With the new Callaway fitting system starting to show up, this discussion is worthy of a refresh. Don’t have a Callaway fitting cart? It’s still worth a read. The new iron fitting system will do lie AND loft. Great… I say with sarcasm. In my opinion, changing loft is the dumbest thing you can do to your clubs. The clubs are designed by people who do exhaustive research on gapping, etc., and the soles are designed to have optimal turf interaction. WHY in the wide world of sports would you mess with that??

Does the loft on the club that you want suit what you want in the specs of an iron? If the answer is “no”, then choose another iron that does. We’re done talking about this… Ha.

Seriously, If you are working with a player, call him a 5 handicapper, and he hits five 7-iron shots to five different yardages that are, say, +/- 8 yards (this is typical) – he’s simply not good enough to adjust the lofts on his irons. If you’re doing this test, and the player says “wait, that was a bad one.”, he’s not good enough to worry about the loft on the iron. Take it for what it is, learn the new yardages, and go play golf. Many scratch players (like me) are not good enough to warrant a loft adjustment. I can stand in the fairway and hit 5 balls from the same spot. 3 or 4 will be in a straight line (east and west) relative to the flag, but one or two will be longer or shorter. That is the limitation of my talent. Xander, by contrast, has his irons set to the 1/10th of a degree. “No, 21* isn’t right, Add a couple tenths of a degree. Nope. It needs more. This is perfect. What is it? ” . “It’s 21.4*.” Perfect. Unless you have a very talented friend group, you probably don’t have anyone who is that good. The difference between standard and 2 strong will be insignificant for the inconsistent scratch player (like me), and just dumb for anyone higher than that.

Blah, blah, blah. Why are we talking about this? Because LOFT and BOUNCE have a dependent relationship. For every degree of loft you add, you will also add 1* of bounce. Conversely, for every degree of loft you take away, you will reduce the degrees of bounce on the sole by the same amount. OK. Big deal. If we take the Apex Pro and look at the specs, the 7-iron has 33* of loft. The sole has about 1.5* of bounce. “I need these 2* stronger”, a member says. 2* stronger means we take away 2* of loft AND 2* of bounce. Who cares about the 2* of loft – the sole now has -.5* of bounce. Negative bounce… The sharp leading edge is going to dig. Trust me. If you want 2* stronger lofts, go buy a set of Ai200. They have a 30* 7-iron. Don’t mess with the playability of the sole.

Suggest that and here’s what you’ll get – “I don’t like the way those look.” I see you shaking your head. Here’s how I respond – “from a forgiveness playability standpoint, if you alter the loft of the club, you will alter how it interacts with the ground, which will greatly influence the forgiveness of the golf club. As it stands now, in this standard setup, you can absolutely play this club (Apex Pro). From a distance playability standpoint, are you ready to give up a club/ club and a half in distance? Both of these factors are part of the playability of the club.” Most players only associate forgiveness with playability. Distance is every bit a playability aspect of a golf club as well. If you don’t have both, you don’t have a good match for the player. If a player wanted more forgiveness, what adjustments can you make to the HEAD to make it more forgiving? NOTHING. You have to switch heads. Think of distance as the same way. Just because you CAN bend the loft doesn’t mean you should. Your job as a fitter is to find the right blend of distance AND forgiveness for the player.

I said earlier that just because you can change loft (and you can do it in the fitting process), doesn’t mean you should. To me, this spec is “invisible”. I don’t even bring it up or consider changing it. If someone wants to try 2* strong, I say “sure”, and I am super critical of their divot pattern. I use the player’s attack angle to show him why he shouldn’t do that. -5* AoA with negative bounce is a recipe for disaster. Use a different head.

Perhaps a player will say “I hit it high, I need to get these 2* strong.” The bigger question is WHY do you hit it high? Hold that thought, I’ll bite. 2* strong, all other things being unchanged, will drop the launch angle by about .3*, and will have a negligible effect on the apex height. Use a different head.

If he likes the look of Apex Pro and can handle the smaller sweet spot, can he live with the distance loss? Maybe yes. Maybe yes for a short time. Maybe no. I can tell you that for me, I couldn’t. I have distances that I like to hit my irons, and Ai200 is a better fit for the distance playability that I want. The fact that I picked up a little forgiveness playability by switching to that head isn’t the worst thing – after all, I had bad shots too. My index is down 2.5 shots since switching to the Ai200 from the Apex Pro. I hit them longer and better. I hit more greens and shoot lower scores. THIS is the right way to do it.

The exception… Wedges. Wedges have between 6* and 14* of bounce. Suppose it makes sense for a player to carry a 60* wedge, with a 43* Ai200 PW. We need two wedges to go in there. Does it make sense to adjust the PW to 45*, then go 50* & 55* to mate with the 60*. Perhaps. Then you are left with a 38* 9-iron, so 7* between 9 and PW. I might be more inclined to go 49*, 54*, 58* and leave PW and 9-iron the same. If it has to be a 60*, I’d want a 48*, 52* 56* and the 60* – he’d have to drop another club somewhere else. When confronted with this, many players will admit that “well, I guess a 58* would be ok.” I digress. What if we need to get a custom loft into a players bag? Can we get a 49* or a 53*? Maybe a 57*?? Sure!! But, you might say, Callaway doesn’t make an odd-degree lofted wedge. True. Bending a wedge with 8* of bounce (or more) is A-OK in my book. It still leaves plenty of bounce to keep the sole super playable. Remember, getting to 53*, for example, can be done in several ways – a 52-10 bent to 53-11, or a 54-12 bent to 53-11 results in the same club… If you talk about a 57*, taking a 58-08 and bending 1 strong goes to 57-07. Interesting… I may try that one. Remember, at the end of the day, tweaking wedge lofts is about getting the right distances – taking a 50-10 to a 49-09 is just fine as long as the yardages work out. It doesn’t matter how the degrees are spaced out as long as the net yardages are what the player wants. I have the ability to change lofts in a new wedge fitting system, and it sure is fun to dial in the yardages!!

So…

Loft changes for irons = no bueno.

Loft changes for wedges = tinker til your heart’s content!!

Happy Fitting!!!