Lag, what lie angle would you recommend for irons using a hitter motion? I am thinking of getting my irons bent 2 degree’s flat. Thanks.
In a pivot driven golf swing, the type we will be working on here… it’s good science for the shaft to be at right angles to the spine on the downswing and post impact before we move into a finish swivel.
Turning the shoulders as flat and level as possible is a power move, because the left shoulder in particular travels farther from the ball post impact than if the shoulders move steeply.
This being said… much of the course will focus on proper pivot action, and although no two players will be the same because of build and genetics… it is still quite possible for even taller players to swing on flatter more level swing planes…
It’s nothing new… in the 1930’s Wild Bill Melhourn suggested golf be played from a 45 degree lie angle… that by today’s standards is very flat.
I think you can’t go wrong with 2 degrees flat for now… as we work through the course, and you learn to properly release the golf club actively, apply proper use of ground forces, and understand where we are going with our energy post impact, we can take a good look at what will be your ideal swing plane and lie angle then… until we know that, we are guessing…
The flatter you swing the better if it is done correctly, and that will be an option for you here…
One of the mistakes many golfers make is trying to flatten their swings without flattening their gear, and modern clubs
make it tougher to bend without breaking… one of the advantages of having a forged set laying around…!
My irons are 6 degrees flat off standard… even my persimmons… I had to pull the shafts and re bore the necks…
Hogan, Knudson, Moe, Trevino, De Vicenzo, all very flat…
Opps… this is the technology page! lol
I just had my 1983 Mizunos bent to 3 degrees flat. (They were “all over the place” when the club maker checked lofts and lies). I was going to go to 4 flat but thought I better ease into it. I’ve had a chance to play one round with them and they look and feel fine and seemed to play nicely.
How would you know if you’ve flattened too much? Toe heavy divots and misses to the right?
Robbo
Just had my irons bent two degree’s flat, this should be interesting considering I was coming from 1 degree upright or so I thought. My new custom ordered Nike TW Blades were 3 degree’s upright from the factory 
instead of 1 degree. So now they have been adjusted 5 degree’s flat from where they were. Tomorrow when I play it should be interesting to see how they perform or how I perform. Lesson learn get your equipment checked.
So true! I fully expected my Mizzy’s (an ebay purchase) to be out of spec - I could see it at setup. Forged blades will move over time based on how much use they get.
Assuming off-the-shelf equipment or even special orders are “where they should be” can be a bad move. I just know of too many instances of OEM equipment (including custom stuff) being our of spec.
I viewed Tom Wishon’s thoughts on customizing clubs for golfers swings…
Tom may know a lot about technology in golf equipment, and historical content…
but Tom does not know about what the golf swing need to do,
or he would not have said
what he believes to be true about the future of golf equipment
and custom fitting to a players personal swing. It’s amazing he
can stand so close to the forest and not see it.
The answer to better golf is not in getting your clubs fit to your bad golf swing…
Doing that locks you into improper swing plane and path forever.
Congrats to all of you that are here, Tom is looking in the wrong direction…
Wishon goes on and on and never addresses the most absolutely important fundamental in golf…PROPER IMPACT ALIGNMENTS.
YOU MUST SHOW THE GOLFER WHERE THEY SHOULD BE, SET THEIR CLUBS TO THAT IDEAL AND FORCE THAT SOFTWARE INTO THEIR COMPUTER! usually much flatter than where they are now…
Lie angle is SO important… most golfers hands come in way too high, they go in for a fitting, then are doomed to when they are fitted with irons that are too upright… (not for their current swing, but for their proper impact alignments where they should be)
HOW LOUD CAN I SCREAM THIS!!!
The flatter they can swing the straighter they will hit it. Tall people may have an advantage with certain G.O.L.F. dynamics but…
Have you ever tried to come over the top and hit a big pull shot or push one way right…. hitting a teed ball off your knees?
When you come over the top from a knee shot you hit it lower…
and lower is usually IN PLAY!
Getting your clubs set up for your proper impact alignments is the most important club decision you can make. Your educated hands will use the feedback from your clubs to guide your entire motion.
GET THIS RIGHT!!!
I am 6 feet tall and play irons 6 degrees flat. I have a bit more knee bend at address than most, so I can position my torso as upright as possible. As a hitter, the flatter I can rotate, the faster my left shoulder will move away from the ball in actual distance… this maximizes my #4 and also aids in keeping good balance through out the swing. I like to feel I am turning around the axis of my spine until the 4rth parallel, then I move to an even more upright spine angle to help maximize accumulator #5.
Upright irons make over the top easier, so think about that one…
Try to hit a big OTT pull shot hitting a golf ball off your knees…
nearly impossible…
The flatter you swing, the more the OTT movement will affect trajectory rather than direction.
I’ll take big trajectory problems over big direction problems any day…
I think if you are swinging, you might be ok with more upright clubs, but with hitting, and the use of radial acceleration, I see no real advantage to upright clubs…
Lag,
Could you please re-post what your iron/wedge lies are again? (I forgot where I saw that.)
In an email to me you kept telling me to get them dropped a few degrees flatter. I’d like to pass on to the other folks that I’ve gone down 4 degrees since last year, and it is very true… the swing starts to follow. It’s almost a subliminal message sent to my head from the clubs… ‘swing lower stupid’… and I do.
I am getting another set of blades adjusted. I don’t want to over do it, but my current set is:
Club Lie Loft Length
3 Iron 57* 21*
4 Iron 58* 24*
5 Iron 59* 27*
6 Iron 60* 31*
7 Iron 61* 35*
8 Iron 62*(could be 61) 39*
9 Iron 62* 43*
Pitching W. 62* 48*
Sand W. 62* 54*
Lob W. 62* 58*
(I was 4* higher last year!) I see some new “Game Improvement” irons that are set so upright… as to help the golfer fight a slice, but I think it’s like treating a broken leg with a band aid.
It’s hard to say what is too flat…
Bill Mehlhorn whom Hogan said was the greatest ball striker he ever saw, believed golf should be played from a 45 degree angle. With a driver
that would equal 10 degrees flat.
Toe heavy divots mean bad shots, but they do not mean your clubs are too flat… What we want to do is set up our clubs to where they should be
if we are to swing the club properly.
A lot of how flat can you go has to do with how much knee flex you have through the hitting area. Knee bend lowers our center of gravity, and is one of the
pivotal slices of the pie regarding how flat can we go…
Flat swings engage the pivot… and flat swings need flat clubs…
Flat swing planes also allow us to hit the ball straighter, because any OTT move becomes more about a lower trajectory than a left shot.
Think about hitting a shot off your knees… it would be very hard to pull the ball hard left…
You can hit the ball straight with upright clubs, it’s just a lot harder to do it consistently. Trevino, Hogan, Moe, Knudson, De Vicenzo, Player, Palmer,
all very flat going through impact.
My irons are 6 degrees flat, and I think I’ll stay there. They feel great, and I’m six feet tall.
Posted earlier in another post: I was wondering what some of the lie angle you all are using. I am currently at 2 degree’s flat and thinking of going lower I now have 2 rounds under my belt and like the results so far, should I go flatter. Lag I believe I have read some where that you have your irons bent 5 degree’s flat.
So Lag your irons are 6 degree’s flat can we see a picture of that from address. I am thinking of going flatter, what do you think should I hang out at 2 degree’s flat for awhile or take the plung and go to 4 or 6 degree’s flat.
One of the best things you can consider is how do you feel doing your module #1 drills with a flatter club?
Do you feel the P3 4:30 line is screaming at you to flatten your clubs? Remember, the whole swing must be flattened.
I bent a club 12 degrees flat, and just did all my module drills with it for a couple weeks… then when I looked at the
6 degree down stuff, it looked and felt easy to do it…
One thing I can assure you all is that as you move through the modules, the OPTION of going flatter will become more
and more viable. Arm swings and upright clubs go hand in hand… flat clubs and pivot driven hitting go hand in hand.
I think most people 6 feet tall and under would have no problem going 6 degrees flat. You might have to bend your knees more, but so what? As we will learn in this course, that can be a very useful thing!
Hi Lag,
When we talk about “x degrees off of standard” it would be great if we had a common platform for interpretation in terms of “standard” lies and indeed lofts. I am intending to flatten my clubs this week but I guess I need to know the benchmark and when I took a look round the net there are significant differences in what is a “standard” both between manufacturers and even within manufacturers portfolios over time, particularly in the long irons… For example there are only 5 years between the Mizuno MP-29 (1999) and MP-32 (2004) but the MP-32 2 iron is 3 degrees more upright at 59 degrees than the MP-29 equivalent at 56 degrees. So any chance you could post what you regard as “standard” or alternatively what you have at “6 degrees flat” so we can use that when making adjustments. Same would also be great on lofts and I guess overall weight and swingweight too.
To add to my confusion I just got this email from my clubfitting guy: “The maximum you can bend forged Irons without the risk of breaking them is 4 degrees and cast only 2 degrees so unless the clubs you have are made of an unusual material 6 degrees is not possible.”
Many Thanks,
Arnie
Arnie…
I bent a set of Slazenger irons 12 degrees flat…
If you put a blow torch on the metal to heat it up a bit, you are much less likely to snap one…
The 4 degree thing is just for the golf course liability… in other words, they can bend it 4 and have
zero worries… but going more has never been an issue for me, and I have bent a lot of clubs!
BUT DON"T HOLD ME RESPONSIBLE!!! . 
Top stuff Lag - thanks so much! I am looking forward to getting a set made up - very exciting. 
I think I saw you write somewhere that you would leave the sand wedge as it was in terms of lie angle - am I imagining that? If it is true why would that be specifically?
Thanks,
Arnie
Any thoughts on lofts Lag? I believe that you have fairly strong lofts in your irons starting at 13ish degrees in your 1 iron which follows from carrying a driver then 2 wood only? How does your thought process work on lofts?
Cheers, Arnie
P.S I always quite liked Hale Irwins (below) set up from the 70’s which is quite different but at least it had a decent spread not like some of the modern sets which start at 22 degrees for a 3 iron and finish at 46 for a PW!
Driver – 11
3 wood – 17
4 wood – 20
2 ir – 23
3 ir – 27
4 ir – 31
5 ir – 35
6 ir – 39
7 ir – 43
8 ir – 47
9 ir – 51
PW – 55
SI – 59 (presumably banned under TRGA rules!)
Well I am now 4 degrees flat on a set of Mizuno TP 2000’s with s300 shafts. Its funny how when people used to say their clubs were 2 degrees flat / upright it used to seem such a big deal, now I have gone 4 flat! But at the end of the day it is “only” 4 degrees. Anyway I have been hitting the 1 iron off hard pan in the back garden into a net and I havn’t broken either the club or any limbs yet, so thats a promising start lol! Don’t forget to “bend zee knees”… because if you snatch it a bit quick from the top it will “educate you” in a hurry. What fun! 
Holy smokes! That’s like a hockey stick!
Does blow torching it mess up the chrome at all?
Here’s my experience on getting my clubs bent flat cut. Per Lag’s suggestions, I asked for 4 degrees flat off of the standard in the chart above for my 66 Dynas. The club fitter I took it to thought I was crazy and told me they’re way out of whack from Mizuno’s current standard even as the flattest club maker out there. Really? Shocker.
Anyway, he told me he got the lies all to my specs from PW to the 5 iron, then had to go in half degree increments down from there (see below) because he said he got to the point where he felt he was making creases that would weaken them and make them break while playing. He said other guys wouldn’t even have touched them, yada yada, and that he wouldn’t try bending them further. My question to Lag – What do you think - close enough for now and tweak the longer irons later?
Wanted Got
2 53 54 1/2
3 54 55
4 55 55 1/2
5 56 56
6 57 57
7 58 58
8 59 59
9 60 60
P 60 60
I also asked for lofts starting at 48 for the PW and going in 4 degree increments down from there. The fitter told me that they’re all in 4 degree increments, but he had to go one degree up (i.e, 49 for the PW down to 17 for the 2 iron).
The short answer from Lag was consistent with the above messages that it was fine to bend the 2, 3, and 4 down further and that I should do it to take advantage of what flat clubs can do. So, bottom line, I need to find someone else to do it or get a bending machine and do it myself (which I may do if I can get a decent deal).
Cheese,
I just dropped off a set of MT Split Soles with my club guy to be extended almost an inch, bent to 4 flat, and strengthened to lofts that are closer to modern day numbers. This same guy recently did my sets of KZG ZO’s, Mizuno MS-3’s and Hogan PC’s to the same specs. Although he initially asked if “I was sure” I wanted to go 4 flat, there have been no issues with breakage, fear of breakage, etc. (This guy is pretty good and does plenty of equipment work for tour players).
I also dropped off a TM hybrid and asked if he could flatten it some. He pretty much said the best he could do was 2 degrees on it which didn’t surprise me. I’m still in a bit of a quandry on what to do with my fairway woods and/or hybrids. I guess redrilling some of my old persimmon stuff as Lag has done is an option, but for now I’m going to see how the 2 degree flat TM performs and go from there.
Lag… how much difference do you think it makes to redrill and flatten your persimmon drivers? Doesn’t the fact that you have the ball teed up allow you to still swing any driver on a flatter plane, or is there a face angle issue that comes into play?
Robbo
Did you extend all your sets by an inch when you went flat or did you do that b/c you left in the original, shorter shafts? I cut my shafts to play at the same lengths I had on my mp-60s – 37.75 5 iron – and am hoping that will be fine. Might just have to bend the knees more…