Loft impact on distance

[mjgraniero]

Thanks to everyone in advance for ersponding. I've lost about a club difference when I bought my new AP2s, although these are 1/4 inches shorter, 2 degrees flatter and 1 or 2 degrees more loft than my old set.

I know the two sets are quite different but - Question: Assume all things being equal (Project X 5.5 flighted shaft, 85 mph swing speed with 6 iron), what are the impacts on distance for each degree of loft. I'm thinking of having them bent 1 or 2 degrees stronger. My ball flight is very high as it is because I'm a high spin player with my irons.

[DavidFehertysBike]

  mjgraniero said:

Thanks to everyone in advance for ersponding. I've lost about a club difference when I bought my new AP2s, although these are 1/4 inches shorter, 2 degrees flatter and 1 or 2 degrees more loft than my old set.

There is part of the reason why you might have lost some distance. I belive the flighted have softer tips than the project x, perhaps causing some balloning ball flight for you.

Plus/Minus one degree of loft might mean up to 5 yards in distance variance for most of your irons. But I dont think youre having a loft issue. Mind you, I dont have flighted shafts in my AP2's but I used the stronger lofted titleist 695cbs with DG shafts before the APs and i actually fly my AP2's 3-4 yards longer, on average.

[mjgraniero]

  DavidFehertysBike said:

There is part of the reason why you might have lost some distance. I belive the flighted have softer tips than the project x, perhaps causing some balloning ball flight for you.

Thanks. I'm surprised the flighted have softer tips since the premise behind the flighting is to lower ball flight progressively in the set as you move from 3 iron to PW.

[Stacey_E]

When tweeking my wedges, I get about 5 yards difference per 2 degree of loft change on the same club.

All things being equal, I think loft has an effect more based on your clubhead speed. A lot of the pros (with their impressive swing speeds) have 4* gaps in their irons which translate to about 15 yards. That would be almost 4 yards per degree. A lot of bogie golfers get about 10 yard difference between irons with 4* gaps, so that would be about 2 1/2 yards per degree. This of course only works until you meet a point of diminishing returns in launch conditions. If this were'nt true we could all hit a 2 iron 3 clubs longer than a 5 iron.

Some of the distance change between clubs is due to the length of the shaft (usually 1/2" change between irons). I've heard it said that about 80% of distance between irons is due to loft with 20% being due to shaft length. I'm not sure how accurate that is.

I also know that a lot of sets designed for slower swing speeds have 5* loft changes to make usable differences between the clubs. Of course you have to factor in all the variables of the swing and launch conditions including the quality of the strike.

[metroplex]

It looks like Maltby's formula for loft and length impact on distance isn't as accurate for the average golfer. I recall him mentioning that (loft/4)*5 = yards difference and (length/0.5)*5 = yards. Based on the conversation above, that equation changes to (loft/2)*5 = yards and length*5 = yards; where length = difference in length and loft is difference in loft in degrees. This seems to make more sense given what I have seen with just 5 degrees loft difference with wedges and the same shaft length.

[cristphoto]

I have a set of 712 AP2's. The AP2 standard loft is 2 degrees weaker than most of today's "standard" lofts. For me I lost about 1/2 club of distance going to the AP2's but don't mind. The feel and accuracy more than make up for the slight loss.