Bulge Face & Gear Affect: How It Helps Your Game

source: Thomas Golf newsletter
Golf Pro Tips >> Improving Your Game

Bulge Face & Gear Affect: How It Helps Your Game Most modern drivers, fairway woods and hybrid irons have a “bulge” designed into the face of the club. The bulge is a convex curvature spanning across the face of the club, from the heel to the toe. The reason manufacturers design golf heads with this bulge curvature is to produce what's called "the gear affect". This puts a corrective spin on the ball whenever impact occurs off-center, for example, in the toe or heel area. This special side-spin acts to curve the ball back towards the target line, even though the ball started out off-line. When you hit the ball out on the toe area, the shot will start out off-target, but the face curvature of this bulge design will put a correcting spin on the ball to bring it back toward your target. Likewise, if you hit the ball in the heel area, the curved face will put an opposite spin on the ball to help it curve back toward your target. As you can see, face bulge can have a very positive impact on shot correction, but there is a down side. Looking at a curved face makes it much more difficult to accurately aim the golf club at your target. Additionally, if you tend to look at the heel area of the face when setting up your club, the club's face will actually end up open. Similarly, if you tend to focus your attention in the toe area, the club's face will actually end up closed. The solution to this problem of difficult shot alignment due to the curvature of the bulge style face, is to use a golf club with a prominent and accurate shot aiming indicator designed into the top of the club head. Focusing on this alignment aid (instead of the face) will provide very accurate club alignment because you are able to set the indicator directly in line with your target line.