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A discussion about loft on impact (for amollerud & everyone)

thepete

thepete

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Recently I went to TaylorMade and got fit for a new bag of clubs. One of the things that stood out to them was that I apparently deloft the club a lot in impact. A 56 degree SW had about 47 degrees of loft on impact, a 6-iron was almost a 4.5 iron and the driver had almost no increase in loft. When doing launch monitor testing, I struggled to get my 9.5 degree driver to have a launch angle of more than 12-12.5 degrees. I don't use forward press and don't have the ball positioned far back.

I probably should've asked the TM rep about this, but does anyone know what the "ideal" numbers are for the loft on impact? I know this logically should vary a boatload depending on swing speed, clubhead speed, ball speed etc but I can of course provide my numbers for reference and discussion. I will (eventually) take this up for discussion with my coach but he just flew the other side of Europe for about a month, so for the sake of my phonebill that'll have to wait.

Looking at the 3D film of my swing, I see nothing that's out of the ordinary and I'm not really complaining. I've always been very good with the scoring irons because I've had a fairly low ballflight with a lot of spin, which has given me good control. However, I've been struggling with longer irons (low trajectory) and drives but on the other hand I thrive on links courses. We rarely play links golf however, and I obviously want to be good at both.

I'm not really looking to change much, but rather try to understand what I would have to do to deloft the club less on impact. I suspect that me having a slightly bowed leading arm at impact plays a factor, since that means my upper arm is ahead of my lower arm which is ahead of the clubhead.

Understanding this would probably be pretty beneficial, since it would give me a greater understanding about how to control my trajectory. The old saying "you have to hit down to make it go up" rings true in most cases, but it isn't as simple as that.
 
Interesting questions and ponderings there Pete. I'm almost the exact opposite of you, my launch angles almost mimic the loft of the iron that I am hitting. When I had my M3 Mashie on the vector is was consistently getting right at 20* of launch out of a hybrid that's 20.5* stock. I'm sure a ton of it has to do with the fact that you are just good at leading with your hands. Do you typically come in fairly steep on the ball? My brother is like that. He hits his scoring irons so far but I believe it's b/c he delofts them too much at impact. Conversely, he struggles with launching his 8-PW & wedges high. Not that there's anything wrong with that though.
 
That's the somewhat funny thing - I'm not a guy who digs deep into the ground, I take pretty tidy, shallow divots. While I definitely hit down on the ball, I'm not unearthing dinosaurs and when comparing myself to my peers I don't take noticeably larger divots than they do.
It'd also be logical to assume that my longer irons would be "bunched up" in terms of carry if I had a hard time getting them airborne, but my yardages are evenly dispersed (about a 12 yard gap throughout my set).

I'll throw up some impact pics.
 
thepete said:
That's the somewhat funny thing - I'm not a guy who digs deep into the ground, I take pretty tidy, shallow divots. While I definitely hit down on the ball, I'm not unearthing dinosaurs and when comparing myself to my peers I don't take noticeably larger divots than they do.
It'd also be logical to assume that my longer irons would be "bunched up" in terms of carry if I had a hard time getting them airborne, but my yardages are evenly dispersed (about a 12 yard gap throughout my set).

I'll throw up some impact pics.
Click to expand...

Do you have trouble flighting the ball high Pete? I mean, is everything typically what you would consider mid to low when it comes to your flight?
 
I'd say more mid than low, but I don't feel that I can throw it up sky-high at will.
 
I wouldnt be worried about that at all man. You want to hit the ball with forward shaft lean, and it sounds like youre doing it. Maybe you could do it a little less, but IMO its better to have too much shaft lean than less, none, or even negative shaft lean.
 
Thainer21 said:
I wouldnt be worried about that at all man. You want to hit the ball with forward shaft lean, and it sounds like youre doing it. Maybe you could do it a little less, but IMO its better to have too much shaft lean than less, none, or even negative shaft lean.
Click to expand...

Yes, I'm obviously not looking to start hitting duffs and thins all over the place! I am however always looking to broaden my palette of shots. It'd be very beneficial for me to be able to throw it up there with my long irons.

I wouldn't worry about it.
Click to expand...

I'm not worried about it, I'm looking to understand what affects my trajectory and how I can become better at modifying it.
 
Been doing some work on this.
Before:
IMAG0161.jpg


After:
IMAG0162.jpg


The difference is of course extremely subtle. Instead of trying to straighten my arm, I tried to keep my upperbody from dipping in the downswing. We're barely talking about inches here, but check the little gray nail above my left shoulder, I'm a bit higher up than in the first photo. This also helps me keep a better loft on impact.
 
Here is a link to 2008 tour averages. Driver launch angle averages are under 12*. If your hands are ahead of the ball at impact , (as they should be), physics suggest you will lose a little loft. Tiger and Bubba both launch their drivers under 10*.

http://www.grgolfperformance.com/pga_tour_averages.html
 
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