Lie Angle Adjustment

[saevel25]

I've heard in the past that if you have forged irons you need to have the lofts and lie angles check because they can change over time due to striking the ground. So, it has been two years since I got my Mizuno's and I thought it about time to have them checked. Mostly this was due because the Ping online fitter has me matched up way off than my Mizuno's. I was kinda curious how far off I was. 

luckily for me I wasn't too far off from standard. I needed my irons adjusted 1 degree upright. Which kinda fits inline with how the Ping irons off their website should be adjusted for me. Still not to the degree they advocate. Other things might be in play like type of golf shaft involved can decrease or increase lie angle at impact. I am not sure the total philosophy on the Ping fitting system. They kinda went outside the 1/2 degree per 1/2 inch length model. 

The first thing the fitter had me do was hit some shots with my current irons to see my ball flight. I was slightly pulling shots. Which is probably more more common ball flight right now. Then we checked how I was striking the club. I found I was routinely hitting it out of the heel. Which is kinda odd for pulling the ball. 

Then he had me hit off a lie board. Which the first time I picked the ball clean. I hate hitting off lie boards. After getting a few strikes we found my 7 iron was 1 degree too flat for me. 

So he went and bent the iron and had me hit again. Shockingly, it helped fix my ball strike. I was hitting it more consistent towards the center. Also I started to hit the ball a tad straighter. 

For $50, it's not a bad idea to have your clubs checked over the years to make sure they still fit you. 

 

 

[Club Rat]

1 hour ago, saevel25 said:

have your clubs checked

Both lie angle and loft should be checked occasionally with blades. Not so much with cast clubs, but they can be out of spec, sometimes.

Even new clubs are sometimes off specs.

Ping was very good with building clubs to specs, much better than all other manufactures.

Just quoting you Matt for other readers.

 

[onthehunt526]

I agree... forged clubs are softer than cast and the lie and loft is more susceptible to change over time...

It's a good idea once a year depending how much you play to have the angles checked and adjusted as need on forged clubs.

[natureboy]

5 hours ago, saevel25 said:

Then we checked how I was striking the club. I found I was routinely hitting it out of the heel. Which is kinda odd for pulling the ball. 

Wouldn't a heel strike tend to close the face at impact so the start line would be shifted left before the ball rebounded?

Edited March 16, 2016 by natureboy

[saevel25]

2 minutes ago, natureboy said:

Wouldn't a heel strike tend to close the face at impact so the start line would be shifted left before the ball rebounded?

Well pulling the ball is more for a leftward path (for a right hander). That tends to be more of a toe strike over a heel strike. That is what I meant about that. 

[natureboy]

8 hours ago, saevel25 said:

Well pulling the ball is more for a leftward path (for a right hander). That tends to be more of a toe strike over a heel strike. That is what I meant about that. 

I'm saying the strike location alone could account for the pull (take out the hook spin from gear effect and your strikes were similar to below)

 

[saevel25]

47 minutes ago, natureboy said:

I'm saying the strike location alone could account for the pull (take out the hook spin from gear effect and your strikes were similar to below)

 

I can see that more so with the driver. When you hit a heel cut with the driver the ball starts more let because of the torque on the shaft as well as the roll and bulge of the clubface.

An iron is much more rigid, has more mass, and doesn't have the face roll. I would say it might contribute less.

The ball was a straight pull, maybe a few tad pull draws. So that means the path was leftward and the face was square to the path on average. If the shot was a heel strike, and if that closes the face. That means on a centered strike it should be more of a slight pull fade.

When the lie angle was changed to more upright. That in theory should cause the ball to start more left. Yet the strike started to center more and the ball went more on target.

Of course I am not taking into account my golf swing reacting to the change. Maybe the club looks better at the ball with the right lie angle.

I guess if the off centered hits on an iron are much less than that of the driver then it probably only contributes a small fraction to how much of a pull it is.

 

[iacas]

19 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

I can see that more so with the driver. When you hit a heel cut with the driver the ball starts more let because of the torque on the shaft as well as the roll and bulge of the clubface.

An iron is much more rigid, has more mass, and doesn't have the face roll. I would say it might contribute less.

The CG is also way, way closer to the face. Heel hits with irons start left, toe hits start right. Just like with a driver. They still have gear effect, too.

19 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

The ball was a straight pull, maybe a few tad pull draws. So that means the path was leftward and the face was square to the path on average. If the shot was a heel strike, and if that closes the face. That means on a centered strike it should be more of a slight pull fade.

Not necessarily. Heel hits still have gear effect. You could have hit a straight draw that the heel hit both started farther left (pull) and straightened (with some "fade spin").

It's possible that your heel hits led to some of your pulls, or exaggerating some of your pulls.

17 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

When the lie angle was changed to more upright. That in theory should cause the ball to start more left.

… assuming centered contact.

[saevel25]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

The CG is also way, way closer to the face. Heel hits with irons start left, toe hits start right. Just like with a driver. They still have gear effect, too.

So then the lesser amount of curve on iron from the gear effect probably has to do more with the dynamic loft and club head speed.

1 hour ago, iacas said:

It's possible that your heel hits led to some of your pulls, or exaggerating some of your pulls.

… assuming centered contact.

Is it strange that heel strikes feel really solid? It's possible the CG is closer to the hosel. That is common with blade style irons.

With a driver a heel strike feels terrible. Maybe it's that the face is more square to the swing path that the heel strike doesn't feel as harsh compared to the driver.

When I hit a few at the center of the face it felt less heavy. I feel less of the golf ball's weight on the strike. Like sometime with a driver a strike can feel really light. I just don't feel the twist in my hands on a pull heel strike with an iron as I do if I heel strike a driver.

[iacas]

30 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

With a driver a heel strike feels terrible. Maybe it's that the face is more square to the swing path that the heel strike doesn't feel as harsh compared to the driver.

If you hit it in the heel by the same amount (about a quarter inch or whatever), you'd not even notice on most drivers. Drivers let you hit it an inch toward the heel but you can't do that with an iron without hitting it… nowhere near where intended.