Golf: n. A game played on a large outdoor course with a series of 9 or 18 holes spaced far apart, the object being to propel a small, hard ball with the use of various clubs into each hole with as few strokes as possible.

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Golf Jargon explained...

Blade | Bounce | Carbon Steel | Cavity Back | Centre of Gravity (COG) | Characteristic Time (CT) | Coefficient of Restitution (COR) | Clubhead Volume | Club Weight | Face Angle | Face Balanced | Forged Irons | Hosel | Kick Point | Loft | Maraging Steel | Moment of Inertia (MOI) | Muscleback Irons | Offset | Oversized (OS) | Perimeter Weighting | Progressive Offset | Rifle Shafts | Sensicore | Shaft Flex | Sole Weighting | Stainless Steel (Types) | Sweet Spot | Swing Weight | Torque

Blade
Generally refers to the shape of irons that have flat backs and no cavity. Favoured by Tour professionals as they claim they can shape the ball better than cavity back clubs that are more forgiving on off-centre hits.

Bounce
The angle that is formed between the leading edge of the club and the lowest part of the sole. Clubs with higher bounce angles (sand wedges) tend not to dig into the turf, while clubs with lower bounce angles (pitching/lob wedges) tend to dig into the turf.

Carbon Steel
Softest of all steels and found predominantly in wedges and forged irons for this very reason.

Cavity Back
Refers to the cavity in back of irons that accentuates perimeter weighting and creates a lower centre of gravity (COG) (see below).

Centre of Gravity (COG)
This is easy to understand if you are talking about a perfectly symmetrical object like a golf ball, whose geometric centre is the COG. However, it's a little more difficult with a non-symmetrical object like a clubhead. Aside from computer models, which calculate the exact COG, a clubhead's COG (wood or iron) could be determined by:

1. Balancing the clubface on your finger and then drawing a vertical line perpendicular from the floor through the club face; then,
2. Balancing the sole on your finger and drawing a vertical line perpendicular from the floor through the sole; and finally,
3. The intersection of these two lines, somewhere inside the clubhead, represents the COG.

Suffice to say that the COG is a lot closer to the face in an iron than it is in a wood. However, to put it simply, the COG is basically the centre of mass and rotation of the clubhead.

Myth:
Some golfers believe that by putting lead tape on the back of their club heads they are lowering the COG. However, this is a fallacy. By doing this you will change the swing weight, but in order to lower the COG on your 5 iron 1/64'' you would have to apply 15 one inch pieces of lead tape, which would render the 5 iron unplayable!

Characteristic Time (CT) (or COR)
A measure of impact efficiency, sometimes called the 'spring-like effect' or 'trampoline effect' in drivers.

Originally, the spring-like effect of a driver's face was measured as a Coefficient of Restitution (COR), and the limit was set at 0.83, which simply means the ball rebounds off the face at 83% of the incoming velocity. The USGA and R&A subsequently implemented a new measurement called Characteristic Time (CT), which measures the duration the ball stays in contact with the face.

CT is a measure of the responses of a driver face to an object impacting it - in short a measure of the efficiency of impact. Higher CT impact efficiency equals more efficient energy transfer from clubface to ball, and that means more potential distance. In practice, the new CT limit (239 microseconds plus a tolerance of 18 microseconds) equates to the former 0.83 COR limit.

Clubhead Volume
For club heads volume is measured in cubic centimetres (cc's). You could determine the volume by placing your driver head in a beaker of water, thereby measuring the water displaced and translated into cc's. The maximum permitted head size for a wood is currently 460cc.

Club Weight (or Deadweight)
Basically this is overall club weight, exactly how heavy the total club weighs. Please note that total club weight does not determine swing weight. What matters are the weight of the parts (head, shaft, grip) and the length of the club. These determine swing weight. More weight in the head, with less in the shaft and grip, produces a higher swing weight (the heavier the head feels during the 'swing'), and vice versa. The longer a club, the higher the swing weight, and vice versa. Try adding lead tape to your driver head, then take it off and add it to the grip and feel the difference in swing weight. The same is true swinging a 50'' driver versus a 42'' driver, a big difference in feel or swing weight. This illustrates why clubhead weight is important.

With the varying weights of shafts, grips, and lengths these days, swing weight becomes all the more complex.

Coefficient of Restitution (COR)
[See Characteristic Time]

Face Angle
Face angle is found on woods, expressed in degrees, and is best explained by:

1. Imagining a line from the target to your clubhead; and,
2. Placing your clubhead on the target line so the centre of the shaft is perpendicular to the target line.

If the club face appears to be aiming to the right of the target, the face angle is said to be 'open'. If the club face appears to be aiming to the left of the target, the face angle is said to be 'closed'. A club face that is perpendicular to the target line is said to be 'square'.

Due to the contours of a clubhead many club heads are produced 1 degree open to give the club a 'square' appearance at address. Club heads with closed faces of 2 or more degrees are designed to help chronic slicers square the club face at impact.

Face Balanced
Applies to putter design that causes the face to remain parallel to the ground when the putter is balanced at its centre of gravity (COG) (see above). To check if a putter is face balanced place your finger under the shaft about 10'' from the head. When the putter is balanced on your finger, check to see if the face is parallel to the ground. Generally speaking face balanced putters perform better for golfers with a pendulum stroke.

Forged Irons
Made from softer steel and then chrome plated. Alleged to feel softer. Forging process involves hammering the head into shape.

Hosel
The part (neck) of the club (wood or iron) into which the shaft is inserted. The standard diameter of an iron hosel is .370 inches, while the standard diameter of a wood hosel is .335 inches. Shaft tips are produced to these diameters, which is why an iron shaft will not fit into a wood hosel (the wood hosel is a smaller diameter than an iron).

Kick Point
[See Shaft Flex Point]

Loft
Loft determines the launch angle of the ball. Generally speaking the higher the loft of a club, the higher the ball goes. However, it should be noted that loft is measured differently for irons and woods.

Loft on irons is measured as the angle (in degrees) between (a) the centreline of the hosel, and (b) the iron's face. Loft on woods is measured as the angle between (a) the sole line, and (b) the midpoint on the wood's face height, less 90 degrees. The reason for using the face's midpoint is due to the curve of the face from the sole to the crown known as 'vertical face roll' which is on all woods, but not irons.

As a general rule of thumb the loft in a set of irons increases by 4 degrees per club. Woods are different in that there would be about 4 degrees difference, but that refers to odd numbers (1, 3, 5, etc).

Maraging Steel
Extremely hard alloy commonly used in woods as face inserts.

Moment of Inertia (MOI)
Measurement of the resistance to twisting. The higher the MOI the less the clubhead will twist at impact.

Muscleback Irons
Extra material, or 'muscle', added to the back of an iron to deliver more solid hits.

Offset
Defined as the distance from the club face's leading edge (where the face and sole of a clubhead meet) to the side of the hosel toward the target. The more offset, or greater this distance, the easier it is supposed to be to hit the ball. Offset helps keep your hands ahead of the club face at impact to increase launch angle and backspin. Offset clubs are ideal for mid- to high-handicap players and claim to reduce slicing, especially with woods.

Oversized (OS)
Name given to a club, usually an iron, which features an oversized head design. Offers a larger hitting area, a therefore bigger sweet spot, and ultimately greater forgiveness.

Perimeter Weighting
Much the same as heel & toe weighting (or peripheral weighting), where clubs are designed with extra weighting in the heel and toe, but instead the weight in irons is placed all around the perimeter of the head, the purpose being to be more forgiving on off centre shots. Refers mainly to irons, but also applies to woods.

Progressive Offset
Not to be confused as a combination of 'offset' and 'face progression', progressive offset refers to the amount of offset throughout a set of irons. In a set of progressive offset irons the three iron will have the most offset, to help the player square the club at impact, while the PW has the least. Such an iron set may go from 1mm offset on the PW, to 5.9mm on the three iron, that is, the offset 'progresses' through the set.

Rifle Shafts
Widely used by top players, rifle shafts feature a stepless steel design (a completely smooth, tapered shaft) for a solid feel at impact with less shock and vibration. Benefits include: tighter shot dispersion; better control; greater distance with improved accuracy; and, a smooth, yet solid feel at impact. It is worth noting that the use of dampening devices to absorb shock actually robs the shaft of its potency.

Sensicore
Sensicore is a product that shaft manufacturers place inside steel shafts to deaden vibration upon miss hits (if you have every miss hit a non-Sensicore steel shafted iron on a cold day then you will know how it feels!). That stinging vibration is what the Sensicore dampens. Graphite shafts as a rule do not require Sensicore as their construction has the natural ability to dampen the vibration of a miss hit.

Shaft Flex
Measurement of how much a shaft will bend under a certain load. In layman's terms, how much the shaft bends when you swing it. Another way of defining it is as the relative stiffness of a shaft, or measure of a shaft's flexibility relative to a specific standard, and therein lies the problem. While the industry has established five basic flex types - extra stiff (X), stiff (S), regular (R), flexible (A or M), & ladies (L) - each shaft manufacturer or club company has there own method of determining what constitutes an S flex, R flex, etc. In other words, True Temper's R flex might be the same as what Callaway calls an S or F (or firm) flex, which makes shaft comparisons between manufacturers quite difficult.

Generally speaking more flexible shafts feel softer and are more suitable for golfers with slower swing speeds and help them get the ball up quicker and prevent the common fade shot. Stiffer shafts are more suitable for higher swing speeds and are firmer at impact and produce a lower trajectory.

Myth:
Many golfers believe that a stiffer shaft will cure their slice, but this is exactly the opposite of what is true. If you are consistently fading or slicing the ball, especially your tee shots (ie. with a driver or similar lower lofted club) then try a driver with a more flexible shaft (and more loft if possible). The more flexible shaft will allow the head of the club to catch up with the hands during the swing and therefore help square the club at impact (and hopefully hit the ball straighter).

Shaft Flex Point (or Kick Point)
While the shaft flex theoretically tells us how the shaft will bend during a swing, the flex point (also known as kick point or bend point) is the point on the shaft where it will bend the most at impact. The belief is that the closer the flex point is to the tip (low flex point) the tendency is for a higher ball trajectory, while the opposite is the case for high flex point shafts (closer to the butt, low ball trajectory). However, in reality the kick point on almost every shaft made fall within a 1¼'' length of the shaft.

Research carried out on two identical clubs - one fitted with the lowest kick point shaft, and another fitted with the highest kick point shaft - has shown that the difference in trajectory of the two clubs was just one degree, so don't get hung up on shaft flex point. It simply has more to do with feel than trajectory.

Sole Weighting
Increased weight in the sole of a club to lower the centre of gravity (COG) to enable the golfer to get the ball up in the air more easily.

Stainless Steel (Types)
Differing types of stainless steel are used in club heads and these types are referred to as 17-4 stainless, 431 stainless, and 15-5 stainless.

17-4 and 15-5 are used for woods and irons, and are 'harder' than 431, while 431 is primarily used in irons. While they do have different metallurgical properties hitting tests have shown no performance difference. The difference between 17-4, 431, and 15-5 is simply comparable to the difference between oak and maple; they are both hard woods, but just with subtle differences.

Sweet Spot
The area on the clubface from where launch conditions are optimised and maximum distance is achieved.

Swing Weight
Swing Weight (often confused with club weight) is the measurement of a golf club's weight about a fulcrum point which is established at a specified distance from the grip end of the club. Put simply you could say that it is how the club feels when you swing it - heavy, light, or just right. Swing weight measurements are calibrated by letters A-G and numbers 0-9 on a Swing Weight scale (see below).

Swing weight has absolutely nothing to do with the weight of a golf club, only how the weight is distributed. The swing weight of a club is measured by putting it on a swing weight scale. This scale compares the ratio of weight at the head end to the weight at the grip end and gives the results to you in a 'letter/number' (see below). A 12lb golf club and a 1lb golf club can both have a swing weight of D-1 if their weight is distributed the same.

The swing weight scale measurement is in 'swing weight points' which is an alphanumeric range of 77 swing weight points, starting at A0, then A1, A2, etc to A10, then B0, B1, and so on until reaching G10. A0 would be the 'lightest' swing weight, G10 the heaviest. Most men's clubs are produced to have a swing weight of D0 or D1, which has become the standard, meaning a D0 or D1 swing weight feels not too heavy, or too light (during the swing), but just right for most men. Women's standard swing weight is about C5 to C7.

Torque (or Twist)
Measurement of how much a shaft will twist under a given load (hold the club by the grip, get your friend to try to twist the head off, that's torque). It is supposed to refer to torsional stiffness, measuring resistance of the shaft to twisting.

Higher torque shafts feel softer, but twist more and as a consequence are less accurate. More flexible shafts tend to have higher torque. The lower the torque, the less twisting. This probably had some merit when graphite shafts first came to market, when they were more like fishing rods. However, materials and manufacturing processes today have improved such that torque is pretty meaningless (unless you swing like John Daly that is).