How to Find the Optimum Striking Spot on the face of an Iron?

Here's another question for our brilliant engineers:

OK, many of us appreciate that the most efficient / distance creating way to strike a golf ball with an iron is with the hands ahead of the ball and striking the ball a couple of inches before the bottom of the swing. Thus if one placed a towel directly behing the ball our iron head (bar sand wedge in the sand) would never touch it.

The impact mark of the ball with all the great pros. is rock bottom centre of the face with the ball shadow covering grooves 1 to 4/5. Far lower than most amateur players, who also often strike the ball toward's the toe of the head.

So, with all that said should one presume that such is the face's sweet spot? In theory at least I think not. Surely the sweet spot on an iron head will be where the centres of gravity of all dimensions cross?

Assuming that my presumption is correct (this is new territory for me) then how does one reconcile the two concepts of very low centre iron face striking and sweet spot striking?

Ivan. There is only one 'sweet spot' on any club, irons, woods or putter, but finding it is a bit of a moveable feast. Taking an iron for example (woods are slightly more complex because of their thinner, more flexible faces) the best place to hit is the exact point where the clubheads C of G (or more correctly the axis of the centre of mass) is coaxial with the ball C of G, but this is a point and has no physical size to speak of. Any strike away from this point and the masses of the head or the ball will automatically try and align to the C of G's wasting energy. Although this may sound counter intuitive as most pros hit down on the ball the physics still apply because the spin is applied after the point of strike so the potential energy is converted into spin rather than aligning the two masses. However, the real brain fryer on this is the misnomer of identifying where the C of G is, because a head on it's own can be designed with a very specific point as a C of G, but most golfers tend to put shafts on heads, add swing weights and hold a club, so the true C of G of a club is usually about 6 inches below and an inch or so in front of your hands.....

Tim,

That's extremely interesting thanks.

With today's plethora of improvers' irons one can almost hit the ball anywhere on the face and secure a half decent shot and no stinging hands. However I not only collect some of the wonderful blades of yesteryear but occasionally give them a spin. They are wonderful training aids for improving ball striking as one's receives a very clear message when a strike is not clean!

I wish that a few years back I had persevered with my MP32s instead of selling them and opting for the easy life with C1 pros. Cavity backs give the false impression that one is striking the ball way better than one actually is.

I need to do some more work using a towel two tees and face tape to establish what I hope will turn out to be the case, namely that if I learn to hit very low centre face with any blade then a good shot (with no stinging hands) will follow.

My challenge is that since returning to golf seven years ago I have put in so much work with drivers (and largely ignored my irons), and that regime of hitting on the upstroke and going for the middle of the face is completely alien to iron play.

It's coming though: My balls struck with irons no longer go ridiculously high (most of the time) and I'm now as long with irons using X100s instead of my former stiff graphite shafts.

Practice though is such a chore..... washing the iron's face after virtually every ball. It's much easier writing about it. This morning as the entire club (bar me) played their Sunday morning comp. I was grinding out practice balls on the range. Not sure what I'm going to do with it all. I play no-one, simply practice, practice, practice.

Striking a clean ball more appeals to me than finishing 27th in a medal comp. I suppose that I could cop out and get one of those handicap thingies. Yeuk!

Perhap's I'll become a mad scientist. Any vacancies Tim?