How to determine your loft and lie (golf)?

Question

Hi all,

I'm a beginner to the game (only been playing for 4 months) but have picked the pick up very quickly and have fallen in love with it!! I bought some cheap Srixon replicas to start playing with but have already started to out play them (shooting in the 80's) and want to buy some King Cobra FP irons. My mate has a set and they fell great and I’m real keen to buy some over eBay and save close to $400 in doing so compared to buying from a pro shop.

Is there a way of determining what lie and loft suits your swing without having to consult with a pro. I feel bad having a pro wasting his time in sizing me up only to have me buy the clubs off eBay.

Can anyone help... even a rough guess will satisfy. I'm 25, 6.1'', and I’m hitting my 5 iron consistently at 180m and having no difficulties in getting height with the ball.

I'm looking to have these clubs see me through for a few years and hopefully will see me hitting some real low scores. Any help will be appreciated

Cheer

Answer 1

Welcome to golf, I see you are still in the "honeymoon" phase...lol...seriously though, the FP's are very nice, possibly due to the stock Nippon shafts. These have been great in every club I've tried with them. They come as a manufacturer option in many Titleist irons (Cobra included), and a few other brands too.

Loft is almost completely relative, manufacturers assign it to a given iron, but it changes from one company to the next. Lie, however, is more important. Toe up or toe down at impact does affect ball flight, left or right, respectively. You can check the sole of your irons for fresh marks on the toe or heel side for evidence. It will show it's self most often as a draw or fade even when struck squarely. It sounds like you do just fine with distance, so you must hit fairly clean shots.

A club fitter will be glad to help, for a fee of course, regardless if you bought your clubs through them or not. So, get what you enjoy looking down at and you can have pretty much anything fit to your swing.

Answer 2

At 6'1" you are normal size for a set of Cobra clubs the FP irons are a great set of clubs but you can get them from an online retailer like Golfsmith.com, TGW.com has them for $350/steel and $400/graphite.

Answer 3

You must be worn out from reading bobl's answer, but just pay a pro to fit you so you can determine if you need lie adjusted.  Loft can easily be done later if you want to change the trajectory of your ball flight.  You will find the Cobras have a lot of weight in the sole of the club and the ball will have a very high flight.

Answer 4

Glad to hear you are learning fast and playing well.  You have a couple of good questions that can be addressed and I would suggest that you consider a few more before locking yourself into any particular set of clubs.

Regarding lofts, you say you are having no difficulty in getting height on your shots so standard lofts should be OK.  Loft however can be tweaked by about +/-2 degrees in most clubs if you find you need to adjust loft to make the distance gap equal between your clubs.  You won't know this until you get your set and try them.  

Lie is another parameter that will need to be checked and adjusted after you buy your set.  Regardless of your height, most folks have arms that are proportional to their height so a normal length set of clubs fits most folks.  It is your swing plane that will dictate if you need an adjustment.

I admire your desire not to take advantage of a pro by taking up their time and then purchasing clubs elsewhere.  However, there are many parameters of a golf club that can only be determined with a fitting specialist and a launch monitor.  These guys typically charge for a custom fitting so you don't have to worry about taking advantage of them.  It may be the best money you will spend.

Since you ask about loft I assume you are interested in obtaining a specific ball flight pattern.  Club loft is only one part of what determines ball flight.  The flex of the shaft, flex point of the shaft, soft or weak tip, high or low torque shaft, and the low or high center of gravity of your club head also greatly determine the trajectory of your shots.  The best combination of these parameters can best be determined by a fitting specialist and a launch monitor.  That will allow you to try all the various combinations until you find one that provides exactly what you want out of your set.

Additionally you will be able to determine what swing weight of club allows you to have the best feel of where the club head is during your swing and the one that helps you to square the club at impact.  Also, you can determine if swinging a club where the overall weight is a little greater or less than normal will help you to smooth your swing and still obtain maximum club head speed.

As a benefit, during your fitting you will get a chance to find out which of these combinations will let you vary the trajectory and work the ball side to side when needed and still hit your favorite "go to" shot when nothing fancy is required.

As you learn more about golf you will see that most of the performance of a club is due to the shaft that is chosen.  The general public focuses on the club head because it is easier to see variations in the geometry that the manufacturer's all claim to be the best.  

Club heads are important but the shaft is really the key.  Get a good fitting to determine the proper shaft / club head that fits your swing.  Then buy the set that the most closely matches your needs or have a set made specifically for you.  Golfsmith and others have very good selections of components that can make a perfectly customized set of clubs to exactly fit your needs.  As a bonus, you'll generally find a custom set costs no more than a big name set off the rack.  When you get your new clubs spend some time getting used to them and learn the distances you hit each club - especially the irons.  Then, take them into a golf shop and adjust the lie to fit your swing and tweak the loft if required to have exactly the gap you want between each iron.

You'll be on your way to playing the best golf you possibly can.  From that point on it will just be a mater of polishing your technique and becoming consistent.