Golf question: Why did my 5 iron break?

Question

The club set only cost 100 u.s. dollars. It was 30 degrees farenheit when it broke. I swung the club fairly hard and it hit the ground and broke. Do clubs depreciate with time and become more suceptible to breakage? Was it the cold?

Answer 1

Breaking a golf club means that either it is too old, defective in manufacture or being used improperly. When you break a club, it usually breaks at the point where the club head and the shaft meet. I'd rule out improper use first. You may be using your right arm too much and hitting down on the ground too hard--in this instance, you were hitting the cold, hard ground. Secondly, $100 isn't much for a set of clubs. Really good ones would cost a lot more. What's the brand name of the ones that you have? Is the iron made of titanium with a graphite shaft?

Answer 2

I'd first have to know where the club broke at the hosel or if the clubhead simply came off. Also, the type of material that the shaft is made of (steel or graphite). Graphite does tend to break over time -- it gets little tiny splits that you can't see and that weakens the shaft. One day, it just splits. Steel shafts also break, but it is usually because the clubs have been stored incorrectly. If moisture gets into the shaft (inside), the shaft can rust from the inside out and weaken, so that when you swing, it will break. Generally, the cold alone would not cause your club to break. If the clubhead simply came off, that could be a manufacturing defect -- either the clubhead & shaft do not fit tightly enough or the epoxy used to bind them was not properly applied.

Answer 3

The "starter" clubs that cost little money are made in cheap with cheap material.

The cold weather tells me the ground is hard. The club has probably been hit into the ground often and then a hard swing (hit fat) into frozen turf with a cheap and depreciated club - and bang a broken shaft.

So it is a combination of everything. I have seen this occur in the past when my friends and I were starting out and 2 of them bought the cheapes clubs around.

My suggestion, if you like golf, by a durable set of game improvement clubs.

Answer 4

I assume you're referring to a graphite shaft. First of all, if you only paid $100 for the set, they weren't top quality shafts to begin with. Secondly, graphite shafts do break, especially if they have been worn or scratched as a result of sliding them into a golf bag. Hitting the ground normally won't break a club, but if it was damaged, it can happen. The temperature doesn't have a lot to do with it.