New Technology? or Vanishing Loft?

Many think we hit our irons so much farther because of some scientific breakthrough by the Original Equipment Manufacturers by their crack technology departments. Could it be something else?

In July I’ll be 73 years old. I’ve been playing golf since I was 15 years old. My first clubs were what my dad could cobble together for me from his old clubs. Some working good, some didn’t work at all. When I got my drivers license I got more serious about playing more golf and getting better equipment. I got a part time job after school that gave me enough time to play nearly every day because the golf course was only minutes away from my house and where I worked.

I got new woods that felt better and gradually saved enough for new irons too. The course where I played had once been celebrated as one of the best but had been allowed to go downhill over the years to the point that they rarely used the back nine and almost all play was on the front. Maybe because they didn’t cut the fairways and greens as often on the back. That allowed me to play the back nine and hit as many extra practice shots as I wanted on any hole because I was usually the only one back there.

So as I got better I wanted better equipment. I got subscriptions to all the golf magazines of the time and I read the ads and studied them for hints of what I needed for my game. I didn’t see it at the time but looking back it’s pretty obvious that a lot of the advertising was less than fully truthful. Looking back I can say that since I was 15 or 16 years old the golf industry has claimed every year that they had discovered the secret and the clubs were longer and straighter. A rough calculation of 58 years of longer and straighter show me that I should be hitting my driver about 750 or more yards by now. But I don’t.

So what’s up with the advertising?

Let’s start with the fact that physics and the USGA dictate how far I can hit a golf ball, not technology. That doesn’t mean that we haven’t had vast improvements in technology, because we have. But, it peaked some time ago. Ball speed off the clubface and the angle it is launched will determine how far a ball will carry no matter what technology we use. Since the USGA limits how fast a ball can come off the clubface a lot of the advertising claims we hear about and read about are pretty much just so much hooey. Why? Because the technology has been maxed out for years and they can’t go any farther than they were several years ago.

Think of it this way. If you have to travel 60 miles and there is a limit on all cars that holds them to 60 mph it’s going to take you 60 minutes to go 60 miles no matter how you shape the car, no matter what the aerodynamics of the car are, what kind of tires you have on your car, etc. If you can only go 60 mph you can only go 60 miles in one hour.

The sweet spot is always the same size and same place on all clubs no matter how big the face is and what material you use for the face. You can’t expand the sweet spot any more than you can move the center to a different place on the club face. You can only make the off center hits less ineffective by degrees. Meaning if an off the sweet spot it of 1/2″ looses 15% of your ball speed, you might engineer a face that improves off center hits slightly. But if the sweet spot hit is over the USGA limit, it’s non conforming.

How do companies get a 7 iron to go as far as a 5 iron used to? They lower the loft on the 7 iron to a 5 iron loft. Some call this the vanishing loft disease. As you can see in the chart below. How do custom fitters do it? They fit clubs to your swing and your athletic ability to get more center face hits and maximize your ability to swing faster and more effectively.

So what is the best you can do? You can get a set matched to your swing that allows you to have more consistency, more accuracy and maximizes your distance consistent with your swing speed and use the iron with the proper loft for the distance you want to cover.

You may have noticed that there are no longer any 1 irons or 2 irons being offered. That’s because the 3 irons are now made with 1 iron and 2 iron lofts. Maybe that is why they invented the hybrids? To replace 1 iron, 2 irons, 3 irons, 4 irons and 5 irons which are the lofts of those dreaded “long irons” that nobody could hit back in the day either.

We now have both hybrids and 5, 7, and 9 woods where once there were no woods other than 1, 2, 3, and 4 wood. Over a period of time we got 5 woods, then they introduced the hybrids.

So the real question you need to ask yourself when you get new clubs is: Do you want to get clubs that make you play better golf? or; Do you want clubs that allow you to hit your 7 iron longer than the other 3 golfers in your foursome?

Custom fitting will help you hit more, better quality golf shots, but it will not guarantee you will out hit your foursome with your 7 iron. It might if your current set is mismatched badly enough with your ability. But there is no guarantee of super yardage gains. I’ve helped many hundreds of golfers over the years to lower their handicap and hit the ball a little farther, and some a lot farther, and the only technology that really helped was the launch monitor that allowed me to see their swing path, the face angle and measure key data points like swing speed, angle of attack, ball speed, smash factor and launch angle. Then allow me to tweak their shafts, heads, club weight, club balance point (Swing Weight / MOI) and give them the right tools to play golf with. Or online the ability of the golfer to provide as much of that information as possible for me to evaluate for their new clubs.

So don’t fall for the hype. For the most part nearly all heads are made equally the same other than design modifications for game compensation. Where the center of gravity is to help hit higher or lower shots, perimeter weighting on irons to lesser twisting at impact to improve on off center hits and somewhat larger faces for those that need them. For irons, scratch players don’t need the deep cavity backs and average golfers don’t need to try to play with muscle backs. For drivers scratch players can use low lofted drivers because of their swing speed creating enough spin to take advantage of aerodynamic lift from the ball’s dimple pattern, and average golfers need more loft because their swing probably doesn’t create enough spin. For drivers it needs to be over 100 mph club speed.

So don’t buy from manufacturers claims, buy from a knowledgeable clubfitter who can put you in a set that matches your ability. You’ll play better and enjoy it more.