Distances on new clubs vs old

rocky911

Just something that has being on my mind recently, with the serious advancements in the club making side of things, are manufacturers guilty of pulling the wool over eyes.

For example, I play golf with a fella regularly who up until he got new clubs could hit his 4 iron 200 yards tops on a good day and has now gone to hitting his 5 iron the same distance if not somewhat more. Now don't get me wrong Im delighted for him but when I went looking into I found that the new 5 iron in his bag is actually 25 degree and his old 4 iron was 24 degree..Does anyone else feel that its like false gains as your actually hitting a club that is stamped one less ??

rrpc

rocky911 wrote: »

Just something that has being on my mind recently, with the serious advancements in the club making side of things, are manufacturers guilty of pulling the wool over eyes.

For example, I play golf with a fella regularly who up until he got new clubs could hit his 4 iron 200 yards tops on a good day and has now gone to hitting his 5 iron the same distance if not somewhat more. Now don't get me wrong Im delighted for him but when I went looking into I found that the new 5 iron in his bag is actually 25 degree and his old 4 iron was 24 degree..Does anyone else feel that its like false gains as your actually hitting a club that is stamped one less ??

What make are the new irons? 25 degree is quite a bit of loft on a five iron and 24 is also high for a 4. My 4 iron is 20 degrees and my five is 23. Either way he's getting good distance off that loft.

My old 4 iron was also a 24 degree loft and I had a 3 iron with 21 degrees. I think with the change in clubs the 3 iron is now a rare breed and the lofts have been changed to compensate. By the time you get to 5 and 6 iron, the difference between old and new loft angles level out and they pretty much are club for club after that.

I blame it on the hybrids myself

rocky911

rrpc wrote: »

What make are the new irons? 25 degree is quite a bit of loft on a five iron and 24 is also high for a 4. My 4 iron is 20 degrees and my five is 23. Either way he's getting good distance off that loft.

My old 4 iron was also a 24 degree loft and I had a 3 iron with 21 degrees. I think with the change in clubs the 3 iron is now a rare breed and the lofts have been changed to compensate. By the time you get to 5 and 6 iron, the difference between old and new loft angles level out and they pretty much are club for club after that.

I blame it on the hybrids myself

Callaway x20s v xhot2s.

Ya your right with the hybrid thing, sure most clubs you buy now are 4 to pw or even 5 in some cases.

Johnny_Fontane

yes total scam. They have changed the lofts so that your suppose 6 iron goes 10 yards further.

That said the new irons are probably more forgiving, bad shots will go further.

rocky911

Johnny_Fontane wrote: »

yes total scam. They have changed the lofts so that your suppose 6 iron goes 10 yards further.

That said the new irons are probably more forgiving, bad shots will go further.

To be honest I found TM the biggest culprit in this regard and I dont know I hate buying anything to do with them now because they seem to have the "BEST THING TO HAPPEN TO GOLF " every 3 months.. plus they have more or less made adams disappear since taken over. If you look at the head of their new aeroburner hybrid its clearly an Adams club

martinkop

Wilson Di11 I got a few years back for "extra distance", are just labelled wrong.
i.e 9i has a traditional 8i loft, and same right through the set, so 10 yards extra on every club.

Made me feel good, at least until I go to a new set that have the old loft

rrpc

rocky911 wrote: »

Callaway x20s v xhot2s.

Ya your right with the hybrid thing, sure most clubs you buy now are 4 to pw or even 5 in some cases.

Here are the lofts for the X-2s, X-20s and as a comparison; Taylormade SpeedBlades.

Iron|X-2|X-20|SpeedBlade
#2|18°||
#3|21°|18°|17°
#4|24°|20.5°|20°
#5|27°|23°|23°
#6|30°|26°|26.5°
#7|33°|30°|30.5°
#8|37°|34.5°|34.5°
#9|41°|39°|39.5°
PW|45°|44°|45°


I was wrong about where they level out, it's more like at the 9 iron. You can see that the 2 iron is gone, the 3 iron is still there but it's been de-lofted. A 4 iron these days is lofted like an old 3 iron etc. and the gaps have gone from a steady 3° to where they now increase gradually up to the PW at about 5°.

RoadRunner

I always take with a grain of salt knowledge learned from other peoples club selection as their club rarely correlates with my own. Here's the lofts on my set for example compared with a newer calloway set.

3i 4i 5i 6i 7i 8i 9i pw
22 25 28 31 35 39 43 47 << lofts of my titleist 735cm irons
18 20.5 23 26 30 34.5 39 44 << x2 hot lofts example

In this case my 4i and x2 6i are almost the same club.

PARlance

Pretty sure I glanced at an article that said one of the smaller manufacturers have started to just put the loft on their irons...as opposed to the number. Probably an anti-marketing, marketing campaign.

Dr_Colossus

It all depends on the manafucture and even then on the type of irons purchased. I bought new irons just over two years ago and here are the lofts:
Iron|Make|Loft
#2|TM MC|17°
#3|TM MC|20°
#4|TM MC|23°
#5|TM MB|27°
#6|TM MB|31°
#7|TM MB|35°
#8|TM MB|39°
#9|TM MB|43°
PW|TM MB|47°


It's a bit futile asking someone what iron they hit as evidenced from the above posts there can be up to 4° difference from one set to another. The key point is getting to know your own distances which for some people can involve big yardard differences due to the newer clubs generally playing with stronger lofts.

I was wrong about where they level out, it's more like at the 9 iron. You can see that the 2 iron is gone, the 3 iron is still there but it's been de-lofted. A 4 iron these days is lofted like an old 3 iron etc. and the gaps have gone from a steady 3° to where they now increase gradually up to the PW at about 5°.[/QUOTE]

BillyBoy

PARlance wrote: »

Pretty sure I glanced at an article that said one of the smaller manufacturers have started to just put the loft on their irons...as opposed to the number. Probably an anti-marketing, marketing campaign.

Yeah its the Ben Hogan FW Irons, you can put together whatever lofts you want and they just have the loft on the sole of the club rather than any particular iron number

http://www.benhogangolf.com/Ft-Worth-15

sheroman01

What's wrong with changing the loft though? Surely if you're hitting longer (and possibly straighter) then what's wrong with that? Just wondering!

quagmire47

rocky911 wrote: »

Just something that has being on my mind recently, with the serious advancements in the club making side of things, are manufacturers guilty of pulling the wool over eyes.

For example, I play golf with a fella regularly who up until he got new clubs could hit his 4 iron 200 yards tops on a good day and has now gone to hitting his 5 iron the same distance if not somewhat more. Now don't get me wrong Im delighted for him but when I went looking into I found that the new 5 iron in his bag is actually 25 degree and his old 4 iron was 24 degree..Does anyone else feel that its like false gains as your actually hitting a club that is stamped one less ??

I don't disagree with you at all on this. It's a valid point. There are no guarantees. I would be surprised if even the lengths of numbered irons were consistent across ranges.

Zardoz

Dr_Colossus wrote: »

It all depends on the manafucture and even then on the type of irons purchased. I bought new irons just over two years ago and here are the lofts:
Iron|Make|Loft
#2|TM MC|17°
#3|TM MC|20°
#4|TM MC|23°
#5|TM MB|27°
#6|TM MB|31°
#7|TM MB|35°
#8|TM MB|39°
#9|TM MB|43°
PW|TM MB|47°

I have the same lofts on my 8 year old iron set .
These are close to the "real" iron lofts .

Personally I think a 17 degree 3 iron is ridiculous,a 3 iron is hard enough to hit when its 20/21 degrees .
As for a 44 degree PW ,that's nonsense too,that's a 9 iron

rrpc

Zardoz wrote: »

I have the same lofts on my 8 year old iron set .
These are close to the "real" iron lofts .

Personally I think a 17 degree 3 iron is ridiculous,a 3 iron is hard enough to hit when its 20/21 degrees .
As for a 44 degree PW ,that's nonsense too,that's a 9 iron

With the advent of hybrids, there really isn't room in the bag for a 3 iron and sometimes not even for a 4 iron.

4-PW is seven clubs. Add a driver, 3w, 5w and your putter and that leaves you with three slots. Most people will have a sand wedge and a hybrid which leaves a choice of another wedge or another iron. I know I'd have the extra wedge since the woods will usually cover the gaps left by the 3/4 iron.

Zardoz

Interesting article here re lofts and club length

http://www.oobgolf.com/content/the+wedge+guy/golf+talk/5-7088-Evolution_of_Iron_Lofts.html

In the world of golf club design, there is a thing called the 24/38 rule. It refers to the known fact that most golfers cannot be consistent with an iron-type club that is less than 24 degrees of loft and/or over 38 inches long.
In the old days, that was the 3-iron, and only the very best golfers could handle 2-irons and 1-irons. Now, that 24/38 benchmark often falls between the 5- and 6-iron.
So, in effect, what "technology" has done is give you a 6- and 7-iron you hit further than ever, stripped scoring clubs from your bag, and made your 4- and 5-iron much harder to master.

Tom Wishon (a well-respected modern club designer) estimates that 90% of golfers do not have either the swing speed or skill to hit an iron with < 24 degrees of loft properly even half the time.

levitronix

true a lot depends of swing speed and shalf, i play a light weight shaft and have string lofts and hit the ball high
Loft 19 22 25 29 33 37 42 46 50 54 58

from 3 iron to sw, 3 iron goes into and out of the bag with hybrid through the year

stockdam

This has been going on for years. Manufacturers know that most people are impressed by length (oh err misses). "I can hit my new 7 iron 10 yards further".

I used to play with blades and even though I could outdrive most people that I played with, I could never hit my irons as far. They would hit one and sometimes two clubs less. Then I found out that the loft and lengths of their clubs were different and that explained things.

The knock on effect is that there's a big gap somewhere which generally between the wedge and sand wedge and that's the reason why the gap wedge was invented.

So you just end up carrying more wedges.

Montgolfier

sheroman01 wrote: »

What's wrong with changing the loft though? Surely if you're hitting longer (and possibly straighter) then what's wrong with that? Just wondering!

The idea is that if you hit your irons further; your pw is a 9 iron so you need more wedges to fill the gaps. Which equals more sales.
Diminishing loft disease I think it's called according to Tom Wishon.

sheroman01

Montgolfier wrote: »

The idea is that if you hit your irons further; your pw is a 9 iron so you need more wedges to fill the gaps. Which equals more sales.
Diminishing loft disease I think it's called according to Tom Wishon.

Ah, I see now! I'm actually thinking of buying Taylormade Speedblades, which I see have a less open loft. I hit around 90-100, so high end handicap I suppose. Would it be a bad idea getting these then?

rrpc

sheroman01 wrote: »

Ah, I see now! I'm actually thinking of buying Taylormade Speedblades, which I see have a less open loft. I hit around 90-100, so high end handicap I suppose. Would it be a bad idea getting these then?

I bought them last year, had an old set of burners before them and I find they suit me very well. If hit well, have a very nice flight and feel. But it's a personal choice so I'd suggest you try them out first. I bought mine in Halpenny in Carrickmines and they let me try them out before buying them. The only problem I have is that I have a set of Callaway wedges which have a different lie to the Taylormades so I think I'll have to change them in the near future as I often slice them unless I alter my set up slightly.

neckedit

sheroman01 wrote:

Ah, I see now! I'm actually thinking of buying Taylormade Speedblades, which I see have a less open loft. I hit around 90-100, so high end handicap I suppose. Would it be a bad idea getting these then?

Not a bad Idea at all...try them out first in a bay or the like if you can.
The strong loft debate in my opinion is a moot point, does it really matter what club it takes to get there? Club manufacturers know full well that length is the most thing players talk about and look for in new clubs, so they strengthen lofts, lengthen shafts and use lighter materials in the components. its the development of the game. the avg guy still doesn't score any better.
as For increasing sales, I can see your point, but I feel the modern way of buying clubs is much smarter and efficient compared to say 15-20 yrs ago, the player has real choice where to load the bag, bacj in the say it was with inefficient long clubs, 3 & 4 irons specifically. Now most should start at 5iron and have a hybrid for the mid long shots. works out a little cheaper in the long run too.