Golf Clubs Ltd provides clone golf clubs that feature outstanding
Game Improvement designs. Game Improvement is one
of the hottest topics in golf jargon and clone golf club discussion these days. For good reason, too, because without game improvement golf
clubs there’s a decent chance that a significant number of higher handicap
players might not be trying to play the game. Simply put, a lot of us
might find the game too difficult if we couldn’t play with clubs that have
the ability to compensate for our swing errors as well as to help us hit
the golf ball farther.
Game improvement clubs really started showing up in the 1970’s when
hollow-body metal woods were introduced and rather quickly and effectively
replaced the wooden woods that had been the norm for several decades.
Another important development came in the early 80’s when cavity backed
cast irons showed up. Cast irons proved to be much easier to hit than the
forged blade-style irons that had been the mainstay of the game for many,
many years. Golfers of all talent levels flocked to cavity backed irons to
improve their game results and golf game improvement, as we call it now,
was established as a credible line of business that professional
clubmakers could pursue to better serve the golfing public.
Over the last 25 years or so, especially the last 10, we’ve seen a quantum
leap forward in this area of game improvement as clubmakers have taken
advantage of advances in technology and materials to develop golf clubs
that make the game more accessible and enjoyable to more and more players.
Current game improvement clubs are found in every category – especially
the full swing categories of drivers, fairway woods, hybrids and irons –
and share, to one degree or another, the characteristics of perimeter
weighting, large sweet spots and low centers of gravity. Let’s take a look
at each category and examine their game improvement characteristics to
help you determine if there's anything here that you can incorporate
into your game to improve your results.
Drivers
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Since the introduction of metal woods in the 70’s, the hollow-body design
has progressed from its original size of 145 cubic centimeters (cc) to
well over 450cc. This expansion in volume was made possible by
advancements in thin-walled casting technology, high strength materials
and creative structural engineering of the head designs. In other words,
all of this stuff has brought us to the big headed titanium drivers that
have prompted the USGA to place a 460cc limit on club head volume. With
this ceiling in place, every golf club manufacturer has in its lineup a
titanium driver model in the 450cc range and you will find titanium
drivers comparable to many of these models on the Golf Clubs Ltd web site.
This large driver head volume helps to move the center of gravity (CG)
farther back from the clubface which provides a higher dynamic launch
angle to the golf ball at impact. Players have experienced dramatic
increases in driving yardage by teeing the golf ball high enough to impact
the upper part of the clubface, resulting in a higher launch angle and lower
spin rate for greater carry and more roll.
Another benefit of the large 450cc head volume is the creation of a large
sweet spot. A large sweet spot means a more forgiving driver. A more
forgiving driver means greater room to compensate for swing error. What’s
important to us in this scenario is being able to drive the ball fairly
straight with good distance even when we don’t hit it dead center perfect.
And when we do hit it dead center perfect, we get a drive that is long and
right down the middle. You know, the kind of result that keeps us coming
back for more.
Fairway Woods
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Golf has always had woods that were designed to hit the ball when it
wasn’t resting on a tee. They were known as ‘brassies’, ‘spoons’,
‘bafflers’ and so on and did a fine job for the accomplished players who
used them. However, like the titanium driver, the fairway wood, as we know
it today, is a monumental refinement of the hollow-body metal woods that
came on the scene in the 70’s.
The Adams® Tight Lies® came along several years ago and has arguably had
the most significant influence on fairway wood design in the last 10 to 15
years. The key to an effective fairway wood design is straight forward and
to the point: make it shallow faced with a low profile. This design puts
most of the weight in the sole which tremendously lowers the center of
gravity. Lowering the center of gravity in this way helps out in a couple
of ways. First, it helps you hit the ball longer and straighter off any
lie and, secondly, it helps you get the ball airborne in an optimal
trajectory.
To some extent, it can be said that fairway woods are being edged out by
hybrid clubs. However, for many of us, fairway woods will always be
effective as a transitional club between driver and short iron as we make our way from tee to green, and will never go
out of style.
Hybrids
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While one metal wood design trend has been to make drivers extremely
large, another popular trend has been to make fairway woods more compact
and shorter. In a sense, more and more players are being pulled in both
directions, toward larger drivers and smaller fairway woods. Both trends
are popular because both of them work very well.
The trend of making fairway woods more compact and shorter has created a
fairly new category of golf clubs known as Hybrids. A hybrid is a
hollow-body clubhead design that is comparable in loft to the long irons
in your set. The hollow construction allows for the sole to be much larger
than on an iron, shifting the center of gravity farther back away from the
face than you would find in an iron. The hollow construction also helps
raise the hybrid’s Moment of Inertia (MOI), which contributes to its
resistance to twisting of the clubhead on off-center shots. Hybrids are
smaller, more compact and shorter than comparably lofted fairway woods
but, in most cases, longer than irons of similar lofts.
Extensive R&D testing by major manufacturers indicates that every handicap
group (low, mid and high) can benefit by using hybrids instead of long
irons (especially the 3 and 4 irons). The testing also showed that game
improvement increased noticeably when you went from the low handicap group
to the mid handicap group and, then, most dramatically when you got to the
higher handicap group. In other words, while hybrids helped low
handicappers just a little and mid handicappers a meaningful amount, they
provided a game altering benefit for higher handicap players. In terms of
increased distance, it was 2-3 yards, 8-10 yards and a whopping 20 yards,
respectively.
For the higher handicap player there is no contest between the long irons
and the hybrid clubs. The intimidation factor of getting the ball airborne
and doubt about where your ball ends up as a result of mis-hits is greatly
reduced. And higher handicap players are not alone when it comes to
reaping benefits from hybrid clubs. They are confidence inspiring to a
great number and wide skill range of players. The performance benefits are
real enough, in fact, that hybrid clubs are finding their way into the
bags of players on every professional tour, including the PGA®.
Irons
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As
previously noted, key characteristics of game improvement golf clubs are
perimeter weighting, large sweet spots and low centers of gravity. Every
iron model that is presented on the Golf Clubs Ltd web site features all
three of these characteristics to one degree or another. Many are designed
to help improve the play of higher handicap players while a smaller number
are better suited for more accomplished players. You will see that we
recommend each iron model for a particular ability or handicap level so
you can match up with a set of irons that best suits your game and, in the
process, optimize your chance for successful play. Kind of like e-harmony.com® for golfers.
There is one current trend in iron design that is fairly new and worthy of
note. Over the past year or so, sole widths have increased, from the
iron’s leading edge to its trailing edge, in some models. Much of this
increase has occurred in the lower lofted irons where difficulty in
getting the ball airborne has long been a dilemma. These wider soles have
helped lower the center of gravity well below the equator of the ball.
This has enabled the casual, higher handicap player to launch the ball
higher than ever before which adds a major boost to anyone’s game.
Another benefit of wider soles, possibly unintended, is that they provide
a significant assist when it comes to address and set up. Many players
have remarked to us that wider iron soles make setting up an iron behind
the ball at address virtually effortless. It’s as though the club sets
itself up without any maneuvering or fidgeting around. Well, it seems safe
to say if a feature helps and we don’t have to think about it or figure it
out, we’ll gladly take that feature anytime.
Wedges
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The
designs of most wedges are very traditional and rarely feature the same
game improvement attributes that are critical when it comes to full swing
clubs like we’ve discussed so far. The fact that wedges are the shortest
clubs with the highest loft that we typically play makes them relatively
easy to hit. We can generally get the ball airborne with a wedge without
much of a struggle and most of the time it has a moderate to high amount
of backspin. These factors help keep sidespin to a minimum which means
there’s little need to add forgiveness and game improvement features to
the traditional wedge design.
There are, however, a variety of finishes you can choose from when it
comes to wedges so perhaps a brief discussion of their differences is
worthwhile. Chrome has long been the primary wedge finish and is still
very popular. It features a polished mirror finish that is very durable
and will maintain its bright finish for many years. By the same token, its
bright mirror finish can catch the glare of the sun which can be a
distraction to some players.
To get around this distraction, a few non-glare wedge finishes have been
gaining in popularity. One is carbon steel which will rust over time if
not protected from humidity. Rusting in this case is considered a good
thing because it pretty much eliminates the sun’s glare and combines with
the soft carbon steel to provide a softer feel which can increase your
touch around the greens. Black melonite is another finish that is durable
and presents a dark gunmetal look that assists with keeping the glare out
of a player’s eyes. And, finally, there is the recently introduced
physical vapor deposition (PVD) coating. This coating is applied to the
clubhead in a vacuum chamber and can be just about any color tone you can
imagine but is not as durable as the others and can fade a little bit over
time.
Putters
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Putter head sizes have grown larger in direct proportion to the growth in
popularity of the various alignment style mallet putters. By alignment
style, I mean the ‘2 Ball’ and ‘3 ball’ alignment styles and their
assorted mallet cousins. These larger heads possess very high moments of
inertia (MOI) making them very resistant to twisting on off-center putts.
The immense size appearance may be initially distracting to some players,
but the added control and stability a lot of golfers feel on both long and
short putts can overcome the appearance issue.
Summary
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Clone golf clubs and some proprietary versions of all the Game Improvement golf clubs
described in this discussion are represented on the Golf Clubs Ltd web
site. We’re confident that you can find a new club or set that can help
you improve your golf game. We enjoy receiving and answering questions
from site visitors, buyers and browsers alike, so please don’t hesitate to
email (chorn@golfclubsltd.com) or call
(toll free 1.877.573.3121) us with your questions or requests for information about
Game Improvement clubs or anything on our web site, for that matter. We
look forward to hearing from you.
