What Lie Angle Do You Need?
If you’re serious about getting your hands on golf clubs that fit you – and your swing – like a golf, dialing in your lie angles is a major piece of the puzzle.
Determining in a huge way whether or not you make solid contact consistently, lie angles can make or break your success out on the golf course. Get this right and you’ll shave strokes off your score overnight!
What Is A Golf Club Lie Angle?
The lie angle of your clubs is basically the angle between the shaft of the club and the ground you are hitting off as soon as your club face comes in contact with the ball.
What Is An Upright Lie Angle?
A lie angle that is a little “too upright” happens when the toe (or back) of the club is lifted higher off the ground. This forces the heel to smash into the ground initially, which in turn pulls the club face in (shutting it off), and will send the golf ball out and to the left – if you’re a right handed golfer.
What Is A Flat Lie Angle?
A lie angle that is “too flat” will do the opposite. The heel of the club will sit too high, forcing the toe of the club to dig into the ground and drag. Your club face opens up immediately, your impact with the golf ball is thrown out of whack straight away, and the ball will leap out to the right (if you’re a righty).
How To Check Lie Angle On The Course
While a proper launch monitor (and some lessons with a qualified instructor) will help you better understand your swing more than anything else, you can still quickly diagnose your lie angle – even while you’re on the course – to figure out what’s going wrong with your swing.
Divots that are a little deeper in the toe suggest that you’re dealing with a flatter lie angle with your strike. Divots that are deeper in the heel area, though, let you know that your lie angle is too tall and too upright.
Can One Degree of Lie Make Much of a Difference?
If you are looking to drop your score on the card down as much as possible you’re going to want to get your lie angles dialed in to as close to “neutral” as you can get.
This means getting fit and it means trying to make sure that your clubs don’t have angles that are off even by a single degree.
Sure, 1° off with your lie angle might not see much on the surface. But that’s enough to send your ball 4 yards off-line from where you are aiming.
Think of what 2°, 3°, or even 4° of incorrect lie angle can do to your game.
With clubs that far off you won’t just be fighting the course, the elements, and the mental side of your game. You’ll have to fight your golf clubs, too!
What Lie Angle Do You Need?
Truth be told, the exact amount of lie angle you need with your clubs is going to be unique to you, your swing, and the actual clubs you are using.
Everyone – and we mean EVERYONE – has a unique swing completely and totally their own. Not everyone can rip it like Tiger. Not everyone can swing as sweetly as Ben Hogan, either.
This is why getting fit is so critical.
You’ll want to take your clubs into a professional and have them set you up on the launch monitor.
They will have you take cuts with your clubs (each and every one of them) to figure out what your lie angle needs to be throughout the bag. They’ll then be able to bend and dial in your clubs to get you sticks that’ll help you shoot much more consistently – and lower – scores almost instantly.
How to Measure Club Lie Angle
The divot tip that we mentioned earlier is really useful to diagnose the kind of lie angle you are working with, especially out on the course.
Another approach, though, is simply to draw straight lines down the center of your golf balls with some permanent marker.
Spray the club face of your clubs with foot powder (any other talcum powder, for that matter), and then take a couple of swings. Every time you connect with a ball – trying to hit the straight line on the back of it as square as you can – you want to check the clubface.
Marks in the powder from the marker line will let you know if you are coming in contact straight up and down (a neutral lie angle) or coming in with a tilt one way or another.
If the line left from the marked ball tilts towards the toe of your club, your lie angle is too upright.
If the line left from the marked ball tilts towards the heel of your club, your lie angle is too flat.
At the end of the day, though, nothing is going to help you figure out your lie angles faster – or with more accuracy – than spending some time in front of a launch monitor with pros that know how to interpret the data correctly.
Do Tall Golfers Need to Think About Lie Differently?
It’s impossible to put all tall golfers in the same box when it comes to lie angle (or anything else, for that matter), but many find that they have a flatter swing than they might like.
If you have noticed that your lie angle is bent towards the heel of your club more than anything else (from a divot, the marker tip we mentioned earlier, or from the launch monitor data), you’ll probably want a more upright kind of bent added into your clubs.
Closing Thoughts
At the end of the day, lie angle is something often overlooked even by better amateur golfers as unimportant or inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
If you’re serious about scoring the best you can, shooting lower and lower rounds with real consistency, and having a lot of confidence in your clubs every time you reach for them, get those lie angles dialed in.
You’ll be much happier when you do!