Offset Clubs Everywhere!!

[ET-Taylor]

Yeah it's ridiculous. I didn't realize this, but the AP2 710 are actually more offset than the R9 TP!

They are both still almost minimal offset so its ok

[anotherday]

By the way...give the Bridgstone e6 ball a try. They really help straighten out ball flight.

I actually used those for the second half of last year. They're great, i still have maybe a sleeve or two. I just recently switched to the NXT Tour. It feels a little bit longer and controlled for me. Found a Yellow Srixon Z-Star in some ice plant the other day on the course and man that is a nice ball. Soft and extremely durable. And i couldnt lose it if i wanted to unless i dumped it in a lake! Thats the future step up for me.

[WUTiger]

...I'm all about people having fun, but this isnt really the kind of sport where its "the more the merrier." The courses will fill up faster, move slower, and the grounds will be a mess of divots....

Interest in golf has been falling off in recent years. A critical indicator will be whether interest continues to fall once the recession ends. If courses in an area don't draw a decent number of players, some courses will shut down. This means farther drives to play, and the remaining courses would likely raise their rates if number of rounds continue to slide.

Also, people who need more offset in their irons aren't necessarily slow players. You need to know about your swing to get the proper amount of offset.

All of that is beside the point... I think an acceptable answer to this question, now that i think of it, could be that some people (older, younger, disabled, etc.) just cant move the way that is needed to straighten out a shot and the offset keeps them on track.

Also, I want to make sure you understand the difference between offset and draw bias.

Offset deals with how far back the squared clubface sets from the hosel, and draw bias uses weighting in the toe area to encourage a right-to-left ball flight. Draw bias comes closer to being a crutch than offset. In the pre-2000 era, I got to hit some Ping Zing irons (early draw bias). From a square stance I hit a hook, and from a slightly open stance I hit a draw. A super open stance led to a banana slice. After 15 shots, I said enough. As for offset, most irons have offset. It's just that some have more than others. The recent Titleist lines compared on offset: AP1.. 3i = .245" | 9i = .110" AP2.. 3i = .160" | 9i = .090" CB.... 3i = .150" | 9i = .080" MB... 3i = .125" | 9i = .080" As this shows, the long irons have more offset than the short ones.

[Shanks A Million]

You can get clubs with no offset. My irons have none, and my driver and fairway woods I believe have none. In Nike and Adams clubs (which I use), they offer both regular and "OS" (offset) models. I get the regular ones. I really like that fact. I hate offset and draw bias with a passion. My 3 wood sets up a bit closed, and I tend slice it into oblivion trying to compensate. I know it's just in my mind, the club itself actually isn't that bad, it just looks that way, but even the look can throw me.

I like to hit a fade too, and even an outright slice would be just dandy by me, but keep me away from the hook. Nothing will ruin a game like a hook. I've had rounds where I snap hooked shot after shot, with the ball starting way out to the right, and turning dead left almost instantly. Nothing is more debilitating. Those things land and run for ages dead left, and they are almost always out of bounds or in water. Offset and draw bias, therefore, scare me to no end.

[Gordon McTavish]

Most players dont have the time it takes to shape up their swings. I think most golfers only play 5-10 rounds a year. So if the equipment lets them have more fun when they do play, it keeps them in the game at least.

I must be a freak of nature then, because I've produced enormous slices with a G15 hybrid... after reading endless hype about how 'unworkable' they are.

Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I find no difference in my ball flight (varying degress of straight-fade to push slice) between a Titleist ZB and a Ping G15. From my perspective, off-set does absolutely nothing except create an unpleasant appearance at address.

[slide13]

I have trouble setting up for a shot with an offset club. I spent all of last year trying to get accustomed to the huge offsets on my G5 irons and this year I finally decided I couldn't do it ( I could still slice the heck out of them on some shots though so the offset didn't even help with that in my experience). Made the change to something with much less offset and it has been so much easier for me to get comfortable over the ball and I'm really not finding much difference in forgiveness. Seems like many people are comfortable with lots of offset but I'm not one of them unfortunately.

[tws1098]

I must be a freak of nature then, because I've produced enormous slices with a G15 hybrid... after reading endless hype about how 'unworkable' they are.

I don't think a slice goes under the whole workable thing. A fade, yes. The club isn't going to keep you from hitting a slice though.

[anotherday]

Interest in golf has been falling off in recent years. A critical indicator will be whether interest continues to fall once the recession ends. If courses in an area don't draw a decent number of players, some courses will shut down. This means farther drives to play, and the remaining courses would likely raise their rates if number of rounds continue to slide.

Golf has been around forever... almost literally so I'm not exactly worried about it losing popularity, especially when its about to hit the Olympics. If interest has fallen in recent years then I'm extremely glad I just recently picked up golf now. I thought it was crowded now, must have been hell to get a tee time back then.

And of course people that use offset clubs are not slower than those who don't. Pace of play is certainly not dependant on the club setup. Thanks for the info on the offset vs. draw bias.

[rudygu]

I think offset is more about shifting the CG of the club. The offset moves the CG back a bit and helps to hit the ball higher as a result. The club will close a little bit more due to the offset, but it's not a huge factor. According to the numbers posted earlier for the Titleist clubs, the AP1 3i is .245" and the MB is .125...I doubt the clubface is going to rotate drastically in that .12".

I'd say the real reason so many offset clubs are prone to hook is simply that those clubheads are often weighted to produce a draw bias.

That being said, I absolutely hate the look of offset at address and avoid them at all costs :P

[Shanks A Million]

I think offset is more about shifting the CG of the club. The offset moves the CG back a bit and helps to hit the ball higher as a result. The club will close a little bit more due to the offset, but it's not a huge factor. According to the numbers posted earlier for the Titleist clubs, the AP1 3i is .245" and the MB is .125...I doubt the clubface is going to rotate drastically in that .12".

No, offset does exactly what people here have mentioned it does; it helps square the clubface. Offset has nothing to do with moving the CG. The CG of an offset club will actually be more forward because the hosel is forward. As for that .12", it does make a difference. The club is closing at such a fast rate that that distance does affect the clubface at impact. Draw bias weighting is almost a myth, it would take such a substantial amount of weight to really change the ballflight.

I think the #1 reason so many people buy into closed face clubs is that they think their slice is the result of an open clubface. If you really needed draw bias, you'd be hitting a push-cut, not a slice. What these clubs really do is turn a slice into a less severe slice, or a pull. For many higher handicaps, who slice the ball, this can be the difference between a playable slice, and an unplayable slice. But the important thing to remember is that these clubs will never actually give you a draw, if you want to hit a draw, you need to swing the club properly.

[rudygu]

No, offset does exactly what people here have mentioned it does; it helps square the clubface. Offset has nothing to do with moving the CG. The CG of an offset club will actually be more forward because the hosel is forward. As for that .12", it does make a difference. The club is closing at such a fast rate that that distance does affect the clubface at impact. Draw bias weighting is almost a myth, it would take such a substantial amount of weight to really change the ballflight.

Ok, I missed this reply a couple weeks ago, but feel like this deserves a response. Do you really think the hosel weighs more than the rest of the clubhead? By a good margin, the heaviest portion of a club is the head. Moving most of the heaviest portion of the club back from the shaft .245 inches will move the cg back. About the .12 inch. - I never said it made no difference in closing the face. I just think the effect is pretty small and that moving the cg is the primary reason for offset.

If you don't want to believe me, how about Tom Wishon? He's one of the most well-respected club designer/clubfitters alive. This quote comes from an article by Wishon on golf.about.com http://golf.about.com/od/faqs/f/offset.htm

First, the more offset, the farther the head's center of gravity is back from the shaft. And the farther the CG is back from the shaft, the higher the trajectory will be for any given loft on the face. In this case, more offset can help increase the height of the shot for golfers who have a difficult time getting the ball well up in the air to fly. Second, the more offset in the clubhead, the more time the golfer has on the downswing to rotate the face of the clubhead back around in order to arrive at impact closer to being square to the target line. In other words, offset can help a golfer come closer to squaring the face at impact because the clubface arrives at impact a split-second later than with a club that has no offset. Thus the second benefit of offset is to help reduce the amount the golfer may slice or fade the ball.

[sean_miller]

I couldn't get my slight offset irons square to the target on Saturday to save my life. Maybe I just plain suck, but that's what happened.

[Shanks A Million]

Ok, I missed this reply a couple weeks ago, but feel like this deserves a response. Do you really think the hosel weighs more than the rest of the clubhead? By a good margin, the heaviest portion of a club is the head. Moving most of the heaviest portion of the club back from the shaft .245 inches will move the cg back. About the .12 inch. - I never said it made no difference in closing the face. I just think the effect is pretty small and that moving the cg is the primary reason for offset.

You're not disagreeing. What I said is that offset doesn't move the CG of the head back. It doesn't, it may actually move it forward. What Wishon is saying is that it moves the CG back from the center of the shaft. I'm talking about the CG of the actual head itself.

[rudygu]

Assuming the hosel counts as part of the club head, I still think that the rest of the head would have more mass and that moving it back relative to the hosel would shift the cg back as well. But, I suppose that's not an absolute. In any case, it's not what I was referring to in my first post. Like Wishon's article, I was referring to the cg with respect to the center of the shaft.

[andef]

Yeah it's ridiculous. I didn't realize this, but the AP2 710 are actually more offset than the R9 TP!

That's very surprising. But now that I think about it, the R9 TP is the most difficult club to hit in TaylorMade's iron line (I don't know whether they still make their bladed iron, RAC MB TP?) while the AP2s are the third behind the 710 MB and CB

[Shanks A Million]

Assuming the hosel counts as part of the club head, I still think that the rest of the head would have more mass and that moving it back relative to the hosel would shift the cg back as well. But, I suppose that's not an absolute. In any case, it's not what I was referring to in my first post. Like Wishon's article, I was referring to the cg with respect to the center of the shaft.

I'm talking about CG relative to the face.

[doof_dizzler]

It's very amusing to see such disdain for the design. Got a good laugh from this thread before bedtime, really couldn't make some of it up if I tried. Thanks guys!