Does lie angle matter for drivers

[Kalnoky]

When I bought my irons (used) from a pro shop they adjusted them 1* up for me. This was huge improvement over my first set of irons which I bought as "standard". However, I never gave any thought to the lie angle of my hybrids (I bought them online) until this weekend, when I was cleaning them. I noticed there is an "upright" setting on the tip, so I tried it out of curiosity. Not only was this much more comfortable at address, but the ball flight was very good - a  slight draw like my irons. Previously I have played a slight push with those, and I think (I'm hopeful) that's now gone..

Anyway, does lie angle matter for drivers like it matters for irons & hybrids?  A quick google search reveals a wide array of opinions. What is your practical experience? 

I apologize if this has already been discussed, I have searched the forums and did not see anything.

Many thanks in advance.

[iacas]

Yes, for the same reasons. Drivers tend to be more upright than you'd think because the shaft often droops more and a lie that's too upright encourages the face to point at least a little to the left (for a righty).

[shanksalot]

26 minutes ago, iacas said:

Yes, for the same reasons. Drivers tend to be more upright than you'd think because the shaft often droops more and a lie that's too upright encourages the face to point at least a little to the left (for a righty).

But what if you hover the driver? You can set the face square to your target when you grip it. Setting it on the ground would cause what you are indicating quite correctly.

[iacas]

15 minutes ago, shanksalot said:

But what if you hover the driver? You can set the face square to your target when you grip it. Setting it on the ground would cause what you are indicating quite correctly.

No. Think about it…

[Lagavulin62]

What I have read is that lie is more critical with you short irons than the longer ones. Speaking of loft that is. .... I have never concerned myself with lie on woods, but thats not saying it's not important. I never noticed any lie concerns with those clubs. At 5-11 I'm pretty average height so maybe thats part of it? 

[TourSpoon]

I also play the irons 1 up. The driver is standard but I did set it up slightly open. I have never gave much thought to the 3 wood or 2h as they seem fine as I hit them with a slight straight to push draw. 

[Golfingdad]

1 hour ago, shanksalot said:

But what if you hover the driver?

That wouldn't have any affect on the lie angle of the club.  As long as the clubface has loft, it's gonna tilt more to the left as lie angle becomes more upright.

[iacas]

2 hours ago, Lagavulin62 said:

What I have read is that lie is more critical with you short irons than the longer ones. Speaking of loft that is. .... I have never concerned myself with lie on woods, but thats not saying it's not important. I never noticed any lie concerns with those clubs. At 5-11 I'm pretty average height so maybe thats part of it? 

Here's the deal…

While the effects of lie angle are minimized when loft decreases, it's also easier to tilt the spin axis on lower lofted clubs and lower lofted clubs travel farther: 4° offline over 100 yards is the same error as 2° offline over 200 yards. Plus the ball curves more in the second scenario.

1 hour ago, Golfingdad said:

That wouldn't have any affect on the lie angle of the club.  As long as the clubface has loft, it's gonna tilt more to the left as lie angle becomes more upright.

Bingo.

I was on my phone earlier or I'd have been more verbose (and helpful).

[natureboy]

3 hours ago, iacas said:

While the effects of lie angle are minimized when loft decreases, it's also easier to tilt the spin axis on lower lofted clubs

I know the above is true as far as the face to path relationship.

But when you tilt the lie angle of a highly lofted club face, aren't you likely to get more relative curvature by directly turning what was primarily a higher amount of backspin into sidespin (tilted backspin)?

So if your face to path angles were 'zeroed out' to your intended start line at the same lie angle change for both clubs, wouldn't the higher loft bend more - a least relative to the length of the shot?

Edited November 9, 2016 by natureboy

[iacas]

12 minutes ago, natureboy said:

But when you tilt the lie angle of a highly lofted club face, aren't you likely to get more relative curvature by directly turning what was primarily a higher amount of backspin into sidespin (tilted backspin)?

No.

[natureboy]

56 minutes ago, iacas said:

No.

I disagree. I just did the math and accounting for the difference in ball speeds, the resultant lift force for a PGA PW is ~ 1.45 times that of a 3-iron so it should bend more as a percentage of the distance it travels

But since the ratio of the two clubs carry distances is about the same (~1.5), I'd expect they would bend about the same total amount with face / path zeroed to the intended start line. 

Edited November 9, 2016 by natureboy

[iacas]

Just now, natureboy said:

I disagree. I just did the math and even with the difference in ball speeds, the resultant lift force for a PGA PW is ~ 1.45 times that of a 3-iron so it should bend more as a percentage of the distance it travels

But since the ratio of the two clubs carry distances is about the same amount, I'd expect they would bend about the same total amount offline with face / path zeroed to the intended start line. 

You did bad math. I'll take what the engineers at Trackman, FlightScope, and a few other companies say over what you say.

And who cares about as a percentage?

People swing their drivers at 45° roughly, but the clubs are often set at lie angles of 58-60°. Your wedge isn't going to be off that much.

Now, back to the topic… which is drivers.

[natureboy]

On 11/8/2016 at 2:12 PM, Kalnoky said:

When I bought my irons (used) from a pro shop they adjusted them 1* up for me. This was huge improvement over my first set of irons which I bought as "standard". However, I never gave any thought to the lie angle of my hybrids (I bought them online) until this weekend, when I was cleaning them. I noticed there is an "upright" setting on the tip, so I tried it out of curiosity. Not only was this much more comfortable at address, but the ball flight was very good - a  slight draw like my irons. Previously I have played a slight push with those, and I think (I'm hopeful) that's now gone..

Anyway, does lie angle matter for drivers like it matters for irons & hybrids?  A quick google search reveals a wide array of opinions. What is your practical experience? 

While the difference between the average driver lie angle and the typical shaft plane angle is pretty large relative to irons, spin matters here a bit too.

A club face that is tilted off vertical (sole is flat on ground) at impact (all else equal) creates a tilted ramp for the ball to slide/roll up, turning 'straight' backspin into a non-horizontal spin axis, which will impart curvature due to the lift force aligned off vertical.

All else equal with face/path, drivers impart less backspin than the other clubs due to the lower loft. Some drivers are designed to take further spin off the shot too. Driver shafts being longer tend to droop more than irons. If you swing with a shallow or positive AoA that may help reduce backspin too. So there's potential for a built-in compensating effect for the very upright lie angle in the driver vs. irons. Along with trying to 'help' the average player draw the ball, it's possible manufacturers have estimated it's enough of a wash not to worry about offering alternatives to the standard upright lie angle on drivers, which saves them money.

David Toms who is shorter than the average tour player went only 2* flatter with his driver trying to bias a fade. He was often well ranked in 'efficiency' ratings on tour Trackman  driving stats, which usually implies relatively shallow AoA and lower spin.

Quote

Bending for lie angle is important, too. David Toms recently put a new driver in play that was bent 2 degrees flatter to give him a shot shape that falls a bit to the right -- his preferred ball flight.

In the days of persimmon, players shaved the heel or toe in an effort to close or open the face, respectively. Today options such as movable weights make things easier. Sbarbaro says he does half as much bending now because a ball-flight tweak can be done with weights.

If your face to path relationship is extreme on the draw side with relatively high spin rate (usu. negative AoA), the extra upright standard lie angle on drivers may be more of a problem for you than others.

Swing style and setup will also affect things. I'm a bit on the short side and that should tend to flatten my swing plane making the difference in lie angle vs. my shaft plane more extreme. But I also grip down, bringing me several inches closer to the ball, which sets the shaft back upright a bit. I swing up on the ball somewhat and don't typically generate a ton of spin. I don't think my issues with driver are significantly attributable to lie angle relative to my other swing faults. Jason Dufner seems to be very toe up at address, but it looks like he lifts his hands a bit coming into impact (David Toms too) and the clubhead looks relatively flat through impact.

Edited November 10, 2016 by natureboy

[arturo28mx]

My Titleist drivers have adjustable lies. My experience is that changing lie angle  does have a SLIGHT effect on ball flight. For me, neutral produces a hard fade, 0.75 degrees upright a light fade, and 1.5 degrees upright a straight ball flight.

[natureboy]

3 hours ago, arturo28mx said:

My Titleist drivers have adjustable lies. My experience is that changing lie angle  does have a SLIGHT effect on ball flight. For me, neutral produces a hard fade, 0.75 degrees upright a light fade, and 1.5 degrees upright a straight ball flight.

Does that adjustment simultaneously affect how open or closed the clubface is at address? If so do you compensate for it when you setup / swing?

Those lie angles seem quite small to solely make the change between straight and 'hard' fade (unless you don't mean much movement offline with the term 'hard').

[arturo28mx]

No. Changing lie angle does not open or close the clubface on Titleist drivers

[natureboy]

14 hours ago, arturo28mx said:

No. Changing lie angle does not open or close the clubface on Titleist drivers

It may depend on whether or how you sole your driver. The face angle 'not changing' per Titleist assumes that players intend to square the face at impact after the adjustment (which may not have the club soled flat at address). If you are somewhere between soling the club and Titleist's assumption of square at impact you may have an effectively adjusted face angle.

http://wishongolf.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/adjustable-hosel-drivers.pdf

Spoiler

Hi,  Here is an explanation of rhe SureFit system and what it was designed to do.
Our SureFit Tour hosel system mechanically adjusts loft and lie angle, not face angle.  A change in face angle comes from the fact that when you change loft angle, you also change the ground contact point on the sole.  When you add loft, the ground contact point shifts back and when the driver is soled, the face angle closes (please note, the face angle only changes if you sole the driver).  The opposite happens when you decrease loft.  The ground contact point moves forward and the face opens.
Now for the chart.  We include a note that says Loft = Effective Loft with a square face at impact.  Most golfers try to point the face of the driver down their intended line, or said another way, square the face at impact.  So, if you start with a closed face angle and square the face at impact you are in fact adding loft.  Lets walk through how that happens.  If you change our SureFit Tour hosel setting to A4 you mechanically add 1.5 degrees of loft to our driver.  If you sole the driver, the face can close because of the ground contact point.  Most players then take the face and square it, thus adding the 1.5 degrees of loft.
If you change the setting and do not square the face, and you end up gripping the club and hitting your shot with a closed face angle, then yes, you hit it low left.  The key to our chart is squaring the face at impact.
The lie and loft changes are independent of one another, which means that you can change the lie without affecting the loft.  On the chart, if you go left or right, you are changing the lie angle without affecting the loft setting on that row.  So if you move the setting to A2, which is on the standard loft row, you are at standard loft and have made the lie angle 1.5° more upright. 

 

Edited November 12, 2016 by natureboy

[natureboy]

On 11/11/2016 at 3:08 PM, arturo28mx said:

My Titleist drivers have adjustable lies. My experience is that changing lie angle  does have a SLIGHT effect on ball flight. For me, neutral produces a hard fade, 0.75 degrees upright a light fade, and 1.5 degrees upright a straight ball flight.

Here's the FlightScope trajectory optimizer results from average male amateur launch conditions and a spin axis of 0 and 1.5 degrees right. The deviation seems pretty low, even if you increase the spin or swing speed significantly from average. Maybe there is also something going on with your face and path with the adjustments?