To weaken lofts, or not to weaken lofts, that is the question

[LUXOR54]

Right now I'm a click away from buying a set of PXG 0211 ST blades 5-PW+G. Only thought is if I should weaken the lofts or not. Every iron set I've played in the last few years has had pretty traditional lofts and even gapping. My current RAZR X musclebacks are a 35° 7 iron that I can hit 170 yards, with even 4° gapping from 5-P. The PXG's are a 32° 7 iron, and have 5° gaps from 8-G, 4° gaps from 6-8, and a 3° gap from 5-6. Very similar to that of T100S. I don't know if I'm overthinking this, but I'd like to get the opinion of you tinkerers out there. Should I weaken the lofts by one or two degrees to make them more traditional, or just keep them stock and blast them out there

Edited October 20, 2021 by LUXOR54
Grammar

[jvincent]

Pick a reference club, either your longest or shortest, and adjust the lofts to get the yardage gaps you want.

 

Strictly speaking the actual loft is irrelevant unless you need to change it by a large amount to get the gap you want.

 

Personally I start from my LW and go up from there.

[tlehmann]

95% of GolfWRX orders must include strengthened/weakened lofts and hard/soft stepped shafts 🤦‍♂️.  

 

The club is designed to be played at its stock loft.  The CG and static loft work together. 

[PEI_Golfer]

Bend to what gap you want, but stop looking at the number on the bottom of the club.

[LUXOR54]

11 minutes ago, tlehmann said:

95% of GolfWRX orders must include strengthened/weakened lofts and hard/soft stepped shafts 🤦‍♂️.  

 

The club is designed to be played at its stock loft.  The CG and static loft work together. 

That's what I figured, the guys that designed it know better than me. Just going to be a departure from what I'm used to, hopefully a successful experiment

[CROUSE99]

Buy 'em.  After a few rounds and range sessions, adjust as needed.

[Cactus Jack]

I would weaken the lofts to take out some of the offset. Also, PXGs are fairly low spin so you might pick up a few RPMs and maybe get a small bump in peak height. The result would be marginal, but I’d do it to reduce offset regardless. 

[puresurfr]

Whenever im on the course there is always a calculation for uphill or downhill and wind as well as wind direction, not to mention if its cold in the morning or hot in the afternoon.  All those situations require me to add or subtract yards,  it should be relatively easy to calculate if your 170 club becomes your 175 or 178 club ???

[Billfitz]

I've never owned a set of irons where the gapping was out of whack. With each new set I did have to figure out the distance I got from each club, but that was a fairly easy process. I wouldn't do any loft or lie adjusting before playing the clubs. You've got to be sure if something is broken before you go about fixing it.

[greenj20]

Get a PXG fitting. $50 and the mobile van will come to your local range or you can go to the nearest one they work out of. They will get you on a trackman and you can see the gaps for yourself.

[LUXOR54]

5 minutes ago, greenj20 said:

Get a PXG fitting. $50 and the mobile van will come to your local range or you can go to the nearest one they work out of. They will get you on a trackman and you can see the gaps for yourself.

Not a big presence up north yet unfortunately, closest fitter seems to be about 2 hours away each way, and attached to a private club. Most grass ranges and courses are closing down here this weekend. 

[greenj20]

3 minutes ago, LUXOR54 said:

Not a big presence up north yet unfortunately, closest fitter seems to be about 2 hours away each way, and attached to a private club. Most grass ranges and courses are closing down here this weekend. 

Ah too bad. Got a club champion nearby? That is the only other way to demo some PXGs to my knowledge.

[LUXOR54]

19 minutes ago, greenj20 said:

Ah too bad. Got a club champion nearby? That is the only other way to demo some PXGs to my knowledge.

No club Champions North of the border, and to top it all off a lot of DTC companies don't offer demos to Canada, it seems to be getting better, but not there just yet

[R5Two]

Weakening lofts does effect offset and bounce to some degree (no pun intended). That being said I always match my new set to my old, typically start at PW 48°. For me it helps keep distances consistant, but more importantly allows me to hit the ball high with spin with shorter clubs. All about preference, but I have never had an issue ordering them weak. Currently game ZX7s ordered weak and love them. 

[Mustard_Tiger]

I ignore the number stamped on the sole and go only by loft. I've played irons with a PW loft of 46 or 47 for the last 20 years. So whatever set I buy I make sure there is something at 46 or 47 degrees that I consider the PW and then work back toward my shortest hybrid (which is 24*).

 

My current set is a blended set of Titleist AP1's (6-8) and AP2's (8-PW). I have two 8 irons but they are 4 degrees apart. I built the AP2's to standard length and the AP1's 1/2 inch over length. Then I took a paint pen and marked each of the AP1's one iron number less (so the 6 iron is marked 5, etc.) That way I don't ever get myself confused and I can keep calling the irons the same number I have called them for the last 20 years despite the fact that Titleist jacked the lofts on the AP1's.

 

Edited October 20, 2021 by Mustard_Tiger

[R5Two]

6 hours ago, Mustard_Tiger said:

I ignore the number stamped on the sole and go only by loft. I've played irons with a PW loft of 46 or 47 for the last 20 years. So whatever set I buy I make sure there is something at 46 or 47 degrees that I consider the PW and then work back toward my shortest hybrid (which is 24*).

 

My current set is a blended set of Titleist AP1's (6-8) and AP2's (8-PW). I have two 8 irons but they are 4 degrees apart. I built the AP2's to standard length and the AP1's 1/2 inch over length. Then I took a paint pen and marked each of the AP1's one iron number less (so the 6 iron is marked 5, etc.) That way I don't ever get myself confused and I can keep calling the irons the same number I have called them for the last 20 years despite the fact that Titleist jacked the lofts on the AP1's.

 

Actually this is a really good point and post. A lot of sets are doing attack wedges close to PW traditional lofts. Great point. I know a PGA Professional that just got his T100/T200 combo and carries a 4i in each! All in the gapping. Great post

[Stuart_G]

11 hours ago, tlehmann said:

The club is designed to be played at its stock loft.  The CG and static loft work together. 

 

No.  The stock specs are designed to first and foremost sell clubs and secondarily work (arbitrarily) well for average customers.   There is nothing magic or special about the specs that are guaranteed to work well for all customers.

 

Distance gaps frequently need to be adjusted.

 

Then there is the question of whether to adjust the wedges to sync (gap well) with the iron set - or adjust the iron set to sync with the wedges.    There is no right or wrong way to do that - it's purely personal preference.

 

Edited October 20, 2021 by Stuart_G

[Alan Pllu]

I dropped a long iron and had to add a 2nd gap wedge when I changed from mp68 to mp18 because everything was a couple of degrees stronger and I couldn't get my gaps to work at the bottom end. Found that a 49 worked well and bridged the gap nicely between the new slightly stronger pw and the 52 gap wedge that I am used to playing. 

 

That way I managed to not affect the bottom end of my bag that was working well whilst maintaining a sensible gapping through the bag. I had to tweak a couple of lofts by a degree here or there for everything to gap nicely but it was purely for yardage gaps and not to make the lofts look good on paper. 

[tlehmann]

4 hours ago, Stuart_G said:

 

No.  The stock specs are designed to first and foremost sell clubs and secondarily work (arbitrarily) well for average customers.   There is nothing magic or special about the specs that are guaranteed to work well for all customers.

 

Distance gaps frequently need to be adjusted.

 

Then there is the question of whether to adjust the wedges to sync (gap well) with the iron set - or adjust the iron set to sync with the wedges.    There is no right or wrong way to do that - it's purely personal preference.

 

No.  The OP posted about matching lofts to his old set.  Stronger lofted sets like PXG have a low CG, the same way GI irons with mega strong lofts have the lowest CGs, and his MB irons with weak lofts have a high CG.  CG and lofts are designed to work together.  

 

If he delivers the club where he needs more loft and bounce, go ahead and bend them weak.  But for the sake of matching loft specs, the head designs are different.  Matching the lofts between two different head designs will create a different launch window.

[Howard_Jones]

16 hours ago, LUXOR54 said:

That's what I figured, the guys that designed it know better than me. Just going to be a departure from what I'm used to, hopefully a successful experiment

But the designer dont know your club speed or angle of attach, but you should wait with adjustment until you have tried them off, and adjust for actual gaps on carry and the stopping power you want.

[LUXOR54]

2 minutes ago, Howard_Jones said:

But the designer dont know your club speed or angle of attach, but you should wait with adjustment until you have tried them off, and adjust for actual gaps on carry and the stopping power you want.

Fair enough, looks like it's going to require some tinkering. I might end up going with the new level PF-1 irons over the PXG, for the same setup the PXG's are nearly twice as expensive. A good chunk of that is $50 CAD upcharge per club for KBS tour, a shaft most other manufacturers charge nothing extra, or a slight increase for, left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth

[Cwebb]

3 hours ago, tlehmann said:

No.  The OP posted about matching lofts to his old set.  Stronger lofted sets like PXG have a low CG, the same way GI irons with mega strong lofts have the lowest CGs, and his MB irons with weak lofts have a high CG.  CG and lofts are designed to work together.  

 

If he delivers the club where he needs more loft and bounce, go ahead and bend them weak.  But for the sake of matching loft specs, the head designs are different.  Matching the lofts between two different head designs will create a different launch window.

 

When we look at independently measured COG, like the raw data published by the Golfworks (Maltby), we find that there is no correlation between stronger lofts and lower COG...and vice versa.  In fact many of the stronger lofted designs actually have a higher COG

[mogc60]

6 hours ago, LUXOR54 said:

Fair enough, looks like it's going to require some tinkering. I might end up going with the new level PF-1 irons over the PXG, for the same setup the PXG's are nearly twice as expensive. A good chunk of that is $50 CAD upcharge per club for KBS tour, a shaft most other manufacturers charge nothing extra, or a slight increase for, left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth

I would look at PXG at some point too but their shaft pricing is absurd. I don’t mind paying premium price for clubheads but paying big up charge for stuff over an elevate shaft is a big turn off for me

[Stuart_G]

15 hours ago, tlehmann said:

No.  The OP posted about matching lofts to his old set. 

 

No.  He specifically asked the question about going with the stock lofts or going back to more traditional lofts.   He didn't say anything about trying to match anything.

 

15 hours ago, tlehmann said:

Stronger lofted sets like PXG have a low CG, the same way GI irons with mega strong lofts have the lowest CGs, and his MB irons with weak lofts have a high CG.  CG and lofts are designed to work together.  

 

No.  They really are not.  c.g. has some effect but not that much.   It's all about the loft jacking battles between the OEM's. 

 

Note, that's not a judgement, it's just a statement of fact about how and why the lofts are changing as much as they are.   And there are enough threads on the topic that I have no interest in or continuing that one here.  It is what it is.

 

 

15 hours ago, tlehmann said:

If he delivers the club where he needs more loft and bounce, go ahead and bend them weak.  But for the sake of matching loft specs, the head designs are different.  Matching the lofts between two different head designs will create a different launch window.

 

It's true that he should not automatically assume that the old lofts will give the old performance.  But on the other hand there is nothing special or magic about the new lofts either.

 

But the bottom line is yes, bending decisions should be based on actual performance and carry distances he gets with his swing AND how he wants those carry distances to fit and merge with the rest of his clubs (wedges, hybrids, fairways, etc...).   Most will want to put the emphasis on the transition between the wedge distances and the short iron distance.     Rarely will the distances automatically fit well with existing wedges when there are large loft changes in the irons.  So the big question really tends to be - 1) adjust the wedges (or even add a new one) vs 2) adjusting the irons.   There is no real big advantage or disadvantage either way (unless maybe you count the cost of a new wedge a disadvantage).

 

 

Edited October 21, 2021 by Stuart_G

[Yuck]

Ignore club loft gaps.  A 4 degree gap in a mid or long iron can potentially leave a pretty high yardage gap.  Once you have your irons, adjust the lofts as needed to create your desired yardage gaps.  That might be 3 degrees on the long irons and 5 degrees on short irons.  (Or more or less).  

 

[JFORBES]

Bent my ZX5s 2 degrees weak to help get my spin numbers up. However, since that change I've noticed I'm hitting my irons quite thin. Would the 2 degrees of increased bounce really throw off my turf interaction that much? I am without a doubt a picker of the ball as I have never been overly steep. I never had these poor thin mishits prior to weakening the lofts.

 

Is it all in my head? Maybe I've lost my swing? Or am I onto something...

[Nessism]

1 hour ago, JFORBES said:

Bent my ZX5s 2 degrees weak to help get my spin numbers up. However, since that change I've noticed I'm hitting my irons quite thin. Would the 2 degrees of increased bounce really throw off my turf interaction that much? I am without a doubt a picker of the ball as I have never been overly steep. I never had these poor thin mishits prior to weakening the lofts.

 

Is it all in my head? Maybe I've lost my swing? Or am I onto something...

 

Don't give up!

 

2 degrees of bounce shouldn't be a night and day change.  Maybe focus on hitting down and through on the ball?  That's always a good swing thought.