Lie Angle

[jbil8802]

Yep, a thread on the hotly debated and somewhat confusing (to me at least) topic of lie angle. So here it is.

 

Back in May I was fitted for Ping irons using a Ping lie board. It was my first time getting fitted for anything. The lie board put me in White Dot (3* upright). I ordered said irons and played them for the whole season. Occasionally fought hooks at first but it seems that I've adjusted to them. Had the owner of my local range double check it about two months ago just out of curiosity. Same results. My shot shape is consistently a draw which I'm happy with.

 

Now as I'm sitting here pondering the deposit on I made on the Hogan irons I've been comparing the specs against the Ping specs. It seems that the Hogan irons are about 1* flatter give or take .25*. So that would put me at 4* upright in the Hogans.

 

I did some research on lie angle and found a lot of people complaining about lie boards and read about another method of checking lie angle by drawing a line on the ball then looking at the mark on the clubface but I haven't tried it yet due to the weather.

 

Since I won't be able to get the Hogan's through a fitter and don't have access to a launch monitor or anything like that I'll be ordering them online. I'm just curious what you guys think since I'll be either going with the HoganFit online recommendation based off my Ping specs or determining it myself.

[hckymeyer]

The first thing to know about lie boards is that sometimes they lie. I would look more at ball flight than a lie board. Typically if you are pulling shots you need a flatter lie and pushing shots gets more upright. This is a general rule of thumb, not an absolute.

 

More and more fitters are moving to the sharpie on a ball method as well. One big benefit of this is you can use a regular lie (i.e. Hit off turf) instead of hitting off a lie board. There was a good article on WRX today from Tom Wishon talking about lie angles and he also recommended the sharpie method.

 

Now having said all that the big question of how to order your Hogans. I would say spec them based on your Ping fitting. The nice thing is since they are a forged club you can always get them tweaked/bent again once you have them.

[revkev]

Hckymeyers post is spot on. In this case though I would call Hogan. When they were SCOR they were always great at live dialogue about equipment and concerned about getting it right. I'm sure they will chat with you about your current specs, what you like about your ball flight, what you might want to change and how their equipment might be tweaked to help.

[Kenny B]

Agree with hckymeyer and rev. I'm still debating with myself on the Hogans, but I ordered 5 SCOR wedges based on my Ping i20 iron specs which were purple dot (1.5 flat). SCOR reps suggested that I go with 1* flat because SCORs were already 1* flat. They are perfect for me. The guys at SCOR were great to work with, and I am sure that will continue with Hogan.

[jbil8802]

Great info guys, much appreciated. I'm hoping the weather breaks so I can get to the range and try the sharpie method just out of curiosity. According to Game Golf on approach shots outside of 100 yards I miss left 15% of the time and miss right 23% of the time. I'll do some testing at the range and record everything then see what the HoganFit suggests when it becomes available. I'll probably end up calling them like Rev suggested before I put the order in.

[PlaidJacket]

I too have been following Wishon's fitting series on "that" other site. It's a really good. Anyone wanting to get a grasp on what's involved or what to look for in a fitting should read it. I think Wishon has posted maybe his 3rd or 4th installment so far. I believe its a 12 part series.

Wish we had Wishon over here on this site. Sigh.

[revkev]

I've seen Wishon make comments on the blog before so he must monitor what's going on here.

[mr_divots]

When hitting off real turf, the dirt that you get on the clubface tends to make a horizon line, if you will, across the face of the iron. If the dirt horizon line on the face of the club is not parallel with the scoreline pattern on the face, they are too upright or flat.

 

I hope I explained that well enough. Just something I've noticed over the years. Not a method for fitting of course, just a way to do a check at the range without equipment of any kind.

[sp0rtsfan86]

Interesting. I know when I went in for a custom fit, the fitter had basically said that I needed to go shorter and more upright. I had to do it blind because they didn't have any clubs to fit me. I think I hit off a lie board all of twice but he noticed it immediately that my ball flight required the changes. Needless to say he nailed it.

[BK in TEXAS]

I'd match your lie angles as opposed to just going 3up with the new ones (ie Ping 7i same lie as Hogan 7i). 

 

Plus as hcky said they are forged....you can easily have them tweaked after playing a while with them.

[Kor.A.Door]

I would say that if the setup on the pings is what you like then just have the hogans set the same, if you lie angle is 3 degrees flat, then the hogans should be set that way, if the hogans ae already 1 degree flat, then they would only adjust 2 degrees flat to make them 3 flat. You wouldn't take them to 4 flat. 0 deg is 0 degrees, all the adjustments should be made from zero.

[jbil8802]

Right, they're 1* flatter than the Pings when comparing the "standard" specs of the two sets of irons. So 4* upright in the Hogans would be equivalent to 3* upright in the Pings. I think. Lol.

[Blade]

The best fit on one set may not be the same on another. The COG may be farther from the shaft on one. The head weight could be slightly different. You might have different shafts. All of those can affect how much the shaft droops at impact even if you swing the same and the lengths are the same.

[silver & black]

Help an uneducated guy out. With the sharpie method, what are you looking for, after you hit the ball?

[jbil8802]

This is what I read in article written recently by Tom Wishon:

 

"The ink line on the back of the ball technique for dynamic lie fitting is simple and logical. A heavy ink line is drawn on the ball with a Sharpie pen. The ball is placed on the ground with the line vertical and facing the clubhead. After impact, a faint image of the ink line is transferred to the clubface. If the line is perfectly vertical on the clubface, the lie of the club is correct for the golfer. If the ink line tilts in an angle up toward the toe side of the face, the lie of the club that was hit is too upright so the correct lie has to be flatter than the lie of the club being hit. Vice versa — if the ink line angles up toward the heel side of the face, the correct lie has to be more upright than the lie of the test club."

[silver & black]

Thank you.

[Kor.A.Door]

That's assuming that the line on the ball is exactly parallel to the ground

[PlaidJacket]

I haven't tried the ink on ball technique but I will. I have a setup at home that consists of a lie board and impact tape/labels. Same stuff you use on a club face basically except these are made for the sole of your club. My lie board has raised grooves running parallel from front to back in the direction of your shot. With the impact tape it's really easy to see your swing path at impact.  //// or \\\\ or |||| I bought the lie board online somewhere. I think the same place I bought my impact labels. Works great.

[PlaidJacket]

After getting home I thought I'd post a few pics to show what I'm talking about. The Company where I got the stuff is called LongShot Golf.

https://www.longshotgolf.com/ProductDetails.aspx?productID=3268

I think this type of lie board make a better impression than standard lie boards. The grooves in the board give you a better idea of your path at impact than those old standard "smudge" marks you usually see. 

 

 

[MmmmmmBuddy]

The thing that no one is talking about is that the Ping Color code is not a static measurement. It is fluid based on the clubs length.  A +1 inch Black Color Code 7 iron will have a different static Lie angle measurement than a standard length Black Color Code.  If the OP's irons are Standard Ping length, I might consider measuring the Lie angles on a Mitchell machine, and ordering the Hogans to match.  Otherwise, I'd get refit..   

 

Just my .02

[jbil8802]

Current irons are standard length. Did a Mizuno fitting last week and was fit to 2* upright in their irons. In general, the Mizuno "standard" lie angles are flatter than the Ping "standard" lie angles so I would've thought that I'd have been more upright a set of Mizunos if that makes sense. However, I did the Mizuno lie fitting with the shaft that we narrowed down to so I'm thinking that might be why there was a difference.

[Tinkering]

Are the lengths and swingweights the same between the sets?