Equipment and the State of Golf

I found this article which I think is very relevant to the modern day golfer. It is taken from www.bradleyhughesgolf.com
Brad is an ex tour player and now coach. Not sure of his coaching philosophy but I think he is spot on with his opinion on equipment.





The main thing I take from it is this:

"attempting to fit clubs for you based on the few swings they watch you hit into a net or on the range. You would be much better of getting correct instruction and then setting up your clubs to how you WANT TO SWING in the future and build your swing action around your clubs...NOT the other way around."

This article is about lie angles.




Let's have a show of hands for anyone who has flat lie angles versus upright lie angles

Bet my last dollar there are not too many on the flat side.

Thank you for sharing... very good article.

Hmmm this is an interesting article. However, i would take it with a pinch of salt. Whilst I agree that the increasing reliance on technology (eg larger crown & face in drivers to increase sweet spot and the introduction of hybrids) has the potential of distracting golfers from the actual problem in their swing, it need not always be so.

Technology and technique need not be inversely related. Technology only makes it easier to achieve the desired results. It does not replace the need for proper technique. In other words, the same fundamentals of a golf swing is necessary, with or without today's technology.

In addition, I think that the writer is being too 'religious'. At the end of the day, the question that we should ask is what is the purpose of playing the game of golf. Is it solely to achieve a pure and unadulterated swing? or is it to enjoy the game? For the vast majority of golfers, the answer will probably involve both, but mainly the latter. Given that today's technology is really targeted at this majority, then it really is simply a case of supply meeting the demand. It is therefore certainly no sin to turn to technology to make the game easier and more enjoyable. Afterall we are masters over the game we play, and not vice versa.

That said, I do agree with the article that we shouldn't be too caught up and over-reliant on technology because ultimately it's a better swing, and not better clubs, that will bring our score down.

Finally, I do also agree with the call for flatter lies. This will encourage a flatter (around the body) and likely one-plane type of swing, rather than a steeper 2-plane type of swing. but i'm saying this only cos i'm a one-planer =)

I'm hitting my blade irons a lot better after using a 1.5 degree more upright lie. Go figure.

The article does not really explain why flatter clubs encourage proper ball striking ... anyone care to elaborate?

Flatter clubs macham must sweep and cannot strike down. Is that the reason why the olden days, they hardly take much divot?

Right_sided_coach wrote:

...
Let's have a show of hands for anyone who has flat lie angles versus upright lie angles

Bet my last dollar there are not too many on the flat side.

Interested in that last dollar.
My irons are 2* flat, hehe.

Derek wrote:

The article does not really explain why flatter clubs encourage proper ball striking ... anyone care to elaborate?

Picture on the left is upright, the picture on the right flatter. Basically the hands and arms will stay under the body instead of straightening up and moving out to the right



Unfortunately when you get fitted for lie angles you will be fitted on your current impact which may be wrong. You will then always be practicing an inferior impact position. If your lies were flatter it would encourage you to work towards a better impact

That is why I use mizuno irons where the standard specs is flatter than all the other brands. Of course, it is better to custom-fit, but it also cost more.

Paul, assuming the golfer have good impact position like lorena on the right pic and:

a. he/she is also tall (>1.8m): will he/she benefit from a more upright lie?

or

b. is < than 1.7m tall, plus he/she use a more upright irons: will his/her ball flight tend to go to the left?

Seasoned newbie here. Does one's physical aspects affects lie angle? If u r taller, wouldn't u need to flatten the lie?
(PS: Personally, poor etiquette is the one really killing the game! )

bkll wrote:

That is why I use mizuno irons where the standard specs is flatter than all the other brands. Of course, it is better to custom-fit, but it also cost more.

your other choice is Ping, they also have flat lie irons. Just that they are not "grain flow forged"

pushslice wrote:

Paul, assuming the golfer have good impact position like lorena on the right pic and:

a. he/she is also tall (>1.8m): will he/she benefit from a more upright lie?

or

b. he/she use a more upright irons: will his/her ball flight tend to go to the left?

The pic on the right is not Lorena, its a RSS student Rebecca Flood (she just finished third last week in Victorian Open)

I dont believe tall or short has anything to do with it. If you are taller you will have a longer length club.

A 10 y/o junior vs a 170cm man,to a 180cm man its all relative. That is a length of club issue I believe.

I just think it makes more sense to put the student in correct impact position statically, take the measurements and then have them work around getting their swing to fit that properly impact fitted club, not the other way around.
If you had a good impact position and then changed to more upright clubs, you would have to work on having a poor impact position to get the club to sole out properly. If you are trying to improve impact with too upright clubs you will heel out when you do make a good swing giving bad feedback

I guess its the chicken and the egg thing.
Of course for the once a month golfer, the alternative may be a better option but just understand why you are slicing and hitting right and why you cant ever improve your distance and impact

great article thanks for sharing

Thanks Paul for explaining.

For discussion, assuming that I have clubs that are already fit for my height and arm length, e.g. 2 degrees flat, and I bend the lie angle to 5 degree flat. What effect would training with a club like this have on my impact position?

I am just wondering if the article is making a case for flatter lies promote better impact position or the correct angle of lie based on your body proportions promotes better impact position.

On a side note, being short with long arms, almost every standard club in the market would be too upright for me (even when I choke down 1.5 to 2 inches) and have a tendency to curve left if I get good impact. However I have never had a chance to try clubs that were extremely flat, so I am curious what they would feel like.

IMO, the article failed to mention that Hogan was fighting the left side for a good part of his game, he work around it by making his grip more neutral. He was such a ball striker had very little to do with the lie angle. It was his work ethic and dedication to ball striking.

If feedback was all we need to become better ball strikers, then 90% of the golfers should be using blades and don't need coaches, because we could educate ourself base on the feedback from our shots.

Great discussion !

There are many ways to strike a golf ball and there is always the favorite argument of the Sunday golfer whether to get fitted with the latest equipment so as to drive the ball 20m more past their mates or the latest putter design so as to align better, its never ending.

And we all know what driving far does to your ego It boasts it! Makes you stand tall on the golfers' terrance when everyone acknowledges that you are the longest driver in the group.
Hahaha. Right right?

Really , it boils down to what you want in golf. If you just wanna beat the hell outta the ball everytime,makes sense to get fitted with the newest driver on tour or new shaft because I believe technology really makes those drives go further. Of course if money is not an issue.

However, if we really want to make good of our game, maybe we could focus on the indian instead of the bow. I just spoke to one of our ex Sea Games player with a plus two handicap who told me how was his training regime like when he was doing full time training. 70 percent of his time was spent in one place. The chipping green. 2 hours on chipping, 2 hours on pitching, 2 hours putting. The rest of the time, was just purely hitting 100 balls, in two hours. And on the two hours on the range, he worked on nothing but his pre-shot rountine, because a good posture and setup is key to consistent repeatable shots.

To think I used to beat him when we were younger! haha.

Agreed with scottycollector, on whether what the purpose of the golfer is. Talking about technology is always the most fun. Comparing lies, lofts, shafts, I love it too. Thats why We are all here!! But really lor, nobody really wants to spend 8 hours doing the most boring thing perfecting his chipping and pitching but really that aspect, coupled with the right coaching and instruction, could easily bring 10 shots down the average score =)

Imagine the feeling of sinking everything inside ten feet and getting up and down.......I dream of it every night... I would be better than Stricker liao... hahahaahahaha

Derek wrote:

Thanks Paul for explaining.

For discussion, assuming that I have clubs that are already fit for my height and arm length, e.g. 2 degrees flat, and I bend the lie angle to 5 degree flat. What effect would training with a club like this have on my impact position?

I am just wondering if the article is making a case for flatter lies promote better impact position or the correct angle of lie based on your body proportions promotes better impact position.

On a side note, being short with long arms, almost every standard club in the market would be too upright for me (even when I choke down 1.5 to 2 inches) and have a tendency to curve left if I get good impact. However I have never had a chance to try clubs that were extremely flat, so I am curious what they would feel like.

Body proportions still must be considered, i.e height, length of arms etc. Of course having lies too flat will also cause problems with ball flight. I suggest you video your swing from down the line and see what your impact looks like. If you have the high hands moving away from the body with an upright shaft, you should consider flattening the lie angle. This will promote a lower hand position closer to the body at impact. This will also promote a shallower path into the ball. There are other things in your swing technique to consider which may be also causing the high hands but that is another story.

Here is the great Ben Hogan at TW at impact. Two pretty decent iron players

Thanks for sharing this timely topic.

Bradley Hughes teaches powering the swing with a plane shift, a signature of many good ballstrikers, esp from the past, but getting more rare nowadays with the current bomb and gouge style. Tried it, it works, but not straightforward and takes dedicated practice to master.

On upright vs flat, the desired impact position for me is where at impact my hands return to where they were at address ('planing' the club if I'm not mistaken.) ie., more flat

So, I insisted that my clubfitter adjust my set to have a lie to match, more flat, rather than what the impact tape showed at that moment with the existing swing then, more upright.

And it has helped because when I worked on the swing I could tell from the result whether or not I was getting closer to 'planing' the club.

As for forgiveness vs feedback, I would take feedback any day. I believe Tom Wishon said blades were the true game improvement clubs for this reason.

Have forgotten long ago that I was hitting 'unforgiving' blades 'not meant' for high handicappers. The lack of forgiveness, in other words the rich feedback, has guided my swing down a more fundamentally sound path. Or rather, if I'm simply not allowed to get sloppy.

Every time I get feedback, I improve. The more unpleasant (initially) the feedback, the more the improvement.

eiji wrote:

IMO, the article failed to mention that Hogan was fighting the left side for a good part of his game, he work around it by making his grip more neutral. He was such a ball striker had very little to do with the lie angle. It was his work ethic and dedication to ball striking.

If feedback was all we need to become better ball strikers, then 90% of the golfers should be using blades and don't need coaches, because we could educate ourself base on the feedback from our shots.

That was Hogan pre war before he changed his swing. The guy won 9 majors. He mustn't have been left too often.

The point is to not base your lie angles on what the lie tapes are showing particularly if you have a steep swing and hit a lot of shots right

Hey Paul

what are your thoughts on paul bertholy drills?

Right_sided_coach wrote:

eiji wrote:

IMO, the article failed to mention that Hogan was fighting the left side for a good part of his game, he work around it by making his grip more neutral. He was such a ball striker had very little to do with the lie angle. It was his work ethic and dedication to ball striking.

If feedback was all we need to become better ball strikers, then 90% of the golfers should be using blades and don't need coaches, because we could educate ourself base on the feedback from our shots.

That was Hogan pre war before he changed his swing. The guy won 9 majors. He mustn't have been left too often.

The point is to not base your lie angles on what the lie tapes are showing particularly if you have a steep swing and hit a lot of shots right

But i think we got no choice but to make do with the kind of ranges that we have. The good clubfitters will still ask you to give feedback once you played it a few times on the course. Then they will further fine tune the adjustments.

eiji wrote:

If feedback was all we need to become better ball strikers, then 90% of the golfers should be using blades and don't need coaches, because we could educate ourself base on the feedback from our shots.

I think fundamentals are still important, and technology does help. I am pretty old school, so I do hold an opinion how much technolgy SHOULD help. Too much is no good imo.

But coming to Eji's comment. I think it is probably true. I started with a set of semi-cav (or semi-blade, really depending on how one sees it). While it was tough, it was also rewarding bacause I think my swing came out better. In later years, I recapped and thought having a coach or somebody knowledgeable to help set up a system where learning and understanding fundamentals would have made my learning journey that much easier. My sense is today's coaches are indeed better at this, as compared to many years ago when I started golf. Thats what I have been telling my frens who are picking up golf to do.

My 2c.

I agree with the lie angle and shaft length, however for a beginner like myself, shorter length has more impact than lie angle. Shorter length also will require a more upright lie

My 20yo Macgregor blades is 2 club length shorter than the new irons and is not so difficult to hit even with a much heavier and stiffer shaft. Some drivers also have different angle (as i discovered lately). My Sumo 5900 is almost 5 degree more upright than my TM Superquad !!!!!!... it does make a difference although many ppl say its no difference since its off the tee.

even putter length and lie angle. 34 even 33 inchs is simple too long..but those are the 'standard' length.

there are some very good points in the article.

1. golfers used to work with what they have so that they can play the game. there were very little information about club fitting 10 years ago and yet you get some of the best players coming through. too much misinformation about technology has create "back doors" for golfers. when they miss they blame it on their equipment.

2. golfers should invest in proper coaching instead of spending all their time and money browsing the internet for virtual lessons and wasting a load on money on stuff that will not help their swing. remember input = output. unless its a good golfer, the equipment will not make much difference.

3. when there is no feel, it takes away proprioception and the ability of the golfer to be creative. arguably for most weekend warriors, hitting straight is good enough but if one wants to be better, the response and the shots they can make with their clubs depends a lot on their motor skills. In fact when we work with golf professionals on putting and the short game, it is not surprising to introduce different clubs like a 6 iron so that the player can improve their "feel", ability to think and execute outside the box and more importantly build confidence.

4. On the issue of Lie...the easiest thing for a golf coach to do is asked the student to make the lie more upright. making it flatter (eg 6 iron at 59 degree) demands a purer but better quality contact. go figure this out yourself why. and i respect that Paul has always advocate a flatter lie for his student.

i totally agree with the statement.... Improve your swing and you will improve your game.

DGman