Informatin about Golfing?

Question

Hi, I am new to golf and today was my first day of golfing. I learned from an instructor and I think I did really well during my 1hr learning session. I only used the 7 iron but I dont know what the other clubs do and I want to know what they do. I would appreciate it if you can answer these questions for me:

1. What are all the numbers mean in the irons? What do they do?

2. Driver is used to hit far but I have like 3 of them. My friend said one is a hybrid. What is a hybrid and when to use it?

3. What does pw mean? I think it means something wedge.

4. I have 3 clubs that look like irons but instead of numbers, they are letters. Letters A, P, and also, 56 degrees. What do they do?

5. Also, I have a really skinny club that looks like a mini driver but says 1i. What does that do?

Sry if im asking stupid questions but I am new to golfing and my dad just gave me his whole golf clubs.

Answer 1

Hey, congratulations on taking up the great game of golf.  As for your questions, there are no stupid ones...only those not asked.

All golfers were new to the game at one time.

Here's a short article for new golfers that you may enjoy;http://hopurl.com/43864

Answer 2

awsome

Answer 3

The irons are generally separated into three categories long irons (1,2,3,4) mid (5,6,7) short (8,9)  The lower number irons have longer shafts and less loft.  The loft is the angle of pitch of the club face.  The lower numbers will travel farther and with a lower trajectory allowing them to run out or roll to a stop.  The higher numbers have shorter shafts and more loft.  They get the ball higher in the air and dont run out as much after landing.

The driver should be the longest shafted, largest headed, lowest lofted club in your bag.  You should only have one.  You probably have a driver, 3 wood (it is probably metal but is called 3 wood), and a 5 wood.  The "driver" is used mostly from the tee.  3 and 5 woods should be saved for the fairways when you have 190 + yds to the hole. The hybrid is effective in similar situations to the 3 and 5 woods, maybe a little shorter in distance, but easier to hit from the rough than a wood.

PW stands for Pitching Wedge.  It is next in line after the 9 iron.  

p is the pitching wedge, a is the approach wedge, 56 degree is the sand wedge.  Use these clubs when you are close to the green or in the bunkers near the green.

The 1i is a one iron.  Not seen often.  If it is shaped like a smaller fairway wood its is most likely a hybrid with a low loft

You should also get familiar with etiquette of the game.  It is as important as equipment.  Good Luck!  Enjoy yourself!

http://www.usga.org/playing/etiquette/et...

Answer 4

1.irons are number 3 through 9 and each iron has a different loft.  The loft indicates how far the ball travels when it's hit...the lower the loft on the iron, the further it will travel.

2. A hybrid is a combination between a wood and an iron.  Basically it's neither a wood or an iron, but a combination of both.

3. PW = Pitching wedge.

4. A = Approach wedge

P = Pitching wedge

56 degrees = Sand Wedge

Wedges are used for short approach shots..they fly high and land soft.  The 56 degrees is primarily for bunker shots.

5. 1i is either a 1 iron or a 1 wood.  They don't make these anymore so it's probably a very old club.

Answer 5

1.  The numbers signify difference of length, and difference in the loft of the club face.  The higher the number, the more loft on the club face.

Depending on where you are on the course, various types of shots are required.  Some shots are meant to be propelled great distances, while also providing roll on the ground.  The lesser-lofted clubs like the 1-iron, 2-iron and 3-iron are designed for such usage.

Other shots are meant to go very high, for a short distance, and land straight down, without much roll.  This is what the more-lofted clubs like the 8-iron, 9-iron and wedges are for.

2.  You really have only one driver.  It should have a "1" on it.  The others are either called fairway woods (in the old days these clubs had heads made from wood) or metals.

The driver is designed to launch your golf ball the furthest of distances.  Among the "woods," or metals, the driver has the least amount of loft on the club face.

The other "woods," or metals, like the "3," "5," "7" or "9" have more loft and propel the ball slightly lesser distances, but also add varying degrees of "forgiveness," because of the extra loft on the club face.

A hybrid is a new-fangled, technologically advanced club which is sort of a mix (hence the word hybrid) between an iron and a "wood," or metal.  It was designed to play like an iron, while providing the forgiveness and low center-of-gravity of a fairway "wood," or metal.

3.  PW stands for Pitching Wedge.  This is a club which is generally designed for high, short shots into the greens, and also for short little "pitches" or chips from closely around the green.  You may also use this club for escaping from greenside bunkers, although a SW (Sand Wedge) is also provided for that.

Most golfers carry three or four wedges:  A PW (Pitching Wedge) SW (Sand Wedge) and LW (Lob Wedge).  All three have slightly different lofts on the club face.  The Lob Wedge has more loft than the Sand Wedge, which has more loft than the Pitching Wedge.

4.  Essentially, those clubs are your wedges.  That 56 signifies 56 degrees of loft.  The lofts of the wedges are usually, but not necessarily, seperated by two degrees, with the lob wedge being a 56, the sand wedge being a 54, and the pitching wedge being a 52.  There are variations on these numbers in many golfers' bags.

5.  That skinny club with the 1I on it is your 1-iron.  The 1-iron is the most difficult one to hit, because it has virtually no loft on it.  You will likely never need to use that club, although it can come in handy at times.

Because a 1-iron has so little loft, it produces very low shots.  If you are trapped under a grove of trees, for example, and you wish to hit a low-running shot to get out of trouble, the 1-iron can come to your rescue.

Answer 6

First off, there are 4 general groups of clubs:

1. Putter (called the "Flatstick")

2. Wedges (really a sub-set of irons)

3. Irons

4. Woods

The putter is used to hit the ball when you're on the green (mostly), although some people use it creatively at other times.

Irons (including wedges) are called that because the clubheads used to be made from iron. Today, they are mostly steel, but some other crazy materials have been introduced to parts of the "iron" clubheads. Irons are numbered from the "longest", which is a 1 iron, to the "shortest", which is a 9 iron. "Longest" refers both to the overall length of the club (a 1 iron is physically longer than a 9 iron) and to the fact that when you hit a 1 iron well, the ball will travel further (longer) than when you hit a 9 iron well.

The "PW" you are asking about refers to a Pitching Wedge, which in modern sets, is really kinda like a 10 iron. The "P" wedge you have should also be a pitching wedge, so you probably have two of these.

The "A" wedge stands for either "Attack" or "Approach" wedge. It is generally the next-shortest club after a Pitching Wedge. It can also go by the name of "Gap" wedge, because it fills the gap in between the Pitching Wedge and the Sand Wedge.

The "56 degree" wedge is just that, a wedge with a LOFT of 56 degrees. Loft is the angle defined by the clubhead when it is placed on the ground. The angle is measured between the clubhead and an imaginary line drawn perpindicular to the ground where the front of the club head touches the ground. This club is also called a "Sand Wedge" (it used to be called a "sand iron") because it is most commonly the club used to get out of a sand trap (or bunker) next to a green.

Here are some general, traditional loft numbers for irons:

1 iron - 15 degrees

2 iron - 18 degrees

3 iron - 21 degrees

4 iron - 24 degrees

5 iron - 28 degrees

6 iron - 32 degrees

7 iron - 36 degrees

8 iron - 40 degrees

9 iron - 44 degrees

PW - 48 degrees

A/Gap Wedge - 52 degrees

Sand Wedge - 55 or 56 degrees

Lob Wedge - 60 degrees

Please note that the higher the degree of loft, the higher the ball will normally be launched into the air, and the shorter the shot will be. Also note that there are ways to change this by swinging differently, so it's only a rule of thumb.

In general, the average golfer can expect good swings to generate about 10 to 12 yard gaps in between successive irons. So, if you hit your 9 iron 110 yards with a good swing, a good swing with your 8 iron should travel roughly 120 yards.

Woods are a different type of club. Not too long ago, their club heads were actually made of wood, with persimmon being the most popular choice. Woods today are more formally called "metal woods" because since about 1990 these clubheads have transitioned to being made of metal. A metal wood head is typically hollow, with a very thin "crown" (the top of the club head) and a thick "sole" (the bottom of the club head). This helps the ball get up into the air more quickly. A typical bag will contain a 1 wood (more commonly called the "driver"), a 3 wood and a 5 wood, though there are many variations, and you can get any number wood from 1 thru 11 (and maybe higher).

As with irons, the lower numbered woods are designed with lower lofts and are designed to go farther on average.

Driver loft is hugely variable, with some drivers having as little as 4 degrees loft and others having as much as 16 or 17 degrees. The average beginner will benefit from a higher-lofted driver, with 12 or 13 degrees of loft the best fit.

Here are "standard" lofts for higher numbered woods:

3 wood - 15 degrees

5 wood - 18 degrees

7 wood - 21 or 22 degrees

9 wood - 24 or 25 degrees

(Please note that you can get a 2, 4, 6, 8 or 10 wood, also, but it's less common.)

In your bag, you can probably recognize your driver by finding the metal wood with the largest head. If you look on the bottom, you will probably see a number representing the loft (I'm guessing it's between 9 and 13). Your woods should have their number (3, 5, 7, etc...) on the bottom, and some also have the loft.

The hybrid that you mentioned is exactly what the name implies, a hybrid club that combines some aspects of metal woods with other aspects of irons. This is a very wide range of clubs with some hybrids looking very much like irons and some looking very much like woods. In general, hybrids are used to replace the harder-to-hit longer irons (1, 2, 3, 4 and sometimes 5) in your bag. They offer more forgiveness, which is the ability of the clubhead to produce a decent shot even when your swing was bad and you didn't hit the ball in the center of the clubface.

I am kind of at a loss on the "1i" club. My best guess is that, since you say it looks like the driver, it's a hybrid to replace a 1-iron.

By the way, when to use which club is a matter of experience and how you play the game. You have to practice to figure out how far you hit each club. Also, other factors, such as wind, your lie (where you ball is on the ground), trees, etc... will affect what shot you want to try. Sometimes, you have to get the ball up high quickly, like to get over a bunker and on to the green. Other times, you have to stay low, like to get out of the woods and stay under the branches.

Here is a general layout of what clubs you should have in your bag (and the rules say you can only have 14 total):

1. Driver (some people have trouble with this club and leave it out of the bag to make room for another wedge, like a Lob Wedge)

2. 3 wood

3. 5 wood

4. 7 wood/3 iron/hybrid to replace 3 iron

5. 4 iron/hybrid to replace 4 iron

6. 5 iron/hybrid to replace 5 iron

7. 6 iron

8. 7 iron

9. 8 iron

10. 9 iron

11. Pitching Wedge

12. Gap Wedge

13. Sand Wedge

14. Putter

Answer 7

1. What are all the numbers mean in the irons? What do they do?

The numbers correlate to the angle of the club which controls the distance of the club.  So basically it is a reference so that you know when you (for example) are 160 yards away and you can hit your 7 iron 155-165 yards you know thats the club you need to use.

2. Driver is used to hit far but I have like 3 of them. My friend said one is a hybrid. What is a hybrid and when to use it?

I think you are confusion driver and wood.  As I said eariler all the clubs have different degree hitting faces.  The Driver has the least angle of any club and therefore can only be used off the tee.  A 3 or 5 wood is used to hit the ball when you are not on the tee box but have a long ways to go.  The 'hybrid' club is basically a 3 or 4 iron that is made like an iron so that it is easier to hit as most beginners have a very hard time hitting regular 3 & 4 irons.

3. What does pw mean? I think it means something wedge.

4. I have 3 clubs that look like irons but instead of numbers, they are letters. Letters A, P, and also, 56 degrees. What do they do?

I answer these together.

PW=Pitching Wedge

AW=Approach/Gap Wedge

56 (aka SW)=Sand Wedge

Typically you would use a 56 for sand and chipping around the green.  You would use the PW for hitting to the green from about 110+ish yards away and then use the AW for shots you have between the 56 and PW

5. Also, I have a really skinny club that looks like a mini driver but says 1i. What does that do?

A 1i is just what it says it is...a one iron (see answer to question 1)  this is a very rare club for people to ever use let alone own, and I highly doubt you'll ever need it let alone hit it good enough to keep in your bag.  

Don't worry about them sounding like 'stupid questions' heck when I was little I thought a tee time was when every one drank tea before they played golf.  One thing I would note is that there is a rule that you can only carry 14 clubs in your bag at a time, which from the sound of your questions you have way more than 14.