Choosing Women’s Golf Club Sets
It is fair to say that most of us would not enjoy a soggy apple. Apples are best when they are crisp, sweet, juicy, and crunchy. The same goes for steaks. It would be rare to find a person who prefers their steaks tough and leathery. Instead, we want steaks that are soft, juicy, and well seasoned. The way food feels in your mouth is just as important as how it tastes. The same can be said of women’s golf clubs sets.
The way a club feels and how it performs are intimately connected. The weight, the flexibility, the grip’s tackiness and thickness…all these contribute to performance. But at impact, the defining factor is the material/method in which the head of the club was produced. And there are essentially two different types of heads: forged and cast.
Forged clubs are generally reserved for the better player. It is not often that you will find a forged club designed for the higher-handicapped golfer. The reason is essentially twofold: first, the type of metal that is used for forging a club is softer than that of a cast club. Low handicappers prefer this because it results in a slightly softer feel at impact—one which higher-handicappers cannot sense. Secondly, the forging process is time-consuming and expensive, resulting in a pricier golf club—which often repels new golfers. Casting allows massive amounts of heads to be produced at a fraction of the cost.
When forging a golf club head, manufacturers take a billet of soft steel, heat it up to an extremely high temperature, and hammer it into shape. It is then hand ground to soften the edges, stamped, and then shipped out so that it can be shafted and gripped. The casting process is vastly different in that manufacturers take metal, melt it, and pour it into a mold. It is then cooled, ground down, stamped, and shipped off. While the forging process requires each head to be individually hammered, multiple heads can be poured into molds during the casting process.
The casting process not only requires a harder metal, but when the metal moves form a solid to liquid state, and then back to a solid state, tiny bubbles develop within the head of the golf club. This creates inconsistencies throughout the club, resulting in a more varied feel. And the last thing that lower-handicappers want is their equipment to be inconsistent. Forging, on the other hand, remains in a relatively solid state, resulting in a more consistent head. The major drawback to forged clubs, besides the price, is that because a softer metal is required, the clubs are much more prone to dents, dings, and groove wear. Furthermore, extra care is required in not just protecting forged clubs, but frequently checking and correcting the lie angle and lofts (as they are prone to minutely alter after long sessions at the range).
Most golfers, after hitting a forged club and a cast club, can’t tell the difference between the two. If that’s the case for you, go with the cast club. It’s more durable and more forgiving, both on the score and the wallet.