This was sent to me by a guy that visited my web site, wonder if anyone can help him with this??
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I recently had my swing tested. My driver swing speed is 105, 2 degrees out-to-in, avg swing temp 1.3 sec.
According the clubmaker, because of my out-to-in swingpath, the more closed the clubface angle is, the more it will accentuate my slice/fade tendencies, and he insisted I should have a square face angle, or even slightly open. This seems counter-intuitive (I would have assumed a closed clubface would result in a draw). He tried to explain it to me--it had to do with the gear effect caused by the manufactured horizontal bulge in the clubhead. I'm having a heck of time trying to comprehend it--it's beyond me.
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- Jack Zylla
Jack,
The answer that Bernie sent was completely correct. Let me just reinforce it by saying the same thing in slightly different words...
First of all, the clubmaker blaming your problem on gear effect is pure bull, unless there's something important that he told you that didn't make it into the message. Gear effect only has to do with whether the impact between ball and clubface takes place towards the toe or the heel of the face. It has nothing to do with an out-to-in swing, nor an open or closed clubface.
Your slice stems from your out-to-in swing, pure and simple. A closed clubface can help, but you'll have to make another adjustment as well. It's a two-step process. Bernie described both steps, as he applies them. (BTW, the process occupies a whole chapter of Werner and Greig's book, "How Golf Clubs Really Work.")
(1) Find out how much your club face has to be open or closed for you to hit the ball straight. Note that "straight" means "not curved"; it DOES NOT MEAN "at the target." If you have an outside-in swing (as you do), and you close the clubface so the ball goes straight, it will go straight at the rough (or woods, or lake) on the left. That's because your swing is a pull swing. So hitting the ball on a trajectory that doesn't curve doesn't solve your whole problem, it just solves the curving.
Anyway, you can accomplish this with a closed-face club, or just set up with the clubface closed. The problem with the latter is that it also delofts the club; in other words, your 10* driver will become an 8.5* driver. So the right way to go about it is to get a closed-face driver of the loft you need.
(2) Now that you're hitting the ball straight -- but to the left -- you experiment until you find out how much to the right you have to set up for your ball to go at the target. Bernie refers to it as how closed his setup has to be. I take issue with the wording, though not what I know he is saying. You can't think "closed". You have to take your normal setup and make your normal swing -- but with the whole assembly aimed enough to the right to make up for the pull.
Same thing Bernie said, just presented a little differently.
Good luck! DaveT
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