Lofting up.....why did I not do this earlier in my golf career

[BG5]

44 year old here who plays around a 12 handicap.  I recently sold my Ping G425 3 wood, 3 hybrid, and 4 hyrbrid and replaced them with a Ping G425 9 wood, 7 wood and 5 hyrbrid and I am amazed at the results and I the weird thing is I lost no distances with these clubs and they are 100% easier to hit.  I am now even considering buying a 6 hybrid and replacing one of my long irons.  They are so easy to hit and have a made a huge improvement in my game.

 

I am currently playing a Ping G425 Driver @ 9* and am considering getting a 10.5* or 12* to see if that makes a huge difference.

 

Anyone else have the same experience as me and I am just amazed how easy it is to hit this clubs compared to lower lofted clubs.  The surprising thing Is I hit my 7 wood as far or maybe farther than I hit my 3 wood and so on.  So weird

[kwcsports]

Agree, I switched to 5 wood, dumped the 3w and lost zero yards, hit it higher, all positive. Also switched to 12 deg driver and picked up 7-8 yds carry. At the age of 59, I need all the loft I can get. 

[HugoBear]

I’m a scratch to 5 handicap and go driver, 7 wood and the 7 wood has been a revelation.

[Stonewalled]

Iv'e had the G400 9 wood since they came out, got my only hole in 1 with it. Picked up a G430 7 wood late last fall along with a G430 SFT 3 wood. I hit the 7 wood farther, I put a 3 wood shaft into it but obviously the 3 wood has the same length shaft so not quite sure of the results but I like it. I also put G400-G425 5-6 & 7 hybrids in the bag. Like u said might as well make the game easier. Love my Ping woods. I grabbed a 430 10 max diver and a G430 max 3 wood late last season as well, have yet to hit the 3 max. Come on spring.........

[Nessism]

Similar to other members here, commenting in this thread, I've lofted up, and greatly benefited.  

 

My driver is a G400 Max, 10.5, set to the + setting.  The shaft is about 44.5" long, and this club is fantastic for shots off the deck.  I'm aging, but this club allows me to reach most any par 4, even those at 450 yards +.  It's driver, driver, profit!

 

Fairway wood wise, I go driver to 5 wood.  

 

As clint said, "a man's gotta know his limitations".  

Edited March 1 by Nessism

[57charlie]

It's a well proven fact that lofting up would benefit the majority of players. I've been playing a 12* driver for going on 20 years & have carried two 7 woods in the bag since the late 1990's. 

[EKB]

I’m planning on comparing my 10.5* 430Max gamer with the 12* head as soon as I get off the DL from neck surgery!

[PedronNiall]

Takes a good bit of speed to get lower lofted clubs into the air, and the dynamic loft tends to technically increase that difficulty for anyone with a decent swing even if you aren't loading the shaft like crazy. 

 

Scottie has seen the beauty of the 7-wood, and Campbell got it done in Mexico with his. Plenty of players on all Tours embracing loft and forgiveness. Nothing wrong with playing clubs that get the job done. 

[Pnwpingi210]

In the last 6 months I’ve went from hitting a 8-9 degree head driver with a 4-6 aoa to a 10.0 degree head with 0-2 aoa and it’s helped dramatically.  
 

left miss is almost non existent.  My efficiency has went from 1.44-1.47 to 1.48 - 1.5 and my spin has actually dropped a bit.  I’m actually hitting it farther on average.  

[PedronNiall]

Also will add that one of our resident long bombers is a huge fan of the 7-wood and puts it to work often from his posts. Bag what gets you the lowest scores and the most consistent results. 

[Cwebb]

There are a lot of player's whose "long fairway club" is best at about 18-21*.

 

Whatever loft that it takes to get our optimal launch and spin for each club in the bag, for the conditions that we usually play in.

 

The next thing to consider is loft gaps between clubs, especially the longer fairway clubs.  5-6* between them can be more meaningful and useful than 3-4*

[Socrates]

Tried lofting up a few year ago.  Abandoned it as it wasn't for me.  Maybe in a couple more years?

[bigdriveandy]

16 hours ago, Pnwpingi210 said:

In the last 6 months I’ve went from hitting a 8-9 degree head driver with a 4-6 aoa to a 10.0 degree head with 0-2 aoa and it’s helped dramatically.  
 

left miss is almost non existent.  My efficiency has went from 1.44-1.47 to 1.48 - 1.5 and my spin has actually dropped a bit.  I’m actually hitting it farther on average.  

Are you saying you went from an AOA of +4 to +6* to an AOA of +0 to +2*; or did you go from -4* to -6* to 0* to -2*?

[Cwebb]

3 hours ago, Socrates said:

Tried lofting up a few year ago.  Abandoned it as it wasn't for me.  Maybe in a couple more years?

 

Only reason to do it, is to get in the optimal zone for launch angle and spin.  If you're well too low, then the most efficient way to get there is more actual loft.  If you're not, then you're just hurting your flight and distance relative to the club

[Pnwpingi210]

2 minutes ago, bigdriveandy said:

Are you saying you went from an AOA of +4 to +6* to an AOA of +0 to +2*; or did you go from -4* to -6* to 0* to -2*?

the former.
 

Went from + 4 to + 6 (upward)

To a

0 to +2 (still up, but neutral to 2 degrees)

[bigdriveandy]

Nice. I am about 5* up myself with a 10.5* driver. Seems to give me good numbers though so I don't mess with adding loft. I would also feel kinda weird swinging a 12* driver with a higher SS

[GoldenAges]

I swapped out a 15 degree 3w for a 16.5 degree and swapped a 18.5 degree 5w for a 21 degree 7w. I have always preferred the 16.5 degree over the 15 degree, but the 21 degree is the first time I've ever went over 18.5 and it's my favorite club. 

 

The quality of my shots is better and my gapping is much better. As others have mentioned, I haven't lost much, if any distance at all. More like a slightly higher trajectory, with similar distance.

 

 

[Socrates]

1 hour ago, Cwebb said:

 

Only reason to do it, is to get in the optimal zone for launch angle and spin.  If you're well too low, then the most efficient way to get there is more actual loft.  If you're not, then you're just hurting your flight and distance relative to the club

Yes.  Driver I found was almost plugging in fairways with next to zero roll.  Thought high lofted fwy wds could help out of rough etc..., but became clubs I hit once in a blue moon so they went to the basement.

[596]

The other side of the coin. Apparently I'm a minority in loft.  At 69 years old I was fitted from a 10.5 to a 9 degree with a Hazardous Black low spin shaft.  Gain yards and accuracy. Everyone is different. Loft and spin are not my friend! 😂 

 

 

 

[Rory4Pres]

4 and 7 woods are under rated.  

 

The new ventus white (super high launch) with a 3 wood sounds like an appealing experiment.

[LoopySwing13]

After trying a bunch of stuff, I finally went back to my fitter and he lofted me up to 11.75*. Been playing 9/9.5 for a long time but the extra loft did wonders. I think people get too fixated on numbers and not what makes the clubs work. 
 

My bag is a mix of things that don’t make sense ( lofted up driver, stiff wood shafts, x stiff iron shafts) but just focus on what works! 

[jda]

Wind can be a problem.  So can spin if you are a high speed player.  Driver is different since you can swing up on it and deloft, but with other clubs, the smash is lower with the higher loft and spin is higher.  If you are not a high speed/spin player, then loft can be awesome.

[ChaosTheory]

Here is a great video on this topic.

 

 

[Par4Nate]

Lofting up would be a problem for me, as I already hit every club in the bag really high.  I play a 9 degree driver and my ball flight is higher than anyone I play with, save for the random young bomber.

[Cwebb]

14 hours ago, Par4Nate said:

Lofting up would be a problem for me, as I already hit every club in the bag really high.  I play a 9 degree driver and my ball flight is higher than anyone I play with, save for the random young bomber.

 

It's not the best for anyone who already has an optimal launch angle and spin rate for the conditions they play in.  Use the actual loft for the given head design that fits each player.  Not just arbitrarily more loft, thinking that will automatically make a driver easier to play

[Pnwpingi210]

3 minutes ago, Cwebb said:

 

It's not the best for anyone who already has an optimal launch angle and spin rate for the conditions they play in.  Use the actual loft for the given head design that fits each player.  Not just arbitrarily more loft, thinking that will automatically make a driver easier to play

Yup.

 

id go further to say optimal for how they deliver the club.  Most of the folks I see out on the public courses I have access to are deliver a ton of dynamic loft, which is why you see 8 degree low spin heads with x and tx flex shafts with sub 110 club head speed.

 

[cristphoto]

Three years ago I changed out my 15 degree three-wood to a TaylorMade SIM 2 Max HL (16.5 degree) three-wood. MUCH more reliable from the fairway and no noticeable loss of distance. Great control off the tee also. 

[golferdude54]

I like to think the rule of thumb is if you swing under 100 MPH with a negative AoA then stay the heck away from single digit lofted drivers.