positive attack angle with irons....possible?

[gregkeller]

So i'm helping a friend of mine with a decision on replacing irons. He was fit (trackman) and came away with a recommendation for taylor made p790's with project x 6.5. The guy swings like an animal, and went from 92-93 mph swing speed to 95-97mph with the 6 iron. There were two things that stuck out to me as maybe not optimal, one being the drop in spin from 5500-4200 rpm. Told him that maybe he needed a little more spin to get the ball to stop, especially since his descent angle also went from 52-53 degrees to 45 or so.

 

I get that, and can verbalize it, get my point across to him on that. Where I am fully confused is that he went from a shallow, but negative angle of attack with the six iron (avg. -1.0 or so) to a positive angle of attack with the irons (avg. of about +2.1). I know that this is good with a driver, but I've never heard of anyone hitting up on their irons like that and being effective with it. Anyone ever seen this? Ideas? Is it the shaft that might be causing that?

[SomedayScratch]

Unless the ball is on a tee, that is only possible if you are literally blading it.

[BottleCap]

Would a thin shot show up as a positive angle of attack?

[Hawkeye77]

Just curious, could a bad strike on a mat lead to this and mask the cause? Get the tee part, interesting to know what the hitting setup was, but no insight into the physics of it all.

[lhahn]

i've been told you can have a positive AoA on certain mats

[nbg352]

I'm not certain that an upward angle of attack with an iron is a healthy thing, but I do know that that is what I do and have done for many years.

I am always between 1* - 2* up at impact and while my miss is a thin shot, it doesn't happen often. I would love to hear from one of our experts on this, because I don't know if it is a bad thing that needs to be fixed or something I should just stop thinking about.

[gregkeller]

Yeah, so the setup was off a mat, with a trackman recording data. The thing that concerned me was that he was hitting slightly down (-1 or so) with his old irons, and the ones he was fit into (taylormade p790s w/ project x 6.5) caused the angle of attack to go positive. They weren't thin shots, he was hitting them pretty darn solid. He was getting about 120 feet of max height, 205-210 carry and a spin rate of 4200. I'm trying to tell him that I think the clubs aren't the best for his game, but he just sees the distance he is getting and doesn't want to go with anything that is shorter.

 

I understood the changes to all the other launch parameters but I'd never heard of good iron contact with a positive angle of attack. Maybe like someone suggested, the mat has something to do with it.

[gregkeller]

I wonder if a mat with that longish/soft material would allow a swing to bottom out behind the ball and then come up into the ball. I would think that if you hit it that way that ball speed would be way down and that was not the case with this guy in the least. I've heard that some people flip their wrist at impact but to me the timing needed to do that is so precise that I wonder if it's one of those things that "looks" like it's happening but isn't actually happening. The player in question hit amazing iron shots, is very long but also has misses that are Ugly, so who knows.

[BrianMcG]

If he was drop kicking it off the mat, it would show as positive probably.

[Z1ggy16]

Yeah, so the setup was off a mat, with a trackman recording data. The thing that concerned me was that he was hitting slightly down (-1 or so) with his old irons, and the ones he was fit into (taylormade p790s w/ project x 6.5) caused the angle of attack to go positive. They weren't thin shots, he was hitting them pretty darn solid. He was getting about 120 feet of max height, 205-210 carry and a spin rate of 4200. I'm trying to tell him that I think the clubs aren't the best for his game, but he just sees the distance he is getting and doesn't want to go with anything that is shorter.

 

I understood the changes to all the other launch parameters but I'd never heard of good iron contact with a positive angle of attack. Maybe like someone suggested, the mat has something to do with it.

Sounds like the shafts could feel too stout and thus maybe he's trying to help the ball in the air. I'm sure you can swing slightly up with irons, but you'll be hitting bottom groove constantly, never compressing the ball, etc.

 

In order to have positive AoA your bottom point would be before the ball... So just imagine if his bottom point was after. He'd get lower launch, more ball speed... basically everything would be better about the flight.

[gregkeller]

Agree with everything that is said, except for not being able to compress the ball. When we tee up a ball we aren't "compressing" it and have not problem launching there. The way I understand it, the moment of impact is so short, there is not too much truth to the idea that we compress the ball against both the clubface and the ground.

[juststeve]

Lots of people hit up on their irons at least to an extent. They strike the ball low on the club face and hit the ball high when they don't hit it fat or cold top it. Not a good way to play but certainly possible.

 

Steve

[bogeypro]

Saw this sane thing the other day. Buddy of mine was hitting off the fake grass, brush tee looking mat. Gc waa giving positive angles for his irons. His usual miss is a thin shot as well ....

[Z1ggy16]

Agree with everything that is said, except for not being able to compress the ball. When we tee up a ball we aren't "compressing" it and have not problem launching there. The way I understand it, the moment of impact is so short, there is not too much truth to the idea that we compress the ball against both the clubface and the ground.

 

Yup but you're hitting it much higher off the face generally.

 

If you watch say.. Rory or JT hit on a par 3, even though they tee the ball up, they still take a small divot. Not saying AoA+ isn't possible to play with when you tee it up, or that we ams should copy pros....just that it's really not ideal.