Commentary by Rob Thomas, owner of Mobile Club Repair in Westfield

Four things primarily determine the distance you hit a golf ball: the loft angle on the club-head, the club length, swing speed and how well you hit the ball. Over the past few years your swing speed has probably stayed about the same, but the loft angles and the length of your clubs have not. Little by little over the past 30 years or so, in order to say their clubs “hit farther,” club companies have been tinkering with the loft angles on the club-heads. lowering them a bit at a time every so many years.

As a result, every club has moved “up” by almost two numbers. So, when you hit that new 7 iron farther than your old 6 or even 5 iron, you now know why. It’s because that shiny new 7 iron was once a 6 iron or a 5 iron a few years before that. It means that golfers buying several clubs that are, in effect, designed from the factory to be un-hittable in the hands of the average golfer. In the world of Club fitting there is something called the “24/38 Rule.”

Basically, it means that the majority of golfers cannot consistently hit an iron that has less than 24 degrees of loft or is more than 38 inches in its length. The reason is that a club like that requires swing skills that most average golfers do not have. Thirty years ago the 24/38 line fell on the other side of the 3-iron. So, when you bought a typical 3 to PW set, you could reasonably expect to hit each club. Because of the “vanishing loft syndrome,” the 24/38 line has now moved to the shy side of the 5-iron, making the 3, 4 and even 5 iron un-hittable for most golfers. What are you supposed to do?

You have to purchase more new clubs, such as hybrids and more wedges to fill in the gaps. Or, the simple answer is to speak with your pro or a custom club fitter, who can build you a set of clubs that doesn’t have clubs that you wont and cant hit, which take up valuable space in the bag.