Lie Angle at address

[dlow206]

Just for reference, I did a dynamic lie angle test a long time ago with 2 degree flat Mizuno JPX 919 Hot Metals, and that was the right lie angle at the time. The Mizunos are 1.5 degrees flatter than Titleist as a starting point (i.e. stock). I was being dumb or not focused with my subsequent purchases and not thinking about the starting point for the stock lie angles. 

 

I will report back tomorrow with the results from my fitting. 

[joostin]

Got about 8° difference from address to impact from your swing vid:

 

FWIW Tiger had 5° difference here:

 

Ryan Moore, who has the lowest hand address I can think of, came out to 13° difference!

 

Not suggesting swing changes to you, which looks pretty solid IMO, just showing observations of different swings from the DTL view.  Bryson likely has the least difference with his single plane swing.

[dlow206]

9 minutes ago, joostin said:

Got about 8° difference from address to impact from your swing vid:

 

FWIW Tiger had 5° difference here:

 

Ryan Moore, who has the lowest hand address I can think of, came out to 13° difference!

 

Not suggesting swing changes to you, which looks pretty solid IMO, just showing observations of different swings from the DTL view.  Bryson likely has the least difference with his single plane swing.

 

Thanks for putting that together, this is awesome. I was choked down a decent amount on these swings. I am guessing i probably raise the handle more when I don't choke down because the club would be even more toe up at address.

[joostin]

7 minutes ago, dlow206 said:

 

Thanks for putting that together, this is awesome. I was choked down a decent amount on these swings. I am guessing i probably raise the handle more when I don't choke down because the club would be even more toe up at address.

👍 Helps to show that good players certainly raise the handle vs address - in a controlled manner due to natural swing dynamics vs ams that may have some kind of faulty handle raising problem.  And hand position at impact vs address is way more prominent than toe droop is to the dynamic lie.

[Howard_Jones]

On 1/19/2022 at 7:56 AM, joostin said:

So definitely do the ball marker test to see if dynamically you're getting vertical lines or not, on top of the upcoming fitting.  From your pic I measured 11° toe up using the bottom of the picture as 0°.  I want to share some pics showing how significantly different from address to impact the hand position can be.

 

Tiger - I didn't measure but you can see left to right the shaft angle and hand differences (hands vs grass mow lines):

 

Adam Scott - superimposed address and impact, measured 5° difference (from hosel to grip, toe droop will add even more):

 

Collin Morikawa - superimposed, measured 9° difference (toe droop will add even more):

 

Nelly Korda - superimposed, measured 5° difference (toe droop will add even more):

 

Most will be like them - hands a little higher and towards the ball at impact.  Collin might have his toe up close to you sometimes.

 

Here are my static numbers, fellow shorty, toe up angles on right, but all ball markers come out close to vertical dynamically (never did ball marker on driver though, but the lower the loft the less the lie effect on starting line):

 

I was surprised they were angled up that much; they look fine to me.  But I understand the look of more upright clubs not looking right....

Hope you find your happy place.  Maybe seeing vertical marks on the ball marker test will give reassurance that you're not far off.  Bending plus choking down may get you there upon testing and fitting.

Not as good as your illustrations, but pay attention to the "black turf" about the middle of the shaft from address to impact, Its simply NO WAY we can please a players demand for looks here, the best we can do is to fill the lowest groove with a color of choice to help him to address the club square.  

[dlow206]

7 hours ago, Howard_Jones said:

Not as good as your illustrations, but pay attention to the "black turf" about the middle of the shaft from address to impact, Its simply NO WAY we can please a players demand for looks here, the best we can do is to fill the lowest groove with a color of choice to help him to address the club square.  

 

The painted line on the lowest groove sounds like a great idea for me. 

[dlow206]

Just got back from my fitting at Club Champion. Fitting uses a 6 iron. First off, when the fitter took the measurement of the T300 lie angle, he said it was not 2 degrees flatter than spec, it was at about stock spec. So thats the first problem. I double checked on my Mitchell when I get home and I realize that a loft lie machine is not optimal for exact measurements. I measured slightly flatter than what was measured at Club Champion but it definitely wasn't 2 degrees flat from stock spec.

 

Second, didn't do a lie angle test with the sharpie test or with a lie angle board. However, one finding based on trying a single club bent at various lie angles was that the more upright it is, the more I miss right. That intuitively doesn't make sense, but I must be doing some sort of compensation because of how upright the club is that causes me to leave the face open. Again, this was done with the same club, he bent it between a series of shots. 

 

Lastly, I got my best fitting result overall with a Mizuno head, which was the flattest club that I tested. 

[Cwebb]

2 hours ago, dlow206 said:

However, one finding based on trying a single club bent at various lie angles was that the more upright it is, the more I miss right. That intuitively doesn't make sense, but I must be doing some sort of compensation because of how upright the club is that causes me to leave the face open. Again, this was done with the same club, he bent it between a series of shots. 

 

Lastly, I got my best fitting result overall with a Mizuno head, which was the flattest club that I tested. 

 

This actually happens quite often.  The reason for it, is that a really upright club, can often promote a "steep" swing, which can produce a path that is more 'out to in' and a release that has to be held off more open.

 

Vice versa to this, is that some players find that much flatter lies are easier to produce a controlled draw, without fighting the big pull that creeps in from time to time with the really upright clubs.  Obviously a "controlled draw" is one that starts a bit right and draws back towards the target...a push draw.

 

It seems counterintuitive, but we are not robots.  Most of us react in some way, to what we see with club angles.  All it takes is for the path angle to change more than the "face angle" change that happens with different lie angles, and we can get a different shot shape than we may have assumed.

 

You're on the right track.  For you especially, I would let the ball flight and shot results dictate where you go with your lie angles.

 

 

Edited January 21, 2022 by Cwebb

[dlow206]

11 minutes ago, Cwebb said:

 

This actually happens quite often.  The reason for it, is that a really upright club, can often promote a "steep" swing, which can produce a path that is more 'out to in' and a release that has to be held off more open.

 

Vice versa to this, is that some players find that much flatter lies are easier to produce a controlled draw, without fighting the big pull that creeps in from time to time with the really upright clubs.  Obviously a "controlled draw" is one that starts a bit right and draws back towards the target...a push draw.

 

It seems counterintuitive, but we are not robots.  Most of us react in some way, to what we see with club angles.  All it takes is for the path angle to change more than the "face angle" change that happens with different lie angles, and we can get a different shot shape than we may have assumed.

 

You're on the right track.  For you especially, I would let the ball flight and shot results dictate where you go with your lie angles.

 

 

 

Was looking more at my Trackman data. Shot 4 in the gamer, yuck, -7.1 club path, 3.2 face angle. 

 

 

The JPX Hot Metal was about 2 degrees flatter. Still negative club path but face angle has a better match up. 

 

 

The fitting was with Club Champion's overweight 6 irons, the swingweight on them was D5 or D6 because of the heavy adapter they use. I never swing quite as well at Club Champion with that extra weight, all concentrated by the hosel. 

[Cwebb]

28 minutes ago, dlow206 said:

 

Was looking more at my Trackman data. Shot 4 in the gamer, yuck, -7.1 club path, 3.2 face angle. 

 

 

The JPX Hot Metal was about 2 degrees flatter. Still negative club path but face angle has a better match up. 

 

 

The fitting was with Club Champion's overweight 6 irons, the swingweight on them was D5 or D6 because of the heavy adapter they use. I never swing quite as well at Club Champion with that extra weight, all concentrated by the hosel. 

 

You're moving in a better direction with the flatter lie angle.  I'd still want to test something more outside the box.  Shorter length with 3-4* flat.  You'll never know, without trying it.

 

A fitting is never complete if we can't dial in the head weight.  If they had some shorter shafts to test, it would be a better test scenario with the heavier heads...or worst case, choke down to make it play lighter in swing weight.

 

Since you have your own loft/lie machine,  why not get an inexpensive club or two for your own lie angle testing.  Plenty of older Mizunos out there, if that's your preference.  Nothing is better than having the ability to do your own detailed testing, over the course of many days

[dlow206]

7 minutes ago, Cwebb said:

 

You're moving in a better direction with the flatter lie angle.  I'd still want to test something more outside the box.  Shorter length with 3-4* flat.  You'll never know, without trying it.

 

A fitting is never complete if we can't dial in the head weight.  If they had some shorter shafts to test, it would be a better test scenario with the heavier heads...or worst case, choke down to make it play lighter in swing weight.

 

Since you have your own loft/lie machine,  why not get an inexpensive club or two for your own lie angle testing.  Plenty of older Mizunos out there, if that's your preference.  Nothing is better than having the ability to do your own detailed testing, over the course of many days

 

Im just a bit worried about trying to bend more than a few degrees on cast irons. If i had forged irons then not a big deal. Going to bend my SW and LW really flat though, both of those are forged.

 

and thanks for believing in my insistence that there was a problem with my length and lie angle. i just have never felt comfortable with these clubs that come with 63 degree lie angle 7 irons, even when bent a few degrees flat. i think for most folks that fit in the bell curve for height and proportions for that height, the dynamic lie angle test is fine. im just pretty far outside of that bell curve. 

Edited January 21, 2022 by dlow206

[sm_watts]

13 hours ago, Cwebb said:

 

This actually happens quite often.  The reason for it, is that a really upright club, can often promote a "steep" swing, which can produce a path that is more 'out to in' and a release that has to be held off more open.

 

This is what happened to me.  I intentionally went back to orange dots on my Ping Eye 2+ BeCu's just to try to flatten out my swing more.

[Cwebb]

1 hour ago, sm_watts said:

This is what happened to me.  I intentionally went back to orange dots on my Ping Eye 2+ BeCu's just to try to flatten out my swing more.

 

It can act as a sort of "swing plane guide", because your visual awareness and sense of feel, knows that you can't get away with a steep swing and make decent contact.  This thread that I linked earlier has a lot of discussion about it...https://forums.golfwrx.com/topic/676632-lie-angles-great-ballstrikers/