Are the Equipment Companies Misleading You?

Since I believe that off-the- rack golf equipment or “stock” golf clubs don’t really fit anyone very well I was reading and article recently by Tom Wishon who is probably the leading expert in club fitting and golf equipment.  In the article I pick up several points that I had suspected to be true, but didn’t have the proof until now.

Set Make Up

Originally a set of irons was 2 – PW or nine clubs.  Sand wedge was considered a utility club and everyone choose the one that worked best for them.  They never matched the rest of the set.  Then the 2 iron got dropped and the sand wedge got added.  Still nine clubs but now you had to buy an additional fairway wood to make up for the 2 iron.

Today a set of irons is 4 – PW, GW, SW.  Club lofts have changed so that the gap between the PW and SW got too large and they had to add the gap wedge.  We still need the something to replace the 2 iron and now we need something to replace the 3 iron so they introduced hybrids.

The manufacturers planned it so the number of clubs you need keeps expanding plus now just having a sand wedge isn’t enough.  We now have lob wedges with additional loft and utility wedges with more loft than that.  How in the world did players get by with just a sand wedge?  We are now up to eleven clubs in a set plus an extra fairway wood and a hybrid.  The set has gone from nine to thirteen to cover the same yardage.

Vanishing Loft

For years there was a fairly stable and reliable guide to equipment loft that most of the industry used because all irons were forged.  With the introduction of cast club heads this started to change.  From the late 1990’s it has been a race to see who can make the strongest lofts and for a reason the manufactures don’t want you to know.

As you can see from the chart we now have to have a “gap wedge” because of the huge difference between the pitching wedge and the sand wedge.  It also points out how many clubs have been added to a set.

Growing Club Lengths

The following chart shows the old “Muscle Back” forged iron compared to today’s “Cavity Back” investment cast iron.

More Difficult to Hit

As clubs get longer they become more difficult for the average golfer to hit but the only way manufacturers can keep claiming their clubs hit it longer they have to make them longer and reduce the loft.

In club design there is the “24/38 Rule.”  This rule basically states that the average golfer cannot hit an iron that longer than 38 inches and has less than 24 degrees of loft.  In the traditional forged iron that was the spec of the 3 iron and most people struggled with it.  Today that is a 4 iron and most people struggle with it.

The Point

The point of all this is to hopefully get people to understand that the manufacturers do not have the average golfer’s best interest at heart so before spending any more money on clubs you need to find out what fits you best and each golfer is slightly different.  The future of golf equipment is in club fitting.

In my next article I will explain how they are doing the same thing to you with the driver.  The overwhelming odds are that you actually hit it shorter and less accurate with today’s driver.