The Spin Axis Podcast

[saevel25]

Man, I was worried I was going to nail 5 out of 5 on the overswing causes 🤣.

 

 

[Ty_Webb]

I enjoyed the distance wedges episode. It's something that I've not really taken the time to figure out for sure, but I went to a local trackman place over the winter and tested my four wedges (PW, AW, 54, 58) and got four yardages with each one. I am using Dan Grieve's method - you have a 1, 2, 3, and "full". The number references the number of clubhead widths between your heels. 

I never really got to grips with the clock method - I'd find my 9:00 one day would go 40 yards and the next day 60 yards purely based on how fast I happened to swing it, but I couldn't turn that off and I was basically at sea with the speed method (Wesley Bryan does this - he takes almost a full swing for a 15 yard chip). The Grieve method I set my stance width and that really limits how much my swing moves back and forth and the speed seems to be naturally more consistent. 

Anyway, I wound up with four yardages for each club - PW 48, 80, 112, 127; AW 41, 73, 101, 112; 54 36, 57, 91, 98; 58 28, 47, 81, 86

So, in order, I have 28, 36, 41, 47, 48, 57, 73, 80, 81, 86, 91, 98, 101, 112, 112, 127 which gives me a pretty good set of numbers. I do have a big gap from 57 to 73, but I can do a 2.5 58, which is giving me about 64. Then as they noted you can give it a bit more, or grip down on a club too to adjust a little bit. It's really useful and very freeing to just know what to do. When you have a 54 yard pitch, rather than pulling my 58 and thinking how hard is 54, I can just take my 54, do a "2" swing and just grip down a little and I'm in decent shape. 

Incidentally, Erik talked a bit about watching Scheffler picking off his yardages to within a yard. I've watched DJ do that too with his wedges. Scottie does it trying to hit it all the way up to like 200 exactly with a 6-iron and he's hitting it 200.5, 199.7, etc. Absolutely mind blowing how good his distance control is. Insane.

[GolfLug]

22 hours ago, Ty_Webb said:

Scottie does it trying to hit it all the way up to like 200 exactly with a 6-iron and he's hitting it 200.5, 199.7, etc. Absolutely mind blowing how good his distance control is. Insane.

Whoa. I'm a bit behind on my episodes so gotta catch up. Varying distance by +/- half a yard 200 out deliberately is........ well, if it wasn't Scottie attempting it, sounds incredulous. Insane indeed.

[BadGateway]

With regard to dialing in distance wedges, I think it goes without saying that you need to have a pretty repeatable swing to start honing in on the numbers...meaning you wouldn't go through this exercise during a swing change or after a long hiatus.

 As a not-often-enough golfer, I'm probably a little less repeatable than most of you. But I think I could still come up with some rough numbers once I get access to a launch monitor or space to put in the time. I might just have to remove some outliers where I completely biff the shot 😅

When you're coming up with the numbers for your wedge/swing combination, I'm assuming you take an average of several reps. Just curious how many in each set you're averaging? If you're all over the place, does it make more sense to come up with a small range for each swing? 

[Shindig]

The last episode with distance wedges reminded me I really need to dial in mine.   I was looking at my strokes gained: approach data, which in ShotScope is 50-225+ yards.  Compared to a 10 handicap (I'm a 10.9 as I type this), last ten rounds, my only area in strokes gained: approach where I'm not gaining over a 10 handicap is 50-100, and I'm considerably worse from 50-75 than 75-100  (-0.37 v -0.14).  Compare the same range to a 5 handicap, and I have two ranges from outside of 100 where I'm at -0.04 and -0.01 (which does NOT bother me;  I'm sure I'll be fine in those before I start really getting to the point of challenging the 5 baseline), and also the 50-100 are the only ones where I'm losing more than 0.04 to a 5 handicap. 

The thing is, I think I'd have known something was up even without the data, but I'm glad for the data.  I'm pretty sure that what I think of as a half swing with my PW is about 50 yards, and the same swing with my 9-iron is about 65.  I could probably do 75 or so, same swing, 8-iron.  My gap wedge is 85-90 yards on a "full swing" (I don't take a full swing with 9 on down, I flight, something I think I got from Erik years ago) and I think a similar swing with the 54 goes 75.   I also think my worst full swing clubs are the wedges.  Maybe my next Skillest lesson, I should add a video of me hitting a full swing gap wedge (in addition to normal lesson recordings) and ask about it. 

Back to the topic.  The episode discussed some practice-at-home for those shots, and I should go back and listen (and then get what I need for that).  I've been thinking of revamping my home practice area, maybe getting some sort of launch monitor for home (although that may necessitate moving the practice setup to the garage, which maybe I should do, and then I could hit driver and fairway woods too).  Maybe I'd be getting that to practice my partial wedges;  I wonder how many people buy launch monitors for that purpose.

[Ty_Webb]

18 hours ago, Shindig said:

The last episode with distance wedges reminded me I really need to dial in mine.   I was looking at my strokes gained: approach data, which in ShotScope is 50-225+ yards.  Compared to a 10 handicap (I'm a 10.9 as I type this), last ten rounds, my only area in strokes gained: approach where I'm not gaining over a 10 handicap is 50-100, and I'm considerably worse from 50-75 than 75-100  (-0.37 v -0.14).  Compare the same range to a 5 handicap, and I have two ranges from outside of 100 where I'm at -0.04 and -0.01 (which does NOT bother me;  I'm sure I'll be fine in those before I start really getting to the point of challenging the 5 baseline), and also the 50-100 are the only ones where I'm losing more than 0.04 to a 5 handicap. 

The thing is, I think I'd have known something was up even without the data, but I'm glad for the data.  I'm pretty sure that what I think of as a half swing with my PW is about 50 yards, and the same swing with my 9-iron is about 65.  I could probably do 75 or so, same swing, 8-iron.  My gap wedge is 85-90 yards on a "full swing" (I don't take a full swing with 9 on down, I flight, something I think I got from Erik years ago) and I think a similar swing with the 54 goes 75.   I also think my worst full swing clubs are the wedges.  Maybe my next Skillest lesson, I should add a video of me hitting a full swing gap wedge (in addition to normal lesson recordings) and ask about it. 

Back to the topic.  The episode discussed some practice-at-home for those shots, and I should go back and listen (and then get what I need for that).  I've been thinking of revamping my home practice area, maybe getting some sort of launch monitor for home (although that may necessitate moving the practice setup to the garage, which maybe I should do, and then I could hit driver and fairway woods too).  Maybe I'd be getting that to practice my partial wedges;  I wonder how many people buy launch monitors for that purpose.

So the 75 yard 8 iron is probably not something you'd want to use regularly. It's potentially useful for keeping it under branches or if you have a reason you need it to run a lot after it lands, but for a regular shot that will have so little stopping power as to not be particularly controllable. Especially if you have a 75 yard shot with your 54. The shots as you vary distance and club will change in carry/roll, height and landing angle. Really useful to have more than one club for a given yardage for things like skipping it up a tier or landing one softly near the front of the green, but there are limits to that. In general I don't think you'd want to be hitting an 8 iron shorter than your "full" 9 iron distance and so on up the bag. Keep those partial shots to your wedges.

[Shindig]

2 hours ago, Ty_Webb said:

So the 75 yard 8 iron is probably not something you'd want to use regularly. It's potentially useful for keeping it under branches or if you have a reason you need it to run a lot after it lands, but for a regular shot that will have so little stopping power as to not be particularly controllable. Especially if you have a 75 yard shot with your 54. The shots as you vary distance and club will change in carry/roll, height and landing angle. Really useful to have more than one club for a given yardage for things like skipping it up a tier or landing one softly near the front of the green, but there are limits to that. In general I don't think you'd want to be hitting an 8 iron shorter than your "full" 9 iron distance and so on up the bag. Keep those partial shots to your wedges.

Thank you.  It seems I do need to get better at hitting full (or as full as they will be) shots with the wedges;  I feel I have a lot more distance dispersion with those than I do with the mid-irons.  That may also be a practice issue, and I'm getting off-topic.

[saevel25]

That was a good discussion on face control versus low point control. 

I fall on the face control side of things. My best summer of golf was similar to Erik's. Slightly thin, which the ball just goes were you aim typically, or big toe push draws. If the face was out of control, especially with my swing speed, then the ball could be 60+ yards left or right. 

The number of times I have thinned a 3-wood off the deck on a par 5, where I thinned it, and I had a perfect wedge or short iron in is a lot. I came up with a bit of self-deprecating joke by saying that it was a strategic layup. Just to be like, eh that sucked but it turned out like I hit an 8-iron layup shot, so what ever. 

Yea, you can get away with slight thin or fat, and the ball will most likely be playable on the next shot. You fan that face wide open 4 degrees and bye-bye golf ball. 

[Ty_Webb]

34 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

That was a good discussion on face control versus low point control. 

I fall on the face control side of things. My best summer of golf was similar to Erik's. Slightly thin, which the ball just goes were you aim typically, or big toe push draws. If the face was out of control, especially with my swing speed, then the ball could be 60+ yards left or right. 

The number of times I have thinned a 3-wood off the deck on a par 5, where I thinned it, and I had a perfect wedge or short iron in is a lot. I came up with a bit of self-deprecating joke by saying that it was a strategic layup. Just to be like, eh that sucked but it turned out like I hit an 8-iron layup shot, so what ever. 

Yea, you can get away with slight thin or fat, and the ball will most likely be playable on the next shot. You fan that face wide open 4 degrees and bye-bye golf ball. 

I haven't listened yet, but saw the title and was thinking about it, curious which way round they came out. My thought would be it really depends on how much we're talking. If your club is half an inch low at impact on a wedge, the ball is not going very far. If you're 2 degrees open, you're basically fine. If you're a groove low with an 8 iron you won't notice much if anything. If your face is 4 degrees open with a driver, you're on the next hole over (if you're lucky). Interested to listen (will be doing so at lunchtime while I walk the doggo).