Shaft Weight/Club Balance and Effect on Face Impact

[A.Princey]

I'm wondering if significant increase(20g or more) to a shaft could affect impact location on a driver due to total COG change in the club. Could the extra weight, nearer to the hands and up away from the head, translate into heel strikes as the newly perceived weight balance has crept towards the hands themselves? Could the player feel the head in such a way that heel contact feels like center? Vice versa, would an ultralite shaft cause toe shots, due to perceived head feel further out on the club?

 

Basically, is their any correlation to COG of the entire club itself and club path?

[Jagpilotohio]

Different people “feel” things differently and react to things differently. This could very well be a fittting patern for some people. I’ve never specifically heard of it but it’s possible.

 

I generally saw more strike pattern variations in heel and toe strikes when fitting different lengths than different weights.....but of course I almost never varied driver shafts by 20 or more grams during a fitting. Rarely more the 10 grams.

 

Usually used 50 and 60 gram series or 60 and 70 gram series for a particular player. Rarely 50 to 70 or 60 to 80. Only a tiny percentage of people ever end up in an 80 gram driver shaft anyway.

[Nard_S]

I don't think so. If it did though you would probably adjust without realizing it.Weight has more to do with how you react to it. How it works with tempo/rhythm, sequencing and firing of muscles. That can change with the same golfer over time too.

[chrisgilly09]

Obviously it’ll change swingweight, and a higher swingweight is easier to get the club underneath the hands in the downswing, so maybe that would contribute to getting dumped under and toe strikes. Your example would lighten the swingweight...so maybe that’s true

[RichieHunt]

Swingweight is a worthless metric because of the flaws involved with the measurement. Essentially, it's more important to know the MOI of the club around the grip and the total weight.

 

Adding a heavier shaft will increase increase the total weight (obviously), but will increase the MOI around the grip to a varying degrees. If the shaft is designed with more weight towards the tip, MOI of the club increases more compared to if the shaft is designed with more weight towards the butt of the shaft.

 

When golfers get a club that has a MOI around the grip that is closer to fitting their swing (how the golfer applies force to the shaft)...their impact dispersion improves and often times in a dramatic fashion.

 

For instance, let's say a golfer is best fitted at 2,800 MOI units (driver) using the GolfMechanix MOI Auditor machine. If their current driver is at 2,750 MOI and they put a new, 20 gram heavier shaft in and it now measures at 2,790...the impact dispersion will likely improve.

 

But, if you're at 2,850 MOI units and add a 20-gram heavier shaft and are now at 2,890 MOI units...your impact dispersion will get worse because the driver was effectively 'too heavy' for you to begin with.

 

Generally, I find that too much MOI on longer clubs like a driver can cause players to top it, conversely too light can cause them to hit it fat (3-wood divot or driver hit too high on the face). With shorter clubs, too much MOI around the grip usually causes the opposite...golfer tends to hit shots fat.

 

The other part to it is the distribution of the weight of the entire club. For instance, let's say you have 2 clubs measured at 2,800 MOI units. But they can have very different swing characteristics if their weight distribution is different. One club may have a head that weighs 210 grams and the other club head may weigh 190 grams. The 210 gram head will likely have a lighter shaft and the 190 gram head will likely have a heavier shaft (or they may just make the shaft longer).

 

Typically, I have found that if you have the correct MOI around the grip for your swing, but the distribution of the weight is not a good fit for your swing...you can have a smaller horizontal impact dispersion due to the MOI fitting your swing. But, the vertical impact dispersion is more likely to be off.

 

For instance, with longer clubs, if the MOI around the grip is correct, but the head is too light, I find that you are more likely to struggle with hitting it fat and more towards the toe.

 

Conversely, if the MOI around the grip is correct, but the head is too heavy...I find that golfers tend to struggle hitting it thin and the impact dispersion moves more towards the heel.

 

This is something to consider with these carbon fiber driver heads which are usually very light in the head, but given their design can still produce MOI around the grip that are not 'too light.' And I don't think it's a coincidence that TaylorMade moved the CoG of their M3 and M4 heads closer to the toe than in their M1 and M2 models. Nor do I think it's a coincidence that they created the Twist Face to help with toe hits.

 

 

 

 

RH

[Nard_S]

Good comments Rich. Interesting that I recently added 15 g to grip end of Driver to mimic one that had an OS corded grip and had a lot of success with..Big thing I noticed impact area was lowered which worked because my tendency is to hit too high on face.

 

As to irons, for past year prefer a corded grip and 4 wraps progressively stepped down (adds 8 grams) and find same trends you describe. There's a Goldilocks to doing this but if you find the right window, it can be of real benefit.

[RichieHunt]

Good comments Rich. Interesting that I recently added 15 g to grip end of Driver to mimic one that had an OS corded grip and had a lot of success with..Big thing I noticed impact area was lowered which worked because my tendency is to hit too high on face.

 

As to irons, for past year prefer a corded grip and 4 wraps progressively stepped down (adds 8 grams) and find same trends you describe. There's a Goldilocks to doing this but if you find the right window, it can be of real benefit.

 

Just like the shaft, the grip's design can change the MOI as well.

 

For instance, if I go from a regular 2G Wrap to a Midsize 2G wrap (about 10 grams heavier), the MOI will barely change, if any at all. This is where swingweight is a foolish measurement because it says that when you add weight to the club...the club is somehow lighter...which makes no sense.

 

Anyway, went from a 2G Wrap to a Superstroke Midsize Wrap. That is about 8-grams heavier than the 2G midsize. However, I saw a greater jump in the MOI. Why? Because the Superstroke wrap grip has more of the weight towards the mouth of the grip.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

RH

[A.Princey]

Thanks for all the interesting information, so much beyond even what I thought as influential. I just know that since going significantly shorter in driver and tying to simulate a heavier shaft weight as recommended, my impact pattern has migrated to the heel. I might experiment with uber light shafts and all headweight to see if there's a trend that moves impact out. My driver swing is much flatter than irons, so trying to create a flow with the rest of my set might be entirely wrong. I might need to go back to the drawing board and rethink my goal here. At least my hooks and snappers are all gone now, and not just cause of heel shots.

[A.Princey]

It's winter here and the deep freeze is worse than ever, I'm going to be delving deep into this curiosity about impact. I plan to try several combinations. Light, medium, and heavy static weights at various swing weights. I have a hunch that for me, a heavier driver overall that swing weights into a normal range will bring my impact heel-side. I think I need a lighter overall weight and possibly more head weight to get it back to center.

[Stuart_G]

I'm wondering if significant increase(20g or more) to a shaft could affect impact location on a driver due to total COG change in the club. Could the extra weight, nearer to the hands and up away from the head, translate into heel strikes as the newly perceived weight balance has crept towards the hands themselves?

 

Lots of things are possible. However, for driver - I think It's more likely that the change in weight feel caused some changes to the release timing or sequencing or even swing plane in a way that changed where the club actually bottomed out - which in turn then causes some change to the impact location on the face.

 

But the exact reason isn't nearly as important as the results. If a certain equipment change causes a noticeable shift in impact location, it's usually an good indication that 1) it probably wasn't that great of a change from the standpoint of how well the equipment fits you compare to the previous configuration or 2) Some other compensation may be needed to the equipment to compensate. And the only way to tell which might be the case is to continue the trail and error process of finding the best fit and best results for you.