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

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

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.

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.

accufitgolf

In the second video the guy talks about when the club hits the ground when in a properly hit iron, the ball is gone from the face before the sole hits the ground. Yes the divot can tell you things but the ball is gone before the divot is taken.

Sneakylong

accufitgolf In the second video the guy talks about when the club hits the ground when in a properly hit iron, the ball is gone from the face before the sole hits the ground. Yes the divot can tell you things but the ball is gone before the divot is taken.

Yup. All a divot tells you is what happened in relation to path (square, in to out, out to in) and depth of divot (shallow or steep) and whether it was even, toe down or heel down. None of which tells you very much at all.

That's why a quality fitter will look at ball flight first and go from there.