Understanding Adjustable Drivers

[Hacker James]

Nearly every club manufacturer now has some degree of adjustability built into their driver but with different approaches of how to get there.

 

Club maker Tom Wishon has published an in depth article of this dating back to hosel design of wooden heads.  The gist of what he explains is that you cannot actually change the loft of a particular club head, but you can make adjustments to how the shaft fits into it by changing the lie angle and face angle with the idea of what it "looks" like as you take your grip to appear as squared up. He recommends that you should take your grip with the club extended out in front of you. Actually, the golfer is physically manipulating the club to achieve what is happening at impact.  A higher loft setting will show the club face being closed and when you take your grip, you are opening the face.

I have only observed two club makers approaches. Tour Edge has 8 settings for loft, three of which indicate upright settings. Titleist allows for a combination of 16 as you are making adjustments for lie angle and loft independently. Again, the static loft is not being changed, only the dynamic loft at impact. Titleist takes it a step further and recommends two different methods for taking your grip, one with the club soled, the other with the club in the air.  Titleist provides a very simple to follow chart, where going up or down pertains to more or less loft, while reading left or right indicates draw or fade bias accordingly. 

Furthermore, the Titleist "sure-fit" system works across many product lines from the 913 to today's 917.  It is also the same across clubs i.e. driver, fairway, hybrid. This gives the golfer a lot of diversity in terms of swapping out of the different shafts. 

In any event,this is MY understanding pending more input from the more experienced. 

[Hacker James]

Okay, I am guilty...….This is yesterday's news with many different articles and posts (several from me) I should have searched before posting but wanted to point out the differences in manufacturer's approach.