Yes DaveT you assumed correct in that my 8-Iron is loft of 40 degrees. Sorry me bad. HFS Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network
-----Original Message----- From: Dave Tutelman <[email protected]> Sender: [email protected] Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2011 08:53:38 To: <[email protected]> Reply-To: [email protected] Subject: Re: ShopTalk: More Critical, head or shaft? Before we get to your question... At 01:12 AM 6/28/2011, Harry F. Schiestel wrote: >Even my MX-23's with their cheated lofts, I bent them back to a more >traditional loft of 40* for the 9 iron, followed by 44 (9), 49 (PW) >and wedges at 54 (SW) and 59 (LW) with no GW. All wedges made >identical frequency and length as 9-iron. From what you write here, it sounds like you have two 9-irons: 40* and 44*. I'm sure you don't mean that. What do you mean? If you mean that the 40* iron is an 8-iron, your loft lineup is a fairly typical lineup from the first half of the 1990s. I like my irons about that, too. But I have to start by buying clubheads not too different. Bending irons more than a few degrees isn't a great idea. I'm not just talking about cracking the hosel in the bending process. Bounce angle is changed by bending. And vertical weight distribution, offset, etc are designed for the loft angle. On to your question: >Let me ask this of the members. >What do you feel is more critical, the head or the shaft and why? I >am not suggesting a 15* high loft driver when a player needs 8*'s or >L flex when he needs an XX flex shaft. What factor head or shaft >should you pick first to begin to optimize performance? You qualify the question with a reasonableness test on the clubhead: loft. Before I take on the question you ask, I'd like to put a little more flesh on the reasonableness test. * Let's assume we're talking driver here, because the question was asked in the context of a discussion of a 116mph clubhead speed. * We're going to assume that the loft is properly fit to the golfer. You already said that. * We're going to assume that a bunch of other parameters are typical of a modern driver head, specifically: - Max allowable COR. - Reasonable bulge and face roll. - If the player doesn't have a very tight impact pattern, let's also assume that the COR is maintained over a pretty large portion of the face, and that the clubhead MOI is pretty high. Most good driver heads these days are quite OK in both regards. Let's assume all these pass the reasonableness test for a driver head. Beyond that, the only critical factors about the head are: * Weight (a fitting issue that can often be remedied with tip weight, screw weights, lead tape, or rat glue) * How it fits the player's eye (important but mostly subjective). After that, it's all shaft. Designers have gotten very good in the past 7-10 years at designing fairly novel distributions of flex and weight, torque and hoop strength, using carbon fiber. Before that, carbon fiber was a competent shaft material; now it's almost an artistic medium. Cheers! DaveT
