Golf Club Components

Do you understand how your golf clubs are made? Do you know what golf club components go into the development of a club?

In this article we will describe how clubs are made and what types of materials are used. We will look at how weighting technology and components work in the modern golfclub and look at how clubheads are designed including, cavity back, muscle back and peripheral weighting.

We will also look at grips and how these are developing more and more.

So the three main components that go to make your clubs are the grip, the shaft and the clubhead.

Grip

Lets first take a look at the grip. The golf grip on a club is just as important as the shaft and the clubhead itself. A standard golf grip, which is probably what you have on your own golf clubs is 0.900 inches at the top end of the grip and is 0.765 inches at the lowest end of the grip.

Now just because you have a standard grip on your club does not mean it will be comfortable or more importantly may not be the right fit for your hand. Everybody has different length fingers and different size hands so your grip may not be correct on the golf club.

Grips come in many different sizes and variations are normally 1/16" or 1/32" even a slight variation like this can have a dramatic effect on your performance.

It is very much a case of trial and error but your local pro shop can give you sound advice. To make a golfgrip larger it is sometimes just a case of adding grip tape (2 or 3 layers) underneath the grip.

You can also take a quick look at the Golf Pride grip fiiting page on their website to check what would be the ideal grip for you

Shaft

Today's technology allows golfers to be more selective about the shafts they have fitted to their golf kit.

Buying a set of clubs off the shelf is ok and all good and well, but you can now get clubs custom fitted with specific shafts that are compatible with the stength and speed of your swing.

I know this sounds a little far fetched, but most golf manufacturing companies now offer this facility. Club shafts are predominately made from either steel or graphite (carbon)

Why not think about having your shafts looked at in your present set of clubs?

One of the leading shaft manufacturers is Aldila and you can use their online custom fitting page to see what is the right type of shaft for your game

Clubhead  
As with the grip and the shaft it is also important to look at the diffferent types of clubhead. You could go for a traditional blade, a cavity back, a half cavity or even a muscle back.

A lot of manufacturers are now mixing the different types of clubhead to give improved performance and playability to amateur golfers throughout the set.

Bladed Clubhead

Bladed clubs are often associated with the process of forging which allows the manufacturer to use a much softer metal, this in turn provides a much softer feel on well struck shots. However because bladed clubheads are precision forged it means that the weight is distributed in a very small area of the clubhead making the "sweetspot" more difficult to find for the average player.

If you try to play a blade and hit it anywhere near wrong, the ball will not travel far at all and you will get a painful vibration go right through your hands and arms. Blades really are for the very best players.

Cavity Back

The cavity back iron has developed rapidly over the past 5 years with new casting processes and new materials adding to the quality of clubheads that are now available.

Cavity back and perimeter weighted clubs can now also be forged from mild carbon steel and because of the design of adding most of the weight around the perimeter allow even high handicap players to buy clubs with a softer feel.

Half Cavity

The half cavity clubhead is a variation of the traditional cavity back in that more weight is added to the clubhead below the centre of gravity to help the player get the ball airborne much easier. These clubs are usually made in the less lofted irons which are traditionally the most difficult to use for novice or high handicap golfers

Muscle Back

The Muscle back is a relatively new concept in clubhead design and a lot of manufacturers are now coming out with mixed sets of cavity and muscleback irons.
These irons are a lot more like bladed clubs and are normally used from 7 iron to 9 iron.

I hope this article has helped you understand a little more about club design and would now like to share an article I have written to explain the plusses and minuses of having your own custom golf clubs along with a budget for actually custom building a driver with the different components.

I will be adding club reviews to the site over the coming weeks so make sure you come back and check out all the new information. Please mention us to your friends and fellow golfers.