How do you describe feel?

This is a follow up question to a post I made last night. I was asking which company you all thought made the best 'feeling' golf clubs and from all of the answers you gave me I gathered that there was no right answer, that feel is personal and subjective. So, now I am curious as to what it is about your favorite feeling club that makes it just that, your best feeling club... is it sound? weight? the fact that it feels like it hits it a mile when you connect? do you like a 'tingy' sounding club? or more of a 'solid' sound? Is it all about how the club feels when impacted off-center? confidence with the club?

It's a hard thing to express verbally, since it is a feeling. I think for me my best feeling club is my 7iron. I think the weight of the club is perfect for my swing and when I hit it well, it feels incredibly soft.

That was hard to articulate...

How do you describe feel?

I think feel starts from the grip and shaft, then translates to a well hit shot on the center of the clubface. For me, the club meeting the ball should feel like butter and should sound solid with a "crack".

I think of feel in swinging a golf club in 2 different ways/senses:

1. The feel of the swing - like a practice swing not hitting a ball.  Grip, shaft, weight, length, lie, angle, etc.

2.  Actual impact.  The feel of striking the ball.

I guess what I mean is some clubs can feel good swinging but not good at impact, and vice-versa.

Assuming the club is fit right my main concern with feeling is weight.  I like a club that feels solid and not too light, like when the ball is struck well the club head is powering through the ball almost on its own.  Sound I've never been too concerned with for irons.  It should just sound "solid", which most non-SGI irons I've hit do.  With drivers and woods I don't like ones that sound too high pitched and ringy.

For me, feel in a club relates to impact.  With a great-feeling club, when you hit the center of the clubface you dont even feel the impact.  Its like the ball isnt there.  Also, when you miss the center of the clubface you feel a harsh vibration through the shaft that tells you without a doubt that you missed the sweet spot.

In reading your referenced study's abstract, it stated basically that when someone hits a good shot that feels good, it also sounds good.  Well, that makes sense. I know the sound of a well-struck ball, but it's the feeling in the hands that makes the difference.

I was a little put off, though, when it said that a good sound was sharp and loud.  Were they only hitting drivers?  If it included irons, then I would disagree. There's nothing like that loud "clank" that tells you when you've hit an iron thin, not a real positive sound.  The best feeling iron shots have a very muted sound. But if your hands don't tell you the same thing, you're not playing the right clubs.

Feel equals sound?? Hmmm... Im not too sure I would use sound either, not when it comes to impact (Im not talking about frequency). I have hit shots clear out of the heel of an iron. They sound the same, but feel very different. Feel is one sense, sound is another. Yeah, you can kind of relate the two, but feel is feedback through my hands..thats just the way I look at feel. Wasnt that the question??

Vibrations resonating up the shaft make the difference. You know you hit it out the middle when the vibrations are almost non existant, or if you miss the grooves on the toe, you sting your hands...

I've always thought Mizuno blades feel the best.  They focus a lot in their engineering on the sound that the golf club makes.  I don't think they are confused.

Question:  Is this based solely on the study you referenced earlier?  If not, what is the source of your assertion?  Seems that taking survey results from a limited group of golfers, then expanding it into a blanket statement is taking it to an extreme.

Here's an experiment:  Let's all wear earplugs or earbuds to our next range session.  If you are correct in your assertion, we should not be able to tell whether we hit a solid shot or not, because we won't be able to hear it.  I just don't buy it.  Maybe I'm different, but I can tell whether I hit a thin shot, one on the toe, or one on the sweet spot just by the feedback through my hands.

This

I don't doubt this a bit.  That's why I was so surprised that Nike came out with those awful-sounding "tin can" drivers several years ago.  They sounded absolutely terrible.  And, invariably, it seemed the people who were using them, hit it just as bad.  Kind of brought unwelcome attention to their game.

I don't buy that 95% of feel is sound.  Especailly on well struck shots.  As some have mentioned the well struck shots have the least amount of sound.  And to not feel the vibration on a good shot is still a feel .

I compare it to hitting (in baseball or softball).  You know right away if you hit the ball on the sweet spot of the bat, and it has very little, if anything, to do with sound.