Do lie boards lie? Short answer is many times yes.

Sneakylong

Tinker

The guy doesn’t look like the tallest guy in the world and he carries his hands low. He’s not saying what length club he’s using. If it’s too long as many standard irons are he has no choice but to need them flat

sdandrea1

I have been fitted for irons maybe 4 times in 50+ years of playing. I always fit out to 1 or 2 degrees upright. Then I ho irons like crazy and do just as well with anything from 1 degree flat to 3 degrees up. I guess I'm an adapter.

Sneakylong

sdandrea1 I have been fitted for irons maybe 4 times in 50+ years of playing. I always fit out to 1 or 2 degrees upright. Then I ho irons like crazy and do just as well with anything from 1 degree flat to 3 degrees up. I guess I'm an adapter.

Yup. The point these guys are saying is for many, lie angle is a red herring (not important). He hit the standard lie pretty straight with a slight draw.

However, the lie board showed contact near the toe and the radar showed he's over 4 degrees toe down, yet when he bends the iron 4 degrees upright he hits it way left.

So, the lie board lied in his case. Now the other guy the lie board was more accurate, but in their experience he would be in the minority. Their point is ball flight trumps all.

I always played off the rack irons and hit them fine. Ten years ago I got fitted for my Ping G15's. The lie board said I needed 4.5 degrees up and 1 1/2 inches over length.

Luckily I questioned that and decided to go with a static fit (wrist to floor measurement / height etc.) instead of a dynamic fit and it came out 2 up (green dot) and standard length. Played them for years and they were fine.

A few years ago I went and got fitted for Ping G irons. My first question was if he used a lie board? He said he did, but he looked at ball flight first.

I ended up with 1.5 upright (in line with the static fit recommendation). Lie board showed toe down contact. Needed massively up right lie angles.

And played them just fine.

Bottom line is ball flight tells all.

In many cases as this video shows lie boards can be a bad tool for fitting irons. There's many golfers like myself and the guy from TXG who have higher hands and toe down impact, but can still hit straight shots.

Straight shots with uneven divots over ride wayward shots and even looking divots any day.

Oh, I fit myself and went with 2 up (green dot) on my G400 irons. Ping doesn't use 1/2 degree increments anymore. To be perfectly honest I probably could play standard lies (black dot) and not miss a beat.

candukid

sdandrea1
I can’t hit flat irons. Don’t like the look. Doesn’t inspire confidence. The more up the better for me. My sterlings are 64 deg at 8 iron length. I tried flat irons once and dug the toe down to China

ZWExton

The lie board can't LIE, it just doesn't take shot results into consideration. If the sole is coming in square and your shots are way offline, that's a crooked swing. You can work to resolve the swing, or you can get a crooked club to match your crooked swing.

The TXG guy was hitting straight shots with the toe 4° down... What the f***? He's clearly got some compensatory move that he can rely on to wrangle that into a straight shot, so it works for him. And he mentioned that once he resolved that he'd need to change his lie.

Similar to someone leaving the driver face 5° open all the time. If he can find a super shut face and make the same swing, and never change it, that'll work. If someone straightens out their swing with a crooked club, yikes.

If a rifle was perfectly sighted and the shooter consistently missed left, would you adjust the rifle, or the shooter?

I guess it's a question of whether you want to work on your swing, or if you want equipment to work around your flawed swing. Am I missing something?

Sneakylong

ZWExton Am I missing something?

I think you are. First TXG is a top notch fitter They're not a fly by night outfit. What he's showing is if someone just used a lie board to fit lie angle for him they'd miss the mark by a lot. He's not alone and he says that his case is in the majority of what he sees.

Again, the ball flight tells all. He's coming into impact over 4 degrees toe down, yet he hits a nice draw down the center line on the monitor. And he's not an anomaly. I'm very similar to him.

The other TXG guy, he's comes in with his hands lower and the lie angle and ball flight coincide. Like he basically said, if your fitter just uses a lie board, then you should run away.

lambo

A lie board does not provide good feedback to me. The reason was I always took a somewhat deep divot with my irons. At the time I had a friend with a range and loft and lie machine. The group I played with at that time always had an early season day during the week when he would (he played with us regularly) roll the machine out to where we hit balls and we would tape up and he would adjust our clubs as we wanted. My first time to take advantage of this, he told me to step away from the board and use my divot as a guide to making any adjustment. He had watched me for a bit and we had played together a number of times that previous summer. As soon as I did this I got different feedback than I was from the lie board. He told me I was coming up because of the impact of the board. Frankly, I did not think I was, but the feedback was different so I believe he was right. So today I just don't use a lie board.

ode

Still gotta watch the flight. Same goes for launch monitors.....gotta see the flight outside to confirm what the numbers/gadgets say. Golf is played outside on a course, not on a machine!

ZWExton

Sneakylong Again, the ball flight tells all. He's coming into impact over 4 degrees toe down, yet he hits a nice draw down the center line on the monitor.

Right, so he's got a crooked swing. One can play excellent golf with a crooked swing. Giving a guy with a crooked swing a non-crooked club may not help his score. I get that. If a better score now is more important than resolving the crooked swing, the lie board can result in trouble.

With the toe down that far at impact he's compensating in some way to negate the loft pointing to the right. You see what he's doing more obviously with the sole striking square.

It isn't wrong to make the equipment resolve the malady, but personally I'd rather know the sole was striking pure and then learn to move the club more correctly/efficiently. But I'm young, and I enjoy practicing.

sdandrea1

Some lie board fitting has to be affected by the turf you hit off and the sole design, right? I'm pretty sure I don't swing consistent enough to come into the ball at the same angle everytime anyway.

I played my last 3 rounds with a set of TM Burner XD irons that are off the rack standard and am hitting them high and straight. Go figure........

scotts33

This is the way I have fitted irons for years single iron at a time and it's worked for me perfectly. Lie boards do lie. Set up an individual golfer up to a lie board many many times they do not hit the same shot as they would on turf. I have not seen any player hit shots off a lie board on a golf course. This is also why I don't fit irons, hybrids or fairway woods on mats. Divots do not tell lies.

Sneakylong

scotts33 Divots do not tell lies.

No they don't, but they only tell one story and that is your path. In the TXG guys case if he hit the same shot on turf it would show a toe down divot aiming 4-5 degrees to the right (radar showed in to out path 4-5 degrees).

However, without seeing the ball flight it wouldn't tell you much more than that.

If you did see his ball flight you'd see a nice little draw down the middle. And knowing what we've learned since the advent of using radar his face must've been slightly closed to his path, thus a nice little draw.

Also, before radar no one thought it possible to hit a draw with an open face. But we learned if your face is closed to your path the ball will go left. This is why the TXG guy was able to hit a draw despite the toe being down 4 degrees.

You'd assume his face was open because of the toe down divot, but if his path was closed in relation to the face angle, he'd hit a draw left. Which is exactly what happened.

Now if he was fit (4 degrees up) with the sole purpose of getting an even looking divot, he'd be hitting it left all day long. Because his face angle would now be much more closed (now roughly zero degrees) to his path (4-5 degrees in to out).

scotts33

Sneakylong You did factor the face path with divot. Divot will will illuminate how steep or shallow your AofA is. You did not factor the Sharpie line on the ball both are true dynamic measurements. Of course ball flight. Also if the heft match is off for a specific player the impacts will not be centered. This kind of test in the YT video is great for all 3.

When I do TLT fittings the correct TLT series (playing length/lie) will cut down on the amount of lie adjustment that is needed usually very little per iron.

Sneakylong

scotts33 You did factor the face path with divot. Divot will will illuminate how steep or shallow your AofA is. You did not factor the Sharpie line on the ball both are true dynamic measurements.

I'm familiar with sharpie leaving an imprint on the face of the iron and reading the sharpie angle. Basically all I'm saying is the TXG guy 'zeroed out' with his path being in to out 4-5 degrees and his face being open 4-5 degrees. In his case the 4-5 degrees toe down helped him hit it relatively straight towards the target with a slight draw.

Again, had he been fitted to 4 degrees up in his iron to get an even divot, he would no longer be 'zeroed out' (path and face angle). His club face would now be too closed (zero degrees) in relation to his 4-5 degrees in to out path and the ball is going way left.

As was evidenced in the TXG video.

KCee

Making more of a case for single length irons?

johnnydoom

I've always played standard lie/length clubs and last year bought a set of Ping irons that were 2 degrees flat. I was expecting to need to compensate for a more right moving shot (I'm right handed) and was surprised to find out that I was pulling everything consistently left and ended up tweaking my grip to a slightly weaker than neutral position. I had been playing forged cavities with fairly low offsets and stiffer, heavier steel shafts, so more things changed than just the lie when I went to Raptures, but I'm not sure which, if any of those factors was more important than the others or what it says about my swing.

Tinker

Lie board is always accurate. A square to the target face marked on center of sole will always hit a straight shot. This guy is way in to out swing path. I wonder if he can hit a slight fade if he needs to.

Sneakylong

Tinker Lie board is always accurate

So is a broken clock (accurate) twice day. Means very little in and of itself.

Tinker

Sneakylong I don’t get the analogy

Sneakylong

Tinker I don’t get the analogy

You said the lie board is always accurate. And I said a broken clock is accurate twice a day. In each case it doesn't tell you very much.