I was of the understanding that all offset does is give the clubface a bit longer to get to the ball, allowing the face to close by itself therefore reducing a slice. Therefore encouraging quiet hands, which is obviously not good for us hitters.
But i was talking to someone in the know last week and he said that this was a big misconcepetion
and what really happens is that offset moves the clubheads centre on gravity further back behind the shaft and that the COG will catch up with the shaft at impact and will increase what he called the “dynamic loft” on the club. Caused by forward shaft flexing due to loss of acceleration.
I’m no expert, but I have a hard time understanding why offset allows a golfer to hit the ball higher (when all else is equal).
Imagine you had two MP14 5 irons, one with 5mm of offset and one with zero offset. All other specs are equal.
Question: Which head would launch the ball higher?
Answer: The head with zero offset.
Offset moves the COG farther from the shaft axis, but closer to the face of the club… being that the hosel adds considerable weight to the head itself.
Here’s a pic of what I’m thinking about:
Myths that I believe need to be busted:
-Offset does NOT give the golfer more time to square the clubhead at impact. If you setup with the face behind the ball you’ll have just as much time to return the fact to that spot at impact.
-Offset does NOT launch the ball higher… a lower COG does.
We as hitters want to be rewarded for our forearm rotational efforts. The offset delays the closing of the clubface slightly… but enough to make a difference.
If I have offset on the club, my first instinct is to over rotate my hands… or close them independent of my pivot rotation. I feel like I have to flick at the ball… or come OTT.
With no offset, I want to keep the face open longer to resist the earlier closing of the clubface. This promotes a much better pivot hand connection and a delayed strike into impact.
Module 8 students should know exactly what is meant here.
I agree 100% regarding the mental side of offset. Just seeing offset (of any great amount) makes me do funky things to my setup and swing. It shouldn’t, but it does.
Assuming a right handed golf club and looking down the shaft with the club head on the ground:
Because the hosel pertrudes more than the shaft (I.e. has a thicker circumference than the shaft), do you measure offset as being any gap between the left edge of the club face and a) the left edge of the hosel, b) the left edge of the shaft (which will of course help reduce the appearance of offset if there is any relative to a) or c) from the centre line of the shaft?
My understanding (and I think Lag may have posted about this on the site somewhere before) is that the zero offset line is the one where the centre of the shaft lines up with the 3rd (?) groove of the club. This means that due to the differing face angles of the various clubs throughout the bag, you end up with the leading edge of the shorter clubs protruding further to the left (assuming you are a right hander, looking down the shaft at the ground).
That’s correct… I put more face progression into my shorter irons… starting around the 8 iron. So my PW is getting into say the 4th groove because the loft of the club is going to move the ball up the face relative to the position of the grooves as the loft increases or flattens out.
This allows me to work the ball a bit more right to left with a wedge… when I want to. I can put just a hint of draw on the ball with a wedge so that I can feed it over to the pin when it hits the green on certain pin placements.
If I have offset on a wedge I can’t hit that shot… unless I try to flick my hands at it with some kind of disconnecting wrist roll.
