Understanding Club Design

Hi guys,

I'm a beginner golfer but I'm an old tennis player.

In tennis, I use "Tour" level rackets. The same that Pete Sampras and Roger Federer used. It's on the heavy side, slim profile, smaller head - all making it unforgiving. I need to hit the ball near perfect to get a good shot.

On the opposite end are "beginner or senior" rackets which are very light, huge heads, thick profile. These rackets don't require a perfect swing.

For golf, I don't really know what makes something more or less forgiving. All I know is that I should swap my long irons for hybrids. That's it.

So my question is, what specifically makes clubs more forgiving?

Thanks!

8

P.s.

I use Callaway X22 Tour irons with stiff shafts from 2010-2011.

Sent from my LG-H860 using Tapatalk

A number of things.
Could be as simple as mass. Could be as complex as material and weight distribution.
Sole size, perimeter weighting, materials, actual mass, weight location, MOI (on a smaller scale) and a lot more.

8livesleft said:

Hi guys,

I'm a beginner golfer but I'm an old tennis player.

In tennis, I use "Tour" level rackets. The same that Pete Sampras and Roger Federer used. It's on the heavy side, slim profile, smaller head - all making it unforgiving. I need to hit the ball near perfect to get a good shot.

On the opposite end are "beginner or senior" rackets which are very light, huge heads, thick profile. These rackets don't require a perfect swing.

For golf, I don't really know what makes something more or less forgiving. All I know is that I should swap my long irons for hybrids. That's it.

So my question is, what specifically makes clubs more forgiving?

Thanks!

8

P.s.

I use Callaway X22 Tour irons with stiff shafts from 2010-2011.

Sent from my LG-H860 using Tapatalk

Click to expand...

Since you are a tennis player, imagine a racket head size twice as large as anything available today. Most tennis players would agree that it would be very challenging to make strokes and solid ball contact with such a large head. So, such a large racket would actually be "less forgiving" than a more sensible size racket.
Golf equipment companies use computer assisted design (CAD) and the larger the head the more moment of inertia (MOI) which , in computer simulations equates to "forgiveness". But I think sometimes the larger golf club heads are more challenging to square at impact, and could be less forgiving than a smaller head, especially from sloped, grassy, or other less than ideal lies.
Personally I believe the most forgiving iron might be a relatively small head with a very deep cavity back. This would offer the benefits of a small head but with perimeter weighting to provide distance and accuracy forgiveness. But, ever since the industry went to CAD, companies are no longer producing small head deep cavity back designs.

Small club head but big cavity eh?

Well my clubs are definitely small looking. Not much of a cavity tho.

A friend said I should just stick with these and "grow" with them.

I guess it'll force me to get better since I need to hit it near perfect to get the ball going.

Sent from my LG-H860 using Tapatalk

8livesleft said:

Small club head but big cavity eh?

Well my clubs are definitely small looking. Not much of a cavity tho.

A friend said I should just stick with these and "grow" with them.

I guess it'll force me to get better since I need to hit it near perfect to get the ball going.

Sent from my LG-H860 using Tapatalk

Click to expand...

Yes, Karsten Solheim believed in the benefits of perimeter weighting, but he also knew that too large of a head would be counter productive, so his Ping Karsten I, II, II, IV, Eye , Eye 2 designs all had relatively small heads with deep cavity backs. Also back during that era, say 25 years ago, Tommy Armour golf copied Karsten's design concept and their 845 iron was a phenomenal success.
Sadly, once computer assisted design (CAD) became readily available, the golf equipment companies began relying on CAD and the small head-deep cavity back irons were no longer produced.
I have no doubt that with today's available materials, weighting technology etc... a company could produce some amazing performance relatively small head - deep cavity back designs, but CAD targets high MOI (rather than actual golf course lie and playing conditions criteria) , so the equipment companies just keep designing-producing large iron heads.