A reoccurring question that I see on the blogs involves where impact is being made on the face of the golf club. A common misconception is that lie angle has a bearing on this. It does not.
More often than not, when I see a player that comes to me for fittings/lesson and habitually strikes the ball on the toe of the clubs, be it irons or woods, it is due to improper set up. By this I mean that the individual actually sets up with the ball more towards the toe and then hits it there. If you routinely hit the ball on the toe, have someone stand over top of the club head as you address the ball and see just where it is as you set up. Most of us right handed golfers are right eye dominant and we just don't have a 'good look' at the ball at address.
Another common problem that causes toe hits is 'reaching' at address. And, by reaching I'm not talking a stretch. You can get your hands out of position just an inch or so and even if you center the ball on the club face at address, you'll more than likely hit it on the toe. The principle here is just like a skater spinning. To spin faster the arms come into the body. So, as you are accelerating on the down swing, the hands come back into the body just enough that the club head is now out of position and closer to you.Thus, toe strikes.
In the PPGS our down swing should be ON-ON-ON. Deviate from this whether it's over the top move or a severe inside to out swing, you can also strike the ball on the toe of the club. The key here would be what you do with your hands through impact.
You've probably heard about MOI by now, especially if you've read any of my other articles. The MOI that I'm referring to has to do with the total club MOI. This refers to the effort that it takes to rotate the club around the axis (you) and get the face back to squaring as it comes through the impact zone. If you have the improper MOI, your ball striking will be inconsistent which also includes toe strikes.
Now, just what is lie angle? This is the angle that the shaft comes into the hosel of the golf club. With a club soled flat, if the shaft was perfectly straight up and down the lie angle would be 90* and if the shaft were laying flat on the ground the lie angle would be 0*. Of course, no clubs have these lie angles but I use this as a reference point to illustrate what lie angle is. Lie angle is a consideration of fitting a player in regards to his swing plane and the toe down effect of the club as it comes through impact. It is important when having your lie angle checked that you are using shafts with the same properties as what you will play.
The inference here is that you can go into a local retail shop and in the fitting process they will not necessarily use the shaft that you will be playing to check lie angle. It is also important that you are using the same head. The reason is that different shafts and head combinations will produce different 'toe droop' and therefore may not be a truly accurate picture of what you need. Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about. Let's say that you are looking at a set of XXXXXX irons with a 90 gram shaft in R flex. The salesman grabs a YYYYYY iron with a 130 gram shaft in S flex. The properties of these two clubs will be as different as night and day and more than likely will not give you the correct fitting information.
Just what part does lie angle play in the execution of the golf shot you ask? Great question. If your lie angle is too flat, the toe of the club digs and this stops the toe from coming through impact at the same rate as the heel which causes the face to open up and put clockwise spin on the ball which produces the fade. Conversely, if the club is too upright, the heel digs and the toe keeps going, closing the club face and producing a ball that flies left. One interesting note here is that in an effort to stop golfers from fading and slicing, most club manufacturers have started producing clubs that are a good bit more upright than in days past.
Well, how do you know if the clubs are correct for you. You guessed it! Go see a fitter and have them checked out. I had a customer come to me yesterday that I've worked with in the past and he is a very good player. Good enough in fact that he will be qualifying for the Mid Am in September. He recently purchased a set of clubs off XXXXX with the intent of me retro-fitting them. I had not touched the clubs yet and he showed up all dejected. 'What was wrong?' I asked. 'I can't hit these irons,' was his reply. His normal ball flight is a nice high soft draw and he was hitting everything low and right. Didn't take the 'doctor' long to diagnose the problem. His irons were way too flat and the toe was just digging into the ground. The cure was to take his irons 5* up from where they were and he left hitting the nice high soft draw that he was accustomed to.
Go see a fitter and you might find that some of the shots that you hit which you thought were the result of a bad swing are actually the result of clubs set up incorrectly for you.
As always, to help, here are the 3 current PPGS Certified fitters and then a link for those of you to try in other parts of the country. Also, as a result of your requests, we are also putting together a Fitter Certification Program and plans are to roll this out the first of October.
Better Golf Is Just A Fit Away!
J. Lynn Griffin, Master Fitter/Builder
PPGS Certified Instructor