Sweetspot On Irons, Where The Good Players Hit It

[mchepp]

Originally Posted by uttexas

Yes, I think this is correct also. Before heel/toe weighting and cavity backs, there was likely more mass hosel side of face, thus cg and sweet spot were likely hosel (neck) side of middle.

Yes, uttexas you are exactly right. The longer hosel length in combination with the muscleback design had the sweetspot closer to the hosel.

[poser]

I hit it a little closer to the heel not dead center but, then again I'm not a great ball striker either.

[hokiebound]

This is awesome to look at. I can only imagine how many swings it would take to develop evidence of a sweet spot on my irons.

[The Tin Man]

Hogan told someone his "secret" was to hit the ball on the third groove.

[badfish74]

I just got in from hitting about 50 shots in my garage with my 8 iron and the ball marks on the face where at the same height as these pics.  Obviously they were not as concentrated on the sweet spot as Tiger's, but I was making great contact and seeing these pics assures me I am making contact at the right point.  Also shows that the work I have been putting in the last couple of months may be paying off in regards to my ball striking.  Even though this is an old thread thanks to the thread starter for posting the pics.

[GJBenn85]

My instructor's clubs are like those pictured, you can clearly tell where he strikes the ball each and every time.  Can't say I am surprised though, he spends hours at the range each weekend to help perfect his swing and consistency.  Makes me mad when I look at my clubs and the entire face is marred due to inconsistent striking, LOL.

[GaijinGolfer]

Originally Posted by mdl

Also, forged irons wear more than cast irons, so those amateurs who don't use forged clubs would need even higher club head speed and even more hits to get as dramatic a wear spot as that.

That is an incorrect statement.  I think what you meant to say is, "carbon steel".  Softness doesnt come from forging, it comes from the metal that is used.  The carbon steel that is used in forged irons is softer than that which is used in most cast irons

Theres are some exceptions to this rule: Vokey wedges for example, which are a cast carbon steel but as a rule carbon steel is used for forging because its much easier to work with.

[GaijinGolfer]

My wedges looks kind of like those pictured, but the mark on mine definetly isnt as dark and its a large area of the clubface.

As for the sweetspot, Ive always found it to be closer to the heel than the toe.

[cutshot878]

The best golfer on our high school golf team (who got a college golf scholarship to Georgia Southern University) had marks like those on his forged irons. Nice dime size marks. But obviously, as impressive as marks like this are, they are an indication that it's time for a new set of irons with nice sharp grooves.

[tiger1242]

Quote:

Hogan told someone his "secret" was to hit the ball on the third groove.

I think his real "secret" was that he was good enough to pick which groove he hit it off of...

[Golfingdad]

Originally Posted by Zeph

I was fascinated when I first saw the picture of Tiger's 8 iron and where the wear mark from the ball was. Of course the precision needed to make a wear mark that small is outstanding. It tells a lot about how good the best players really are. I've added some other photographs I've found on the net. The middle top one is the club of Mike Small, another pro. The others are random golfers I believe.

I've hit some shots with tape on the clubface and I'm hitting it a lot higher than these guys, and all over the face.The lowest dimples show above the second lowest groove, often higher too. You don't need the impact tape shaped like a club face, any thin tape will do. Masking tape works great, and it's cheap.

Here is another good picture.

Mike Bennett hit 17 shots and always placed the ball on the white line. He didn't hit the line once on 17 shots, but still made a nice divot after the ball. This tells us he must have hit the ball low on the clubface while the club was moving down. If you hit it high on the clubface while on the way down, you would start the divot underneath the ball, which would cause loss in distance.

If you hit it that low on the face and the swing bottoms out at the ball, you would hit it thin. It is essential that the club bottoms out 2-4 inches in front of the ball. The shaft must of course lean forward at impact. This is one of the fundamentals to play good golf. If you are able to control the swingpath and face angle too, you're a low handicapper.

This means that you should be able to put a thin towel or cloth right behind the ball and hit the ball without touching the towel. This seems very difficult to those of us who flip or in some other way don't hit the ball with the shaft leaning forward and a forward swing bottom.

I'm a little surprised that I haven't come across a high speed video of the impact from a pro yet, which clearly shows things like this. The videos on Youtube I've seen does not work. The camera needs a lot of FPS, good lighting, sitting at ground level and with flat and closely mown grass.

For some reason, I'm in an "old thread bumping" mood today.

Normally, I do not hit the ball with enough consistency to have any sort of small round wear mark like the pros shown above, nor do I play enough to do that anyways.  (Probably also difficult with hard-steel cast clubs too, but regardless, I digress)

On the occasions that I am at the range and hit a few really solid ones in a row, and am fortunate enough that the crappy old balls left some marks on my club, they are always much higher on the face than that.  They are probably about 2 full grooves up from where Tiger's are.

Why do you think that is?  Does it say something about my swing?  Something about my clubs?  What gives?

EDIT:  Or does it simply have to do with the specific club?  I can't tell if those above are all 8 irons, but mine today was a 50* wedge.

[dsc123]

Originally Posted by Golfingdad

On the occasions that I am at the range and hit a few really solid ones in a row, and am fortunate enough that the crappy old balls left some marks on my club, they are always much higher on the face than that.  They are probably about 2 full grooves up from where Tiger's are.

Why do you think that is?  Does it say something about my swing?  Something about my clubs?  What gives?

EDIT:  Or does it simply have to do with the specific club?  I can't tell if those above are all 8 irons, but mine today was a 50* wedge.

My better shots are the same and I'd love to hear an answer to golfingdad's question.

Its amazing how often something I've been thinking about pops up on here....this weekend I was thinking about asking where exactly the sweetspot is.

[dsc123]

Thinking about this some more, because I got new irons that are shorter than my last and I'm hitting the ball all over the club face (and suddenly dumping my wrist angles big time, very very frustrating).  Doesn't the sweet spot move around slightly based on the club design?  Is there some way to figure out where the exact spot is on your clubs?  I don't find anything helpful on the OEM sites.

Towards the bottom on this post there is a picture showing sweet spots from GI to MB and it looks like the sweetspot is higher than where Tiger hits it:

http://thesandtrap.com/b/clubs/taylormade_rac_mb_tp_irons_review

[LSU_justin]

John Peterson, made hole-in-one at the US Open, posted his iron on twitter the other night.

[cutshot878]

I believe the weight of the hosel (on forged clubs) causes the center of gravity (the sweet spot) to move a little toward the heel of the club. It looks like the wear mark of John Peterson's (Titleist blade?) iron is just left of center. Pretty rock solid.  I always look at my clubface after I hit a shot to see where the mark is. Nothing satisfies me more than seeing that grass and dirt smudge appear in the center of the clubface---which  lets me know it was a "solid" shot. A low mark is better than a high mark. A smudge on the high part of the face always means a "fat" shot with a loss of distance.

[Dave2512]

Another bump for this one. Been doing the dry erase marker thing and as mentioned a few posts up a lot higher than the pictures. I'm not delusional about it, I didn't expect pro results, but I was surprised it was so high. I am hitting balls into my net at home and I pretty much have it permanently set up for the 2 ball drill except I use a rolled up towel and some alignment rods. I hit about 15-20 every morning after my workout, full swing shots. Anyway I'm hitting off a mat with the towel not more than 6" behind the ball, in some instances closer. I was catching the ball in the center somewhat often but as high as the equator of the ball being a groove or two over the center of the club face.

I don't feel like I am scooping at it, especially with the towel back there. Funny thing was I hit the towel a few times and the resulting mark was lower. I also moved the ball back in my stance a little, not much, and that moved the markings down. Going to hit some more later and see what happens. I feel like I am hitting down, maybe too much, I can get into the mat pretty far. I have a layer of commercial anti-fatigue mats under there to reduce the shock. Was at the range last night hitting 52 and 6i and the divots were definitely in front of the ball. Hard to tell on the mat but fat shots are obvious to the wrists. But something isn't right.

[NuclearMike]

My irons have the sweet spot towards the toe rather than the heel.  Maybe it's because they're SGI, but it's best for me since my misses are usually toward the toe when I have an outside-in swing. That happens when I'm tired or have lost focus, so fixing it is what I'm working on now.

[Motley01]

Pshhhhhhhhhtttt. That aint nothing. I get the full use of my clubs, by using the entire club face, not just the middle. The pros waste all that available space!