Jacked up lofts in clubs are ruining the games of most golfers.

[Shambles]

Revkev,

 

 

I don't feel the need for additional wedges with my Eye 2's as their lofts are actually the lofts I spent the majority of my golfing life with. I actually have an L wedge that sits almost totally unused as my S wedge is 58* and really enough for all my sand needs and the short irons have always been the ones that supplied any help I needed to control trajectory for the short game. If any change is to be made, it would be in the long irons which I more often replace with current hybrids regardless that I already have fairways with almost the same lofts. That's because I sometimes feel the need for the added roll or the lower flight I get from my hybrids and even if I can also do it with the long irons, the hybrids are way easier to live with.

 

The purpose of my post was simply to point out that different people have different requirements for their game thus the very personal nature of deciding upon bag composition. I was able to live without a gap wedge when I played the Callaway X 12's as those clubs are a full club loft difference as are many of the new clubs, from the Eye 2, but some fool gifted me with a gap wedge and the return of comfort to my short game was so convincing that I've made sure I always had one. It really is not necessary if you know how to use the clubs you have, or are willing to do your own learning. In all honesty, I don't have any of the newer clubs that have since gone for even lower lofts because I don't want to have to buy another wedge. As a matter of fact, all of my newer sets are only a club difference so I just carry the same 2 wedges from set to set to preserve my short game comfort.

 

Every player makes his own decision and at the end of the day the only thing counted is your score. Get to know the set you already have and, unless that set was really built that badly, you ought to be able to find just about every shot you're capable of learning.

 

 

Shambles

[RoverRick]

Fair enough, Rickles.

 

I was initially trying to keep it as far away from condescending as possible and that was the reason for when the men were men and the ships were wood. However, I am also still fired up about the whole anchored putting and how it was ruining the game and my ire over that asinine decision may have come through when not intended.

 

As far as the older clubs, I never played or even seen most of these clubs. However, we have just had a long thread about the "2 Iron" where I was surprised that most people reserve that term for certain clubs. I picked the Ben Hogan Radials simply because they debuted in 1983 and were older specs. But 1983-4 seemed to be the watershed year for iron development. The Eye 2's and Eye 2+'s not only sparked the revolution of playability but also changed the lofts.

 

I was not such a big fan of "jacked up" lofts until the release of the RocketBladeZ. It was at that time I began to take a closer look at this issue. It is not just about loft and length. It is also about center of gravity, and launch angle, and even shaft kick. If you simply look at the lofts that have changed you are not looking at the big enough picture. I know I was not.

[GolfSpy Barbajo]

Well this has been an interesting read...

 

Just getting caught up - not sure I agree that jacked-up lofts are ruining the game. Maybe my simple mind can't get around the intricacies, but I've always felt that the club in your hand is the club in your hand. How far and how well you can hit it has nothing to do with either the number on the bottom or the loft of the club.

 

I'm closing in on that magical single digit handicap, and there are days when I'm in a groove and can it my 8 iron (38*) 150 yards - other days I need to use my 7 iron. I do feel much more manly when I hit the 8 iron 150, though...

 

In the final analysis, I think of my teaching pro, Brad Pluth, and his words of wisdom:

 

"Why are you worried about hitting your 9 iron farther when you have an 8 iron in your bag?"

 

As far as wedge gapping goes, I've tried to simplify. Was carrying a 46 degree PW with the Mizzy's, and then tried to gap 4* up to a 58* lob wedge. Found that usually one of the wedges rarely, if ever, was used during a round. Simplified with the 46* PW, a 52* wedge and the 58* wedge and haven't found that I'm missing anything.

[revkev]

I've got to get back to Shambles comment because I think it's what at the heart of this thread - Yes I agree that each player has to determine what bag is best for him and no I don't agree that the bag is what the OEM wants him to purchase becuase it will invariably have too many clubs bunched in the upper end of the bag. Could you make up the gaps at the lower end - of course - I did it for years by playing with my starter set of 7 clubs - but why when you, I and every other knowledge golfer knows that scoring comes down to what happens around the green would you want to make the task more difficult?

 

That's Rickles' real point as I see it - Even gaps throughout the set with special attention to the scoring zone leads to lower scores regardless of what a player calls the club.

 

I would submit that is what this is about and I would question a player who chose to pay more attention to having clubs fill in the gaps at the upper end of his/her bag than the lower end. I would call it foolish in fact. If you want to say you have two wedges because ones a 52 and the other a 57 while you have a 48 degree 9 iron and a 43 degree 8 by all means be my guest - Visa versa if you want to say you are playing for 4 wedges, a 60, a 56, a 52 and a 48 please do - its like the 2 iron debate that part.

 

But I will steadfastly maintain that lacking great short game talent its best to focus the yardage gaps there and invest in having clubs to cover those than at the top end of the bag.

[GolfSpy WD]

I have to vent for a second. You know what's really ruining the game for most golfers? Greedy course owners.

 

Course I played today was packed like a can of sardines. Couldn't make a swing without someone shouting fore. Got hit into from both directions (one genius in the group behind us thought he would cut through the tee box we were standing on, barely avoided my head).

 

Ok, rant done. Continue.

[RookieBlue7]

I have to vent for a second. You know what's really ruining the game for most golfers? Greedy course owners.

 

Course I played today was packed like a can of sardines. Couldn't make a swing without someone shouting fore. Got hit into from both directions (one genius in the group behind us thought he would cut through the tee box we were standing on, barely avoided my head).

 

Ok, rant done. Continue.

 

 

On this topic, I hate the course owners that jam tee times to 6 minutes apart on Saturdays. WHY? So you can cause a logjam for the entire course when one person has a lost ball?

[Shambles]

For me the short game goes through the bag. It's not just the 30 and 35 yard pitches but actually begins for most at about 150 yards and all the distances within. The stronger players have short game that begins with their second shot, unless they are on a par 3.

 

Players do not become good low caps by playing too many lay ups. You get better by learning to play the course and often need the resources your full bag affords you by giving you the kind of carry and roll your chosen landing dictates. The club you choose to do that job has it's own limitations and there will be times you need a different club to help with the shot, or need to reorganize your plan, or your goal. Consider the most simple seeming shot of simply landing on the green from 150 yards and stopping dead as near to the pin as possible. A guy who likes a low flying high spin shot has very different considerations from a guy who flys high and lands softly. It's an easily achievable carry for most people but gets complicated when the landing is brought into the formula.

 

That is the short game comfort I speak of and that is the loss that comes with jacked up lofts. You can do the carry easily but can you choose the right club or are you pretty much stuck with one club for that job. It does not have to be 150. For some of us it begins from farther away and for others, nearer. Regardless of where your short game begins, I think it truly helps much to have a bunch of lofts to choose from. It is a comfort to me to have the loft structures that came with my favorite clubs, but not a necessity because we can always learn to use what we have in many different ways.

 

 

Shambles

[GolfSpy Tim]

I think there's been some great commentary in here already, so no need to add my own - but... from reading this, I'm realizing I need to hit the driving range and FOR ONCE - not bring my driver, but bring every club I'd play from 150 in and practice hitting greens.

 

That's my take away

[Mr_Theoo]

I think there's been some great commentary in here already, so no need to add my own - but... from reading this, I'm realizing I need to hit the driving range and FOR ONCE - not bring my driver, but bring every club I'd play from 150 in and practice hitting greens.

 

That's my take away

 

I have some friends who would greatly improve if they had that mindset but they will continue to hit driver at every hole no matter the situation but then will question me when I pull my 3 or 4 iron

[revkev]

I think there's been some great commentary in here already, so no need to add my own - but... from reading this, I'm realizing I need to hit the driving range and FOR ONCE - not bring my driver, but bring every club I'd play from 150 in and practice hitting greens.

 

That's my take away

 

I guarantee that you'd be slashing strokes. Better yet would be to skip the range and invest more time on the practice green with the putter and other short clubs there.

 

I think we've had the conversation in the past if I'm not mistaken. I had church this morning and another service late this afternoon so I couldn't play today. I have my putter and a wedge in the van - I want and spent 15 minutes on the practice green (I'd have spent more time but its Florida, its 2 in the afternoon and I'm wearing all black.)

[RookieBlue7]

Yep, the easiest way to chop strokes off the score would be to spend the majority of the time practicing shots around an on the green. Become a good putter first. Second work on chipping, getting the ball to inside 8 feet. My favorite practice sessions have always been the ladder drill with the putter and getting up and down in the shortgame area. I like to throw down 10 balls at a location, chip them up and convert the putt. I won't move from the location until I can convert at least 8 of 10. I usually try to do it at at least 4 locations. One short sided, one long and running, one uphill and one downhill locations. My goal is to leave the chip inside 5 feet, my expectation is to make all 10 if I leave all of them inside that distance.

 

I also like the ladder drill on the putting surface. Start at 3 feet and make 10 of 10 or start over. Then back it up to 4 feet then 5 feet. All must be made at these distances. Back it up to 6 feet, have to make 9 of 10 before moving on. 7 feet make 8 of 10. 8 feet make 8 of 10. 9 feet 7 of 10. 10 feet make 7 of 10. Then back to 15 feet, make 6 of 10. 20 feet, make 5 of 10 with the other 5 being close enough to convert a 2 putt.

 

Those 2 drills will eat up an afternoon for a while. You'll get better at them if you continually practice those. I've had days where I've went and did those 2 drills and not hit a single full shot. I also saw the greatest improvements in my scores in that time.

 

From there is work on 50-100 yard shots for a while. My expectation there when practicing is to hit them all on the green/target and to be inside 20 feet a minimum of 50% of the time. Obviously you're not going to have seclusion during the practice range unless you rent the whole range. But at those distances, one should be able to see where the ball is landing in relation to the pin. My goal, knowing my game, is it landing within 20 feet because 90% of the time or better if I land it within that distance it'll stay within that distance.

 

From there I work on shots at a 150 yard target. And I'll practice hitting to that with my 150 club as well as the 2 above it (for me, that's now a 9 iron, 8 iron, and 7 iron). I practice controlling distance and trajectory hitting that shot.

 

The game outside of that, I work on very little when practicing. I'll work on the 3 wood more than the driver because its my safe club off the tee. I'll pick out a target and hit balls at it trying to keep it in a window of 15 yards either direction. I won't stop till I hit 10 in a row in the window.

 

Driver I'll hit a few times on the range before a round to see what ball flight I'm hitting that day.

[Rickles]

Thanks to all the great replies on this thread. I wanna take a minute and apologize to Rover. One of the poor things about email, blogging, posting, etc. Is that you can't read tone. I have had a very difficult week and I think I read some condescention in Rover"s post that wasn't there. I'm sorry I took my rough week out on you. I can tell that you meant no harm by the way you took the high road instead of firing back guns blazing like you could have. Rick, you have a wealth of golf knowledge and while we disagree on some things, we agree on a whole lot more. Thanks for being the kind of guy that makes this forum a great place. I am truly upset that we can't discuss this more on the course at the Texas Open and have some fun competing with one another and trying to beat each other on the golf course. I also hear from Zach that you are hilarious in person. Since I can't come to the Texas open, lets play together sometime soon up around Dallas or we could meet in Waco or something.

[apprenti23]

LOFT is the problem but its a lack of f-ing talent and not the degrees of the club!

 

What are the most difficult shots for people to make? Any shot that requires less than a full swing. If you tell someone to stop at a 3/4 backswing (9 o'clock where left arm parallel to ground and shafts perpendicular) they're guaranteed to go past that. The half shots, three quarter shots, and everything else in between a full shot are the difficult ones. It doesn't matter what the loft is on the club- tell someone to take it back halfway and they're guaranteed to screw it up.

[apprenti23]

Bingo Richard! I feel like Mr Miagi in karate kid sometimes when I'm on the lesson tee as I do the same thing. Remember Miagi? "Show me sand da deck, show me paint da fence, show me 3/4 7 iron!" Haha

 

The game is hardly a full swing 7 iron- regardless what loft your 7 iron is...

[revkev]

LOFT is the problem but its a lack of f-ing talent and not the degrees of the club!

 

What are the most difficult shots for people to make? Any shot that requires less than a full swing. If you tell someone to stop at a 3/4 backswing (9 o'clock where left arm parallel to ground and shafts perpendicular) they're guaranteed to go past that. The half shots, three quarter shots, and everything else in between a full shot are the difficult ones. It doesn't matter what the loft is on the club- tell someone to take it back halfway and they're guaranteed to screw it up.

 

It's a valid point and an even better argument for having more clubs to cover shorter yardages where the screw ups are fatal to good scoring. If I screw up a 3/4 3 wood from 200 I will generally still have a chance to get up and down for par - not so If I screw up that next shot - the part wedge from 40.

 

Frankly I much prefer to take distance off of shots by gripping down rather than trying to shorten the swing - I'm also not one for changing tempo to try and take distance off - I try to grip down and am aggresive through the ball regardless - but that's again a to each his own sort of thing.

 

I remain amazed at the number of players who are comfortable opening their wedges up, hittting part shots and so on and so forth because my handicap would indicate that I'm a better golfer, I've always fit in with the better players and been able to compete with them where ever I've lived and played. But I can't do those things - If I have an inbetween distance I take the longer club and grip down - I purposely don't leave shots that would entail swinging a part wedge and rarely short side myself so that if I hit a flop shot once a month, that's a lot. So maybe that's my secret - I just do what I'm capable of and leave the fancy stuff to those with superior talent - and the higher score on the card.

[Rickles]

LOFT is the problem but its a lack of f-ing talent and not the degrees of the club!

 

What are the most difficult shots for people to make? Any shot that requires less than a full swing. If you tell someone to stop at a 3/4 backswing (9 o'clock where left arm parallel to ground and shafts perpendicular) they're guaranteed to go past that. The half shots, three quarter shots, and everything else in between a full shot are the difficult ones. It doesn't matter what the loft is on the club- tell someone to take it back halfway and they're guaranteed to screw it up.

This is exactly right, that's why people need more wedges and smaller gaps in the short clubs so they can make fewer partial swings inside 125. Most of us, including myself and I'm a low single digit, aren't accurate enough with longer clubs to hit them an exact distance every time anyway. I can with the short ones though, even with 7:30, 9:00, and 10:30 backswings.

[revkev]

Back to RP's comment and also a bit of Rickles' last one.

 

Absolutely - but you guys are both very talented low handicap golfers. Richard and I are similar vintage and not surprisingly I grew up the same way - in fact I learned to break 80 with my starter set once I laid the tools of ignorance aside for good in my junior year of college - so not only was I hitting part shots with wedges I was doing it with 5 irons and 3 irons.

 

Because of my vocation and I would think also Rickles' I play with lots of mid to high handicappers - My favorite person to play with is a high handicapper and we often play a casual round on Sunday afternoon together. This guy loves to open the blade on his wedge shots but he has no clue when to do it and guess what he comes up way short on those approaches all the time - except when he blades them. One time I made him give me his wedge and in absolutely frustration I took the wedge he was hitting open, had it square and having never used that wedge before hit it to a foot. He said that I had a great lay so I buried it in the stupid rough and hit it to two feet -

 

I'm amazed at how often golfers will select the more difficult shot over the simple one that is presenting itself.

 

But that's off point - like Rickles I think Apprenti's post argues in favor of keeping even gaps in the lower end of the bag.

 

Also someone pointed out that they had wedges with differing bounces as much as for differing distances - that's smart, I used to do that too. SCROR's premise is that its wedge design is multi-purpose - I'm finding that to be the case as well.

[hckymeyer]

So maybe that's my secret - I just do what I'm capable of and leave the fancy stuff to those with superior talent - and the higher score on the card.

 

Rev I think you hit the nail on the head. This is what is ruining the game/score of most golfers. Trying to hit the shot they saw some PGA pro pull on Sunday, or the shot they hit one time back in '92 to 3 feet for a birdie. The average golfer does not play within the limits of their ability. I just read a great article on Dufner where he talks about not being as talented as a lot of other guys, but he knows his limits and strengths and plays within himself. If you get in trouble don't try to a 3/4 7i with a 40yd draw around a bunch of trees and carry the front bunker. Punch out to safety and try to get up and down. It's not the jacked up lofts, or the gapping at the lower end, it's the mental ability or handicap of the average golfer that is leading to higher scores.

 

“I don't think I have as much talent as a lot of other guys do.” This underdog mentality has led to a specific career path. “To succeed I have to do a lot of different things,” Dufner says. “I need to be stronger mentally. I have to prepare harder and smarter. I have to maximize my equipment. I have to do things other guys don't. You have to be honest with yourself, which is not easy.”

Read more: http://www.golf.com/tour-and-news/jason-dufner-most-interesting-man-golf-heading-us-open#ixzz2brzCaZMm

 

[Rickles]

Rev I think you hit the nail on the head. This is what is ruining the game/score of most golfers. Trying to hit the shot they saw some PGA pro pull on Sunday, or the shot they hit one time back in '92 to 3 feet for a birdie. The average golfer does not play within the limits of their ability. I just read a great article on Dufner where he talks about not being as talented as a lot of other guys, but he knows his limits and strengths and plays within himself. If you get in trouble don't try to a 3/4 7i with a 40yd draw around a bunch of trees and carry the front bunker. Punch out to safety and try to get up and down. It's not the jacked up lofts, or the gapping at the lower end, it's the mental ability or handicap of the average golfer that is leading to higher scores.

 

“I don't think I have as much talent as a lot of other guys do.” This underdog mentality has led to a specific career path. “To succeed I have to do a lot of different things,” Dufner says. “I need to be stronger mentally. I have to prepare harder and smarter. I have to maximize my equipment. I have to do things other guys don't. You have to be honest with yourself, which is not easy.”

Read more: http://www.golf.com/...n#ixzz2brzCaZMm

 

This is great, Mental errors and not playing within ourselves are probably the biggest impact on all golfers' score. However, even Duffner says maximize your equipment. Doing your best with the scoring clubs is one of the best ways I can think of to maximize my equipment.

[Mr_Theoo]

This is great, Mental errors and not playing within ourselves are probably the biggest impact on all golfers' score. However, even Duffner says maximize your equipment. Doing your best with the scoring clubs is one of the best ways I can think of to maximize my equipment.

 

As well as fitting every club to match your swing and style of play

[Rickles]

As well as fitting every club to match your swing and style of play

 

True, good point.

[revkev]

Beyond a doubt the mental game starts prior to the physical game right down to how a player allocates his practice time.

 

If you spend all of your time on the driving range and none to less than half of it on the practice green you just might be costing yourself strokes.