Game Improvement Club Limitations As you can see from the first few sections of this article, there are plenty of good things to say about game improvement clubs. For the right golfer, game improvement clubs can help the player to enjoy the game by making it easier to get the ball off the ground, adding distance to their shots, and producing lower scores. However, as with anything else in golf, there is a give and take to consider on this point. If you are going to play game improvement clubs, you will have to deal with a few drawbacks and limitations. These negatives are going to be outweighed by the positives for most beginning and high-handicap players, but it is important that you understand the complete picture before making your decision. The first major drawback of using game improvement clubs is the inability to get a good feel for the ball at impact. Because these clubs usually have large heads with perimeter weighting, the feeling of the ball contacting the face of the club is going to be 'absorbed' by the club itself. Very little of that sensation is going to be passed up to your hands, meaning you won't have a great feel for the kind of contact that you achieved. This is different than something like a blade iron, which will pass almost all of the feel of the shot up into your hands. While feeling the shot is not something that is a priority for the average beginning golfer, it is a point that better golfers take very seriously. As you improve, you will likely want to move away from game improvement clubs and into something that provides you a better feel for the shots you are hitting. Another limitation of game improvement clubs is the inability to control the trajectory of your shots from side to side. Most of these kinds of clubs are designed with one thing in mind – hitting the ball as straight as possible. Again, this is where perimeter weighting comes into the picture. By distributing the weight of the club around the edges, the club will hold steady through impact and you will have an easier time producing a straight ball flight. This is a good thing in many cases, but not when you need to hit a curve on purpose. For instance, if there is a tree between you and the target, and you would like to draw the ball around the tree intentionally, you may not be able to do so when playing a game improvement club. A more-advanced club design would make it easier for you to curve your shots on purpose, but those same clubs are also prone to curving the ball when you don't want it to curve. Better players are able to control the curve of their shots with relative consistency, so using advanced clubs is the right pick. If you are not yet at that level, stick with game improvement clubs and just live with the fact that you won't be able to produce much in the way of an intentional curve. In the same way that you will have trouble controlling the side to side curve of your shots with game improvement clubs, you will also struggle to control the height of your trajectory. These kinds of clubs are designed to fly high, so that is what they are going to do in almost every instance. As long as you strike the ball solidly at impact, the ball is going to fly high into the air thanks to the amount of weight that has been built into the sole of your club. Beginners will appreciate the way that the ball climbs into the sky, but advanced players will be frustrated at the inability to keep the ball down when necessary (such as when playing on a windy day). As you can see, the limitations of game improvement irons relate directly to points that are going to be important for an advanced player. This is why advanced golfers should look into other styles of clubs, while game improvement clubs remain a wise choice for beginners and high-handicappers. Less-experienced players aren't going to be bothered by the points included above, and they will stand to benefit greatly from the many positive attributes which game improvement clubs bring to the course.
