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Do OEM’s purposely loft clubs differently than what they stamp on the bottom?

SuperStroke
Howzat

Howzat

I'd Rather Be At The Hideaway
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Would love to get some thoughts on this. I have heard a lot of talk lately of OEM's adding or subtracting loft on clubs from what they stamp on them. Is this something that has been going on for a while or a recent trend? Does this help or hurt the average golfer? Is it an acceptable margin of error or is it for marketing?
 
How do you mean? If the stamp on the club says 48*, I expect that club to be within a certain tolerance of that.
 
I just always assumed it was because manufacturing standards weren't very strict. I could be completely wrong though
 
Howzat, are you talking about sets getting lower and lower on lofts?

If so, the numbers on clubs are determined by LAUNCH, not the loft.
 
Jman said:
Howzat, are you talking about sets getting lower and lower on lofts?

If so, the numbers on clubs are determined by LAUNCH, not the loft.
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I think he means drivers that say 9.5 actually end up being 10.2 or something
 
blugold said:
How do you mean? If the stamp on the club says 48*, I expect that club to be within a certain tolerance of that.
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Claims of 3-woods that say 15* but are actually 13* in order to be 17 yards longer than the other guy. Some companies adding loft to a driver to get past ego's. The driver might say 9* but may actually be closer to 10 or 10.5* because they know the avg. consumer will see better results in the store and will sell more clubs.
 
TexasHacker34 said:
I think he means drivers that say 9.5 actually end up being 10.2 or something
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Ah. I see says the blind man.

PING is notorious for this in their drivers. 10.5's being measured out at 12 and such. Craziness.
 
Howzat said:
Claims of 3-woods that say 15* but are actually 13* in order to be 17 yards longer than the other guy. Some companies adding loft to a driver to get past ego's. The driver might say 9* but may actually be closer to 10 or 10.5* because they know the avg. consumer will see better results in the store and will sell more clubs.
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Sounds very TaylorMade'y. I believe it.
 
I saw something over at RotarySwing about this, but the claim and article itself just sounded too preposterous to be true:

http://www.rotaryswing.com/golf-lessons-blog/taylormade-r1-2013-the-problem-with-taylormade-drivers/

The problem is that the TaylorMade R11S 10.5 degree head is actually a WEAK 3 wood.
That’s right, the true loft when measured with a loft measuring tool from GolfWorks is actually 16.5 degrees!!! It’s 17.5 degrees on the 12 degree head. Why does TaylorMade knowingly mislabel their product? Simply because they know that’s what most high handicap golfers actually need.
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Coupled with some ridonk own marketing at the bottom.
 
Howzat said:
Claims of 3-woods that say 15* but are actually 13* in order to be 17 yards longer than the other guy. Some companies adding loft to a driver to get past ego's. The driver might say 9* but may actually be closer to 10 or 10.5* because they know the avg. consumer will see better results in the store and will sell more clubs.
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I may be an optimist and give the OEMs to much credit. But I don't think they would intentionally do those things. But could it slip through manufacturing but within the allowed clearances, that I do believe happens.
 
Club builder showed me that at address my R11 at 9.5 is actually closer to 10.5. If you take the shaft and go 90 degrees up the shaft its dead on. I think its alot of how it is measured. There is no standard way.
 
blugold said:
I may be an optimist and give the OEMs to much credit. But I don't think they would intentionally do those things. But could it slip through manufacturing but within the allowed clearances, that I do believe happens.
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Me neither. They won't be exact, but I'd assume they'd be close.
 
Howzat said:
Claims of 3-woods that say 15* but are actually 13* in order to be 17 yards longer than the other guy. Some companies adding loft to a driver to get past ego's. The driver might say 9* but may actually be closer to 10 or 10.5* because they know the avg. consumer will see better results in the store and will sell more clubs.
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RBZ! You are speaking the truth about that
 
Based off the clubs I have measured on a very good loft/lie machine (it does take a lot of practice though), I would say that Pings consistently measure higher. Possibly they use the stamped loft (say 10.5) as the absolute minimum loft and then the +1* error could bring it as high as 11.5*. This would be better than for most golfers than having a 10.5 head at 9.5. Ping WRX will digitally measure the loft of a head for you.
 
I could see this being a big issue before adjustable heads, but now that I can adjust the loft however I want to whatever works the best, I don't even care what number the put on the bottom. I wouldn't care if my next driver had a banana stamped at the bottom of it, so long as I could adjust it to give me the best ball flight.
 
Hmmm...I never really thought about it. Great thoughts and great topic. I can't wait to hear what JB has to say about this. I could definitely believe it.
 
Is a good scheme. They know more loft will help most golfers but know more golfers want lower loft. How do you accomplish both? Label a 11 degree driver 9.5.


Slicing for show and chunking for dough, because I spend too much time Tapatalking from my iPad.
 
jlukes said:
I could see this being a big issue before adjustable heads, but now that I can adjust the loft however I want to whatever works the best, I don't even care what number the put on the bottom. I wouldn't care if my next driver had a banana stamped at the bottom of it, so long as I could adjust it to give me the best ball flight.
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But if you think you are adjusting a 10.5 degree R11S to 9 degree, you may in fact be lowering the loft down to the stated 10.5...

All TM adapters say is +- 1.5*. Maybe they secretly label all heads the loft that would be achieved by setting t to lower loft...


Slicing for show and chunking for dough, because I spend too much time Tapatalking from my iPad.
 
wow!!! this all news to me... very interesting stuff here!!!
 
I don't OEM's would do it purposely, but there might slacking in tolerances, and also how people measure the lofts. I've heard that Titleist would allow a 1° error in lofts, swing weights etc. Mizuno allegedly has a 0° tolerance. Some manufacturers might have more.
 
JF16 said:
Is a good scheme. They know more loft will help most golfers but know more golfers want lower loft. How do you accomplish both? Label a 11 degree driver 9.5.


Slicing for show and chunking for dough, because I spend too much time Tapatalking from my iPad.
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Though they want a lower loft, is it always the right thing for them?
 
jlukes said:
No, but a lot of consumers have the mentality that "I want to play what the pros play"
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That's my point and goes back to the stats provided. Say someone wants a 9* driver, but companies are putting out higher lofts because they know the consumer needs a higher loft.
 
A company would NEVER do this in order to sell more product.....would they?
 
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