How does CG placement affect your irons?
The Center of Gravity, or CG, of your irons plays a vital part in determining how well a given iron is going to work for you. By figuring out where the CG of your clubs are, you can actually make a better purchasing decision. Today’s game is filled with technologically advanced equipment with lower centers of gravity and more performance, but nobody is doing it quite like our sponsor at Edel Golf. And thanks to them and their SMS technology we can easily break down what the CG location of your irons can do to your performance on the course.
The CG location of your irons is the position on the face of the club where you are going to get the most performance. By moving the CG of the golf club to different positions, manufacturers are able to improve the performance of the golf club for certain golfers. The traditional problem with this is that if you don’t get along with the center of gravity of a certain model of club, you’re likely to never be able to hit that club well. Thankfully, Edel Golf’s SMS technology has a solution for that problem by being able to move weight around between the three weight ports on the back of the club. A fun party trick is you can actually find the CG location of a given head by balancing the face of the head on a nail!
So how does this decision in CG placement affect the performance of your irons on course?
In basic terms, the lower the CG of the club is, the higher ball flight you are going to achieve. In the same regard if you imagine the center of gravity being closer or further away from the face of the golf club you’ll notice that from closest to the face to furthest, you’ll see lower to higher spin.
Usually you’ll see irons try to be built with the lowest CG that engineers can capture and then as you move down the set into your wedges you’ll start to see higher CG placements that allow for more control. Compare the SMS Pro and the SMS irons for example and you’ll notice that the SMS Pro has a slightly higher CG placement that’s a little bit further from the face than that of the SMS. This helps with the SMS Pros ability to provide a bit more spin which comes with added control. The SMS CG is located a little bit closer to the face with some help from the polyurethane fill within the club, which produces a touch more ball speed and lower spin, while maintaining a high level of forgiveness. If you take a look at some common game-improvement irons you’ll notice that the CG of those clubs is placed as low and as far back from the face with a big wide sole to increase launch as much as possible while promoting higher amounts of forgiveness.
Edel’s SMS Technology
An important note in the following video from our founder Jake is that CG placement should be thought of as supportive to the golfer’s swing and that’s the beauty of the idea of moving that CG around with these weights from Edel Golf. By being able to place the heavier mass behind the area of the club that you make the most frequent contact with, you’re able to see significant performance increases and a more dependable golf club.
Thanks to our sponsor Edel Golf for supplying us with the product used to demonstrate this topic. For more information on all Edel Golf products or to find an authorized fitting center near you visit edelgolf.com
