jwlong410

I don't remember the exact numbers, I was just peeking at the laptop between shots. I was carrying the ball ~15-20 yards further (thereabouts) for example. Like I said - it wasn't a proper fitting experience which is why I scheduled time to go back and do it in a more official capacity. Set a true baseline, then hit the TS4 with different shaft options, etc.

It was 7-8 swings as he was packing up from a Titleist Thursday event. I scheduled a proper time for a fitting this coming Thursday to dial in shaft and what not. Those couple of swings were way better than my current driver based on distance and launch alone, but it wasn't a proper fitting and I was just hitting while he packed up the rest of the clubs.

Going on Thursday (had my dates mixed up; thought it was last week) so I'll share here once I do.

Appreciate the thoughts. Going back today to re-confirm the fitting details (also want to try my current shaft in the TS4 to see what that looks like). I'm basically just trying to decide if the extra $200 and time for a full fitting with multiple drivers is going to be worth it. Agree the jump is going to be big regardless, just not sure if any potential marginal gain from one new driver over another is worth the extra time/cost.

Last Thursday I hit a TS4 at a Titleist Demo Day and the numbers were a significant improvement over my current driver (910D3). I can get the driver build from Titleist for a decent discount below retail because of connections, so there's some strong incentive to go that route. However, the TS4 is literally the first driver I've hit in the last 8 years besides my 910D3. I have no other frame of reference. It's possible that I'd put up better numbers with a Ping, TM, Mizuno, Cobra, etc. driver than the TS4. However, if I go to get fitted it'll cost me extra $ at a minimum, or I'll pay full retail (vs. the discount through my Titleist rep). So what would you do? Numbers are good with the TS4 - Just run with it and don't look back! Should really swing more than 1 other driver before buying. Overall my main need/goal is to kill spin, so I'm looking at TS4, G410 LST, ST200G, etc. There's obviously fewer options there than the full pool of drivers.

At first there was a little bit of weirdness but I've hit the 7 so well that it's been easy to forgive the change in looks. Honestly it's given me some more confidence to get aggressive with the 7 while being more finesse with the 8. I do find myself hitting some purposeful baby draws with the shorter irons while I mostly play a high cut with the 4-7. The 8 is borderline on being able to execute the draw on command so not sure I'd need the workability further down the set just yet. Maybe when I'm better! Thanks! There are definitely some nuances in feel where I really notice the mishits on the short irons while it's muted a bit on the longer ones. It works for me because I'm not good enough to need the workability in my longer irons. I think the split is pretty good on feel. If I was a better player I might feel differently haha. I wanted to! TaylorMade only offered full degree changes on the order so I'll have to have my shop do it if I decide that gap is causing issues.

Planemate came today! Honestly though, your second post about the videos was great. With this on backorder I went through the protocols with no belt and my ballstriking is demonstrably better than 2 weeks ago. Thank you so much for the tip!

Glad someone got value out of it

It wasn't a perfect test because he pulled a stock set off the wall - but it was close enough to get an idea. We ran into some issues because I needed the extra length and they were doing multiple fittings so availability of the right shaft/head combo was iffy. We made it work as best we could.

Earlier this Spring (obviously) I went through a wonderful fitting to get new irons. I'll give some background on this in a bit here but I went in with no preconceptions of what I should buy other than some historical preferences and experiences. Ultimately, my fitter and I decided that going for a split/combo set was the best option to put me in a chance to succeed out on the course. I've only played a little bit since my new clubs arrived in the mail (again, obviously) but luckily I live 700 yards from the center of the first green of our local muni so I have had a chance to hit them quite a bit. Ultimately I wanted to share what I've learned with the hope that this may help you - prospective iron set buyer - when you consider replacing your irons, whenever that comes around. What I Bought In the end, we ended up building a combo set of P790s (4-7) and P760s (8-PW). You may be thinking, after looking at my handicap in my profile, "what the hell is this guy doing playing P760s? That's where the fitting came in - I'll touch on that in the next section. Before I get into the fitting and what I learned during hte process, I wanted to share my set build. The chart below walks through the make/model, specs, and yardages for my full set to give you proper context for the rest of the post below. The Fitting - Finding the Right Model My old irons were Callaway RAZR X Tours, which at this point are a good 9 years old. I didn't have a specific complaint about my irons other than looking for more distance and more consistency/accuracy (aren't we all?!). I've only ever played Callaway irons (my first set were X-16 Pro Series) but have played everything else in my full set over the years, so I was totally open. Generally I've felt that I hit TaylorMade and Titleist clubs well and really liked the feel of the clubs from those brands (as you can tell by my current set), but I wasn't married to them as the solution here. I had three preferences going into this fitting: I prefer a thinner topline and profile. Since I've always played the Pro/Tour version of the Callaway irons I really struggle looking down at a thick topline. Nothing else mattered a ton to me in terms of aethetics. I wanted long irons that I felt confident in. One major issue I had with my previous set was little/no confidence in my 4-6 irons. I wanted better feedback from my irons as I'm focused on improving my ballstriking. After I got warmed up I went through and hit some irons from a variety of manufacturers (Mizuno, Titleist, Callaway, TaylorMade) and models. Ultimately we zeroed in on the Titleist T-200 and TaylorMade P790 as the top contenders (I was hitting 7 irons). We went through the process to fit me for length (+ 0.5" across the set) and lie (no change, slightly upright because of added length) and then we switched to hitting some different clubs. I hit 5 irons and 9 irons from both sets to take a look at my metrics to see how they held up across the set. I ended up having more consistent results across all 3 clubs with the TaylorMades, so we narrowed in on those. My fitter felt that I had strong consistency in my short irons, to the point where a players' iron might be an option in the shorter clubs. I hit both T-100 and P760 9 irons to compare to the players-distance versions. The P760s maintained the consistency we saw in the longer irons with TaylorMade while also offering some more workability (my natural ballflight is a high cut but hit more draws than I ever have in my life with that 9 iron). At that point we decided to pursue a split/combo set enabling me to take advantage of the workability of the P760 short irons and the forgiveness of the P790 long irons. The Fitting - Finding the Right Specs (Lofts) We had already nailed down the length and lie angle part of the equation but the biggest challenge with blending two different iron sets is matching lofts. Our focus was on finding a good blend of yardages (and being a little less focused on lofts necessarily). This isn't quite as easy to figure out in a fitting setting because you'd essentially hundreds of versions of each club in various length/loft/lie combinations to make work. We did our best with imperfect information/tools. Ultimately we opted to leave the P790s at stock lofts. We found some good/natural aligment between the long irons and my existing hybrid setup that made keeping those stock lofts work. The big challenge came in trying to blend the P760s and the P790s at the split, as well as ensuring there wasn't too large a gap with my existing wedges. We ended up deciding to strengthen the lofts on the P760s to help blend the set more smoothly - resulting in a smaller gap at the transition. We originally intended to add 1.5° of loft to the 8 iron, but the TaylorMade ordering system only allows for loft changes of whole degrees. As a result, we went with a straight 1° strong across the board on those three clubs. There's still a bit of a gap between the 7 iron and 8 iron, as well as the PW and GW. The latter is easily addressed (I'm leaning to a 50/54/58 wedge setup in the future) if/when I buy new wedges. The former can potentially be addressed by having the 8 iron bent 0.5° strong, but I'm wary of making that change too hastily. For now, a choked down 7 has worked fine as a solution when I'm between those two clubs. For reference, here are some photos of the 7 and 8 next to each other: Overall Impression Since I've started gaming these irons I've been really impressed. Technology has obviously come a long way in 9 years, but I think the biggest difference for me is the great feedback on both flush and off-center hits. In general I have much more confidence standing over the ball regardless of lie or situation. In fact, I've found myself using my 4 iron off the tee quite a bit - a new experience since I rarely pulled my old 4 iron out of the bag. One other big change was moving to the Golf Pride Align grips (photos below) which I feel have been helpful in allowing me to feel confident in my grip and alignment. My old grips were jumbo +4 wraps (I think I was poorly fit) so moving to a standard grip +2 was a major change. There are two key differences between the P790 and P760 sets: tungsten weighting and speedfoam technology. Both are present in the P790s but absent in the P760 (worth noting that the P760 set features Speedfoam in the 3-7, but since my set only includes 8-PW it doesn't have Speedfoam). The short irons are, undoubtedly, more fickle than the longer irons - but overall the blended nature of the set will, I believe anyway, enable me to become a better ballstriker while also taking advantage of that ballstriking where it matters most. I've been very pleased with the overall fitting process as well as the set itself despite the limited time I've had it. I'm still working through some yardage adjustments (I'm hitting these clubs 10-15 yards further than my old set) but overall I feel really good with the investment and setup. I hope this helps anyone who's considering going with a split set. My fitter had done 3 in three weeks (one each of Titleist, Mizuno, & TaylorMade) so it certainly seems to be becoming a more popular option for all golfers - not just the pros. Set pics included in the attached images below (for those who are interested).

I'm working on an unofficial review for my new iron set, but figured I'd share this here as well. See the image below for the lofts and yardages (note: yardages are a bit of a moving target, still figuring those out as I got my irons in early March and haven't been able to hit them much yet).

I've been working a lot on my short game lately (my biggest area of stroke bloat is 90 yards and in) so I've been tearing up that section. Also highly recommend Padraig Harrington's Twitter feed if you're looking for more short game tips. Those two have been my primary source of insight lately.

I typically play my wedges about 1 ball back from center (including PW) and then up through my set I probbaly put my 4I 1.5 balls forward of center depending on the shot.

You ever check out Burger Bar in Bristol, VA? They make the best burgers in the area. I highly recommend the Oh My Cheese (patty between two grilled cheese sandiwches) and the parm fries or sweet potato fries if you're feeling indulgent.

Guys. Had a little bit of a breakthrough yesterday and appreciate everyone encouraging me to look at the swing vs. the implement (normally an easy choice for me, but this time I had been hitting my short irons so well that it was harder to think that was the cause). The plane mate is on backorder because of Coronavirus, so I wanted to look for things I could do in the meantime. I decided to modify this chipping drill Padraig Harrington shared for full swings: After just a handful of swings I was carrying my 52 about 95 yards and hitting some as far as 115. I need to work on consistency and focus on repeating those impact conditions (need that plane mate to take this to the next level) but I'm pretty energized by this. This is the best I've hit my wedges since I was a teenager (already). Thank you all for your thoughts. I'll keep plugging away at it, but this hasbeen pretty impactful and I'm feeling much more confident when my ball is sitting next to the 100 yd marker.

Titleist rolled out a new section of their site that provides dozens (hundreds?) of free videos with drills, insights, etc. across all aspects of the game. Seems like a great resource! https://www.titleist.com/instruction-center

Can I please get a "Broke 80" badge? I've got two 79s to my name, but with a handful of sub-82s in the last 12 months I'm hopeful to shoot something a little better than 79 at some point this year!

This is super helpful, thank you! I'm going to look into it some more. I'm hoping I can solve my issues without having to replace my wedges for the 2nd year in a row, so I'm eager to dig into this.

I don't know and unfortunately it's unlikely I'll get to hit on a launch monitor any time soon. My guess would be they're signficantly higher than half the loft

Did it all smooth out at once for you? I was psyched when my iron metrics were in the normal ranges, but now my wedges being out of line really stand out. For reference, here's my 7I metrics before and after my club switch: Before - Callaway RAZR Tour, S300, Jumbo Grip +4 wraps 7I - 9400 rpm, 21* launch After - TaylorMade P790/P760, Project X 6.0, Standard + 2 wraps 7I - 7100 rpm, 17* launch

In general I'm a high swing speed player (112 with driver, 90+ with irons). Again, not sure of my delivery metrics specifically with wedges - it's been a year since I got fitted for them. I've been having these issues for the last year since I bought them but worked through it because the gap wasn't HUGE (110-70 is more tenable than 135-70), and I spent $450 on the wedges so I was hoping to make it work. I've also gone through some swing changes in the last year to work on removing that excessive dynamic loft at contact - have seen a lot of success with that on every club in the bag EXCEPT my wedges. Part of what I'm struggling with is that I used to be an 11 handicap, but after a few years off I've gotten back into golf and now struggle with things that used to be strengths in my game previously.

I don't have my delivery numbers off-hand. I've struggled with adding dynamic loft (ex-baseball player, have a tendency to flip my wrists) but I've really improved that with my irons. So when I got fit for my new irons, everything was right in line with what you'd normally see. It's possible I'm still adding dynamic loft with my wedges but not my irons?!

Hi all - looking for thoughts and insights on my wedge setup. I was recently fitted from three wedges (47 PW, 54.10, & 58.08) to four (45 PW, 52.12, 56.10, 60.08). I'm really struggling with my new wedge setup. I have a high natural ballflight, but I can only carry my 52 about 70 yards (I hit my PW 135 for context). My 56 and 60 carry 55 and 40 yards respectively. It's created a big gap in yardages and I'm generally pretty miserable from about 115 yards and in. After talking with some buddies they were shocked I got fit into a set with descending bounce (12 > 10 > 8). Would love any thoughts from everyone on what they might do to navigate this. I'm considering putting my old wedges back in my bag because I can carry the 54.10 at least 90 yards.

Hey y'all - I pulled some insights out of the data from the 2020 Most Wanted post. Curious for any thoughts/feedback from everyone: