[Jim.Cook]

Golf Club Design is an important factor in consideration. The golf club to begin with has a forward lean, which promotes the hands leading the clubhead. The golf shaft Lie Angle is fixed per club and ideally the sole of the clubhead will at Impact/Separation will be parallel to the surface. This indicates that the clubshaft angle (Lie Angle) is at least a factor if not critical in an alignment at Impact.

Your interesting note has brought up a question that I've had and have never had it explained properly to me. I'm sorry that it has nothing to do with your original train of thought.

It was said here that the golf club is designed with a forward leaning shaft.
Yet when I want to measure all the parameters of a customer's club I place it in my very accurate measuring machine so that the sole of the club touches the base of the machine right under the CG of the head. The face of the club is parallel to lines scribed on the base of the machine. The shaft is held by the machine so that it forms the lie angle and is parallel to those lines on the base. At this point all the parameters, loft, lie and progression of the face to determine if where the plane of the face hits the ground plane is in front of or behind where the shaft line hits the ground.

Never during the precision measurements is the shaft pointing forward.
Why? Is this just convention?

When I set up my impact position during address I usually place my hands so they appear over the toe of my left foot and then the head of the club, on the ground, defines where my ball is. Is this correct?