The proper description is 'axis of rotation' - which is lower (nearer horizontal) on shorter clubs.

 

[the_coach]

Often folks get a little confused with 'spin'.

On a golf ball with a golf shot there is only ever back spin imparted.

A strike with a face angle other than square tilts the axis that backspin spins around.
It's more thinking of a how a plane 'banks' to turn, the tilted wing axis on a banked turn is what happens to the center axis of a golf ball spinning with backspin, so the air molecules react with the titled angle of the backspin to curve the ball left or right, the more the axis is tilted the sharper left or right the ball moves.

 

[Foxholer]

Often folks get a little confused with 'spin'.

On a golf ball with a golf shot there is only ever back spin imparted.

A strike with a face angle other than square tilts the axis that backspin spins around.
It's more thinking of a how a plane 'banks' to turn, the tilted wing axis on a banked turn is what happens to the center axis of a golf ball spinning with backspin, so the air molecules react with the titled angle of the backspin to curve the ball left or right, the more the axis is tilted the sharper left or right the ball moves.

It all comes down to Physics! 'Interact' probably better than 'react'.

Backspin and sidespin elements that make up the overall spin and axis of rotation are a simple way to present results in an understandable form.

Another good round?:clap:

 

[Scrindle]

Thanks for the responses guys. Goes some way to helping me under stand.

I find that when I'm out on the course I get a better contact with the ball on the long irons by gripping down on the shaft so that they're more like the length of my 6 or 7 irons. Obviously it's probably some kind of swing fault that causes this effect but I don't have any trouble getting the ball lofted (helped a lot I am sure by the current irons I'm using).

To me it seems that, reasons for the length of shaft aside, you must have to change your swing slightly for each progressively longer shaft in order to accommodate that length and still make good contact (presumably by standing up taller as required at address?).

Would it not be a lot simpler to have a standard shaft length for all irons? I have a 15 year old set of irons lying around somewhere, I might take a hacksaw to the shafts and see what the result is on the range for giggles! I think trying it out might be the only way for me to understand why it doesn't work, maybe.

 

[the_coach]

It all comes down to Physics! 'Interact' probably better than 'react'.

Backspin and sidespin elements that make up the overall spin and axis of rotation are a simple way to present results in an understandable form.

Another good round?:clap:

Thanks, yep a few lately, will try & stay on the wave for as long as possible!

Had no fear that you didn't understand spin axis, was just a note for the other folks.

 

[the_coach]

Would it not be a lot simpler to have a standard shaft length for all irons? I have a 15 year old set of irons lying around somewhere, I might take a hacksaw to the shafts and see what the result is on the range for giggles! I think trying it out might be the only way for me to understand why it doesn't work, maybe.

Will be interesting to see how your experiment goes, the main likely problem will be getting good overall distance with the longer end of the bag, plus one or two anomalies in the 'gapping'.

 

[Foxholer]

Would it not be a lot simpler to have a standard shaft length for all irons? I have a 15 year old set of irons lying around somewhere, I might take a hacksaw to the shafts and see what the result is on the range for giggles! I think trying it out might be the only way for me to understand why it doesn't work, maybe.

Here's that 'all irons same length' system. http://www.1irongolf.com/ I was close!

 

[Scrindle]

Thanks for the replies all!

That link is interesting Fox. Website looks a bit 'tatty' for a retailer, but it seems interesting. Their claims don't seem to tally with what we're being told on here though. They're claiming a uniform 4* loft gap between each club leads to uniform gapping, where as we know from Coach that this is likely to lead to some odd gapping issues due to a loss of leverage on lower lofted irons (if I understand correctly).

Once I've had a hack about with this old set of clubs and tried it at the range I'll update the thread for anyone interested.