Effect of Lie Angle on DRIVERS

[wmclarenf1]

What does a more upright or flatter lie do in a driver?

Always focused on lie angles for my irons and wedges but never for drivers but since I have an adjustable driver now that offers lie selection, that has begged the question.

Thanks.

[JayDM]

For me personally, when I'm not hitting the ball well, a wood with a flatter lie angle starts the ball out tracking a bit to the right and when it turns over it doesn't come back as far left, so a poorly hit ball won't wind up with as large of a hook as it would with a more upright club..... That's me personally though, when I'm hitting the ball well, the lie angle on woods isn't something I'm overly concerned with. I've always assumed that the reasons for needing a change in lie angle and the effect of changing the lie angle would be basically the same in woods as it would be with irons and wedges.

[wmclarenf1]

For me personally, when I'm not hitting the ball well, a wood with a flatter lie angle starts the ball out tracking a bit to the right and when it turns over it doesn't come back as far left, so a poorly hit ball won't wind up with as large of a hook as it would with a more upright club..... That's me personally though, when I'm hitting the ball well, the lie angle on woods isn't something I'm overly concerned with. I've always assumed that the reasons for needing a change in lie angle and the effect of changing the lie angle would be basically the same in woods as it would be with irons and wedges.

Thanks Jay. Even for irons and wedges, assuming one hits ball first then turf (not for driver of course), unless the lie angles are extremely off like 5* etc, if the ball contacts the club face when the club face is square, especially in a driver, won;t a difference of 2 to 3 degrees lie angle difference be negligible especially for a driver and a ball teed up?

I can appreciate lie angle differences for wedges, irons and even hybrids and woods especially when for less than pure strikers like myself who do and can hit fat and turf first causing either heel of toe to get locked up in the turf but for drivers, I just can;t picture the effect.

Eager to learn...

[JayDM]

I would honestly have to defer to someone with a greater knowledge of club fitting than I have, I really can only remark on my personal experiences with any sort of authority. Personally, I prefer a flatter lie for when I'm swinging poorly, as it's always seemed to start the ball out further to the right, not a great distance, but enough to keep a hook in the rough and not the trees, when everything is working as it should though, I don't really notice much difference between varying lie angles in different drivers, FW's and utilities.

[Miuramaniac]

Since most FW's nowadays have a fairly rounded sole, turf contact isn't affected too much. For drivers, this is not an issue. As far as direction, I've read from knowledgable sources that the lie angle effect on direction/curvature is not impacted nearly as much as with higher-lofter clubs. Meaning that if your driver is 59* and your optimal lie angle is 55*, there wouldn't be more than a small off-line effect. Whereas if your 8-irom was 3 degrees off, it would be further off-line.

[+TourSpecGolfer]

It does a lot for things that you may not expect like CG location & forgiveness & flight pattern, A lot of people think it only has to do with turf impact.

[wmclarenf1]

It does a lot for things that you may not expect like CG location & forgiveness & flight pattern, A lot of people think it only has to do with turf impact.

Chris, I am really curious about this. Pls explain more.

What would a more upright angle have on forgiveness, flight, cg etc and vice versa. Thanks.

[ant]

It does matter but whether or not it matters for you personally is a big question. I wont go into details here at this time because i still dont have hard measurement numbers to back up my personal findings. If you are asking about it in the context of adjustable driver just forget about it, it wont matter all that much because you cant adjust it severely enough to make a big difference plus all those adjustable systems you cant adjust things independently (even when they say you can) and to a large degree, you adjust one thing and something else gets adjusted as well.

[wmclarenf1]

It does matter but whether or not it matters for you personally is a big question. I wont go into details here at this time because i still dont have hard measurement numbers to back up my personal findings. If you are asking about it in the context of adjustable driver just forget about it, it wont matter all that much because you cant adjust it severely enough to make a big difference plus all those adjustable systems you cant adjust things independently (even when they say you can) and to a large degree, you adjust one thing and something else gets adjusted as well.

ant! Where have you been buddy? Was hoping and wondering when you would chime in. Please explain more.

[ant]

we just had a baby this summer, didnt have time to post tho been lurking here on the forums. what i found out was something that is more applicable to me and my swing so it might not apply to you or other people and i still cant invest time to do a deep dive and get hard numbers so this is my disclaimer. i got this nike vr tour driver with nunchuk from supo to do some experimenting. its 10.5 loft (labeled, dunno real loft, especially bottom of the face) about 60 lie, 2 degrees open per spec but could be 1 open, it does look a hair open to me which means its probably somewhere between neutral and 1-2 open. nunchuk from what i heard has the least droop of all the shafts out there or so they say. i thought this kinda setup should be good to experiment with and its long hosel head which can be bent more than couple of degrees. what i did last weekend, i had a quick warm up session then dedicated a bucket hitting this driver. the idea was to mark a reference stance with tape so that alignment doesnt change, tee the ball very low but still a bit forward so that the only way i can get to it would be steeper angle of attack which would ensure a bit of clubhead interaction with hitting mat and that in turn should leave green goo marks on the sole. then just machinegun the whole bucket without any consideration where it goes to ensure no adjustments and every hit it as neutral and similar as i can get them. obviously had a few stray ones like snaps and blocks but most went slightly left. mind you range balls with shortened flight and hitting off pretty low tee on uphill range so they didnt go as far as regular ball off a proper height tee would go on flat which would make it end up even more left in reality. how much left i didnt measure exactly as i didnt want to go out there and expose my soft melon to relatively high velocity hard projectiles. anyway once i got enough goo marks on the sole that was it. from there drawing two lines on the face one that goes perpendicular to score lines and another that goes thru the middle of thickest goo accumulation then measure the angle between them. ~10 degrees. now with that second line at 90 degrees to the ground and toe up turns out this pretty much my address position. i dont film my swing so cant say for sure but that either means i return my hands exactly to where they were at address or that nunckuk has a bit of droop. very few people do the former and i dont think i'm one of them so its very likely the later. regardless its ~10 degrees difference between how that head was supposedly designed to be positioned during the strike and its actual position during the strike. ~10 degrees sounds like alot but what that really does to the face and launch conditions how it affects flight ? coops posted a link to this thread here while back http://thesandtrap.com/t/64131/effects-of-lie-angle-on-varying-degrees-of-loft and i think the poster there is pretty spot on even tho hes doing a theoretical exercise with numbers. i cant really back up his numbers 100% because i dont have hard numbers and my initial conditions are different to his (loft, lie, face angle, probably shaft droop too) but i would say that he is certainly in the ballpark as far as reality and not just theory goes. ok, i'm kinda running out of time here so these are my basic observations. the next step should be getting on a launch monitor, getting some numbers, bending the hosel (5 degrees maybe, not sure how much it can take without heat but should be a good start), rinse and repeat. dunno when i'm gonna get a chance to do all this tho.

ant! Where have you been buddy? Was hoping and wondering when you would chime in. Please explain more.

[+TourSpecGolfer]

We've sat with top gents all designers. I don't remember all the details but yes lie angle effects a lot as far as all the measurements, placements, etc..

[xxio]

For me it affects my address/set up position.

I always want the driver to look "normal"/properly soled. With the trend to more upright driver lie angles and longer shafts, most new drivers will be toe up at address for me and it subconsciously affects how I swing because the set up does not feel natural.

I've tried a few of the adjustable for lie drivers and whether it is a placebo or not, when they are set at a flatter lie angle and the toe is less up in the air I have better results. I finally bit the bullet and got an Optiforce 440 just for that reason.