As I mentioned last week, we now have a loft and lie machine in the shop. Below are the reasons why it is important every golfer should have their clubs checked. The cost for checking a full set of irons is £20. 

Lie Angle

If you're tall or short, and/or have an unusually shallow or steep swing, you may want to think about visiting your local club professional who can check whether the lie angle of your irons is appropriate. At the point of impact, if the head of the iron is too flat (i.e. the toe points down) it can drag on the grass, acts for an instant as a pivot, and causes the plane of the face to tile towards the right - which is where the ball will go. If the lie is too upright, the heel of the club will dig in and cause pulled shots to the left.

As a rule, shorter golfers will generally benefit from slightly flatter lies; taller golfers may need them tweaked upright a little.

Most manufacturers do offer irons in a variety of different lies - but generally only as a special order.

So how do you tell whether the lie is correct on your clubs? The technology for testing this is very simple. Your local pro should be able to help, and what they'll do is put some masking or impact tape on the sole of the club - and gets you to hit some balls off a lie testing board (essentially a black strip of hard plastic). This leaves a mark or hole in the tape when you hit a ball off it. If everything is hunky dory, the tape will be marked where the centre of the sole is and the clubs are fine. If it's marking towards the toe, lie angle is too flat, and towards the heel, too upright.

It's worth noting that because an incorrect lie angle causes the plane (and therefore, loft) of the club to become tilted, getting the lie angle correct is much more important on short irons than long irons.

Once you've established whether or not the lie angles need tweaking, most clubs can be usually altered in a matter of minutes by your local pro for a modest fee, well worth paying.

Lofts

Similarly, it is also worth having the lofts of your clubs checked, say, once a year. If you're playing a lot of golf with forged clubs - which are made of softer metal - it might even be worth having them checked more regularly.

Club heads are just bits of metal - and hitting them regularly on the ground (as you do with every shot) will over time inevitably bend them out of whack to some extent. Even brand new clubs straight from the factory have a tolerance which might be plus or minus 2 degrees. So why is it important to check them?

Club heads are just bits of metal - and hitting them regularly on the ground (as you do with every shot) will over time inevitably bend them out of whack to some extent. Even brand new clubs straight from the factory have a tolerance which might be plus or minus 2 degrees. So why is it important to check them?

With thanks to PING Golf, here is the specification table for their G5 irons. You'll see that there is 3 to 4 degrees of loft (equating to roughly 10-15 yards distance) between each club. So, the loft on the 3 iron is 21 degrees, and on the 4 iron 24degrees etc.

If, for example, on your own set your 7 iron loft was, let's say, a couple of degrees week (i.e. more lofted) and your eight iron a couple of degrees strong (i.e. less lofted) it could mean that both clubs have exactly the same loft - and you could be hitting both clubs the same distance! This scenario is not as unusual as you might think - so, go on, get your lofts and lies checked. You never know this could be why you are struggling.

There has been a lot of hype about this year's new clubs from Callaway. They have pulled out all the stops to produce golf clubs that not only go straighter but also much further. The XR and Big Bertha range of woods and irons not only look great but their performance is amazing with some people claiming hitting the ball 2 clubs further. That's about 20 yards. Don't just take my word for it. We have a selection of demo clubs. Why not pop down and give them a try.  We are also holding a Callaway demo day here on Tuesday 21st April. 10 o'clock until 2 o'clock.

More new stock has come in this week. For the first time we are trying the Puma range of gents clothing and shoes. You might have seen a few players on tour wearing the clothing. Ricky Fowler being the most famous. Don't worry I won't be getting too much orange clothing in!! (CLICK HERE to see the latest footware from Puma)

It's that time of year when your subscriptions are ready to be collected from the clubhouse. The due date for payment is Wednesday 1st April. Please if you are playing can you collect them as it saves the club quite a lot in postage costs. CLICK HERE to view the prices this year and CLICK HERE to view the benefits!  

Saturday 28th February 2015 - Pro's Stableford 
Sunday 1st March 2015 - Individual Stableford inc Mark Hurn Trophy Qualifier 
Tuesday 3rd March 2015 - Ladies Scorpions Trophy 
Thursday 5th March 2015 - Mid Week Stableford

Thursday 19th February 2015 - Mid Week Stableford 
No entries. It was a little damp!!

Saturday 21st February 2015 - Club Stableford, 
1st Jon Mitchell 38pts £25, 2nd Andrew Jefcoate 37pts £15, 3rd Michael Brooke 37pts £10. 
2's Club - Stuart Naylor, David Prescott & Adrian Foord £22.33 each

Sunday 22nd February 2015 - Individual Stableford inc. Mark Hurn 
1st Connor Todd 38pts £25, 2nd Ben Wait 37pts £15, 3rd Tom Walker 31pts £10 2's Club - No 2's

Tuesday 24th February 2015 - Ladies Yorkshire Foursomes Qualifier 
1st Wendy Lockwood & Nicky Salzl 84, 2nd Rosemary Turner & Sarah Stonier 86, 3rd Maggie Gee & Myra Smith 87½, 4th Angie Hinch & Caroline Barker 88, 5th Angela Clappison & Carol Perry 90. 
These 5 pairs go through to the next round at Filey which is to be played on 30th June.

WILES CUP

Another great win for the Hornsea pairing Philip Horton and Michael Hinkins who now progress to the semi-final. Well done and good luck in the next round. They play a pair from Sutton Park at Hainsworth.

LADIES EYLWGA

Big congratulations to Cath Caley & Judith Thornton as they won the event at Beverley last week. A fantastic score of 69 ½ saw them win by 2 ½ clear shots. They even had an 8 on their card so could have been even better.  Myra Smith and Rosemary Turner also did well coming in 6th place. This leaves Hornsea in 8th place overall. EYLWGA stands for East Yorkshire Ladies Winter Golf Alliance I think!!

HULL & DISTRICT GOLFING ASSOCIATION

Last Thursday (19th February) should have been the meeting at Hessle Golf Club. Not sure if you can remember but it was a horrible day with heavy rain for most of it. Well at 8 o'clock the event was on our first group set off at 8.45. Sam Middleton, Chris Wilson, Paul Sellers and Dave Whitton had played 5 holes when a very sensible decision to postpone the event for a week was made due to the conditions becoming unplayable. Good timing for me as I was sat in the clubhouse not really looking forward to going out!! I shall report on the results next week. The next event is to be held here at Hornsea and CLICK HERE to view the team.

EAST RIDING GOLF ALLIANCE

Wednesday 25th February saw 3 Hornsea pairs travel to Beverley Golf Club. 2 of our pairs did really well, both with scores of 63. They were Sam Middleton with Mark Cooke and Chris Wilson with super sub Neil Jordan. Well done to both pairs. Our other partnership of Steve Uzzell and Paul Lockwood also did well with a 67. A great team effort. As I write this I'm not sure what score won but 62 was leading.

GREENS

For those that have managed to get out you will see that all the bunkers on the 8th are now finished. Sand should have gone in this week but the bunkers will remain out of play until the beginning of April. Work continues on the trees on the 12th with roughly 10 coming down each day depending on weather and other jobs that need to be done. Yet again I must bring up ride on buggies. These pictures have been sent to me and the only people out on the course where our members on this day. Please if you must take a ride on buggy stay on the high ground and well away from tees, greens and sensitive areas. The course is very wet in places and it really is causing a problem. If this continues we will have no choice but to ban ride on buggies.

 

CLUBHOUSE

Last Sunday saw Paul our chef start his Sunday carveries. Very nice it all looked too. This is going to be a regular thing on a Sunday and it would be great to see more people inviting friends and families up to eat after a round of golf or even just for Sunday lunch.

SENIORS

Are you over 55 years old? Are you interested in coffee/tea, a round of golf and a meal - at a cost of £10 - against other clubs at local courses? Are you interested in playing with different partners in a pair's betterball, stableford format? Then CLICK HERE to view more details.

PAUL GIBSON - PGA TEACHING PROFESSIONAL

THE NEW RYDER CUP CAPTAIN, LINEAR CHIPPING & AUGUSTA ROUND THE CORNER

Click here to read Paul's latest blog.