Opinions on who should / should not play blades?

[Newbeach 1]

You might be the best iron sticker in the world and are a 10 handicapper because you cant putt. Your handicap doesn't decide whether you shpould play blade or not your swing does

[Popeye 1]

Here's my 2 cents worth.

 

I learned on Zunos MP33's, I loved them. Then I found out that I "shouldn't" be using them because I wasn't good enuf ! I bought Cally X-12's and loved them. Then I got better and wanted to go back to zunos. I now have the 950's and love them. Short of it is, I think whatever you feel better hitting, do it.

 

HCp 15

age 63

5'7 170

[scharff01 0]

I am a 9 handicap that has considered moving to blades for a while, but have had the same questions. My short game is decent (but I am often inconsistant with my putter). I always love the feel of blades when I demo them, but am afraid if I pull the trigger within a few rounds I will regret it. Ultimately I am not sure if I need improved equipment or just more time on the range to drop my handicap!

[ja2thacub 0]

Play what suits your eye best. If it looks good to you then you'll swing with confidence. The rest is just practice

[CliffJ 14]

If you spend a fair amount of time on the range, a nice set of forged blades will do you wonders. they will make you hit the ball clean and let you know when you have erred. Some of the game improvement irons tend to make one lazy (or at least for me it does)

[Specs 1]

For those of you thinking of going to blades. Head to your local shop, most of them will sell demo 6 irons of different company's. I have seen mizuno's, Bridgestone, Titleist blades at a few stores lately. Many times for really cheap ($15 a club). Buy one and hit it at the range, during fun rounds, etc. I think you may be surprised how well you hit them. I love my Combo Bridgestones and really don't have a desire to change but I have almost bought one of these "fun" clubs a few times.

[Tyk 7]

I put in almost a full range session with a friends Taylor Made TPs. What a nice club! I hit them just as well as my Cleveland Reds. The main difference I think is that the good shots feel perfect, whereas, imo, the bad shots really don't FEEL any worse than my Clevelands, and the results of those bad shots are only maybe a little worse than a bad shot with the Clevelands. The good shots with my Clevelands feel better than the bad ones, but they NEVER feel like a good shot with a blade no matter how pure I hit them.

 

Also, I think that looking down at that nice thin top line and smaller head with less offset makes me focus a little bit more. I know that I cannot afford to be lazy with my swing with a blade, you've got to make a good swing, and that little bit of extra concentration it demands suits me I think.

 

I just borrowed a set of Mizuno T-Zoid Professionals from a buddy of mine who no longer plays. I don't think they're quite what I want but they're close. I'm going to tinker with them for a bit, and continue to ogle the Adams MBs and Callaway X-protos. No one should be surprised if I'm not gaming one of those by the end of the season!

[canyon23 0]

My first clubs were the old Taylor Made Burner irons (back when the copper colored Burner driver with the bubble shaft came out). I played those for maybe 2 years and then received the Titleist 690.mb irons that I still play. I knew that blades were supposed to be for better players, but I couldn't get past the feeling that I got when I hit one pure. I played baseball all thru college, and it was similar to the feeling of connecting on a home run. It's almost like you don't feel it at all, the ball just goes. With the 690's I worked my way down to a 2 prior to being married and having kids, and now I'm around a 10. I still love the clubs. I really agree with the post above that says play whatever is comfortable to your eye. If you look down and the clubs inspire confidence, then you know you've got the right sticks.

[Tyk 7]

The T-Zoid Pro's weren't for me. They were fine, but they are actually pretty similar in feel to my Cleveland Reds, and part of them I actually didn't like. I struck the ball well with them, and I really liked the Sensicore Shafts, but the clubs felt heavy, and the odd thing about it was that the PW & 9 iron are actually larger than the other clubs, and larger than my Clevelands! Very strange. I actually think I liked the 3-5 a bit better than my clubs, but not the lower lofts.

 

Anyhow, the T-Zoids are not quite the club style I'm looking at, I just thought with them being a more pronounced muscleback I might bet a better feel for how I'd transition to blades. The T-Zoids never gave me that great feel of a blade, they were actually a bit dead feeling even on pure shots, kinda like my clubs!

[TWshoot67 37]

You only live once (as far as I remember) and I feel you should at least give it a go once just to see what's what. If you play well with the blades and you feel like it's not hurting your game (be honest) then stick with blades as long as you want. I personally went from a 10 to a 2 when I purchased a BN set of MP-29's. Before the blades I played Hogan Edge irons, the Titleist 962's. When I went from the Hogan's to the Titty's I missed the fell of a forged iron. But that's another Topic. Anyways my handicapp was always right around 8-10. I played decent golf but I wanted to be better. that's when I made up my mind that I was buying Mizzy MP-29's. These clubs changed my game, that and some real good practice. In two seasons I went from 8 to 4 and then from 4 to 2. I can't say this formula will work for everyonem but I can tell you this much just switching won't really do much unless you have a plan. My plan was to practice, practice and more practice. I'm a Union Plumber so it wasn't like I had lots of day time to play or practice, but every night (just about) I would stop at the course on the way home and I would chip, putt,and drive balls, like 2-3 hrs a night. The point I'm trying to make is I know there are those who are of the thought that you can't get better going from GI/CB's to blades. I disagree. I believe that when you continually play with a bigger headed club you focus isn't the same as when you look down at a smaller headed iron/club. I mean after a while the MP-29's were starting to look too big so I went to MP14's then Titleist 681's, to TM Rac mb's finally settling on my Cally Proto's. I've tried the TM TP B heads that are supposed to play like blades and feel forged but I just love the feel of the proto's. Now I missed golf for two seasons because of knee replacement and two other surgeries. I started playing with cb's because I felt I've been away too long to play blades and I was playing the worst golf I've ever played. I put the blades back in my bag a little over a month ago and started shooting low 80's high 70's and now my last 4 rounds have been mid to low 70's. I believe it all comes down to what makes you feel confident and or comfy. Go out give it a shot and don't worry about what others say. We all pay to play and until someone pays me and tells me I want you to play X or Y I'll do what I feel makes me better. There's no ego for me it's all about what club I play better with. I want my best possible score. It just happens to be with X-Proto's right now!

 

Tim

[Tyk 7]

Those x-protos are such a sweet club, I've all but decided on those, they just dropped about $400 in price to $1000 as well! The X-protos are the club that really made me start to consider blades. Callaway had a demo day at our club 2 years ago, and I was hitting some clunky cavity backs and kinda laughing at them and the rep walked up and said "here, hit this" and it was an x-proto. Ever since then they've been like the girl who got away!

 

I'm going to give the Adams MBs a very good look first, I hit those briefly at another demo this year but they only had x-stiff shafts. They felt pretty good but I want to hit them in the configuration I would buy, and I want to hit the x-protos and the Adams side by side.

 

For me, its not about ego, in fact, that's part of the reason for my hesitation in the first place, because of all the talk about "you gotta be a scratch golfer to game those" etc etc its scared me off of them, basically not trusting my own senses because of all the craziness whenever I've brought it up!

 

TWS67 I tried sending you a pm a while back, you still got those MP14s for sale?

[TWshoot67 37]

The T-Zoid Pro's weren't for me. They were fine, but they are actually pretty similar in feel to my Cleveland Reds, and part of them I actually didn't like. I struck the ball well with them, and I really liked the Sensicore Shafts, but the clubs felt heavy, and the odd thing about it was that the PW & 9 iron are actually larger than the other clubs, and larger than my Clevelands! Very strange. I actually think I liked the 3-5 a bit better than my clubs, but not the lower lofts.

 

Anyhow, the T-Zoids are not quite the club style I'm looking at, I just thought with them being a more pronounced muscleback I might bet a better feel for how I'd transition to blades. The T-Zoids never gave me that great feel of a blade, they were actually a bit dead feeling even on pure shots, kinda like my clubs!

Mizzy is one of the softest feeling irons out there imo, you might want to try a Bstone product as they are probably one of the most underated irons out there and can be had very cheap. Now their j33b's are not the easiest club to hit but the j33cb's were awesome. I played both and like both except i didn't like the extra long hosel on the blades. They have very very lttle offset and that's what will make them harder to play. No offset is harder to play then blades per say. I haven't hit any of the new offerings but have been tempted to try out a combo set of the J38's. Bstone has Endo forge their irons and if you want a little different sounding forged iron some say Endo's are just that a little firmer sounding versus softer dud sounding like Miura and Chuo (mizzy's forging house) once again it's all personal preference.

[Rounders 2]

You only live once (as far as I remember) and I feel you should at least give it a go once just to see what's what. If you play well with the blades and you feel like it's not hurting your game (be honest) then stick with blades as long as you want. I personally went from a 10 to a 2 when I purchased a BN set of MP-29's. Before the blades I played Hogan Edge irons, the Titleist 962's. When I went from the Hogan's to the Titty's I missed the fell of a forged iron. But that's another Topic. Anyways my handicapp was always right around 8-10. I played decent golf but I wanted to be better. that's when I made up my mind that I was buying Mizzy MP-29's. These clubs changed my game, that and some real good practice. In two seasons I went from 8 to 4 and then from 4 to 2. I can't say this formula will work for everyonem but I can tell you this much just switching won't really do much unless you have a plan. My plan was to practice, practice and more practice. I'm a Union Plumber so it wasn't like I had lots of day time to play or practice, but every night (just about) I would stop at the course on the way home and I would chip, putt,and drive balls, like 2-3 hrs a night. The point I'm trying to make is I know there are those who are of the thought that you can't get better going from GI/CB's to blades. I disagree. I believe that when you continually play with a bigger headed club you focus isn't the same as when you look down at a smaller headed iron/club. I mean after a while the MP-29's were starting to look too big so I went to MP14's then Titleist 681's, to TM Rac mb's finally settling on my Cally Proto's. I've tried the TM TP B heads that are supposed to play like blades and feel forged but I just love the feel of the proto's. Now I missed golf for two seasons because of knee replacement and two other surgeries. I started playing with cb's because I felt I've been away too long to play blades and I was playing the worst golf I've ever played. I put the blades back in my bag a little over a month ago and started shooting low 80's high 70's and now my last 4 rounds have been mid to low 70's. I believe it all comes down to what makes you feel confident and or comfy. Go out give it a shot and don't worry about what others say. We all pay to play and until someone pays me and tells me I want you to play X or Y I'll do what I feel makes me better. There's no ego for me it's all about what club I play better with. I want my best possible score. It just happens to be with X-Proto's right now!

 

Tim

Of all the things that I've read on this forum this answer might be the most sound advice that anyone has ever given. In my opinion however.

[Tyk 7]

I've hit several Mizuno irons that I've liked very much. These T-Zoids just weren't right, something off with the swingweight or perhaps the Sensicore shafts are heavier than my current Dynamic Golds and I'm just not used to it, even though I had them in my last set. Which makes sense because the whole point of the Sensicores was to dampen vibration, which probably translates into less "feel". Anyhow, it wasn't just the feel I didn't care for. Don't get me wrong, I could game them and probably get used to them, I just didn't see anything compared to my Clevelands that would make me switch.

[RookieBlue7 1,692]

I played blades most of my life, right up until last year late when I found the killer deal on the Adams that are currently in my bag. Usually all Mizuno blades too (except the Nike Forged Blade experiment). I also sed to practice a ton, and nothing is sweeter than a well struck blade. I played them when I was a 20+ guy up until I got to a 4.7 this year. And the lowest I've ever been was when I was in high school and carried a 1.2 and had probably the blades with the smallest sweetspot I'd ever owned, Mizzy TN-87's. Now that I look back on that, I wished I still had those after virtually giving them away. Regardless, blades don't have a handicap number, especially with the more modern blades that offer all of the technology that's available today. It's more about what suits your eye IMO. And blades are only going to make you better, IMO, because of how small the sweet spot is. You learn to hit them well or you struggle tremendously.

[kingwood hacker 0]

Here's my 2 cents:

 

I am a 17 handicap, and I switched early this year from a set of Cleveland Launcher LP's (serious game improvement cavity backs) to a set of Mizuno MP68's. I got a tremendously good deal when a friend decided that the Mizunos weren't for him, and I couldn't pass it up. I was really worried that my game wasn't good enough to play the blades. My first trip to the driving range was eye opening to say the least. I never realized how steep my downswing was because I never really took a big divot with the clevelands, but with the Mizunos, I was taking huge divots. So, immediately I realized something about my swing that my Clevelands had been hiding for a few years.

 

I will say that I'm probably not your average 17 hadicapper. I can shoot in the low 80's when I'm on and I'm not wasting shots with my driver going OB. I practice at least once a week and try to play at least 18 holes a week. My iron game has gotten much better since I've switched, and my confidence with these irons is miles above where it was with my old cavity backs. I fully intent to have my handicap down around 10-12 by this time next year.

 

My personal opinion is that if you are serious about getting better, get away from serious game improvement irons. I still have my Clevelands and a couple of weeks ago, my friend came to town without his clubs and borrowed my old irons when we went to play. I hit some shots on the range, and it felt like I was swinging a shovel. Every ball came off feeling relatively the same, and you were completely dependent on the ball flight to determine how you hit the ball. I love the feedback I get from my blades, and don't see myself going back anytime soon.

[BIG STU 7,857]

I gonna put my 2 cents in. To begin with I personally do not care what anyone plays as long as they are happy and enjoying themselves. That being said I prefer blades old MacGregors or Mizuno MP-33s to be exact. I am an old school "feel and instinct" player and I can feel and work the ball better with blades. I hav tried cavity backs both forged and cast and they simply do not work for me. I have absolutely no control over the ball with cb irons and absolutely no feed back at all when I mis hit them. I have modernised a little I have taken out my beloved 2 iron and replaced it with a 7 wood but for me blades work

[CH HOF 0]

I don't change clubs often. I just switched from Callaway X-16 Pro Series to the new Bridgestone J38s. I would consider this a fairly significant change. But I don't think I would have ever considered the change unless I had made a significant swing change 1 year before the switch. Let me explain...

 

I made the swing change to help with my balance and consistency. Basically, I now hit the ball on the middle of the club face consistently. Two things occurred to me when I made the iron switch. One: I can actually enjoy hitting musclebacks when I hit the sweet spot. Two: my swing change affected my ball striking quality, distance and flight much more than any club can offer.

 

I saw an entirely different ball flight & club distance when I began hitting the ball on center. I know all this sounds basic, but to me, it was eye-opening. Whichever club set you choose, you will find more enjoyment from learning to hit them SOLID.

[Long Iron Pete 0]

I play off 22 but have only been playing approximately one year. I already can shoot well underneath this handicap and the major flaws in my game are slicing the driver when I try to hit it too hard, and putting. Iron play I would describe as solid and I have on several occasions played rounds in low-80s. Consistency is now the biggest issue (which practice will hopefully resolve) as I know that I can play well some of the time.

 

I play with Titleist AP1s; I had a set of MD clubs that I'd inherited and once I took golf up seriously I quickly changed these to a set of TM Burner Plus irons. I loved the look of AP1s though and once I tried them out, and negotiated a good trade-in on the TMs I couldn't resist. These are a game improvement club of sorts - compared to a lot of the so-called game improvement irons they have a much thinner top line and sole; however there are plenty in the same category that make the AP1s look positively obese!

 

Now I have purchased from eBay a set of Titleist Tour Forged blades. I've no intention of using these in competitve play straight away. However I am considering playing with these a bit on practice rounds as I believe that this will improve my game. I would intend to do this perhaps once per week over the summer, use the AP1s once/twice per week and then in a competition on a Saturday.

 

I would appreciate any thoughts on this approach however please: am I better to work with the same tools consistently or will this approach (using the blades on a regular basis) ultimately lead me to the point that my game would be good enough to play with these all of the time?

[TheHacker 3]

I play a combo set of cavity and muscle back blades. My previous set of super game improvement Cleveland HB3 brought me up to a 7.1 index, and I thought I was good enough to try more players irons - Titleist ZB Forge.

 

Boy was I in for a shock! The Tity irons are not really forgiving, and plays about 2 clubs shorter. This is probably because the Titty loft is weaker, it is steel shafted (which is already shorter compared to HB3's graphites), and on my club fitter's recommendations, it was cut 1/2 inch shorter to better fit my swing. So previously what I used to cover my PW distance, now I have to use an 8 iron, and it will only get there provided I hit the ball perfectly.

 

Frankly I'm not sure whether I regret the change. The new irons exposes all the flaws in my game, and forced me to work harder on my swing, which could result in a better overall game. But for now I have to endure the pain of seeing my handicap getting worst, the indignity of play much much more club for the same distance, and yet not quite getting there.

 

Then again, the original intention was to change to a less forgiving iron, so that I can improve my game overall. Whether it's going to work out remains to be seen.

 

My take about whether should higher capper use blades is that it depends on what you are trying to achieve. If you just want to enjoy the game, please avoid blades. If you think using blades makes you look good, well it don't if you can't play it. But if you use blades because you want to improve, it's up to you.

 

After all, before Ping and Callaway, everybody, beginner or pros, were using blades and perssimon woods, and nobody were harmed in anyway.