Loft, length confusion

[garethw]

In a recent moment of madness I brought some Callaway Apex irons 5 - SW off the rack with no fitting. My previous set was Ping G25 which I was fitted in to a blue dot. They have the same shafts Nippon NS950 in regular flex in them, which is a pretty standard shaft fitted in irons here in Thailand

The Apex 7 iron is 31* and 37 Inches in length compared to 32* and 36.75 with the Pings. With the Pings I was seeing 135 - 140 yards carry with the Apex that has increased to 150 - 155.

Apex 8 iron is 35* and 36.5 inches, Ping 36* and 36* and 36.25 inches. Pings 120 yards carry, Apex 135 - 140 carry.

How does 1 degree loft difference and 0.25 inch difference cause such a large carry distance? The swing weight of the Apex are D2 whereas the Pings are D0.

I am not sure if it is a mental / physical thing as I feel I have slowed my swing down a lot with the Apex due to having smaller heads than the Pings and this is providing more consistent ball striking. I seem to be hitting the centre of the face more regularly which I assume is helping as well.

Part of the reason I went for smaller heads was due to buying some Scor wedges several months ago, again they have slight smaller heads to the Ping wedges and to get them straight and high I slowed things down which in turn improved my accuracy and gained more consistent distances with them. Rightly or wrongly (or expensively) I thought maybe smaller iron heads would do the same thing. I'm playing off a 29 now and whilst I know the Apex are listed under GI clubs everything I have read suggests they should be used by someone with a far lower handicap than I currently have.

 

[baldguy]

length and loft are not the only thing that determine ball flight. It's been discussed ad nauseum on these forums, but there is a multitude of things that will change how far a particular iron goes for you. I think you're on the right track with the mental/physical aspect.

 

[Hawk]

My guess is that it's a combo of launch/spin that is giving you better carry numbers. Unless your ball speed is drastically changing. The Apex put up some lower spin numbers from what I hear and my experience with the G25's was the opposite. Sometimes less spin will give you more carry with an iron - assuming launch is high enough.

 

[thewitt]

1 degree of loft and 1/4 inch in length will not have that impact.

If you were to shorten your new irons by 1/4" and bend them 1* weak you would not see a corresponding decrease in distance.

The dynamics of these heads are likely resulting in different launch conditions. Weight distribution in the head will impact shaft forward flex at address as well.

That said, remember you are going by the marked loft, unless you had the irons measured.

Factory manufacturing specs are +/- 1* for irons, so if by chance your first set was 1 degree weak and your second was 1 degree strong, you would actually be seeing a 3 degree difference in loft between sets and this WOULD result in nearly a one club difference in length...