Why are lie and loft important?
Simply put…
The lie of the club determines if the ball goes where you point the clubface and the loft determines how far the ball will goes when hit.
Got it? Read on.
The lie of a clubhead is the angle between the plane of the sole and the shaft. If the clubhead arrives at impact with either the toe or the heel side of the clubhead tilted even a little bit up or down, the face will not be pointed at the target no matter how perfect your swing was.
Yes that is exactly right. How does that happen? Take a look at this:
Finding the right lie for your irons and adjusting each iron so it can arrive at impact just like the clubhead in the center of the above illustration is critical for being able to play to the best of your ability.
The loft of your irons along with your clubhead speed is what determines how far you hit each club. In a set of irons you want the distance difference between each iron to be as close to the same as possible so you are not guessing which club to hit for what distance. ALL IRONS, no matter who makes them, are subject to an error in manufacture of +/-1* in the loft (and the lie). And no company ever takes the time to check the loft of each iron head once the shipments of iron heads are received from the production factories.
That means you could have two irons in your set which could be only 2* apart while two other adjacent irons could be as much as 6* apart in loft.
Do you have irons in your set that you hit distances which are either too close together or farther apart than the distances between other irons in your set? If so, you are probably the victim of production mistakes in the iron heads in your set which need to be adjusted correctly by a trained and experienced custom Clubmaker.
In addition, not all golfers have the same angle of attack of the clubhead coming into the ball. For most golfers as we move the ball back in our stance the angle the clubhead comes into the ball becomes more steep, a common swing characteristic that will de-loft the iron when it hits the ball. Common swing characteristics like this can also change the distance gap between irons in your set.
So once again, if the distance between each iron in your set is not within 1 to 2 yards of being the same, that is a real indication your lofts need to be checked and adjusted to make each distance gap the same between each iron in your set.
Each AGCP Clubmaker is very well trained in the skills of analyzing your swing, your clubhead position at impact and adjusting your irons to each have the right lie and loft angle for your swing characteristics. The next time you make a decent swing and you see the ball head off line, of experience different distance gaps between the irons, perhaps it is time to contact your local AGCP Clubmaker for a fitting appointment.