We should be able to know the actual lofts of our drivers and fairway woods!!

[Mookieb10]

Ya know, I watched a TXG video about a week ago, and Ian stated something to the effect of, “The only difference of tour issue product is know the exact loft, lie and face angle.”

 

It struck me how absurd this aspect of the industry truly is. I can go to Taylormade’s (or any other company) and purchased a SIM2 three wood with a Ventus Black for $650 and a SIM2 Max 5 wood with the same shaft for $550, a total outlay of $1,200. That 3w can be 16.2* of loft and the 5w can be 16.9* and I would have absolutely no idea, except for noticing my 3w only dribbles out there only 3 yards longer than my 5w. What on earth is going on here?

 

Everything has a manufacturing tolerance. I am not stating that tolerance is too large in the industry. I simply don’t know enough to say that. What I am sure of is: 1) you shouldn’t need to spend an extra $200 to know the loft of your “15*” 3w; and 2) you shouldn’t be able to order two separate woods from the same company and have them be a half degree apart in loft. 
 

So really, is it too much to ask for the

manufacturer to include the true specs of each club purchased? It’s a serious question. I realize any extra cost will always get passed on to the end consumer, but this can’t cost too much, right?

[lefthack]

Do you know your clubs are that far off? Not saying they can't be, but I would assume that tolerances are tighter than that. If I paid $600 for a club  I expected to be 15*, you'd better believe it's no more than .25* off of I'm raising hell.

 

What's the point of an adjustable loft if you start from more than a degree from where you expected.

[DeCuchi]

Tolerances are +/- 2 degrees last I heard. That’s most manufacturers with decent QC. I’m sure it’s even crazier for the discount brands. It’s a valid gripe. Best you can do is buy tour issue, find a good builder and have the lofts measured before purchase, or keep playing roulette with the rest of us peasants.

[tatertot]

They're pumping thousands of these heads off the line and charging $500 a pop for them ... now you you want to add the human element of having someone hand-measure the loft/lie of each head? That's going to seriously raise the time and manpower involved in production ... and your price point.

[noodle3872]

This is why I buy from Ben at The Tour Van. He specs every head for loft and lie on his Green Machine. I prefer an open face angle so if I have a face angle question Ben’s eye seems be be calibrated similar to mine as I’ve always been happy with the heads he’s sold me. 

[bunta]

its the manufacturers way of saying if you cant hit a 100yard wedge within a 15 foot circle 10 out of 10 times, then you dont need to know your 15* 3w is actually 16.2 degrees.

Edited July 10, 2021 by bunta

[PEI_Golfer]

Doesn't Ping offer hand picked heads through wrx?  

[R_Swanson]

I agree with this gripe, seems stupid to me as well. 

[Golfingfanatic]

you can order digitally lofted clubs through Ping.

[Flyers99]

I agree. I understand there needs to be a tolerance but I have also heard +\- 2 degrees.  I think 0.5 would be reasonable. I know this to be true because I have a TM hybrid stamped at 18.5 I love.  Bought another as a backup. Noticed it went almost 10 yards shorter. Was frustrated because it’s useless as a hybrid and 10 yards shorter with gapping. Had both heads looked at And the original is 17.5 and the backup came in at 19.75.  

[phizzy30]

6 hours ago, tatertot said:

They're pumping thousands of these heads off the line and charging $500 a pop for them ... now you you want to add the human element of having someone hand-measure the loft/lie of each head? That's going to seriously raise the time and manpower involved in production ... and your price point.

Don't forget that it will also raise the price point of each head as well.  More labor=more out of pocket for consumer.  The loft issue has always been there.  The tolerances for retail heads is ridiculous.  I had one of my guys measure my retail head a couple times that was supposed to be 9* w/square face come out to 10.2* w/0.5 closed.  🙄  This is why I would only buy tour issue back in the day.  Luckily we now have adjustable hosels although that can only do so much. 

 

Edited July 8, 2021 by phizzy30

[rsballer10]

To be honest I haven't seen as much variance in specs as people are claiming. I have a gauge at home and measure all my own clubs. Not to say it doesn't exist but the claim of +/- 2 degrees seems very extreme. I would venture a guess that its +/- 0.5 at the absolute worst.

 

If someone isn't precise with the measuring tools, the output will not be precise. It's extremely common in irons, where people use their bending machines to measure. With woods, if that face is not dead nuts square when measuring loft, the value measured will not be correct.

 

I could definitely be wrong, as I don't work on clubs for a living however I don't think the variation is as extreme as some claim. 

[lefthack]

I guess I'm spoiled because I work in QA and our stuff is measured in microns (10 micron margin of error). It's not like you need someone to physically measure the loft and lie when you could easily measure that with lasers (couple cheap laser levels) during production.

 

Glad I've never paid more than $125 for a club now. 🤣

[Abh159]

I've never purchased Tour Issue and I've never had any of my clubs (driver, woods, irons, etc.) be more than 0.5 * off when I had them checked. I believe the +/- 2* is a bit exaggerated.

 

That being said... I'd love to know the exact specs, but how exactly do you propose these companies do that? Are they supposed to literally take every single club head off the line, measure it, correct it, and then assemble it? 

 

If that is what you are wanting then expect to see a price increase of 50% or more due to all of the added time and labor.

[minhjn]

+/- 2 degrees sounds crazy. That can't be true 

[larryd3]

how would someone measure a driver to check the loft?  

 

[Dannyboy44]

Golf clubs are so expensive I would think that a 9* driver would be 9*. Never even thought to question this. 

[scooterhd2]

when you order a degree strong or weak from the company, they dont bend all of your irons, they just select the heads that match. because although their spec'd 7 iron is 32*, they have a basket full of 31* heads and 33* heads.

 

buy off the rack and instead of 36* 8 iron, 32* 7 iron,  and 28* 6 iron, you may be getting 37* 8 iron, 31* 7 iron and 29* 6 iron. And you wonder why you have a 18 yard gap from 7 to 8 but only 6 yards from your 7 to 6. 

[Mookieb10]

11 minutes ago, scooterhd2 said:

when you order a degree strong or weak from the company, they dont bend all of your irons, they just select the heads that match. because although their spec'd 7 iron is 32*, they have a basket full of 31* heads and 33* heads.

 

buy off the rack and instead of 36* 8 iron, 32* 7 iron,  and 28* 6 iron, you may be getting 37* 8 iron, 31* 7 iron and 29* 6 iron. And you wonder why you have a 18 yard gap from 7 to 8 but only 6 yards from your 7 to 6. 

Iron heads are something of an issue as well, but with reasonable diligence and $30, you can have them gapped properly. Woods on the other hand, it’s tougher. 

[Mookieb10]

12 hours ago, lefthack said:

Do you know your clubs are that far off? Not saying they can't be, but I would assume that tolerances are tighter than that. If I paid $600 for a club  I expected to be 15*, you'd better believe it's no more than .25* off of I'm raising hell.

 

What's the point of an adjustable loft if you start from more than a degree from where you expected.

 

1 hour ago, Abh159 said:

I've never purchased Tour Issue and I've never had any of my clubs (driver, woods, irons, etc.) be more than 0.5 * off when I had them checked. I believe the +/- 2* is a bit exaggerated.

 

That being said... I'd love to know the exact specs, but how exactly do you propose these companies do that? Are they supposed to literally take every single club head off the line, measure it, correct it, and then assemble it? 

 

If that is what you are wanting then expect to see a price increase of 50% or more due to all of the added time and labor.

+- 2 isn’t exaggerating. Take a look at this. 15* tour issue sim2 coming in at 16.6*

 

 

[mcounci2]

There's no way the manufacturing and in-line quality systems on modern golf clubs is +/- 2 degrees bad.  That sounds more like a poor measurement system (humans with gauges) to me.  I have no data to support my inference, but there has got to be better process capability than +/- 2 degrees.

 

Unless there were club-specific jigs made to repeatedly hold a specific clubhead in place for measurement, I would think a by-hand measurement of loft would be pretty bad.  I wonder if anybody has ever compiled bias and precision data for manual loft measurement....I would think not.

Edited July 8, 2021 by mcounci2

[lefthack]

1 minute ago, Mookieb10 said:

 

+- 2 isn’t exaggerating. Take a look at this. 15* tour issue sim2 coming in at 16.6*

 

 

 

Are you sure it wasn't made to 16.6 in the event someone on tour would use it?

 

I don't know club specs but it seems with tight tolerances elsewhere that lie and loft would be within .5* of "spec" but again, that isn't my world.

[juststeve]

I don't care what the actual lofts are.  I try clubs out before I buy them and if they produce the kind of ball flight I want it's a sale no matter what the actual loft is.

 

I come from a time of persimmon woods without any lofts stamped on the club.  We just tried various clubs until we found the one that worked.Once we found a perfect club it stayed our bags for a long time.

 

Steve

[me05501]

It is a bit crazy. You could have a 15* three wood that's 16* and a 17* four wood that's also 16*. But I agree with @mcounci2that the people doing the measuring are probably adding another layer of uncertainty. 

 

We dig way into the details of golf clubs, hoping we can solve the game I suppose. Meanwhile we buy all sort of much more costly, much more complicated things and we're happy if they just do what we need them to do. 

 

Think about the production tolerances of a car. Your Accord and your neighbor's might be "identical" but one is definitely faster than the other. Does it make a difference to either of you? Not a bit. 

[Abh159]

31 minutes ago, Mookieb10 said:

 

+- 2 isn’t exaggerating. Take a look at this. 15* tour issue sim2 coming in at 16.6*

 

 

 

If that is in fact a Tour Issue head then it was intentionally produced or bent to 16.6 degrees. It didn't come like that by accident. Plenty of pros have fairway woods made to specific lofts they just don't change the default paint/etching on the head to reflect the differences.

 

Tour Issue manufacturing tolerances are something like 0.1 degrees... 

[ChipNRun]

Part of the problem with plotting exact measurement is due to face roll: the measured loft will vary depending if you take a measure it low or high on the face.

 

This link explains how the process plays out when you hit the ball: Bulge and Roll

 

13 hours ago, Mookieb10 said:

That 3w can be 16.2* of loft and the 5w can be 16.9* and I would have absolutely no idea, except for noticing my 3w only dribbles out there only 3 yards longer than my 5w.

 

This is an exaggeration, barring a manufacturing malfunction. Besides loft, clubhead design characteristics such as CoG location can also influence launch angle.

 

But, I'm not worried that WRXers will find that  "...my 3w only dribbles out there only 3 yards longer than my 5w." After all, everyone know that WRXers always get fit before purchasing golf clubs. 😃 The launch monitor (and naked eye when outdoor demo day return) would reveal this.

 

[NRJyzr]

15 hours ago, DeCuchi said:

Tolerances are +/- 2 degrees last I heard. That’s most manufacturers with decent QC. 

 

8 hours ago, Flyers99 said:

I agree. I understand there needs to be a tolerance but I have also heard +\- 2 degrees.  I think 0.5 would be reasonable. 

 

5 hours ago, rsballer10 said:

Not to say it doesn't exist but the claim of +/- 2 degrees seems very extreme. I would venture a guess that its +/- 0.5 at the absolute worst.

 

4 hours ago, Abh159 said:

I believe the +/- 2* is a bit exaggerated.

 

4 hours ago, minhjn said:

+/- 2 degrees sounds crazy. That can't be true 

 

 

Back in the day, loft tolerance was always stated to be ±1*.  Tom Wishon has been on record stating that going to ±½* would actually be cost prohibitive, though it seems reasonable on the surface.

 

Thanks to Callaway, for a fair amount of time, the effective loft tolerance seemed to be -0/+3*, or even +4*, when everyone was making drivers much higher lofted because of the purchase habits of the average golfer male in the USA.  Which was less fun for those of us who actually needed 8.5* clubheads to be 8.5*.

 

In a personal, and cynical, comment...  I don't believe the equipment manufacturers have any interest in giving us truth/facts about the specs of our clubs.  The obfuscation of real specifications helps fuel equipment purchases in golf.  They would only be hurting their own bottom lines.

 

[Pepperturbo]

On 7/7/2021 at 8:37 PM, Mookieb10 said:

I simply don’t know enough to say that. What I am sure of is: 1) you shouldn’t need to spend an extra $200 to know the loft of your “15*” 3w; and 2) you shouldn’t be able to order two separate woods from the same company and have them be a half degree apart in loft. 

The presumption tied the above questions are MOST people buying golf equipment don't know enough to care about exact, and they are NOT skilled enough to bother with exact specs. 

 

When someone develops the skill and accuracy that's when they should want to know exact measurements.  There was a time when OEM's published bounce, offset, lie, loft, camber and a few other subtle specs including head weight.  But no longer, their excuse is someone is going to steal design secrets... That line of thinking is a joke, but because most people don't know enough to care, you get what you get.

 

PS, I've had each of my clubs taken apart, measured all aspects then reconfigured.

Edited July 9, 2021 by Pepperturbo
Damn dyslexia.

[lefthack]

Since it doesn't seem like anybody knows for sure, I fired off messages to Callaway, Taylormade, and Titleist asking what the manufacturing tolerances are for loft and lie in woods. The rumors are 2* but that seems extreme. 

 

See what they come back with. 

[Jc0]

The other golf website did some decent research into this in 2013 (rhymes with golf fly, not allowed to link). It seems like the tolerance are more -1/+2 on the actual loft based on their findings. Basically OEM prefer to miss high because the average player needs more, not less loft. I thought there was another study more recently that showed drivers had gotten a little better but couldn't find it.