Do Adjustable Hosels Really Change Loft?

[cooke119]

I've read and listened to all the talk about adjustable necks on drivers and other clubs being able to change the loft of the club, some by a number of degrees. However, for the life of me I can not visualize how a straight shaft into an adjustable neck can change the loft of the club face. I have Ping G, I changed the adjustment but don't really see a change to loft. I can understand fade or draw bias but not loft. Can someone in laymen's terms explain?

[Adam C]

It's actually very simple. Picture in your mind a traditional bonded hosel driver from 15 years ago let's say. Now look at the club from the butt end staring down the shaft with the head sitting flat in address position. So you are looking at the butt of the grip in the foreground and you can see the clubhead in the background. Now imagine that the butt end of the grip is the center of a clock face (ie where the hands are connected to the clock face in the center). 

All the adjustable hosel is doing is moving the direction the hosel points. So you take a modern adjustable driver and place it into your imagined clock setup. Head in the same position on the ground. However now in the neutral position the grip butt is now pointing towards 12 o'clock (ie more upright lie angle). Modern drivers are more upright in general. If we rotate the hosel 180 degrees, the grip butt will now be pointing towards 6 o'clock and the lie angle will be flatter. 

Now if we rotate the hosel to change the loft, all we are doing is rotating the hosel so that the shaft is now leaning either towards or away from your target. On our clock diagram this means the hosel is pointing towards 9 o'clock if we are wanting to increase loft and 3 o'clock if we are wanting to lower loft. Of course this is assuming a right handed golfer and club. You may have heard that the adjustable hosels don't actually change the loft, and this is why some people say that. After you rotate the hosel and have the shaft pointing more in this 9 o'clock/ 3 o'clock plane, the head remains sitting flat on the ground until you manually move the shaft back so that it points at the center of the face again (like with our initial bonded hosel driver). So if the shaft was pointing at 9 and we move it back to center and keep the face square to the target, we have just increased the loft. Likewise if we take the shaft that had been pointing at 3 o'clock and again move it back to center keeping the face aligned to the target, we have now lowered the static loft.

Of course the other result of this is when we loft up and hold the shaft back in that neutral position, most drivers will want to fall closed because of the weighting and sole design. Likewise, a delofted driver held in that neutral shaft position will fall open. Not all drivers do this depending on design, and as most golfers align the head manually towards the target, it not usually an issue.

This is the basis of how all these adjustable hosels work. Moving the hosel to point more towards 9 or 3 will give the greatest loft change. Moving it in the 12/6 o'clock direction will change the lie angle. Moving it somewhere in between will give lesser loft change along with a lie angle change.

[boogielicious]

Nice explanation @Adam C

[iacas]

7 hours ago, cooke119 said:

However, for the life of me I can not visualize how a straight shaft into an adjustable neck can change the loft of the club face

It doesn't go straight in.

If you want the more complicated version, read the @Adam C post. 😄

[70sSanO]

Here is my understanding, hopefully correct and maybe simpler.

In reality an adjustable hosel doesn’t change the loft of a driver.

What it really does is open or close the face.  It is still the same loft.  As Adam C noted above, when you turn the driver to face the target, you will with increase the face angle, or loft, (clockwise), or decrease the face angle, or loft, (counter-clockwise).

Because of how the shaft comes out of the head, this allows you to square the head to change the face angle.

John

[billchao]

 

[70sSanO]

36 minutes ago, billchao said:

 

Bill,

This is the video I watched years ago that explained it.  Thanks for posting it.

John

[boogielicious]

8 hours ago, billchao said:

 

Thanks for posting. My only issue is I rarely have a tee box that is as level as a golf shop floor. So soling the club is not as easy as he states. Also, isn’t bending the driver hosel doing the same thing? The sole of the head isn’t changing, so its relationship to the ground will change.

[colin007]

Gaaahhhhhhh those pleated khakis!!!

[Adam C]

9 hours ago, billchao said:

 

I like a lot of what Wishon discusses in videos and articles but not this one. This is just a backhanded attempt to push his Wishon clubs bendable hosels while make arguments that just don't make logical sense.

[billchao]

1 hour ago, boogielicious said:

Thanks for posting. My only issue is I rarely have a tee box that is as level as a golf shop floor. So soling the club is not as easy as he states. Also, isn’t bending the driver hosel doing the same thing? The sole of the head isn’t changing, so its relationship to the ground will change.

That’s true of any club you sole, though. Rarely will you have a perfectly level lie. It makes you wonder about whether one or two degrees of adjustment on your clubs actually makes a significant difference. We’re not robots.

23 minutes ago, Adam C said:

I like a lot of what Wishon discusses in videos and articles but not this one. This is just a backhanded attempt to push his Wishon clubs bendable hosels while make arguments that just don't make logical sense.

I think he does a good job of explaining how adjustable hostels work, but I agree he muddles things up a bit trying to promote his own products.

[cooke119]

Thanks everyone, I think it is getting through my thick head, the video helped but confused me a little about having to adjust the face angle at address, and you're correct I have never been in a tee box where the ground is perfectly flat. However, I try not to ground the club right before my swing anyway. I'll read the posts and watch the video again to help clear it up.

[boogielicious]

22 hours ago, colin007 said:

Gaaahhhhhhh those pleated khakis!!!

Jim Harbaugh loves them!

[Sammydreep]

I’ve recently bought a Ping G410 driver, kept it on neutral first few weeks , changed it to flat.

Hard to see much difference ( and on shot shape /direction etc)

Compared to other Ping drivers I’ve had, at address it always ‘looks’ a bit open as opposed to previous models.

Its definitely more upright , the toe sticks way up in the air, mind you standard irons stick toe up for me too,  I was measured as an Orange dot 2* flat many Ping Eye 2 moons ago

[Buckeyebowman]

I don't know when people got so pissed off at knowledge! How many club designs have you made? How many pro golfers have you designed clubs for? I've been hearing for years that when you up the loft on these adjustable drivers, you close the face! So, if you want to realize more loft, you have to open up the face from where it naturally soles. 

That being said, I've never been a naturally soled Driver hitter! I want that face to look square. But when you do that with these modern clubs, you are actually closing the face! That is, if you have the loft adjusted upward. And getting the ball more up in the air is something that many of us could use.

[billchao]

12 hours ago, Buckeyebowman said:

That being said, I've never been a naturally soled Driver hitter! I want that face to look square. But when you do that with these modern clubs, you are actually closing the face!

I think you’re misunderstanding how adjustable drivers work. The change in loft only presents itself if you square the face. And if you square the face, it’s not closed...

[iacas]

4 minutes ago, billchao said:

I think you’re misunderstanding how adjustable drivers work. The change in loft only presents itself if you square the face. And if you square the face, it’s not closed...

Additionally, not all drivers worked that way. Some independently adjusted loft and face angle.

I think the Nike Covert was the first to independently adjust loft/face angle, but others have done so recently IIRC.

[boogielicious]

I did a little photo exercise with two identical Titleist 917 D2 drivers with 10.5 loft. It shows the face angle change at address with the club soled lying on a flat floor. 
 

Here is standard. The lie slightly open to my eye.

Here is same loft but 2 degrees upright and one flat. The upright is slightly closed to my eye and the B1 a bit more open than A1.

Extremes: 12.5, 2 degrees upright and 9.5 1 degree flat. Left is closed, right is the most open.

The opposite, 9.5 2 degrees upright, 12.5 1 degree flat. I didn’t see much of a difference but right was slightly more open. The photo is off a bit on angle.

 

But most importantly, I aim the face and don’t rely on the way it looks soled. The tee box is never flat and I open the face at address because my swing path is in to out.