Physics and golf club design

[golfbulldog]

HOW IT'S MADE: The 1999 Hogan Apex Blades
A third of the way down this link - it states that "the underslung hosel shifts the shaft axis closer to the COG for easier workability"

Seems that the heelwards displacement of the COG which comes from the blade-on-blade muscleback design and the long hosel made this even more exaggerated....but brings the hosel into play for anyone with a variable strike pattern.

My diagram for simplicity (underslung top, normal bottom):

Which when taken to the max and offset gives:

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Does this mean that there is less tendency for the shaft to rotate around the sweetspot plane?? Clubface stays squarer to plane for longer? Is there risk of some loss of distance?

Thanks for thoughts or physics.

 

[birly-shirly]

Interesting stuff, especially for anyone who likes Hogan irons (I do). But I had a hard time working out whether that article deliberately (over-) simplified the design process - or whether the guy was really more concerned with the brand identity and visual heritage of Hogan irons than with pure function.

I can see how the underslung hosel moves the CoG and the shaft closer together, which I suppose makes the club easier to rotate - but it's a hell of a leap to conclude that the club is therefore more "workable". Along the way, I'd like an explanation of whether the golfer is applying force to rotate the club through the downswing, or if its the other way round and the clubhead has a rotational momentum that through the lower part of the downswing rotates the hands.

Also, I didn't follow his stuff at all about the virtues of the "blade on blade" design. This apparently gives a larger hitting area whilst moving the CoG towards the heel. Who on earth would want to hit the ball off a longer toe with less weight behind it?

I'm interested in what other people make of this.

 

[golfbulldog]

Thanks for your thoughts, I don't understand the physics of the design too well either. Would love to hear what the huy from ping has to say on this but I can't get to the summit and be back in the UK in time for work the next day...

The cleveland iron is very ugly and is not copied...so maybe the presumed physics benefits are out-weighed by the fact that nobody wants to be seen using such an ugly thing!