Many golfers like to tinker with their own golf clubs.
It is quite essential to understand what specifications are going to work the best for your game.
If you have no idea what lie and loft angle even are, we highly suggest you take some time to look into it.
If you are at the point where you want to start changing the lie angle of your golf clubs from home, you are in the right place.
We have some simple steps which you can follow to bend a golf club’s lie angle at home.
How to Bend a Golf Club’s Lie Angle at Home
To bend a golf club’s lie angle at home, you will need a lie and loft machine.
The lie and loft machine will help you measure your clubs and bend them as well.
Without the use of a lie and loft machine, you will not be able to adjust the lie angle of your golf clubs properly.
A lie and loft machine can be purchased from a golf club repair center or from a golf club part manufacturer.
If you think that you will be adjusting clubs for yourself as well as for your friends and family, the price you pay for the machine will be well worth it.
Steps to Bending Golf Club Lie Angle at Home
These are the basic steps involved in bending a golf club lie angle.
Depending on the machine you purchase, the process will differ slightly.
Step 1: Get Club Set in Machine
When you first purchase a golf club lie and loft machine, you will need to learn how to get the club set up squarely in the machine.
When you first start working on golf clubs, you need to make sure you have placed them in the device properly.
As you can imagine, if you are not starting with a perfectly square angle, all of your lie adjustments will not be based off of square.
Making improper adjustments is not only bad for the golf club, but it is going to create quite a bit more work for you.
Although lie angle can be adjusted on golf clubs, it is not something you are going to want to have to change back and forth day in and day out.
Step 2: Measure Lie Angle
Once you have the club set properly in the machine, you are going to need to measure the lie angle.
The lie angle is going to vary depending on the club you have in place.
This is where you are probably going to need to do some research on the clubs in your golf bag.
Look at the stock lie angles for the golf clubs you are using.
If your lie angle is the same as stock, you know the clubs have not been bent previously.
If, however, the lie angle is somewhat different, there could be reasons behind this.
The most likely reason is that the club is a custom order.
Keep this in mind as you make your adjustments.
If you know that you need to be one-degree upright from standard, make sure that you measure from a standard.
Step 3: Bend Club with Bending Bar
Now that your lie angle is properly measured and how much it needs to be adjusted, you can get started with the measuring.
The loft and lie machine comes with a bending bar.
This bending bar is going to be what allows you to change the lie angle of your club.
You will have to apply pressure to the bar against the hosel to get the lie angle to bend.
This process is going to take a bit of strength.
If you find that just pushing on the bar is not going to be enough pressure to change the lie angle, you can push with slight bumps of your hand to get it to move.
For those who are very strong, you may want to take this process slowly.
Pushing too hard on the bar could end up changing the lie angle more than you need.
A golf club’s lie angle usually only needs to be adjusted by about a degree or two.
For those who spend a lot of time bending golf clubs, the amount that you will need to bend the club will be easy to feel.
You will start to understand how much pressure it takes to bend one degree or two degrees, etc.
Once your golf club has been bent, you can move on to the last step.
Step 4: Measure Lie Angle Again
The last step of this process is to measure the lie angle again.
You will need to see if the work you did to bend the golf club is going to be enough or if you are heading back to the drawing board.
Most of the time, you will want to keep the lie angle consistent among all of your golf irons.
If you set the lie angle for a golf iron at one degree upright, you should do this for all of your irons.
The process will take a little bit of time, but it will undoubtedly save you some strokes and some money.
Having your golf club lie angle bent professionally can be a bit costly, depending on where you go to have this done.
Why Is a Change in Lie Angle Cheaper than Shortening My Golf Clubs?
If you are a golfer who is continually tinkering with the specifications on your clubs, you probably know that certain adjustments are more costly than others.
In fact, the change of lie angle on a golf club is one of the lower priced adjustments you can do to a club.
This has everything to do with the fact that the club does not need to get a new grip to change the lie angle.
Any time you adjust the length of a club, you are going to need to take a grip off.
When you take the grip off the club, this is automatically going to increase the price of the project quite a bit.
As long as your grips are in great shape, you can leave them on the clubs when you adjust the lie angle.
Most of the time, you will just have to pay for the golf club repair tech’s time to adjust your clubs’ angle.
Chances are this will work out to a few dollars per club.
For a golf club length change, the pricing could be close to $15 per club.
Should I Change the Lie Angle of My Golf Club?
Now that you know how to change the lie angle of your golf clubs, you may be wondering if it is really necessary to complete this project.
The golf club lie angle is very important.
You will probably notice that if your golf club’s lie angle is off, you are going to end up having trouble hitting the golf ball accurately.
If your club does not sit on the ground properly when you take a golf swing, you may find that the ball will go further to the left or right than you intend.
The need to change the golf club lie angle is usually going to come into play for golfers who are taller or shorter than standard height.
If you change the golf club’s length, you will have to change the lie angle on the club.
For players who have an improper lie angle, you will notice that there is a lot of adjusting to do at setup, and the club does not feel as though it sits naturally.
If you are unsure of whether or not you need to change the lie angle on your golf club, you should go for a club fitting.
At a club fitting, a professional will take a piece of lie angle tape and put it on the bottom of your club.
You will then hit golf shots off of something called a lie board.
The lie board is basically a perfect hitting surface made out of a plexiglass type material.
When you hit balls off the lie board, you will also be making a mark on the club’s bottom where the tape is.
If your lie angle is perfect, the hits will be directly in the center of the bottom of the club head.
If your lie angle is incorrect, you can see how much it should be adjusted.
Most of the time, the adjustment is going to be one degree flat or one degree upright.
This lie tape can be purchased very cheaply from a golf club repair company.
It’s not a bad idea to check your lie angle from time to time to make sure it is still a good fit for your golf game.
Does One Degree Lie Angle Make that Much Difference?
If the results from your golf club fitting show that you need a one-degree adjustment in your golf clubs, is it really worth going through this process?
The answer to this question of whether or not changing the lie angle is worth it will come down to how much it is impacting your game.
If you are playing really great golf and hitting the golf ball the way you want to, you probably don’t need to change the lie angle.
If, however, you are struggling with a slice or a hook that just won’t ease up, we highly recommend getting your lie angle adjusted.
If you don’t have the angle adjusted, you may start to make an accommodation with your golf swing.
These swing accommodations are going to lead to bad habits and cause you a lot more work in the future.
If this describes your situation, we highly recommend using a lie and loft machine to get your golf club lie angle corrected.
This is not a difficult or expensive project, and if it allows you a chance to start shooting lower scores, it will have been well worth the money spent.
Conclusion
Bending a golf club’s lie angle at home certainly steps up your golf club tinkering skills.
Regripping or changing the length of a club is a bit easier than this project.
However, with the proper lie and loft machine, you should have no trouble completing the project.
We highly recommend making sure that you are fully ready to adjust the lie and loft before starting your lie angle adjustment.
Although most golf clubs will respond quite well to a golf club lie change, you won’t want to keep adjusting the clubs back and forth.
Without the proper knowledge, it can be challenging to return the clubs to the manufacturer’s original settings.
Before you start bending clubs, read our guide and make sure you are comfortable with how your particular machine works.
Leave a Reply