Should I fix my clubs

[Williamevanl]

I noticed recently that the lie angles on my irons are very upright, so the toe is up a lot over the heel. I never paid much attention to this because I didn't realize how much it affected the ball flight until recently. I think the clubs are standard and the problem might be due to the fact that my wingspan is about 4 inches longer than my height.

Anyway, it seems that I pull the ball regardless of my swing plane and I find it impossible to push the ball. The only way I can seem to get the clubs to lie flat is to bow my left wrist down/forward or to choke way up on the grip. Am I doing something wrong or should I get the clubs bent?

[clearwaterms]

I noticed recently that the lie angles on my irons are very upright, so the toe is up a lot over the heel. I never paid much attention to this because I didn't realize how much it affected the ball flight until recently. I think the clubs are standard and the problem might be due to the fact that my wingspan is about 4 inches longer than my height.

I would get fit. Even a ping web based static fitting would give you an idea of where you need to be. But the biggest thing would be to go to a pro and get on a lie board and see what they think. It seems to me like you keep changing your swing to match your clubs. I think you will see more improvement if you groove your swing and change the clubs. Especially if you fight this problem and play to an 18 handicap and can adjust your swing.

[Williamevanl]

I don't think I can afford to actually get fit right now. I can, however, afford the 100 dollars to get the clubs flattened 2 degrees but I wanted to make sure that I didn't have some kind of swing flaw that makes the clubs upright, maybe my wrist should be bowed down or some other kind of nuance that I don't know about.

I know that my divots can be straight or left to right and I still will hit a pull and the video I watched with a lazer pointer attached to a club showed that a couple degrees of upright will launch the ball terribly to the left so with that and my current swing trends I'm on the fence about having my clubs adjusted.

My current adjustment/compensation is an aligned stance with a slightly open club face and under plane swing that straightens the whole thing out. I just wonder if the lie angle change would make it a lot easier to just put the ball out there straighter.

I guess a good question for anyone reading this is are you able to push the ball right if you really force it, with no/little spin? I feel like my clubs won't let me do that unless I really mess with my setup.

[Jay-Bird]

You're pulling everything because the heel of the club is digging into the ground at impact = this means your clubs are too upright. I'd get them bent.

You could probably force the ball right if you purposely open the hell out of the club face in your backswing and try to leave it open through impact; or just setup with the face open. You're far better off getting them bent, though.

[PiKapp23]

If your clubs are forged and not cast then you can and should get them adjusted. If they are cast, then the amount the lie can be adjusted is much less (around 1* for cast; maybe as much as 4* if they are forged).

Having the right lie angle is very important for consistency. If it's only 1* off or less it's not going to make much difference, but if it's 2* or more it could make a significant difference. If you do not want to get professionally fit (it can be expensive), you can kind of do this yourself. Just get a small board or hard plasitc (a small piece of thin plywood would be fine - it just needs to be about 10" x 10" or a little bigger) and some masking tape and go to the driving range (or hit into a net if you have one). Put the tape on sole of the club and hit balls off the board - you have basically just created a lie board to test your lie angle. (It helps a little if you take a black marker and color the tape completely black so the strike point will show a little better). It's probably a good idea to test a few clubs like this just to make sure angle is the same throughout your irons. If you leave that tape on and take clubs to fitting pro to adjust he will even be able to estimate how much to adjust the lie.

[DaveLeeNC]

This one is easy to experiment with. Just choke up on your irons an inch or two (enough to get the static lie to where the toe is up a smidge). This will flatten the effective lie.

Then see what happens (keeping in mind that the effective SW is also now smaller). If you want to fix this as well just add around 12 grams of lead tape for every inch that you reduced the length. Of course this will make the club play a bit softer in flex - nothing free is perfect.

dave

[loopy]

I had the same problem. Went to Dick's ahd the lie angles checked by hitting off the lie board. Had my irons bent 3* flat. Man what a difference. It aonly cost me about $35.00 and that was for 3-wedge.

[Williamevanl]

Alright I just took them in today. I called the golf course that I bought them from and to my amazement the guy that ordered them remembered the demo set from two years ago and said that they were ordered with a two degree upright lie. So all in all terrible for me since I'm 5 9' with a 6'1 wingspan.

I get them back tomorrow, I'm pretty excited.

[CrazyO_8]

I noticed recently that the lie angles on my irons are very upright, so the toe is up a lot over the heel. I never paid much attention to this because I didn't realize how much it affected the ball flight until recently. I think the clubs are standard and the problem might be due to the fact that my wingspan is about 4 inches longer than my height.

I'm not sure if 6 foot wings are enough to lift you off the ground. Maybe if you came up with a more realistic number, then we would believe you had wings.

[Williamevanl]

^

You actually had me second guessing if that was the right term or not, then I thought of course it is. Wierd how that can happen.

[Williamevanl]

Follow up report on getting my clubs fixed, turns out the guy said they were the farthest off he had ever seen. Most of them were 5 degrees upright. The hozels look ridiculous now on some of the clubs because he had to bend them so much just to get them back to standard.

[Cody]

Follow up report on getting my clubs fixed, turns out the guy said they were the farthest off he had ever seen. Most of them were 5 degrees upright. The hozels look ridiculous now on some of the clubs because he had to bend them so much just to get them back to standard.

That's pretty weird that they got bent that much. They probably started at 2 and then the way you were hitting them slowly caused them to bend more and more. Preeeety peculiar, but atleast they are fixed now!