same length golf club

[safetrip]

Few things to mention here ...

That is a very good point that I've never thought of. If you took a regular 3 iron and chopped it to have the same length as 7 iron, your swing weight will be lighter, assuming(it should be) that the 3 and 7 iron had the same swing weight by design. So you'll have to increase the weight on 3 iron head to keep the swing weight the same(otherwise the feel of the swing will be very different).

What's really enlightening to me is that even the regular clubs are designed to exert the same amount of force at impact regardless of their length by having the same swing weight. In more technical terms, all the clubs have the same moment of inertia(i.e the same swing weight) so if the angular acceleration is the same (the same swing tempo), they will exert the same impact force. So any trajectory and distance difference you see even in a regular club set is not due to the force difference but the club face angle, which determines the launch angle and back spin. This is exactly the reason why you can't just choke down on a regular long iron to mimic the same length club behavior because you've made swing weight lighter.

[pxc]

Forgive my ignorance here, I'm sure the answer is obvious and I'm just missing it. Why would you order a set of even-length golf clubs, and then switch out the shafts? If you're going to do that couldn't you just re-shaft your current clubs with same-length shafts? Or is there something about the lie angle that would mess that up since the heads are designed for a certain length of shaft?

[2-dogs]

Single length clubs need to have heads that are identical in lie and weight throughout the set ... if you just cut your shafts to be the same length, your 3 iron would be very very light and very very flat (toe down), and your SW would be very very heavy and very upright (toe up)

It is often mistaken that your driver would be the heaviest club in your bag, when it should probably be your putter! The heads get lighter as the shaft gets longer.

The funny thing is if you compare the setup of single length to a set with differing lengths. The effort you need to go to properly match MOI correctly plus stuff lie angles, shaft flex points, dead weight matching - is massive. And is only an estimation at best. (dont start me on swingweights - they are a guess of an estimation of a guess).

With every club being the same except for loft, it gets a whole lot easier. Same length, same weight, same MOI, same flex points, etc etc ...

Having used a single length set for a few years, I can say that it has advantages. Of course there is give and take ... but I think at least some of the irons in a set should be of the single length variety to improve confidence and consistency.

It really depends on where your game is at, as too how much you need to balance even ball striking with workability.

I have played a lot of golf over the years, and my balance would be different to a beginner. Someone starting out I would suggest go for ALL SINGLE LENGTH IRONS ... whereas my next set will be something like:

Putter
Driver
4 Wood 17 degree
3i, 4i, 5i, 6i single length (6 iron length, 38inches for me)
7i, 8i, 9i diminishing length (0.5 of an inch per club)
PW, GW, SW, LW single length (2 inches less than 6 iron, 36 inches for me)

The idea I have with this is to improve my consistency in the longer (distance) irons, equally bridge the gap to the wedges through the scoring irons where even-ness isnt the main aim, then keep the wedges all the same for the real nitty gritty like pitching and chipping.

Of course I'll have to build 'em myself ... and getting the MOI right across the varying lengths will take a bit of effort ... but the end result should be a good mix of both worlds.

Looking at Maltby irons probably - something like his weight adjustable KE4 Tour Irons should do the job from 3 iron to 9 iron ... and fill in the wedges with either Clevelands or Titleists or Maltbys.

[RoverThomas]

Hi 2-Dogs
Where are you in Australia. Would like to talk more about single length clubs - just bought a set on E-Bay
Regards
Rover

[DocParty]

Looked into the history of golfing pros which I am not one and I'm certain there are no bloggers here that make their living at playing golf.

That being said and even though there may be 1 percent that will claim they do, this is what I found out.

Years ago it was normal as was shorter shafts for the driver and woods.

These changes came about by mfg's not golfers, pros or otherwise.

Using the best hit club in ones bag, usually the 7, sometimes the 8 and mimicking the very same length, weight, etc, etc so that each club from the 9 through your highest iron are identical except for loft, (assuming you do not use hybrids which by the way have shorter shafts anyway) does indeed make the swing consist and, one gets a single swing for every club, and in the end ones swing is enhanced by the repetitive constant swing. Made sense back then and for 15 years 1-iron has been doing this. It's not for everyone since some golfers (weekenders-hackers-me) have to buy every teaching aide, club, glove, accessory, read every book, article and so on, believing this one will be the answer. Harvey Pennick's Little Red book would be a great read for any person that plays golf. He's instructed many big names in golf and thousands of college golfers here in Texas. What he has to say makes golf simple, which is what golf is in reality, a simple game.

Now for shafts. Shorter is better for shorter golfers or golfers that have problems swinging some clubs (high irons, woods, drivers). That's why hybrids (some don't like them but they do work very well for those that use them properly) have been such a hit with weekenders and pros alike. Taller golfers need obviously a longer club. Basic math and physics tells us that. But for Bubba Watson to hit a 46 inch driver is a foolish reason for a 5 foot 8 inch golfer to hit the same length club. Again, it's just math and physics, plus a lot of common sense.

All of my woods are 41.5 with my hybrids being an inch to an inch and a half shorter. I'm old, dissabled with a bad back and bad knee. Shortening my woods have improved my accuracy by 75%. I can hit every fairway if I do my job and just trust the club. Not a lot of golfers have gotten to the point where they trust their clubs and this idea of making every iron in the bag identical in length and feel corrects that for a lot of golfers.

People have always drive the ball for show and pitch and putt for the dough or so it's said. It's funny with all the courses (all public and most private clubs) there are no par 4's that I have seen that are not reachable by a golfer hitting a drive of 250 yards total distance (which for some is considered a short hitter) plus a fairway wood or hybrid or even a high iron if they are prone to use them, another 200 too 225 yards. This would put a golfer 475 down the center of the fairway and a good chance to par if they hit and stuck on the green or at least a chance to chip on and one putt. Shooting par as a weekender is and oddity if played by PGA rules on an approved PGA course.

Lee Trevino said it best. If a weekend golfer can play a round on a PGA course and play by the rules and shoot bogie golf or better, it's equal to a pro hitting par on the same course. Since not every pro on every tourney has an even par or better accumulative score at the end of the tourney, it seems he is correct. Less than 10 to 15% of all the entrants of a PGA tour end up hitting even par or better. Just go look at any PGA event and locate the number of golfers that paid to play the qualifying round and then how many ended up shooting even par or better. You'd be amazed at the results.

I'm not nor ever will be a 300 yard hitter nor a long iron hitter. It's not my goal nor is it reasonable for me to expect to do this regularly. It's great to hit a good round. Those few shots that make you smile get you to come back next time

At the last seniors PGA Classic in Europe this year @ 75 golfers entered the tourney and at the end of those that made the cut and played the tourney only @ 10 people had even par or better accumulative rounds in the end. That in it's self proved again what Lee said. It's hard enough for a pro to hit a par round every time he/she goes out, much less for a weekend golfer (one that plays 36 rounds of golf a year or more) to do.

Mfg's have changed lofts on clubs but still called them what they were before lofts changed and used this modification to convince weekend golfers that their clubs hit further than the competition where in fact they're hitting an iron with less loft and nothing else.

Play your game, for your enjoyment, it's just a game. Hope to play well, hope to improve, enjoy the game, play by the rules, putt every ball out, don't improve your lie, don't take mulligans, etc, etc, etc. If at the end you can hit bogie golf or better buy yourself a cold one, you deserve it, you played just like a pro according to Lee Trevino.

Doc

[DocParty]

Quote:

Originally Posted by safetrip

None

That is a very good point that I've never thought of. If you took a regular 3 iron and chopped it to have the same length as 7 iron, your swing weight will be lighter, assuming(it should be) that the 3 and 7 iron had the same swing weight by design. So you'll have to increase the weight on 3 iron head to keep the swing weight the same(otherwise the feel of the swing will be very different).

What's really enlightening to me is that even the regular clubs are designed to exert the same amount of force at impact regardless of their length by having the same swing weight. In more technical terms, all the clubs have the same moment of inertia(i.e the same swing weight) so if the angular acceleration is the same (the same swing tempo), they will exert the same impact force. So any trajectory and distance difference you see even in a regular club set is not due to the force difference but the club face angle, which determines the launch angle and back spin. This is exactly the reason why you can't just choke down on a regular long iron to mimic the same length club behavior because you've made swing weight lighter.

I'm probably wrong here but with a normal forged set of irons or even a cavity back set, they are purchasable with same length shafts. You just need to specify the length of your best hitting iron.

As to making your own set? If you re-shaft or even cut down your existing shafts (I'm not certain simply cutting them down is possible on all clubs because the 9 and 8 are shorter than the 7 in most sets) then by simply weighing your heads before shafting them and getting the proper added weight in the shaft tip (which is what I understand fitters do is add weight to the interior of the shaft tip) seems trivial. Ground lead is used and then tamped down with some sort of epoxy additive or so I  have been told. And remember when you are talking about 10 grams or 20 grams, it's not a lot. There are what some 28 grams in an ounce? Have you ever poured an ounce of salt in to your palm? If not, you need to do so and feel what you are talking about in terms of weight difference and whether or not it is something one would feel as a weekend golfer at the end of a 38 inch shaft? Some may feel it but I'm not certain it'd be something that the average golfer would feel. And with shorter shafts the golfer will immediately feel more control over the club/club head which should instil some confidence in the club at the get-go.

Choking down seems to be against norms. If it's too long and you're choking down, then it goes to reason your shaft should be shorter and therefore lends it's self to support the shorter and identical shaft proposal IMHO.

I'd like to hear from others that have purchased the 1-iron set or re-worked theirs to be such. It would be very interesting and I'm assuming if the golfer does his part and allows the club to do it's part the results should be very good.

Doc

[DocParty]

Originally Posted by upah

You can always grip down. Tough to grip up...

Depending on whether you need accuracy or distance. For me, being accurate, even with 3% loss in distance, saves many more strokes than getting distance and losing accuracy.

[Mordan]

Originally Posted by DocParty

Depending on whether you need accuracy or distance. For me, being accurate, even with 3% loss in distance, saves many more strokes than getting distance and losing accuracy.

You're the only person to post in this thread since March 2010. You've posted three times, but I'm not sure that really constitues a conversation.

[DocParty]

Originally Posted by Supermanwoot

longer club = more club speed.

An guy played with a set of 1irons just the other day. I can't afford such a set, but he apparently could and did. Now this guy is 10 years younger than I am (I'm 62) and healthier I have to agree. I never saw a shot out of the fairway, never saw a bad shot (except when I took a swing at the ball. lol) and he shot a 75 on a 7300 yard course. I'm not discussing my score, but the guy was real nice and didn't mind my lack of equal ability. He took only seconds to grab his club and take his swing and it looked like he was hitting it with no effort at all. Looked like someone using a 9 iron all day long.

Anyway, I paid attention to his club selection, and even asked at times what he hit, and to my surprise he was using what would be considered very normal club lofts. I wouldn't say he was a long hitter like some of the posters here that say they hit the driver 300 plus yards and the 9 iron 170. I'm still wondering about those claims but I don't mean to be suspicious. I see the pros on TV do it but never have I seen a weekend player play a round with such yardages being achieved. Anyway excluding his driver/woods and beginning with his 3 iron he'd get a good 210 yards out of it and it would fly as straight as Moe Norman balls did. I'm not certain if it were this easy for me that I would have as much fun. Hitting perfect balls on all 18 holes. I like recovery shots, or so I say so that my poor tee shots give me something to recover from. I don't own a set of 1irons, will never due to costs but this guy has put the kibosh on any statements that I have read about these clubs not hitting the ball nearly perfect every single time. He would work the ball for a push or pull with ease. I asked him if he was a retired pro or a one time college star in golf and he laughed. His wife died 6 years ago so he picked up the game for something to do. 6 years and shooting 75. Unimaginable to understand in my opinion. He bought the set because it sounded like it was the easiest way to learn for him, so he said. His driver was a Cleveland brand, don't know the specific model, but he seemed according to my gps to get 250 to 270 out of it and it was always in the middle of the fairway. I wish I could have one round that went this good just to know what it feels like. As I said he is not as long of a hitter as many posters on this blog report but shooting 3 over par is an amazing feat for a guy over 50 and who has only played for 6 years, or so I think it is.

[DocParty]

Originally Posted by Mordan

You're the only person to post in this thread since March 2010. You've posted three times, but I'm not sure that really constitues a conversation.

Ya never know who's reading and who will reply, so I keep trying. To do otherwise is just failing.

[Ernest Jones]

Ya never know who's reading and who will reply, so I keep trying. To do otherwise is just failing.

Failing at what??? You're essentially talking to yourself at this point. Are you concerned that if you stop someone will slip in the last word and win the debate?

[solarbear]

There is a much cheaper version called Pinhawk. Maybe worth giving a look if your interested in this. I think valuegolf carries them.