Planes, Lines, and Words

[Martee]

Originally Posted by Martee

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?

Try this... On a flat surface, holding the golf club by the head, place it so that sole rest on the surface with the shaft straight up and down (vertical). Now rotate the clubhead on the sole till the lead edge is flush to the flat surface. Now look at your shaft, it should be leaning forward.

This exercise is the easiest to see with irons, then woods, and putters are a totally different animal. You can find the shaft all over the places with putters.

The Lie Angle measurement as you described, I have heard and seen. But lets for a minute say okay I am going to measure all my clubs and adjust them using this method. Now they are all done correctly in regard to the reference, but in reality the actual Lie Angle by design may not be the same as you measure and for sure if you are hitting down on the ball's aft quadrant and the shaft is leaning forward, you are in effect delofting the club, the degree you lead with your hands, will determine how much you deloft it.

As for your address, the visual of the hands over the left toe, in reality doesn't have you shaft leaning as far forward as you might think, but definitely leaning forward.

I have heard of another process for setting up where you set the leading edge on the ground and then align you left arm pit up so it is in line with the shaft. My guess is your results will be about the same.

One last point, when addressing the golf ball, the club should not be grounded if you are aligning the golf ball with the sweet spot. It should hover. If you were to ground it, you then need to ensure that as the club goes to the ground, the ball moves out toward the toe and the toe should be raised off the ground with the heel just touching. Anything else will require compensations in the golf stroke to get the club back to the proper Impact Fix position.