hartrick11

Wow, love the blank look! I always say I am never going to change my putter if I can help it, but that makes it pretty tempting to sign up for the Fujikura & Evnroll test...

Love it - just what I was hoping (and expecting) to hear. I am planning to buy a set and keep for 3 years (and love to overanalyze all my big ticket purchases anyway), so will wait to hit all the new releases in the next couple of months, but leaning strongly towards these. They really do seem like a goldilocks product with no need to create a combo set.

@chisag how are you getting along with these a few months in? Have the recent press releases coming from Titleist given you a wandering eye or are you sticking with the MIMs? If you could make any changes with the Cobra design team for their "King Tour 2.0", is there anything that comes to mind (outside of maybe a cleaner cavity which as you noted is purely aesthetic and not fully necessary)?

Not a serious problem in the scheme of things, but I completely melted in my two day tourney this weekend and it sure feels like one! My brother and I turned heads winning our flight in round 1 by 3 strokes with a net 64; we had a perfect ham-and-egg day and a couple of big par saves and lucky bounces. We had low expectations coming in, played loose, and it showed. Then on Saturday when expectations and pressure were turned up, I contributed on literally two holes as we shot a net 72 and came in 4th, when a 68 would have won it all and a 71 would have tied for 3rd. Everything from burning edges 3x inside 8', to lost tee balls (two 4-irons, a hybrid, and a driver, all left), to the big killer on three holes my brother biffed in an otherwise brilliant round: 3 brutal pull-hook 7 irons out of bounds, two from the middle of a fairway on par 5s and one from a par 3. While my home course is pretty tight with far too many white stakes, 7 balls OB set a new personal record. All in all, every area of my game that has been springing leaks over the last couple of months decided to come completely unraveled at the worst possible time and I have been fuming for the last two days. F'n golf! Nothing but anti-left drills this week until a holiday round next Monday...get me back to the golf course!

Any chance they will be combo-able in the future? Thinking about 6 or 7-AW with more help at the top...

The feel was not for me when I tried them, but I can see how the Apex Pro would rank that high in performance & forgiveness with all the tungsten they're using. Impressive engineering. What I can't quite figure out is P7MC coming in at 2nd in forgiveness???

From the Titleist Instagram acct. Drooling.

I am sold after looking at these in-hand pics. Can't wait to do an iron fitting later this summer - ridiculous amount of amazing options right now.

Wow what a lineup for The Right Stuff! Congrats #458 for this guy on the other hand...woof

I am giving Titleist the benefit of the doubt that these look better in person but can see what you're saying. If we're judging just based on internet pics (since that's all we have), the i59 wins the 2021 looks crown IMO.

@Golfspy_CG2 blink twice if we will see a Titleist iron testing opportunity in the near future!

The T100 pic from Europe makes them look substantially better than the Titleist marketing email IMO. Either way these are on the top of my list for an iron set purchase later this year!

Callaway had a fitting day at my club yesterday so I stopped in. Apex pro still isn’t doing it for me in the 7 iron despite looking awesome. I really liked the x forged though. Longer blade length than my Cobras but still solid feeling, not hollow like the pros. More offset than I would like but I could easily get past it. I did also hit the mb and wow does it feel amazing. Really wish I liked the Pros because the players combo (4-7 pro 8-w mb) would work nicely. No TCB on hand unfortunately, but those need to be ordered as a full set & probably wouldn’t work for me at the top end anyway. Adding X Forged to my contender list.

This has been an interesting thread to read through - cool to see all the different approaches that people take. My 58 is the go-to, most used club in my bag other than the putter. I probably use it for 90% of my shots under 95 yards. If I am dealing with rough wind, a steep upslope/super fluffy lie, a longer bunker shot, or a tough lie chip that calls for some type of bump & run, I will go 54* (52* MIM Black if I am rocking my 3 wedge setup), but other than that I am pulling the 58 and not thinking twice. I even bought a backup SM7 when they went on sale so that I could have the exact same wedge for years to come.

Nice! I will be going through this same process in the fall and have a similar contender list...look forward to an update in another month or two to see how you and the Srixons are getting along.

Can't say I am having those issues with the TSi3, so not sure on a solution for you. A little water and my towel has always done the trick for me and I have put this thing through the paces over the last 8 months. Got any pics?

I am 34 and will consider the heavier versions of MMTs, Recoils, & Steelfibers in my next set of irons (to the extent that each is available with the fitter & doesn't require a super pricey custom build). Don't see any reason not to performance-wise, and it can only help to prevent joint aches/pains in the future.

You never know until you try! That said, I did try, and here I am a few years later looking for something more forgiving

I spent most of the last decade hitting a consistent draw, with a swing flaw that didn't matter when my timing was solid, which it was for a good 4+ year stretch. Well, eventually my timing got messed up for a long enough period of time (this is in about 2018) that I got really sick of big pulls/pull hooks/overcooked hooks and decided I needed to switch to a fade. After two years of two way misses, fits & starts that ebbed and flowed with the amount of range time I put in and the types of courses I played, I abandoned that to return to my natural swing, but with two main adjustments: 1) course management: I learned to hit a punch fade shot with my utility that goes 220 and is plenty of club for most holes with trouble left. 2) I work mainly on drills that mitigate my swing flaw (if properly applied) rather than really changing my natural swing. This is still a work in progress and my driver is not the same as it was a few years ago, but at least the worst is over. TL;DR: I am now in the camp of don't go for a wholesale change unless you are willing/available to put in a ton of work/reps over months/years.

Did any of them surprise you with their forgiveness level? In my mind the 620 CB & TAIII are more demanding than I would be looking for (I.E. no more forgiving than my Cobras), but admittedly haven't hit the TAIII, Wilson, or Honma.

Couldn't agree more re: combo sets. I love that blended sets are getting to be more standardized beyond the old cb/mb combo, too. Srixon seems to have executed this the best so far, in my view, but you have basically all the big OEMs creating combo-able iron sets that have a similar aesthetic and an offset/size progression that makes sense, vs. just a couple of years ago when you had a hard time creating a combo set due to loft differences and/or major differences in topline/offset/aesthetics.

Do you have retro specs on your i500s? Might be able to just pickup the 7-w in the i59s when they come out. I'm guessing blending would be an issue if they were power spec'd but the pics look like they would blend nicely with the i500... If the King Tours get released in black I will definitely just buy them in 4-6 to combo with my CBs and save some scratch. Seems unlikely since they already came out in copper, though.

Agreed, if you have a current model T100 for instance, you aren't likely to see much improvement by upgrading to the upcoming replacement. Lucky for the golf companies, that doesn't stop many of us from buying! For those who might be coming from a GI, PD, or blade-like offering, it's a different story. In my case I have a very small players CB that, while relatively forgiving for what it is with the use of tungsten plugs in the toe and sole, is still really small! I think I can find measurable gains with a new set, at least in the 4-6 irons where a longer blade length and more liberal use of tungsten would give me a bit better dispersion when I miss the dead nuts center of the club face.

Ah, lefty adds an annoying wrinkle I'm sure. I am not a Modus 120 guy and disliked both the King Tour and the ZX7 when I demoed with that shaft, but liked the feel of both heads A LOT more with other shafts FWIW. I don't know enough to say exactly why, but in the Modus family the 125 line seems much better-suited to my swing than the 120. @SlikHands Nice! It's great to have a clear winner coming out of a fitting. I played the iE1s before my Cobras but I never got fitted for them so unfortunately never gave them their best chance to stick in my bag (bought on eBay in my pre-MGS enlightenment days). Now I am looking for a goldilocks between the tiny Cobras and the more forgiving iE1s. @ejgaudette I don't know anything for sure but would agree the i210 seems likely to stick around as the i59s look like more of an iBlade replacement:

Who else is planning on buying players irons this year? I am looking for more forgiveness at the top end of my bag than my Cobra CBs provide in a still-smallish package, and lately I find myself scanning the interwebs daily for any/all information re: the newly released and upcoming releases. With Ping, Titleist and Mizuno coming off of super successful respective offerings to launch new lines this year, I think we are in for an epic battle. With the recently-released lines, it seems like the ZX7 is the "buzz" winner, with Cobra also getting strong, if less frequent reviews. Taylormade seemingly is selling the gorgeous 770 like hotcakes as well. Hard to tell with Callaway IMO, their lines are a bit confusing/oddly positioned, but their stock price would indicate they are having no trouble moving any of their products so they must be doing something right. I will of course get a fitting when the time comes; as of now I am planning to test the below 6 against each other. I have ruled out Callaway (Apex Pros based on clacky feel in a demo, and TCBs because they don't seem to offer additional forgiveness from my Cobras), New Level & Sub 70 (open to changing my mind but neither seems to strike me as having a super compelling tech/tungsten-packed players iron (which for me means more forgiving than a basic CB and less chunky than the 699 pro) & Hogan Ptx pro (weak shaft selection). Titleist's upcoming t100 update Ping's new i59 (the leaked pics are but curious to see how demanding these are) Mizuno's upcoming mp-22 line (mainly the MMC which seems more forgiving than JPX Tour but also curious if the HMB gets slimmed down for better blending) Additional longer term reviews on the Cobra King Tour (I have hit this and it is my current leader). H/t @chisag for the best one I have read thus far Additional longer term reviews on Srixon ZX7 (I have hit this and it is in the running but behind Cobra) Additional longer term reviews on the P770 (This is also in the running but behind Cobra) Any other spies formulating a players iron plan for later this year? What are you looking for, and what am I missing?!