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Numbers vs feel

This is a great topic and it's interesting to see all of the different responses. I think I use a combination of both, but if I had to choose one, I would go with the numbers.
 
For me it's about numbers. The only way feel will come into play is if two clubs have pretty much the same performance and I need to pick somehow.

I have yet to hit an awesome shot that I didn't like the feel of, personally.
 
I trust my feel as I don't have access to a monitor. I judge by ball flight and feel most often
 
I tend to like "feel" myself...I have a buddy who bought a 910D2 last year, 8.5* with an Xflex shaft...he swings "hard". He couldn't get the ball in the air, and generally hits a pretty high ball. He parked the driver, and went back to his old one. I asked him if I could try it this Spring, and no one thought it would work for me. Too stiff, not enough loft...etc. He let me play it, and I gained a few yards, and hit it a lot straighter than any other driver I've ever use. It dropped my ball flight a little, and I now get at least some forward roll once n a while. (I tend to hit the ball pretty high most of the time. ) To me it just feels pretty good. Numbers don't really matter, but when I did a Bridgestone fitting, they seemed ok for a duffer like me. But the club feels good, and gives me some confidence standing over the ball.
 
I learned a lesson last time I bought my 3w. I need to use the numbers as a guide or validate what I'm feeling. It came down to a club in stiff and the other in regular. I know based upon a prior fitting I am in between. Since I was just going hy the results of the sim, I went with the numbers this time and the recommendation that a stiffer shaft will give me less misses left and duck hook less. It sure did but loss the smoothness when swinging the club and now have to some extra oomph towards the end of the round due to fatigue. If I had the regular, I could have used my usual swing.

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I have to go by feel. No matter how good numbers look on the sim, if I don't have the right feel for a club, any confidence I had in the monitor disappears the minute I'm standing and staring at a real golf hole.
 
Great topic! I'm enjoying all the comments.

I've only bought one set of clubs and my irons were based on both, my driver and fairway wood I was dumb and bought on hype with little trial of other clubs.

After my fitting tomorrow I have a better answer.
 
If I was on a reliable LM, I would go with the numbers. An asterisk to this is that I need to like the feel of the club in my hands, or else I would be in the back of my head about hating the feel of the club. I would rather go with hard data than what I am "feeling" on a given day (or two) during testing. If I feel like I am crushing it, but it's coming up 10 yards short with 5 more yards of dispersion, I see no reason to make a change.

I think with all the tech available now, and adjustability, if you are persistent enough in your search you can find one that accomplishes both.
 
Feel is important for me. I can tell by the time I hit 4 or 5 balls if a club is NOT the one for me, totally by feel. I have to feel the club throughout the swing. Good feel makes for good rhythm which makes for good numbers.
 
Numbers > Feel for me. If you hit it good and save strokes, it starts to feel good. No one can deny that.
 
Numbers for me. I'll spend weeks going back to the same place and getting on their launchman to see what numbers I'm putting up day to day before I purchase. I always buy from the place I'm annoying so I never feel to bad about it. I've played the most "buttery" irons and I just think for me, feel in that aspect is over rated. When I think feel and golf I actually don't even think about the equipment. Feel to me is more about playing a shot without even thinking about it. Just feeling the distance and how hard I have to go at it without saying to myself, "ok, 100 yards out. Play it like this with this much back swing". Maybe intuitive even? If I'm hitting 80% GIR and it feels like crap I honestly don't care.
 
Tadashi70 said:
I read more and more about launch numbers and good launch numbers. I also read about feel and how good this felt over that. I want to know what takes precedence. If I go to my local big box and jump on the monitor and the sale guy claims the number are great, do I take him at his word and buy the club? Or do I go off what I felt in my hands, arms and swing?

Have we fallen in love with numbers and pushed feel to the side? Are we too dependent on numbers and raw data? Or are we took reliant on feel and marketing and not enough on the numbers? I'm curious, do you know your true numbers? Do you trust your feel?
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I would like to say how I am smart with my purchases however that would be a lie. I generally purchase shafts simply by feel and or hype. Irons are almost always based on a feeling I get when looking at them. Drivers are generally my smartest purchase as I will at least hit them in the store to see if I can hit them. Wedges are all about looks. Putters as well.
 
Feel good, you play good. Confidence in the club is everything, and feel is what gives it to ya.
 
I think 'feel' is probably one of the most overrated elements when it comes to club selection. The reason being that we tend to use our inflated images of ourselves to make decisions. Then we justify it by using intangible terms that don't really mean anything. I've done it many times.

If we're looking at two clubs with mostly equal performance and one looks/sounds better, then I'd say it's not overrated.

If you are knowedgable enough to know what numbers to look for, they are a great way to judge performance. Same thing goes for finding a good club fitter. What doesn't work (very often) is hitting a club for ten minutes on a launch monitor and then buying it. I think you need to try things out a few times, see if there's a pattern or if you just had a good day the first time, see the ball flight outdoors, see how it works when you're not locked into the comfort zone of a place that doesn't penalize bad shots, etc.

I hit a lot of golf clubs indoors in either sims or launch monitors to get data, but my experience has shown me that my opinions may change greatly when I hit that first ball off the grass.

People get wrapped up in one or the other, when I think a combination of the two is probably the best.
 
If I had to choose one over the other, I'd probably side with the numbers. I believe that it is better to go with a choice that can be quantified over something that is personal. Now, if the numbers are very close, I'll then defer to feel.
 
I agree Hawk, couldn't be more well said. It is a combination of both. I had great numbers with the Answer with the blur stiff shaft. I played the club and was in the middle with it for as long as I had it. It was not as long as other clubs I hit, but, it's dispersion was great. In the end, I had to get something else, because I couldn't stand the sound. I didn't switch until I found a club that gave me equal or better performance with a better sound. Most club engineers will say that sound is a big part of feel. I think it has to be a combination of both feel and numbers.
 
LargePhil said:
I agree Hawk, couldn't be more well said. It is a combination of both. I had great numbers with the Answer with the blur stiff shaft. I played the club and was in the middle with it for as long as I had it. It was not as long as other clubs I hit, but, it's dispersion was great. In the end, I had to get something else, because I couldn't stand the sound. I didn't switch until I found a club that gave me equal or better performance with a better sound. Most club engineers will say that sound is a big part of feel. I think it has to be a combination of both feel and numbers.
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My belief is that you can pretty much find the combination of both things with every type of club on the market these days. There are so many shaft and head options that I don't think you have to sacrifice much with launch numbers to get a look/sound you like. Unless you are talking extremes of course.
 
Of course I am talking Extremes. Look at my sig. :wink:
 
hahaha
 
I have recently been led to learn that fit has a lot to do with feel. As my swing improves I hit more balls in the center of the face and am really liking the feel of my irons more.

So is it that clubs that fit better off the rack feel better and show better numbers on the LM? Or clubs that fit your swing that feel better?
 
That's a pretty good point. Things start to sound and look a whole lot better when you hit them well.
 
LargePhil said:
I agree Hawk, couldn't be more well said. It is a combination of both. I had great numbers with the Answer with the blur stiff shaft. I played the club and was in the middle with it for as long as I had it. It was not as long as other clubs I hit, but, it's dispersion was great. In the end, I had to get something else, because I couldn't stand the sound. I didn't switch until I found a club that gave me equal or better performance with a better sound. Most club engineers will say that sound is a big part of feel. I think it has to be a combination of both feel and numbers.
Click to expand...

Hawk said:
I think 'feel' is probably one of the most overrated elements when it comes to club selection. The reason being that we tend to use our inflated images of ourselves to make decisions. Then we justify it by using intangible terms that don't really mean anything. I've done it many times.

If we're looking at two clubs with mostly equal performance and one looks/sounds better, then I'd say it's not overrated.

If you are knowedgable enough to know what numbers to look for, they are a great way to judge performance. Same thing goes for finding a good club fitter. What doesn't work (very often) is hitting a club for ten minutes on a launch monitor and then buying it. I think you need to try things out a few times, see if there's a pattern or if you just had a good day the first time, see the ball flight outdoors, see how it works when you're not locked into the comfort zone of a place that doesn't penalize bad shots, etc.

I hit a lot of golf clubs indoors in either sims or launch monitors to get data, but my experience has shown me that my opinions may change greatly when I hit that first ball off the grass.

People get wrapped up in one or the other, when I think a combination of the two is probably the best.
Click to expand...

Let me throw this out at you. Is it possible to have great feel and bad numbers. I mean, the ball melts into the face of the club, it goes straight but everything else is off. Does this mean you had a 'striaght ball flight" kinda of day and your flaws will start to show over time. Or does the body knows what it likes? Do you understand what I am trying to say?

This is how we used to purchase clubs. The ball went straight and it felt good at impact. But now we have number that might say different. How do we know which to trust?
 
Tadashi70 said:
Let me throw this out at you. Is it possible to have great feel and bad numbers. I mean, the ball melts into the face of the club, it goes straight but everything else is off. Does this mean you had a 'striaght ball flight" kinda of day and your flaws will start to show over time. Or does the body knows what it likes? Do you understand what I am trying to say?

This is how we used to purchase clubs. The ball went straight and it felt good at impact. But now we have number that might say different. How do we know which to trust?
Click to expand...


You know what to trust by taking it outside and seeing for yourself I guess. Or, by hitting it on more than one occasion. Hell, our idea of good ball flight might be completely off base. Plenty of people (me included as recently as last year) think that ideal ball flight is much lower than it really is if we are trying to maximize carry.

I mean, all kinds of clubs can sound, look or feel not that great, but still give you a good end result. I thought the JPX Fli Hi hybrids performed quite well, but they sounded bad and looked even worse. Luckily, there's plenty of clubs out there that performed well and pleased me aesthetically.

I think feel is one of those terms that we could be talking about and have a completely different definition of at the same time. Maybe we're not talking about the same thing.
 
I'll give you a good example from my personal experience, Freddie.

I loved the 10.5 Classic. I chose it as my Morgan Cup driver exactly the way you described. Went and hit a bunch of the options and that was the one I thought gave me the best ball flight. I loved the way it looked and sounded. Loved the way it felt through the swing. Even hit some long (to me) drives throughout the year.


I start reviewing 2013 drivers in December and I grab the Classic to test out as a baseline. The first thing I notice on a launch monitor is that my launch with it is around 10° or lower and my spin in the very low 2k's and sometimes even in the high 1k's. That's not optimal by any stretch of the imagination. Doesn't mean I can't find another Classic to game, but my perception or self fitting based on the way things looked put me in a driver that lowered my carry numbers by dozens of yards.
 
I would go with the numbers and like others, trust that I'd learn to enjoy the feel with the positive results.
 
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