NRJyzr

Friend of mine goes to Hot Springs Village at least twice every year, to play the range of courses they have. He raves about it quite a bit. I have a standing invite to go with him, but he almost always goes in April or October, which are quarterly reporting months for me. I can't get away

Not all 60* wedges are the same. I've carried a 60 on and off over the years, and found the sole and bounce are key for me. I do a little less well with the Tom Watson Scoring System 60*, it doesn't have a lot of bounce. The Maltby Design 60* I got from GolfWorks is much better. It has a low bounce angle, but a wider sole, which increases the effective bounce. I've found it works well in chipping and the like. That said, I've found I can generally get away with even a moderately high bounce 56* with no higher lofts in my bag. I'm able to open the club to do what I wish to for shorter shots, and use a form of the Pelz clock theory for short to mid range pitches. I expect my results may not apply to all.

Ping Anser in manganese bronze dates back to the late 60s, and the original Zing to 1971 (per 2nd Swing, anyway). Either of those would be a great choice. You could get a Wilson 8802 or 8813, as well. They go back a long ways. I would think it wouldn't have to be a 70s vintage, as all the way into th e80s and even 90s, they were largely unchanged from their predecessors. If you wanted to go older, you could get an Ironmaster. <shrug> Another thought, if you're a mallet putter sort of guy.... the Ram Zebra came out in 1976. Would that meet your timeframe preferences?

They say they have lowered the CG, but they really haven't. Apologies to all for machine gunning the thread with multiple posts within minutes of each other

I don't particularly agree with the launch window approach when it comes to numbering irons. One reason for that perspective is that we are now told we need to hit the ball higher in order to account for the lower spin of the modern golf balls. Another is that once we got to the muscleback era, with steel shafts, there have always been lower trajectory and higher trajectory clubs. A high trajectory player buying a high trajectory club seems counter productive. Personally speaking, it's prevented me from playing certain sets in my collection, over the years. Including just within the blade world. (I just have to add that aging sucks, I'm no longer that guy, LOL) Even Jason Day, who delofted his clubs further to hit his launch windows, has had to adjust his thinking about those launch windows in order to better hold greens (his clubs have had that loft added back). It's just a philosophical difference, when you boil it down...

The problem I have with modern loft progressions is the proliferation of 5* gaps at the bottom end of the iron set. You see a great many sets now with something not unlike 30-35-40-45-50, and then a bunch of tiny gaps above that. It may produce lovely gaps for some, but it doesn't for all. IMHO, not for most. And when so many modern sticks are designed with firmer steels, and more bounce than in the past, bending them to properly align with a different loft approach can be problematic.

My course's Ryder Cup event is complete. And I'm part of the winning team That's the short version. Slightly longer version... My teammate in foursomes and fourball was the buddy who talked me into joining Men's Club. Our hdcps were 9.5 and 10. Our opponents were two gents who are 10.x handicaps. They tried to arrange handicaps such that all matches could be played gross, no hdcp. We won in foursomes 3&2, shooting even par over the 7 holes of our match; one birdie, one bogey. I felt pretty good about our birdie, I hit an 81 yard wedge third shot to 2 feet on the par 5 4th hole. In Fourball, we won 2&1. We won the first two holes (10 & 11) with pars, but lost 12 and 13, the latter by both of us hitting into the water and making triple. Tied 14, but I made birdie on 15 and we both parred the 200+ yard par 3 16th to go two up. All four of us made a complete mess of the par 4 17th, the match ending when all four of us made double bogey. Ugh. In Singles, my opponent and I each took a 1 up lead at some point, only to give it back on the next hole. We were tied thru #7. We both made par on #8, both hit questionable tee shots on #9 (431 yd par 4) leaving us attempting to get up and down from 140 yds (him) or 70 yds (me). He hit to 25 feet past the front pin, I skulled my wedge 20 yds over the green. I was very proud of hitting a pw back, to five feet. He hit to about 2.5 feet. I made my putt and conceded his for a half point. Was briefly compared to Nicklaus for that concession. I'm sure Jack will awake in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, not knowing how grievously he was insulted in Minnesota on the third of October. LOL With 20 man teams, there were 40 pts at stake. We won 23.5 to 16.5. Yay us!

One very nice aspect to buying Tour Issue sticks, you know what you're getting in terms of specs.

New experiments are on the brain. Just in time for the last month or so of the golf season. I'm clever that way. Iron shafts are the topic of mental gyration. I've picked up a couple NV95 shafts to try, and a couple Fuji Pro 115 Tour Spec shafts. I have a set of 370 bore clubheads that have been lying around for a dozen years or so, I've installed one of the Fujis in a 6 iron, and will plug the NV95 into another club, start banging them around the course after the Ryder Cup event later today. I also have been thinking about taking the plunge on a set of Steelfibers, for one of my sets of Ram Tour Grinds. The current leader in the clubhouse among the array of ideas is getting a set of i110 Regular, intending to hardstep them once into a set of 2-PW TG-898s. Retail version of Recoil 110s could also be an option. The Recoils lost out in my graphite iron shaft wars from 4-5 years ago, hit them too high then. I'm rapidly approaching 58th birthday, don't hit the ball nearly as high as I used to, they may be a better fit now. Oh, and I'm wondering if I should keep riding the SpeedZone I bought a few weeks ago, or suck it up and buy the new 300 Mini. I seem to hit the OO better than my 460cc sticks. <shrug> And blah blah blah.

More signs of life in my game from my Friday round. Shot a 79, with two three-putt bogeys in the first three holes. Greens were slower than normal and I didn't adjust well, hitting my first putts a bit too strongly in both instances. Visited the trees twice on the back nine and paid full penalty for my inability to extract myself with two doubles. With two 3jacks and two doubles from poor recovery play, I feel fairly positive about that 79. LOL

As the story was told on early golf forums, that was the Callaway practice. Ping began doing that with the TiSI Tec, but they let you know about it with the "Effective Loft" thing. After that, Ping was apparently aiming for a degree and a half higher than spec as their target. Or so the story was 16+ years ago. <shrug>

This is part of why I have a hard time buying fixed hosel clubs in the fairway woods and hybrids. It's too easy to find yourself with two clubs with specs 3* or 4* apart, but maybe a degree apart in reality. It can also be that way with adjustable clubs, but at least you can make an attempt to do something about it. The issue in drivers in the 90s and early-mid 2000s was truly bad. It was fine for low trajectory players, but for those with naturally higher trajectories, it was a nightmare finding an OEM club you could actually hit. It's why I spent so long in the component driver world (such as SMT); the components tended not to use the +3 or +4 and -0 tolerance that you'd see in OEM-land

In our group, we would call this a reasonable effort *our joke based on one guy calling his first good shot in five holes a "reasonable shot." It's stuck LOL

No update on a round played, but for the upcoming weekend... The Men's Club at my course (which I joined this year after years of badgering from members I knew) has a year end Ryder Cup style event. When it first started, the assistant pro and the head pro would each draft a team from top finishers in the Men's Club season, and the battle would be joined. The last couple years, there's been no assistant pro at the course, so the Men's Club president has filled in as the second Team leader. They do this all in one day, three separate nine hole competitions. Foursomes, Four Ball, and finally Singles matches. This year's event is Sunday, October 3rd. I didn't automatically qualify this year, based on points, finishing just outside the top 32. However, each year, several members who've qualified are either unable or uninterested in playing. And, there are two captains picks for each of the Captains (playing capt's). Somehow, I've been selected. Tee off at 8.12am central time Sunday morning. My foursomes and fourball teammate is a friend of mine, who I've partnered with in several two man events this year. Looking forward to it.

Guess I should FPA a bit better. I'm also in Maple Grove.

Signs of life in the game today. Shot a 77 today, with a double on the 15th hole, and a missed five foot birdie (broke the opposite way) that I thought was a kick in. One thing that helped, cut down my SpeedZone to 43.5", after my 45" or 44.5" experiment. Much better.

Somewhat amusingly.... My longest non-cart-path-aided drive of the last six seasons was with a Ping Zing Blonde laminate, green dot, KT-M shaft. I haven't played them this year, because I've moved to graphite and haven't reconciled the idea of graphite shafted irons with steel shafted woods, but I think about them quite a bit. What's funny to me is the 3w. It looks HUGE, like there's no way to hit it off the deck. And I've done it several times, with no trouble. Obviously, Karsten knew what he was doing.

I used to change my irons constantly, in my Club Ho days. I've even changed at the turn during golf nerd outings (mostly to be funny). It helps if you think about your irons in terms of loft instead of club numbers.

Have a friend who did a fair bit of research into this right at the turn of the century. As we moved out of the hickory era to the steel shaft era, irons were generally 4* gaps. When they began numbering irons in the hickory era, you'd see a 20* 1 iron to a 52* 9 iron. When the Sand Iron came into being, it was sat on top of that 9 iron. Per a fellow golf nerd acquaintance from another forum, who collects classic wedges like some collect coins, many of these sand irons were 58* and even 60*. Which I find interesting. At some point in the early steel shaft era, those lofts crept forward, the 1 iron found its way to 17* or 18*, we had a 21* 2 iron on to a 53* club that was originally a "pitching iron." Hey, the PW arrives on the scene! As we got into the 60s, that crept forward to 20* 2 iron and 52* PW. Eventually, the mid and short irons, and PW, were bumped a little forward, and the 3* gaps started to show up at the top end of the bag. Previous to this, the 3* gap was primarily seen, and then only sometimes, between the 2i and 1i. Late 70s and early 80s, we get the 20/30/50 lofts that were present on the Wilson Staff 78 Tour Blades and FG-17s. Not everyone fully went along, Palmer Standards of the same vintage were 21/31/51, which carried forward to the Original Standards that were released in the late 80s. Interesting thing, Palmer Standards were parallel. While not advertising it on the club, they appear to have been frequency matched at the factory. Could be apocryphal. <shrug> Not entirely sure who was first to move forward to a 49* PW. It could have been the line under Wilson Tour Blades of the mid 80s, or one of the first Mizuno sets, doesn't matter. Somewhere in there, 20/30/50 became 19/29/49, or sometimes 19/29/50 (believe this is where the Tommy Armour 986 Tours sat, as memory serves from seeing a copy of a catalog page in recent years). This is where the 16* 1 iron showed up. The Armour 845s gave us the 18/28/48 thing, with Ping following with the Eye2+ after the settlement with the USGA. And off it went. The King Cobras *really* launched the loft wars with their 43* PW. CG movement gets mentioned quite a bit, but I find that dubious, at best. Anyway, there we go. A regurgitation of all the work done by my friend, who got very curious about this in 1999 and 2000 and started digging. Sorry for putting a mini-novel out here....

If you're a Stiff flex guy, and like the NV, here's an NV95 S https://www.ebay.com/itm/383603831953?epid=1502300808&hash=item595091f491:g:hGYAAOxyUrZSsgV- Same seller has an RIP Beta 90 X, if that hits your target (this was my source for my two RIP Beta 90 shafts). There's also some Tour Green and Tour Blue 85 shafts of various flexes available in their store. Disclaimer: unaffiliated with them, other than as a (repeat) customer

Best wind ball I've ever played is the Wilson Staff Duo Professional. Into the wind, side winds, it's performs amazingly for me. I think they're even better than the early Callaway HX balls, which were the best I'd played prior to the Duo Pro (honorable mention to the old Maxfli products).

By virtue of having shortish arms, my swing is a bit more upright than one might expect for a guy who is only between 5'11" and 6' tall (I might be exactly 182cm, for our metric using brothers/sisters). I can take a healthy divot. In spite of this, I seem to like using thinner soles on my irons. And in the chipping game, I've tended to prefer higher bounce in my wedges, which seems to be the opposite of many. Found quite a bit of success chipping with a 14* bounce Ram 58* wedge, until losing it somewhere. Continuing the opposite theme, I've never had much problem with low bounce wedges in the sand. Used to regularly carry Troon Grind wedges with their 3* bounce, never had an issue in the bunkers. I'm not saying I was a good bunker player, but I never had a problem getting out, in spite of the complete lack of bounce.

I'm in this zip code as well, but it's especially a problem for me with clubhead size. That's where I start feeling like I can't get the clubhead on the ball, because it's so big. Amusingly, when I got my Muirfield irons, I thought the topline was kind of thick. Probably because I spent so much time playing Golden Rams, starting relatively soon after starting the game. I don't think I have much in the way of topline pics, I should see what I could whip up....

I've nearly jumped on one of these a couple times. The price is a bit ugly, especially for someone like me, who's playing iron sets that have cost me less than the price of this one stick (aka cheap bass turd). One use I thought of for this was to get the 2h and use it as a quasi 4w by delofting it. Would allow me to bring in to play the array of heavier iron shafts for fairway use. I already have an RIP Alpha 105 in an All Fit adapter that I could use with this stick. I'm still stuck in my procrastination mode, though....

I wonder if you should just try a somewhat shorter and slightly heavier fairway wood. It can even be close to the same loft as your 3w. Personally, I've recently done this with my own 3w. I managed to find 90g and even 100g+ shafts that I could plug in to one of my 3w's. It's helped with consistency quite a bit. They're not easy to find, but they're still out there. My current options have been RIP Alpha 80, RIP Beta 90, and NV105, the last being essentially impossible these days. I realize I'm chiming in a little late.