Equipment question for all you club fitters

[Matt 4-L]

Equipment question and swing question

Last year I bought a new 3 wood that I wanted to be good off the tee box, it has a deeper face. It has been difficult to hit it off the fairway, it seems I have very little room for error. Plus, I have been controling my driver very good as of late and seldomly use the 3 wood at the tee box. So my question is this: I see quite a few tour guys using hybrids instead of a 3 wood, take Anthony Kim for example, he has an adams idea pro that is 14°, the lowest loft hybrid they sell that in is 16°, can I get that club and bend it to 15°? If so, what is that going to do to the club? Is that going to close the face?

 

[Jim Kobylinski]

You could do that with an Adams Idea Pro. You could just order it through an Adams Retailer and tell them you want 15* on the face. You will most likely end up with either a 14* or 16* stamped on the bottom but they will hand pick you one at 15*.

Also, it will fly a lot lower than a normal 3 wood off the deck. My advice would be to find a versatile 3 wood that you can hit off the tee and the deck. What is your swing speed with a driver and do you tend to spin the ball a lot or a little on launch monitors?

 

[Matt 4-L]

Jim, my driver swingspeed is between 105-110 mph. The couple of times that I have been on a launch monitor my spin rates were not high and my launch angle tends to be low. I tend to get in front of ball on the downswing, which is not all bad on shorter irons but long clubs it smothers them, I have to "feel" like I am hanging on my right side to hit them good, but I am working on that. I have a 21° nike cpr hybrid that I have been hitting really good lately thats kinda why I was thinking of going with hybrid instead of my 3 wood. I have the length to get home on a lot of par 5's but with an inconsistent 3 wood I have been reluctant to pull it out.

Are you interested in giving a lesson or have you given up at looking at swings? I sure would like to get my 3 wood going again, thanks, Matt.

 

[miki111]

Matt,
look at the 949 fairways from Wishon. 32mm shalow and very hot face. For 4-5 bucks extra you can have any loft from 13 to 22.5.
Bending hybrids for loft will change face angle - mayby not good for you.

 

[Matt 4-L]

Jim, I wound up at Hilldale and I got paired with one of your students. I was playing pretty good through 10 holes even par and your student asked me who taught me how to play. I told him I was self taught and had read all the "books". I then proceeded to tell him about Brian's website and all the good info on here and thats when he told me you had really improved his game. I got your PM and will give you a call the next time I'm in Chicago, probably in September.

My only problem I have in my swing right now is a low launch angle with my long clubs. I hit them good but launch them low and that robs me of my distance. I went to golf galaxy and hit the 16° adams idea pro and several other hybrids and was only launching them around 7-9°.

What are some of the causes of a low launch angle?
1. Losing my axis tilt?
2. Could I possibly be getting my hands too far in front of the club at impact?
3. Swaying in front of the ball?
4. Ball position?

What other things should I look at? I hit two 3 wood shots that day and smoked them both, they looked like Tiger woods stinger shots that went straight. I have an all city 3 day tournament in a couple of weeks and would like to get my launch angle up some for this tournament, any suggestions are welcome, thanks, Matt.

 

[Jim Kobylinski]

All 4 would be potential culprits....however some could be causing the others. I'd tryin this order:

1) move the ball up in your stance little by little
2) widen your stance a bit
3) move the ball up with the wider stance until you start basically "topping it." Then move it back to where you can hit it solid.

It's more of a trial and error thing if i can't see you