Why are we still using Swingweight?

[BigBoiGolf]

After building clubs with a GolfMechanix Auditor Digital Swingweight scale for a while, I always just ended up having weird issues whenever I would do test clubs at "typical" swingweights. Not one for acceptance of convention for convention's sake, I purchased a GolfMechanix Speed Match Auditor v3 MOI machine to put clubs on it to see what might have been going on with them. I have known about MOI measurements for awhile, concepts behind MOI matching and staging clubs, just never got around to it.

I think the breaking point was I had an iron on the swingweight scale and was bored sliding about 10g of lead tape up and down the club when I realized if you placed the tape directly over the fulcrum point, the swingweight didn't change. Even worse, the balance point of the club changed, though not "dramatic" in a sense of the word. I then had clubs that had similar swingweights measured on the MOI auditor and found a progressive increase of MOI the longer the club was.

I guess that just leads me to my question, with better instrumentation out there, and people interested in the physical elements of club-building and fitting things to golfers, why are we still using this outdated technique for measuring clubs, whose sole purpose is to take a build assembly of the same shaft and grip, and singular club length, and get them reasonably close to being similar by using the equivalent to paper napkin math?

Because as soon as we change the golf shaft and grip, the concept of "D2" or whatever you want, is completely meaningless.

[RickyBobby_PR]

I agree. It should go away and finding the right feel and shaft weight will determine whatever works and whatever swingweight it comes out to. I know several experts in the club making and fitting business that feel the same way.

 

[revkev]

This is of interest to me - I’m having issues with a set of irons that I just can’t hit straight - I’m blaming the shaft for being “too light.”  I wonder though. Maybe it’s the lie angle, the kick point or something else. And before you guys point the finger I have two other sets of irons where my dispersion is around the target rather than 40 feet left of it.

[Josh Parker]

2 minutes ago, revkev said:

This is of interest to me - I’m having issues with a set of irons that I just can’t hit straight - I’m blaming the shaft for being “too light.”  I wonder though. Maybe it’s the lie angle, the kick point or something else. And before you guys point the finger I have two other sets of irons where my dispersion is around the target rather than 40 feet left of it.

What are the 3 sets of shafts?  

 

Question for folks smarter than I am.... @BigBoiGolf @RickyBobby_PR

So then does Bryson DeChambeau's theory on just having the clubs weigh the same throughout the bag have any merit or a slightly better way of looking at "swing weight"?

[revkev]

Two have Mamiya recoils and the one at issue has the newer darts - all three shafts are 65 grams. But those darts and I don’t agree with one another - either that or it’s the lie.

 

Someone gave me a very generous gift for teacher appreciation week - I’m going for an iron fitting next Monday - I’m going settle this once and for all. My D7 forged’s have been very good to me but it’s time to move on - they are several generations past - and I’m a bit older since I tested them - I think there’s a set of irons out there that’s a better fit for me at this time. I will report back about the fitting.  

[Josh Parker]

4 minutes ago, revkev said:

Two have Mamiya recoils and the one at issue has the newer darts - all three shafts are 65 grams. But those darts and I don’t agree with one another - either that or it’s the lie.

 

Someone gave me a very generous gift for teacher appreciation week - I’m going for an iron fitting next Monday - I’m going settle this once and for all. My D7 forged’s have been very good to me but it’s time to move on - they are several generations past - and I’m a bit older since I tested them - I think there’s a set of irons out there that’s a better fit for me at this time. I will report back about the fitting.  

Could be the lie or the lower kickpoint on the darts.  

[THE GOLF GUY]

My irons are at D4 , it slows my hands down a little and gives me better tempo . 

[BigBoiGolf]

33 minutes ago, Josh Parker said:

What are the 3 sets of shafts?  

 

Question for folks smarter than I am.... @BigBoiGolf @RickyBobby_PR

So then does Bryson DeChambeau's theory on just having the clubs weigh the same throughout the bag have any merit or a slightly better way of looking at "swing weight"?

That's static weight. His one-length irons have the same static head weight, so they would also use the same shaft that has the same trimmed and uncut weight, and he uses the same grips which also would have the same static weight.

Doing this the same would give you both the same MOI and swingweight.

However, what I have found is that while "standard" golf clubs can have the same swingweight, if I measure their total static weights, and lengths, they obviously will be different. However the MOI will also be different.

Here were 2 examples of clubs I measured:

• Maltby DBM Forged 8 iron, 37.25" length, Aerotech Steel Fiber 110CW S 8 iron, Tacki-Mac Tour Cord, Swingweight: D5.4, MOI: 2834 kg-cm^2, Total Weight: 440g
• Titleist 690MB 7 iron, 37.125" length, Dynamic Gold Tour Issue X100 7 iron, Karma Velvet, Swingweight: D6.2, MOI: 2824 kg-cm^2, Total Weight: 445g

So we have a club with both a higher static weight and swingweight, but is 1/8" shorter that has a lower MOI value, so to me it was easier to swing, even with accounting it weighing 5g more.

I remember reading about how Nick Faldo had one of his irons MOI measured and his were all matched at 2750 kg-cm^2, which would probably make sense with current headweights, Dynamic Gold shafts, but instead of a 37" 7 iron it was probably  36.5" to 36.75".

I think in light of this information I'm probably not interested in both swingweight matching or targeting a swingweight, but rather focusing on MOI and static weight

[BigBoiGolf]

41 minutes ago, revkev said:

Two have Mamiya recoils and the one at issue has the newer darts - all three shafts are 65 grams. But those darts and I don’t agree with one another - either that or it’s the lie.

 

Someone gave me a very generous gift for teacher appreciation week - I’m going for an iron fitting next Monday - I’m going settle this once and for all. My D7 forged’s have been very good to me but it’s time to move on - they are several generations past - and I’m a bit older since I tested them - I think there’s a set of irons out there that’s a better fit for me at this time. I will report back about the fitting.  

So I'll give you some club-building wisdom as I make and assemble my own gear and have hit hundreds of shots with these clubs to make sure I'm happy with them.

When I pick a golf shaft, I'm mainly picking by weight to support my transition and tempo and the amount of force I need at the transition to load the golf shaft. What I've found is that if a golf shaft is too light, and usually this starts to show up around 10 - 15 grams under where you may want to be, you will overpower the shaft and it may feel extra wobbly. I also tend to find the face control erratic, but more prone to shutting and massively delofting the club.

On the other side, if the golf shaft is way too heavy, and this starts around the same weight difference, then no matter how much you try, you will not be able to load the shaft at the transition point and it'll feel completely lifeless. A great example of this is that I have Dynamic Gold Tour Issue X100s, I've soft stepped them, soft stepped them twice, trimmed them down, whatever, but the weight of the shaft is simply too heavy for me, so when I hit the ball it spins a lot, launches higher, and has a lower smash factor because I delivered more loft to the ball.

The thing was, I did the exact same test with Dynamic Gold R300 and S300 and had the EXACT same issue with not being able to load at the transition and delivering too much loft.
 

The difference in my Project X LZ 6.5 and 6.0s was only 5 grams and I've been able to hit both shafts excellently, and when I soft stepped the 6.5, it basically weighed right in between the 120 6.0 and 125 6.5, and with both shafts I definitely felt the loading sensation on the back of my trail wrist during the release. I couldn't get that with the 130g Dynamic Gold shafts at all.

Then after I got my MOI machine, I took all my irons and took their readings and I re-trimmed the sets to all be around 2770 kg-cm^2, some were as high as 2820, only 1 was 2745 which I would assume is due to my tolerance for trimming before assmebly and head weight combined.

So what I ended up doing at the end was I had a shaft weight that could manage my transition and tempo, then I trimmed off like 1 - 3 grams in shaft weight by length to get all the clubs to "feel" lighter, regardless of what the swingweight scale said, and now am no longer tired during my rounds.

I checked my driver, and at 45.5" the MOI value was 3010! I read that some MOI preferences will change based on club group, like woods, irons and wedges, but I figured 3010 was much too high, so I ended up trimming back to 45", and removing about 3g from the head and the driver MOI went to 2860 kg-cm^2, and not only am I hitting the ball way more consistently, I'm no longer tired with my driver AND my swingspeed jumped up from 113 to 118.

[BigBoiGolf]

Just wanted to give everyone an update, I found my old Nike CCI Forged set, Karma Velvet Grips, Nippon Modus 120X shafts, no headweight tape/drilling and a regular 1/2" ferrule. Here's all the specs:

• 4 Iron
  • Total Weight: 411g
  • Assembled Length: 38.375"
  • Swingweight: C9.6
  • MOI: 2743.4
  • Headweight: 246.2g
• 5 Iron
  • Total Weight: 418.2g
  • Assembled Length: 38.125"
  • Swingweight: D1
  • MOI: 2766.5
  • Headweight: 252.3g
• 6 Iron
  • Total Weight: 425.8g
  • Assembled Length: 37.625"
  • Swingweight: D2.3
  • MOI: 2772.9
  • Headweight: 260.7g
• 7 Iron
  • Total Weight: 430g
  • Assembled Length: 37.125"
  • Swingweight: D1.4
  • MOI: 2742.2
  • Headweight: 265.8g
• 8 Iron
  • Total Weight: 438.8g
  • Assembled Length: 36.625"
  • Swingweight: D3
  • MOI: 2757.3
  • Headweight: 275.5g
• PW
  • Total Weight: 451.7g
  • Assembled Length: 36.125"
  • Swingweight: D4.5
  • MOI: 2775.9
  • Headweight: 286.5g

[obevz]

I gave up on Swing Weight around 2005...when I bought my MOI machine from Golf Mechanix...has never let me down.

[David LD]

16 hours ago, BigBoiGolf said:

After building clubs with a GolfMechanix Auditor Digital Swingweight scale for a while, I always just ended up having weird issues whenever I would do test clubs at "typical" swingweights. Not one for acceptance of convention for convention's sake, I purchased a GolfMechanix Speed Match Auditor v3 MOI machine to put clubs on it to see what might have been going on with them. I have known about MOI measurements for awhile, concepts behind MOI matching and staging clubs, just never got around to it.

I think the breaking point was I had an iron on the swingweight scale and was bored sliding about 10g of lead tape up and down the club when I realized if you placed the tape directly over the fulcrum point, the swingweight didn't change. Even worse, the balance point of the club changed, though not "dramatic" in a sense of the word. I then had clubs that had similar swingweights measured on the MOI auditor and found a progressive increase of MOI the longer the club was.

I guess that just leads me to my question, with better instrumentation out there, and people interested in the physical elements of club-building and fitting things to golfers, why are we still using this outdated technique for measuring clubs, whose sole purpose is to take a build assembly of the same shaft and grip, and singular club length, and get them reasonably close to being similar by using the equivalent to paper napkin math?

Because as soon as we change the golf shaft and grip, the concept of "D2" or whatever you want, is completely meaningless.

@BigBoiGolf

With all due respect, is there any chance for one that your scale is broken?

Every scale I've ever used has been very sensitive with in about 1/4 of 1 gram.

There is a very specific way the club has to be put into the swing weight scale as well as weight "on" the fulcrum point should actually yeild a "zero" change if it's literally over the fulcrum point because physics... Fulcrum point = a seesaw... Any one who's ever gotten on one as a child knows if you have 2 ppl about the same weight or balances out - as well as you could have a 3rd person just stand in the center but it doesn't impact either side of the seesaw unless the shift their weight from the center...

With that part cleared up let's also be really clear that the setting weight scale is a measurement of balance between how heavy the head is vs how heavy the club is at the grip - so in essence the balance and feel of the club.

It's also extremely important to note the most important aspect of swing weight is that you have an even saying weight across all your clubs or at least all of your irons weigh say D2 for example. This is very important if you're playing at a high level so you can make a consistent swing between clubs.

It matters for some players a great deal more than others as well as when it comes to building a consistent set.

So with swing weight we are looking to make a set of clubs all feel the same despite being different weights and sizes for example your 4 iron would feel the same as your 9 iron despite the 9 iron being shorter -this is partly why the club head weighs on your lower irons are heavier in general.

Now there is no reason you couldn't play with clubs that have swing weights all over the place, but there's no reason you should want to do this because it can cause you to hit errant shots if the swing weights are too far apart from each other.

 

Now for myself I've played around with building a hybrid one length set as well as while tweaking my clubs playing with them all over the place or even trying  different swing weights. More specifically when I was playing my wedges with a fatter grip (lowering the swing weight) reducing the "feel" of the head being heavier - i consistently bladed my wedge shots.

I would say in general the heavier the club is the LESS the swing weight matters for consistency across your irons and the lighter the weight the more you will notice a difference.

As well as the faster your swing speed the more important and more noticeable it is - I would also say the better player you are the more noticeable and the more important it is.

I don't think it matters too much if your irons vary a little to your woods to your driver - I think you can have more variance because you already have a large lenghth variance, as well as your woods and driver are going to be the lightest clubs in your bag.

 

Now if you're talking club weight for the driver or adjusting swing weight over a club length increase or decrease it matters a tremendous amount and the total club weight, as well as the head weight will literally impact the flex of the shaft.

As a more direct example if you take a look at professional long drive you see many players have shifted to seinor flex or even childrens flex shafts (yes really) - part of the reason for this is for long drive heads there's been a crazy reduction in driver head weight - for example from the epic flash to the paradygm head the driver head weight went from 220 grams all the way down to 179 grams - a 40 gram reduction in head weight - it made it so if you were playing an x flex shaft - it now plays like a 3x or 4x and dropping down to seinor flex is really playing closer to an X stiff flex shaft at that very light head weight.

So yes having consistent swing weight across your irons is still relaxant and matters more the better player you are - and the actual club weight matters even more.

This isn't even getting into how swing weight for fitting is important for different shafts - it can greatly impact ball flight and launch angle, it depends on your individual swing, height, flexibility, etc...

For example I play an F12 on my driver, but most ppl would hate something that heavy in the head, quite literally they would have a hard time just getting the club head to the ball

 

 

[David LD]

14 hours ago, RickyBobby_PR said:

I agree. It should go away and finding the right feel and shaft weight will determine whatever works and whatever swingweight it comes out to. I know several experts in the club making and fitting business that feel the same way.

 

It seems a lot of ppl are confusing consistent swing weight across their irons for the individual club weight - I agree you should find what feels best, but then you make all your clubs the same swing weight for consistency - all your clubs are literally going to be a different weight though - swing weight is the measure of "feel" of balance across your clubs -you want your irons to all "feel" the same so you can make a repeatable swing

[David LD]

11 hours ago, revkev said:

This is of interest to me - I’m having issues with a set of irons that I just can’t hit straight - I’m blaming the shaft for being “too light.”  I wonder though. Maybe it’s the lie angle, the kick point or something else. And before you guys point the finger I have two other sets of irons where my dispersion is around the target rather than 40 feet left of it.

Did you get fit for shafts? What's your club speed and what's the flex of the shaft?

 

They could be too light, it could be your swing, they could be too flexy or too stiff - possibly too stiff if your consistently hitting them 40 yards left. There are a lot of factors you really need to get for for shafts by someone who knows what they are doing *** or do it yourself by looking at your launch monitor numbers, spin, etc

[revkev]

18 minutes ago, David LD said:

Did you get fit for shafts? What's your club speed and what's the flex of the shaft?

 

They could be too light, it could be your swing, they could be too flexy or too stiff - possibly too stiff if your consistently hitting them 40 yards left. There are a lot of factors you really need to get for for shafts by someone who knows what they are doing *** or do it yourself by looking at your launch monitor numbers, spin, etc

Yes I was fit - I can hit these well the issue is I need to adjust my swing to them and that’s ng of course as ultimately it will lead to problems creeping into my swing and problems with other clubs in my bag. But if I’m just hitting iron shots on a range all day I hit the Srixons great after a half dozen shots or so. 

Edited May 8 by revkev

[mikeconns]

Yes, swingweight matters.  Swingweight isn’t the actual weight of the club, it’s where the weight is distributed.  If the clubs in your bag all felt differently, you would be adjusting your swing for each club to compensate for the imbalance through the set.  If you never had a set of irons that was,for instance,weighted at D2, and all the clubs were randomly weighted, you might get used to it, so in that sense perhaps not.  If you’re used to having clubs swingweighted properly your 8 iron will “feel” the same as your 5 iron etc, so one won’t feel heavier than another when you swing it in terms of weight distribution.  Clubs aren’t the same raw weight, but you want them to feel the same in terms of where the weight is when you swing them.  This can be controlled by swingweighting them properly.  Why wouldn’t you want consistency in your clubs, get consistency where you can have it, as so many aspects of the game can fall to the random.

Edited May 8 by mikeconns
spelling

[DAKDAKDAK]

Swing weight is very important. How the club feels in your hands might be at the top of the list with regards to being able to sense the club head throughout the swing. 

[Hoyoymac]

Over the past few years I’ve developed a greater appreciation for swingweight and how it affects me. 

I’m tolerant of swingweight differences of +/- a  point or two between clubs.  I have a definite comfort zone. Really don’t notice much difference within a range of say D2 - D6.

When the swingweight gets lighter than my comfort zone it affects me the most.  I lose an awareness of where the club head is during my swing.  This causes me to struggle with consistent swing low point/ground contact and face awareness. 

If the swingweight is heavier than my normal comfort zone I have great club head awareness but my swing will feel labored,  it just feels like more work to swing the club.  

At my recent fitting for TPT Golf shafts with Jon Sinclair I was struck by a few things.  First, he really didn’t want me to try and adjust my swing to the different shaft and clubhead configurations.  If it didn’t feel right in the first swing or two he took it away from. Swingweight was something he paid a good bit of attention to.

Second, he was very diligent about recording all of the specs of my current clubs and of the various shaft/head combos that he handed me to try.  He used a swingweight scale during the fitting for each combo. After the fitting he provided me the information on the amount of weight to add to each club head to get to the swingweight specs of my best fit.

After a couple years of frequent experimentation and club switching my main goal this year is to have 14 clubs in my bag that I have complete confidence in.

Been relying on matching swingweight, static weight and club balance point when building my own clubs. Have never measured the MOI of my clubs, but now you guys have got me thinking.

It would be nice to know what the MOI is of my favorite clubs and see how they compare.

 

 

[Dave Tutelman]

BigBoiGolf implies that you want to build to the club's moment of inertia rather than swingweight. I've been saying this for about 30 years.

At that time, MOI meters were somewhere between expensive and nonexistent. So I came up with a way to MOI-match a set of clubs using a swingweight scale. It is only fairly recently that reasonably priced MOI meters have become available, and by that time I was very comfortable with estimating MOI with my swingweight scale. But my goal is still MOI matching.

Here are a couple of articles I wrote about why swingweight matching is nonsense, how to do MOI matching with a swingweight scale, and my first cut at estimating MOI match with a swingweight scale (from 30 years ago, with the help of TJ Field).

[PatParent]

I was fitted for a Maverik Max which had a swignweight of D3. It was checking all the boxes of increased club speed,  distance, dispersion. But I wasn't quite as consistent with it as with my old driver, but we attributed it to the driver being new and I just need to get used to it. After all we were using a 10g lighter shaft, the head was also a few grams lighter. So it all made sense.

I have a swingweight scale, which I bought from Golfsmith a while ago (I built a few set back in those days). My old driver was a little over D4 (the scale is precise to .5 sw...). I added 2g to the head via the heel port, just to see what would happen, and brought it to the same SW as my old driver. It made a ton of difference. In hindsight, I had trouble feeling the head of the club and wasn't delivering the face square at impact, ball impact area was relatively large (using face sticker... anyone can do that), but the Max was forgiving enough (compared to what I had) where it would help forgive the mis-hits. Since I've added the weight I have a much tighter ball impact pattern with improved distance and accuracy.

Swingweight is important. A small chance is noticeable with proper tools to measure it, and I don't means a GC4 or Trackman (impact stickers in my case). The reason I share this story is that new technology forgives mis hits better than before, but hitting the ball in the middle of the club still produces better results than not...

[David LD]

1 hour ago, revkev said:

Yes I was fit - I can hit these well the issue is I need to adjust my swing to them and that’s ng of course as ultimately it will lead to problems creeping into my swing and problems with other clubs in my bag. But if I’m just hitting iron shots on a range all day I hit the Srixons great after a half dozen shots or so. 

I was asking your swing speed because if it's on the higher end there are a couple brands which have very weak tips that bend and warp easily - especially - on the lighter shafts.

 

In general there's been a trend to go to much lighter shafts for irons - I think this is a very large mistake - there's a fine point where the weight of the club stabilizes your swing - if you want to share your swing speed and the shaft I can possibly help you troubleshoot what might be going on or hopefully at least tell you where to look -if you got fit recently and are unhappy I would go back to the place and complain they might be able to at least get you a discount on shafts...

If you built them yourself, it could be an issue with craftsmanship (no offense ) it's just virtually every tutorial I've seen on YouTube is making some kind if mistake -mostly with shafting beads or the epoxy blend or curing.

[David LD]

13 hours ago, BigBoiGolf said:

That's static weight. His one-length irons have the same static head weight, so they would also use the same shaft that has the same trimmed and uncut weight, and he uses the same grips which also would have the same static weight.

Doing this the same would give you both the same MOI and swingweight.

However, what I have found is that while "standard" golf clubs can have the same swingweight, if I measure their total static weights, and lengths, they obviously will be different. However the MOI will also be different.

Here were 2 examples of clubs I measured:

• Maltby DBM Forged 8 iron, 37.25" length, Aerotech Steel Fiber 110CW S 8 iron, Tacki-Mac Tour Cord, Swingweight: D5.4, MOI: 2834 kg-cm^2, Total Weight: 440g
• Titleist 690MB 7 iron, 37.125" length, Dynamic Gold Tour Issue X100 7 iron, Karma Velvet, Swingweight: D6.2, MOI: 2824 kg-cm^2, Total Weight: 445g

So we have a club with both a higher static weight and swingweight, but is 1/8" shorter that has a lower MOI value, so to me it was easier to swing, even with accounting it weighing 5g more.

I remember reading about how Nick Faldo had one of his irons MOI measured and his were all matched at 2750 kg-cm^2, which would probably make sense with current headweights, Dynamic Gold shafts, but instead of a 37" 7 iron it was probably  36.5" to 36.75".

I think in light of this information I'm probably not interested in both swingweight matching or targeting a swingweight, but rather focusing on MOI and static weight

Bryson's one length heads do NOT all weigh the same -they are the same length but each head is subsequently heavier and they are significantly heavier than standard iron heads and that's direct from Cobra's tour department - I spoke with them a few years ago when they had first come out because I wanted to try making my set of pro blades one length -they told me I couldn't do it with out heavily modifying them because the heads would be too light so I'd lose a lot of distance off the longer irons (5 iron would be shorter - all irons at 7 iron length for"one length")

 

But I mean if you weigh your clubs all your irons will be a different weight, but again SWING WEIGHT is the weight of the balance point so your 5 iron feels the same as your 9 when you swing it so you can have a consistent swing with your irons and this is much different than the literal club weight which is going to vary over every club.

[ButchE]

it MAY be relevant to those scratch level and lower, but to the mere mortals that grace most courses, it does NOT matter. I built my entire bag not having a SW machine to go by and I won a sanctioned tournament with them. Like the man who got me involved in the game decades ago: its' not the arrow its' the Indian. 

[Sonny Beach]

You can make a telephone pole swing weight D2 if you wanted too but could you swing it? How big, strong and tall are you? Provided the overall weight is manageable for the individual, the swing weight matters for swing consistency and club performance. Swing weight too heavy, club digs. Too light thin shots and whiffs. Somewhere in-between is what you need. Go get fitted to find that out, if you do nothing else. . 

Edited May 8 by Sonny Beach

[jbsap]

IMO Swingweight is subjective, just like most other things golf related. So many variables come into play, that Swingweight is just a piece of the puzzle. In its simplest form, to me at least, Swingweight is just a way to quantify feel. Static weight is easy, a club weighs what a club weighs. Swingweight to me is just a number applied to a club to quantify feel when force is applied to it. I do believe it is relevant, only in attempting to obtain the same or similar feel throughout a full set of clubs that are built differently. 
 

it could be something similar to pureing a shaft. Are their real gains or is it placebo effect? More than likely the answer is going to be “player dependent”. I myself am not totally sold on pureing, but I do think that it has value at its core, the gains are probably just so minimal that it doesn’t REALLY matter to anyone not making a living playing golf. I do believe Swingweight matters, simply because I am someone who is sensitive to Swingweight, and I prefer a club to feel heavier, even though it may not actually be much heavier.

[Bortery]

This is an interesting topic, as most all topics are, but from a golfer that plays for time together and self challenge. I would like to think technology is there and changes for a reason. With everyone playing different and in general being different. Different options in swing weight can be a good thing, just like when different lofts were introduced. Not every club is built the same, which gives us golfers a choice to what we feel comfortable with. Let’s be honest the first step to playing golf in general is comfort. If your not comfortable then there is no need to working on your form, unless your discomfort is because of your form. 
 

So in general to answer the question, my opinion is yes. One swing weight might help someone feel more comfortable than another. So the more options the golf technology world can provide use, the better we can fit to or comfort. Which will have me say, getting fitted for clubs is a good thing. I have not done it yet, but when my game gets to a point that I think clubs will be the next step in improving my score. I will be going to get fitted for clubs, because the irons I think are right for me, may not be. And let’s be honest, if you’re going to spend that much on clubs, do you really want to shoot from the hip on your choice. I don’t have that kind of money to throw around to find the set that helps me play better. 
 

That is just my two cents, thanks for reading and allowing me to share it. 

[release]

Getting fixated on the numbers is to reverse the journey of finding the perfect set of golf clubs for you.

We are exposed to the knowledge and available tools to tinker with our golf equipment as never before.  In many ways, it is great but in some circumstances, it cause losing focus on the end of the journey.

We are not trying to reverse engineering for a magical set of golf clubs which can forego all other elements in the pursue of perfection.

The end of golf club tinkering is to find the best possible tools for any individual golfer.  Not making a perfect set of golf clubs on numbers.  

The golfer, is the majority of the formula.  I'd bet no two sets of golf clubs are the same spec in the bags of the touring professionals.

I had read that the irons in Ben Hogan's bag had different swing weights in the set.  Lower swing weight numbers in the long irons and higher swing weight numbers in the short sticks.  It is what the man felt "right" for his preference to produce the trajectory flight shapes he wanted.

Keep in mind that we don't use the tools to unitize the spec of golf clubs like those sets made for retail.  

 

 

[Marty2shanks]

My experience - both swingweight and total weight matters.  For driver and woods I am D5-6 and play 78g in driver, 87g in 3/5w, 96g in hybrid.  Irons are D3-4 with 130g shafts.  Wedges are D4-5 with 130g shafts.  Anything lighter than that forces me to try to time the shaft and I lose feel of the face.  Anything around D0 feels awful and I have no consistency.

[RCGolf]

I think some people are mixing up Swingweight and overall weight. Swing weight is using simple physics. If the weight is not in the correct spots, the club will not perform the way it was engineered to perform. Now, a point here and there isn’t as important as some people make it out to be, but I guarantee if you cut your driver down to 43”, and don’t do anything about the drastic change of swing weight, you will not know where the head is during the swing, and you won’t be delivering the correct, or optimal, forces to efficiently hit a golf ball. Grab an iron at C4, and one at D4. I guarantee you’ll hit the iron at D4 more efficiently. There is a reason manufacturers treat it as seriously as they do. 

[KH14]

This is my 1st post on the forum (take it easy on me!) Very interesting topic. I used to own a small club repair/building shop 30 years ago and still do quite a bit of repair out of my garage. I consider myself "old school" but find the MOI stuff very interesting. I've always been a big believer in SW. Play my irons at D-3, Driver at D-5 to 6 and wedges heavy D-8 to D-9. I've always felt the need to FEEL where the clubhead is during the swing and that the extra mass delivers a more powerful strike w/o any significant loss in clubhead speed. I do know that even at 62 yo super light shafts are not good for me! Great topic!