Golf Club Loft Explained: Why Juniors Need More of It

Loft is the angle on the clubface, and it's the single biggest reason a junior set looks different from an adult one.

Loft is the angle of the clubface relative to vertical, measured in degrees. It is the property that decides how high and how far a ball flies, and it explains most of what looks unusual about a well-made junior set.

More loft, more height, less distance

A club with more loft sends the ball higher on a steeper arc; less loft sends it lower and further. A pitching wedge might sit somewhere around 44 to 48 degrees, a seven iron around 28 to 34, and a driver typically between 9 and 12 degrees for an adult.

Those adult driver numbers are the problem for a child. Getting a 9-degree driver airborne requires a lot of clubhead speed. A junior swinging far slower simply cannot generate the conditions that low-lofted club needs, and the result is a ball that scuttles along the ground.

Why junior drivers carry so much loft

Well-designed junior drivers are lofted far higher than adult ones, sometimes into the high teens or low twenties for the smallest sizes, decreasing as the sizes go up. That extra loft does the work the child's swing speed cannot, launching the ball into the air where it can actually travel.

This is also why handing a child a cut-down adult driver so rarely works. Shortening the shaft changes the length but leaves the loft, head size and weight completely wrong for the swing that will be applied to it.

Our junior golf club length guide covers the sizing side of the same problem - length and loft need to be right together.

Loft gaps in a set

Within a set, lofts step up in regular increments so each club flies a distinguishable distance. If two clubs are too close in loft they produce near-identical shots and one of them is redundant; too far apart and there is a yardage the child simply cannot cover.

Junior sets typically contain far fewer clubs than the adult maximum of fourteen, which is deliberate. A child does not need finely spaced yardages; they need a small number of clubs they can actually use, and less weight to carry.

Whether to buy a small set or a full one is a common early question - our comparison of half sets versus full sets goes through the trade-off.

What to check when buying

• Does the driver's loft look appropriate for a slow swing, rather than borrowed from an adult spec?
• Are the irons spaced sensibly, or are there two clubs that do the same job?
• Is there enough loft at the short end - a sand wedge or high-lofted wedge - for greenside shots?

If a set answers those three questions well, the loft side of the equation is broadly right, and the remaining variables are length, weight and shaft flex.