Is delofting the sine qua non of a really good swing?

[Chunkitgood]

There is a thread on another forum in which a scratch golfer plays a pro woman.  To be honest, I did not watch the entire thing, but from what little I saw it looked to my inexpert eye the guy had a much higher ball flight than the pro.  I perceive also a trend when watching YouTube videos (but again I haven’t seen that many of them) of guys getting lessons that the YouTubers always seem to have high ball flights, which I speculate comes from maintaining the static loft of their irons, if not actually adding loft.

 

One sees on the internet statements that pros deloft their irons, maybe even as much as two clubs.

 

So, is delofting a significant amount (a club or more) what separates the truly expert from the rest?  I don’t see the idea as such discussed as much as other things such as shaft lean and divots, but it seems to me it might be the reason you want the shaft lean and proper divots.

 

 

[ThinkingPlus]

Delofting is a function of speed and club being used. High swing speed players (male pros, elite male ams, or just high speed men with skills) benefit from delofting short irons and wedges. They will deloft mid irons less and long irons/fairway woods least. They do it to control ball flight for the most part.

 

Lady pros and medium swing speed players with skills will deloft less across all clubs because they actually need a little more height although wedges and short irons will still be delofted more than an average am.

 

Low swing speed players should only deloft enough to make solid contact. Typically they need all the height they can get.

 

How good a player's swing and skills are allows them to deloft. Swing speed determines the degree of benefit they get from doing so. 

[naval2006]

It’s an important item in the check list, but not THE one. Because it happens naturally in a good swing. 

[phizzy30]

I used to deliver too much dynamic loft and didn't have much shaft lean.  It was fine with driver, not so much with irons.  I changed my iron swing where it's steeper now with more shaft lean.  The result is a bigger divot, lower ball flight with more spin.  Take it for what it's worth but my carry has increased 10 yards and my handicap has dropped as a result. 

[Jeselnik]

11 hours ago, Chunkitgood said:

There is a thread on another forum in which a scratch golfer plays a pro woman.  To be honest, I did not watch the entire thing, but from what little I saw it looked to my inexpert eye the guy had a much higher ball flight than the pro.  I perceive also a trend when watching YouTube videos (but again I haven’t seen that many of them) of guys getting lessons that the YouTubers always seem to have high ball flights, which I speculate comes from maintaining the static loft of their irons, if not actually adding loft.

 

One sees on the internet statements that pros deloft their irons, maybe even as much as two clubs.

 

So, is delofting a significant amount (a club or more) what separates the truly expert from the rest?  I don’t see the idea as such discussed as much as other things such as shaft lean and divots, but it seems to me it might be the reason you want the shaft lean and proper divots.

 

 

Hand path, delayed release, deloft, impact location, +2 clubs……..easy.

 

JNIK

[Shilgy]

13 hours ago, Chunkitgood said:

There is a thread on another forum in which a scratch golfer plays a pro woman.  To be honest, I did not watch the entire thing, but from what little I saw it looked to my inexpert eye the guy had a much higher ball flight than the pro.  I perceive also a trend when watching YouTube videos (but again I haven’t seen that many of them) of guys getting lessons that the YouTubers always seem to have high ball flights, which I speculate comes from maintaining the static loft of their irons, if not actually adding loft.

 

One sees on the internet statements that pros deloft their irons, maybe even as much as two clubs.

 

So, is delofting a significant amount (a club or more) what separates the truly expert from the rest?  I don’t see the idea as such discussed as much as other things such as shaft lean and divots, but it seems to me it might be the reason you want the shaft lean and proper divots.

 

 

I haven’t watched it but I’m guessing the scratch may have had higher max height …but lower launch angle.  Due to the extra speed.

[SNIPERBBB]

What mainly seperates the pros is the consistency of contact and the low point in the swing is well in front of the ball. Trying to deloft intentionally instead of letting it being a normal function of the swing will have you chunking the crap out of the ball or a case of the el-hosels.

 

High speed players will always be launching the ball into the sky if they are trying to max out distance. When they drop the speed of the club and hit those quail-high wedges/short irons is when they are at the deadliest.

[mgoblue83]

2 hours ago, SNIPERBBB said:

What mainly seperates the pros is the consistency of contact and the low point in the swing is well in front of the ball. Trying to deloft intentionally instead of letting it being a normal function of the swing will have you chunking the crap out of the ball or a case of the el-hosels.

 

High speed players will always be launching the ball into the sky if they are trying to max out distance. When they drop the speed of the club and hit those quail-high wedges/short irons is when they are at the deadliest.

 

This is the key. A big part of reducing launch angle is is reducing speed. Very rarely are pros or good amateurs swinging full speed while also trying to launch it low. 

[Pepperturbo]

The reason I still hit the ball reasonable distances with more traditionally lofted irons is a steep AoA, minor delofting and spin with mid-short irons.  I seldom swing as fast as I am able, also tend to hit my irons lower, and use spin to stop the ball on the green.  The high apex trajectory doesn't suite my eye.

 

The problem with delofting at the hands of inexperience, it can result in erratic distances.   A buddy who won't listen, delofts every club;  it's compounded by weak graphite, so he has no idea how far he hits any given club.

[PedronNiall]

11 hours ago, SNIPERBBB said:

What mainly seperates the pros is the consistency of contact and the low point in the swing is well in front of the ball. Trying to deloft intentionally instead of letting it being a normal function of the swing will have you chunking the crap out of the ball or a case of the el-hosels.

 

High speed players will always be launching the ball into the sky if they are trying to max out distance. When they drop the speed of the club and hit those quail-high wedges/short irons is when they are at the deadliest.

Always be launching! Going to picture Baldwin enthusing that at me when it's time to go after it. 

[badpokerbadgolf]

I’ve been fighting some flippy weak fades lately.  This post got me wanting to experiment on the range and chipping area.  I set up with super hooded clubface and shaft lean, raised my hands/handle a bit and preset the wrists as bowed and swung from there.  Contact and low point control was the best I’ve ever had.  Cool bandaid fix, hope it sticks around lol

[Chunkitgood]

I guess my point in posing the question (to the extent I had one) is that I wonder if people would learn to play golf better if they were taught what the club itself needs to do in its interaction with the ball instead of what the hands need to do to have the club behave properly.  Most people add loft, by a huge margin.  If you explained to them how speed, applied loft, and angle of attack all come together to produce a good shot, they might eventually figure out a way to get it done.  Even if they know about shaft lean, I doubt if many people out there have any inkling of the degree to which true experts deloft their clubs.  
 

IMHO Sniperbbb’s response is emblematic of the failed idea that permeates golf instruction: avoid telling people what actually happens in the swing because people will just do it wrong.  The problem with the “just let it happen” school is it rarely does.  
 

Hitting down on the ball with substantially less loft than at address is so counterintuitive and contrary to the impulse to hit up on the ball it seems to me that all effort should be made to convince people of its necessity in order to quash that impulse as a first step towards learning.

 

Which is all just the observation of an old guy who has watched many, many golfers fail to get better over the years.

[SNIPERBBB]

5 hours ago, Chunkitgood said:

I guess my point in posing the question (to the extent I had one) is that I wonder if people would learn to play golf better if they were taught what the club itself needs to do in its interaction with the ball instead of what the hands need to do to have the club behave properly.  Most people add loft, by a huge margin.  If you explained to them how speed, applied loft, and angle of attack all come together to produce a good shot, they might eventually figure out a way to get it done.  Even if they know about shaft lean, I doubt if many people out there have any inkling of the degree to which true experts deloft their clubs.  
 

IMHO Sniperbbb’s response is emblematic of the failed idea that permeates golf instruction: avoid telling people what actually happens in the swing because people will just do it wrong.  The problem with the “just let it happen” school is it rarely does.  
 

Hitting down on the ball with substantially less loft than at address is so counterintuitive and contrary to the impulse to hit up on the ball it seems to me that all effort should be made to convince people of its necessity in order to quash that impulse as a first step towards learning.

 

Which is all just the observation of an old guy who has watched many, many golfers fail to get better over the years.

It's not "letting it happen". Delofting is a function of a proper swings. Same thing with lag. Try to force more lag and bad things happen. Try to force delofting and it's chuck city or el hosel city. 

[PedronNiall]

23 hours ago, Chunkitgood said:

I guess my point in posing the question (to the extent I had one) is that I wonder if people would learn to play golf better if they were taught what the club itself needs to do in its interaction with the ball instead of what the hands need to do to have the club behave properly.  Most people add loft, by a huge margin.  If you explained to them how speed, applied loft, and angle of attack all come together to produce a good shot, they might eventually figure out a way to get it done.  Even if they know about shaft lean, I doubt if many people out there have any inkling of the degree to which true experts deloft their clubs.  
 

IMHO Sniperbbb’s response is emblematic of the failed idea that permeates golf instruction: avoid telling people what actually happens in the swing because people will just do it wrong.  The problem with the “just let it happen” school is it rarely does.  
 

Hitting down on the ball with substantially less loft than at address is so counterintuitive and contrary to the impulse to hit up on the ball it seems to me that all effort should be made to convince people of its necessity in order to quash that impulse as a first step towards learning.

 

Which is all just the observation of an old guy who has watched many, many golfers fail to get better over the years.

I have my gripes with the variance in the overall quality of instruction available out there, but I've run into almost no one, from just decent golfers who help juniors & beginners regularly to actual teaching pros giving lessons, who don't explain very quickly to new players that hitting down on the ball is actually what's necessary to get a good strike. It's pretty much a right of passage for newbcake golfers to think they can somehow "help" the ball into the air with an upward strike and for whoever's helping them to disabuse them of that belief. Usually the only issue I've seen is some people thinking all woods are the exception to this, but even those examples are few and far between.

 

There's really no need to get into the nuances of delofting in those conversations.

[virtuoso]

This thread in general misses the point entirely. Learning the swing is not about angle of attack. The angle of attack necessarily changes throughout the entire bag.
 

The real issue is that new golfers think about throwing the face of the club at the ball, rather than learning that they are actually needing to take the sole of the club and swing it under the bottom of the ball. 

 

They should be taught to brush the grass or clip the tee with the sole because that will train an awareness of the complete outside of the radius of their swing. It is the first thing they should be taught—the vertical depth—before the path and before the face awareness.

 

As they get better at managing depth and low point under the ball, they can then progress to adjusting angle of attack, whether it be slightly up with the driver or fairly steep with a 9 iron, through ball position, postural alignments, lateral weight distribution, handle position, etc.

 

Teaching them to hit massively “down”” on the ball early is no better than letting them hit too much up on the ball because they will have non-functional vision of how an effective versatile golf swing actually works.

 

I have worked with many 20 hdcp golfers that “learned” how to hit down on their irons but are stuck swinging -7 degrees AOA on their driver…..and in many instances the driver is steeper than the 7 iron because of shoulder alignments. So they can hit a glance-y gouge with their short irons but their driver is hideous to look at. They hit a low launch, squirty, high spin slice…..and them someone tells them to tee it higher and they sky it off the crown.

Edited February 7, 2024 by virtuoso

[ThinkingPlus]

2 hours ago, virtuoso said:

This thread in general misses the point entirely. Learning the swing is not about angle of attack. The angle of attack necessarily changes throughout the entire bag.
 

The real issue is that new golfers think about throwing the face of the club at the ball, rather than learning that they are actually needing to take the sole of the club and swing it under the bottom of the ball. 

 

They should be taught to brush the grass or clip the tee with the sole because that will train an awareness of the complete outside of the radius of their swing. It is the first thing they should be taught—the vertical depth—before the path and before the face awareness.

 

As they get better at managing depth and low point under the ball, they can then progress to adjusting angle of attack, whether it be slightly up with the driver or fairly steep with a 9 iron, through ball position, postural alignments, lateral weight distribution, handle position, etc.

 

Teaching them to hit massively “down”” on the ball early is no better than letting them hit too much up on the ball because they will have non-functional vision of how an effective versatile golf swing actually works.

 

I have worked with many 20 hdcp golfers that “learned” how to hit down on their irons but are stuck swinging -7 degrees AOA on their driver…..and in many instances the driver is steeper than the 7 iron because of shoulder alignments. So they can hit a glance-y gouge with their short irons but their driver is hideous to look at. They hit a low launch, squirty, high spin slice…..and them someone tells them to tee it higher and they sky it off the crown.

I'm thinking the OP was focused more on shaft lean rather than AOA since shaft lean directly impacts dynamic loft. AOA is important as well, but doesn't really impact dynamic loft assuming neutral path and face.

[virtuoso]

1 hour ago, ThinkingPlus said:

I'm thinking the OP was focused more on shaft lean rather than AOA since shaft lean directly impacts dynamic loft. AOA is important as well, but doesn't really impact dynamic loft assuming neutral path and face.

Understood and agree, but they typically work in tandem with each other. I'll throw up a chatty video.

[ThinkingPlus]

6 minutes ago, virtuoso said:

Understood and agree, but they typically work in tandem with each other. I'll throw up a chatty video.

Yes, they frequently do track somewhat. Primary characteristic of good swings is low point control. You can pretty much do nothing else well, but have good low point control and you can play fairly good golf.

[virtuoso]

10 minutes ago, ThinkingPlus said:

Yes, they frequently do track somewhat. Primary characteristic of good swings is low point control. You can pretty much do nothing else well, but have good low point control and you can play fairly good golf.

You read my mind...and that will be confirmed by my "talk and drive."

[cav5]

4 hours ago, virtuoso said:

This thread in general misses the point entirely. Learning the swing is not about angle of attack. The angle of attack necessarily changes throughout the entire bag.
 

The real issue is that new golfers think about throwing the face of the club at the ball, rather than learning that they are actually needing to take the sole of the club and swing it under the bottom of the ball. 

 

They should be taught to brush the grass or clip the tee with the sole because that will train an awareness of the complete outside of the radius of their swing. It is the first thing they should be taught—the vertical depth—before the path and before the face awareness.

 

As they get better at managing depth and low point under the ball, they can then progress to adjusting angle of attack, whether it be slightly up with the driver or fairly steep with a 9 iron, through ball position, postural alignments, lateral weight distribution, handle position, etc.

 

Teaching them to hit massively “down”” on the ball early is no better than letting them hit too much up on the ball because they will have non-functional vision of how an effective versatile golf swing actually works.

 

I have worked with many 20 hdcp golfers that “learned” how to hit down on their irons but are stuck swinging -7 degrees AOA on their driver…..and in many instances the driver is steeper than the 7 iron because of shoulder alignments. So they can hit a glance-y gouge with their short irons but their driver is hideous to look at. They hit a low launch, squirty, high spin slice…..and them someone tells them to tee it higher and they sky it off the crown.

 

Yupp its a cool topic to wormhole down but OP isn't asking the right questions yet. Simple answer: NO

 

 

[cav5]

30 minutes ago, ThinkingPlus said:

Yes, they frequently do track somewhat. Primary characteristic of good swings is low point control. You can pretty much do nothing else well, but have good low point control and you can play fairly good golf.

Agreed. Would only say though- good LP control is the benefit of actually doing the other stuff well.

Edited February 7, 2024 by cav5

[ThinkingPlus]

10 minutes ago, cav5 said:

Agreed. Would only say though- good LP control is the benefit of actually doing the other stuff well.

Most of the time, that is true.

[virtuoso]

On 2/4/2024 at 4:44 PM, Chunkitgood said:

There is a thread on another forum in which a scratch golfer plays a pro woman.  To be honest, I did not watch the entire thing, but from what little I saw it looked to my inexpert eye the guy had a much higher ball flight than the pro.  I perceive also a trend when watching YouTube videos (but again I haven’t seen that many of them) of guys getting lessons that the YouTubers always seem to have high ball flights, which I speculate comes from maintaining the static loft of their irons, if not actually adding loft.

 

One sees on the internet statements that pros deloft their irons, maybe even as much as two clubs.

 

So, is delofting a significant amount (a club or more) what separates the truly expert from the rest?  I don’t see the idea as such discussed as much as other things such as shaft lean and divots, but it seems to me it might be the reason you want the shaft lean and proper divots.

 

 

I made a post earlier about AOA, because it’s my contention that attack generally correlates with shaft lean, and further in a video, that moving those conditions independently is what separates really good golfers from the rest.

 

The video was reported and removed due to promotion of my YouTube channel, which was not my intent since I’m not a content creator. I just find it easier to get my point across verbally instead of through text. I presume you had it removed, which is fine—it’s your thread. So let’s discuss the concepts through text. 
 

Do you disagree with the premise above, and/or is it your contention that the forward handle lean is itself the specific distinguishing characteristic of high level golfers? And if so, can we discuss what those golfers are doing to deliver forward handle lean…..and the differences between high AOA w/ delofting, low AOA w/ delofting? Essentially, what do you think the core of the discussion should be?

 

Edited February 10, 2024 by virtuoso