How Is Driver Face Angle Determined?

[EmperorPenguin]

This question I have always wondered for some time, yet never asked.  How is a driver's face angle determined?  Is the club soled flatly on the ground and the face is measured against the ball?  I remember some driver faces with very closed club faces, most extreme I can remember is the Callaway Diablo driver.  That is maybe three or four degrees shut.  What about a driver that has a face angle of one-degree closed?  I can set it up normally and the face will indeed be closed a degree or so, but I can re-grip the club turning it a touch clockwise and now I have a square club face.  I am old-school, and I prefer drivers with fixed hosels and zero adjustability, so assume for now drivers like, say, a Callaway Big Bertha Titanium 454, Titleist 983K, Ping G2, TaylorMade R510, etc.

[Adam C]

Clubs sit open or closed because of a difference between the balance point and the contact point on the sole of the club. If the balance point sits closer to the face than the contact point with the ground, the club will sit closed. If the balance point is farther from the face than the contact point, then the club will sit open.

 

This is why an adjustable hosel club will often show a change in how the club sits after making a hosel adjustment. The contact point is moved and thereby the club head will "fall" open or closed accordingly.

[Stuart_G]

1 hour ago, EmperorPenguin said:

This question I have always wondered for some time, yet never asked.  How is a driver's face angle determined?  Is the club soled flatly on the ground and the face is measured against the ball? 

 

Technically the club is placed on the gauge in it's "naturally soled" position of rest with the shaft aligned at the proper lie angle of the head and perpendicular to the target line.   The face angle is then measured against that target line.

 

With old drivers (e.g. persimmon) that had a fairly flat bottom, it was relatively easy.  But now the complex geometry of modern driver soles makes it much trickier because that 'naturally soled' position isn't always that stable.  And the lie angle being off from the designed lie angle can alter the appearance of the face angle more than with the old clubs.   That means different players with different ways of setting up and addressing the balls can see different things (even assuming the teeing ground is level - which isn't always the case).

 

1 hour ago, Adam C said:

This is why an adjustable hosel club will often show a change in how the club sits after making a hosel adjustment. The contact point is moved and thereby the club head will "fall" open or closed accordingly.

 

Yes, c.g. can effect the naturally soled position with the curved sole geometry but it's actually the need to realign the shaft back to being perpendicular to the target line after a hosel adjustment that opens/closes the face angle. 

 

 

 

Edited June 1, 2021 by Stuart_G

[Ri_Redneck]

Good answers above for measured Face Angle. However, the only Face Angle that matters is the one at impact. And THAT one is determined by the golfer. 

 

BT

[EmperorPenguin]

For a moment I thought that when the driver head is made, the face angle was determined by the angle the hosel was set into the head.  Bend the hosel and you can change from one-degree closed to square, etc..

[Stuart_G]

3 minutes ago, EmperorPenguin said:

For a moment I thought that when the driver head is made, the face angle was determined by the angle the hosel was set into the head.  Bend the hosel and you can change from one-degree closed to square, etc..

 

That's a big part of it but the curved shapes of the soles in modern drivers can complicate things quit a bit.

[Ri_Redneck]

As do adjustable hosels. 

 

BT