Hi everybody I have been looking around and reading threads since yesterday while waiting for my account to be activated and the community here seems to be well versed in equipment modification and equipment as a whole. I could not wait to ask questions that has been causing me to lose sleep mostly because everybody else i have spoke to don’t seem to have an answer.
SKIP this part if you just want to answer questions
A little background: Since hitting my instructor’s MP33 for the first time I determined that my first set or rather all my iron sets will be forged blades. As i was committed to improving quickly, i felt that my efforts for practicing would only be maximized if I felt the pain (vibrations) of a mishit and be rewarded with the addictive feeling of flush shots when i do something correct. I felt this was the best way to improve especially because I did not have much money to spend on lessons.
At the time the two Mizuno Blade models were mp68 and 62(not a true blade, I know). At that time i did not know there was offset on the blades as I thought Mizuno made the most traditional blades in the OEM market. Long story short i ended up with the mp62 through some convincing from various sources. At that time i felt that it was a compromise i can live with especially because when i was testing the clubs i was able to replicate the flush feeling of the MP33.
Questions
My main concern is that i want to flatten the lie angle so that at address the sole of the club is flat. Has anybody have any experience bending MIzuno forged irons? There should be no problem bending them up to 7 degrees flat right? I bought forged cause i knew i would want to modify them later but people seem to want to convince me that the limit is 3 degrees flat.
It seems to make sense that if I increase the loft of the clubs the offset will decrease. If i increase the loft of each club 2-3 degrees how much would the offset of the club decrease? I could increase the loft even more if need be since i do not care what the number on the iron is, only the loft and carry distance. The only limitation I see is the bounce of the club getting too high but i can always replace my PW with a wedge that has the appropriate loft and bounce.
I am looking to buy persimmon woods since i do not any woods at the moment. I found Louisville who seem to produce quality products but want to know if there are any other choices out there and feedback on louisville woods. I have sent them an email asking how much they can adjust their lie angle. I want to set up with the woods flat on the surface.
What was the old “standard” for lie angles? I noticed a lot of people on here posting 4 degrees flat for vintage clubs and was wondering what the reference point for the 4 degrees flat was.
Thanks in advance for all your help. I look forward to trying out vintage equipment when it is a bit more financially feasible for me.
Got you activated today Resonance…glad you found a place on the internet that was helpful, everyone here has some good experience at this kind of stuff through their own experimentation.
Here’s a quick one showing a set of 1972 Hogan Apex standard specs compared to today’s AP1 and Taylor Made irons just for reference. There is an entire thread somewhere also stating lag’s specs of set up of his clubs… will have to try find the link unless someone can beat me to the punch.
One additional question, if a club is designed with offset (though it is minimal) would the properties of the club head (blade design) be altered to fit for this offset?
In other terms, if sufficiently increase the loft on my MP62 so the offset is eliminated is there anything that I should take note of in the design that would prevent it from acting like a club that was made with “zero offset”?
It is quite important because it seems to me that if I want to remove the offset I will need to weaken the lofts quite a bit. This will increase the bounce to a ridiculous number and I will have to grind them down. This I assume will deface the logo on the bottom which will be an irreversible change.
Hi Resonance,
I would not remove offset just by weakening the lofts, grinding is a lot of work and you’ll lose a lot of weight in th process.
Removing offset can be done without weakening lofts: advancedballstriking.com/for … 0&start=10
As you can see, it works better if your irons have long hosels. Modern clubs usually have short hosels so it will be more difficult to remove a lot of offset.
Thanks Zion for your advice.
I adjusted my lie angle by 3 degrees and +2 degrees loft and I can finally sole the club flat without my hands feeling ridiculous uncomfortable.
One question though after increasing the loft I found that the weight of the clubhead to be shifted back. Is this normal? If I had ordered the clubs with increased loft to begin with would he balance of the clubhead be different then adjusting it after?
Also, I had question on progressive offset. Can someone tel me when clubmakers started using offset and whether progressive onset/offset was used back in the day? I have read somewhere on this site that on “zero offset” clubs that the higher lofted irons will have some onset. That would mean that progression of some sort is innate to the design of the golf clubs and not a game improvement feature right?
I plan on customizing a nice set of irons in the near future so I want to sort out as many aspects of club making as possible before I commit.
Thanks
P.S. Bounce also confused me. Why is there confused on the lower number irons? If you strike the ball first everything beyond the club face does not matter right? The bounce is technically only useful in wedges and mainly the sand wedge at that right?
If you bend the loft weaker the top half of the clubhead will be shifted or tilted backwards slightly. Depending on original design and weight distribution throughout the head you will or will not notice this. It’s probably only a very minor difference. Modern blades however have a different weight distribution compared to the old stuff.
I don’t know exactly when they started using offset, but I read somewhere that Arnold Palmer ‘invented’ it… (I’m not sure that’s true though).
The shorter irons should have face progression because of the fact that the ball is struck higher up on the face due to the weaker loft. Ideally you want the center of the shaft inline with the sweet spot.
Bounce can be useful on longer clubs too, especially if you play a wet course or a course with soft fairways. A bit of bounce allows the club to skid through the grass a bit more where a club with no bounce would dig in more. It can also be useful if you come in steep or when you hit it slightly fat…
Would the weight distribution of the old muscle back irons and the modern muscle back irons to be the same? (Modern forged muscle back like the Mp68) I thought the concept of muscle back was to add weight behind the “sweet spot.” With my limited knowledge regarding club head design, I can not seem to find a way for the club maker to deviate from this basic concept. Have modern club makers messed with the COG of muscle back irons? i am presuming that the moving of the COG will alter the sweet spot.
Face progression
At what loft should face progression start? I am throwing my best guess out there that it should be 45 degrees but I do not have any good reason other then its halfway between vertical and horizontal. Also, lets say there is this magical loft number and beyond this loft there should be face progression, then will the opposite be true (lofts lower than this number have negative face progression a.k.a offset)?
Thanks for your continued responses. I have so many questions about club design especially comparing the old practices to modern practices. I wish I could just have an hour to sit down with Don White and ask him all the questions I have.
I set all my face progressions by eye. But I would say that I start with a tinge at the 6 iron. The 6 and 7 look about the same to me… the 8 and 9 a bit more … and then my PW makes a bit of a jump to having more. The illustration Zion posted above is spot on. Thanks for posting that one. This really is more advanced stuff. A much more sophisticated way of setting up your gear than all the wind tunnel MIT grads attempting to make modern golf gear for knuckleheads.
My sets all look similar, but all a bit different. Since I play a variety of sets, the head shapes vary and neck shapes, so I really don’t have a formula, and when you are bending them in the vice, it ultimately comes down to a lot of little tweaks. A lot of the guys here have sent their sets out to me to bend, and I do all the bends myself for all the sets going out on Lagbay. It really is an art form… not something your local club bender is likely going to be able to do in a way that would pass my standards. I think you just need a lot of experience doing it… not that someone else couldn’t learn to do it. NRG here has a good eye for it too… so any of you across the pond should contact him with confidence.
Depends on the shape and dimensions of the heads.
Horizontally: A head with a long hosel will move COG/sweetspot towards the heel.
Vertically: A head with less clubhead height will therefore have a lower COG.
It’s not always visible, but you can tell a lot by looking at sole width, muscle and topline.
Hope this helps!
The MP68’s have a more central (horizontally) and slightly lower (vertically) COG when compared to most of my other sets (vintage Wilson Staffs, Macgregors, Haig Ultras, and Toney Pennas.
If the COG = Sweetspot then I would technically have to address different two different sets of irons differently if the COG has been moved Horizontally right? Vertical COG will change the flight height when the ball is struck the same way?
Question about offset adjustments. Many people seem to have switched from clubs with some or minimal offset to no offset. What adjustments should I be aware of that will occur when you switch. I feel that my hands at address may be less forward. Is that what those that have switched experienced?
Offset has nothing to do with address. If you have offset, there is a huge tendency to come OTT, or to over roll the wrists in an independent way through the shot, not through a proper pivot - hand connection.
Vertical will change height, but not all that much from one blade to another. The big difference is from a blade to a game improvement iron.
As far as addressing irons differently due to a horizontal shift in COG, it is really so minimal that the setup difference isn’t really necessary. I rotate sets a bit during practice, and I never conciously adjust for that, although it is possible that the adjustments are made subconciously after hitting a few balls. Still, the difference is maybe a millimeter or two for the most part.
Golf really isn’t that precise of a game. Fairways are pretty wide considering many less than perfect swings can still find the short grass. Greens are pretty big in general, and if you are hitting your iron shots 20 feet from the hole all day you have a total of 40 feet or error if you consider left and right of the hole. Even picking the right club there is a lot of room for error for most shots. Leaving a shot 30 feet short of the hole is one club. To get 30 feet past the hole is TWO CLUBS difference than 30 feet short. You should be able to lag putt inside a 12 foot circle from 30 feet. That’s 6 feet of error short, long… left and right. Get solid with the putter inside 6 feet and just work a bit on lag putting and you can play very good golf and even win tournaments.
Fiddling over centimeters at address is not going to do you much good. Just learn to hit relatively straight golf shots with good character and contact and you can play this game better than most.
