Modern Irons are here to stay

[revkev]

You guys are cracking me up with this banter. Sorry I missed out on it. I’m of the same i rage as Stu and Chisag so there’s going to be lots of similarities once we get into pop culture and musical taste.


Sent from my iPhone using MyGolfSpy

[cksurfdude]

Matt Saturnus of PluggedInGolf posted an interesting perspective on this topic; here are a few excerpts......

------
The “Evolution” of Iron Lofts

"Any time a new set of irons is released, particularly a set making claims about distance, the topic of iron lofts come up.  Why is this such a hot button issue?"

-- (.. he continues ..) --

Resetting the Discussion

"If we were to start this discussion over again, I think we would begin with the question, “What should an iron set do?” 

My answer would be, “An iron set should be a group of clubs that you can use to hit the ball onto the green from a variety of distances.”

With this in mind, I return to the question of, “Does it matter?”  My answer is, “No.” 

So long as the consumer has some level of awareness that the irons they’re testing may not all be the same, I can’t get too excited about what number is on the sole."
------

Full article is at...
https://pluggedingolf.com/the-evolution-of-iron-lofts/

[NiftyNiblick]

The jacking of lofts is largely regarded as unimportant by the members of our forum.

I disagree because it clearly impacts set composition.

Before the pitching wedge became an included part of the set, the 9-iron was 48º

 

When the pitching wedge was added on as an included club,

a lot of 9-irons were jacked to 45º and the included pitching wedge

became 50º instead of 52º.  They were also more like 10-irons than classic add-on wedges.

 

That's where we were when the lob wedge showed its face in the late 1970s (it was far from standard for a few more years).

It was only a "third" wedge then.

 

Today,  GI irons routinely come with the matching gap wedge at 48º.

That's a two-club bump from the original 9-iron.

It's not unusual for some players to add 52, 56, and 60--sometimes 64--to the matching set, and now we have

five to six wedges.

 

Also, because of jacked lofts, the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and sometimes 5  are no longer useful in an iron set to many players.

Buy the 6-GW and add three or four wedges to that.

 

And if you started out this way, it seems perfectly normal.

To me, it seems absolutely ridiculous.

 

I had to live with it, but I never really accepted it and still don't;

because all the arguments stopped at saying it didn't matter. None of them even attempted a reason as to why it made sense. 

I mean from a golf perspective.  I couldn't care less about the marketing perspective.

 

[RickyBobby_PR]

I don’t think it makes 

4 minutes ago, NiftyNiblick said:

The jacking of lofts is largely regarded as unimportant by the members of our forum.

I disagree because it clearly impacts set composition.

Before the pitching wedge became an included part of the set, the 9-iron was 48º

 

When the pitching wedge was added on as an included club,

a lot of 9-irons were jacked to 45º and the included pitching wedge

became 50º instead of 52º.  They were also more like 10-irons than classic add-on wedges.

 

That's where we were when the lob wedge showed its face in the late 1970s (it was far from standard for a few more years).

It was only a "third" wedge then.

 

Today,  GI irons routinely come with the matching gap wedge at 48º.

That's a two-club bump from the original 9-iron.

It's not unusual for some players to add 52, 56, and 60--sometimes 64--to the matching set, and now we have

five to six wedges.

 

Also, because of jacked lofts, the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and sometimes 5  are no longer useful in an iron set to many players.

Buy the 6-GW and add three or four wedges to that.

 

And if you started out this way, it seems perfectly normal.

To me, it seems absolutely ridiculous.

 

I had to live with it, but I never really accepted it and still don't;

because all the arguments stopped at saying it didn't matter. None of them even attempted a reason as to why it made sense. 

I mean from a golf perspective.  I couldn't care less about the marketing perspective.

 

While it probably affects what type of clubs a person has and may require purchasing other clubs to get a good set makeup imo there’s two type of golfers.

1) the one that will hit his irons further than current set and in some cases the same distance they did when younger with each iron #, and that golfer really doesn’t worry about set composition because they are going to play D, 3w, maybe hybrid, 4-p and the rest of their wedges will be the same loft they played forever and aren’t going to change. They also probably aren’t practicing.

2) the golfer who is going to set their bag up based on gaps and will test and/or get fit for what clubs go what distance and then buy the clubs necessary to fill out their bag. They will make the necessary adjustments to distances and their bag setup.  

Theres 14 allowed spots in a bag but nothing that restricts the set makeup. 

Imo the ones that complain about lofts are either “traditionalists” (yet those same ones are playing clubs that would be considered jacked lofts compared to previous generations) or the ones who hate their buddies/playing partners bragging they hit a 7i when the guy who hates jacked lofts hit a 5 or 6.

 

[chisag]

... Seems we go over this every time it comes up. I don't think anyone here is saying that jacking lofts is "unimportant". What most of us are saying is that it is what it is, so unless you are a grumpy old man and proud of it, you might as well accept it. Nobody is saying you have to like it. He!! I don't like it, but I accept it because there is nothing I can do about it. I absolutely love my P790 irons that are crazy long and forgiving and I gave up on expecting standardized lofts long ago. These are the best all around irons I have ever played and I really don't care how they are numbered because I have irons to cover all my gaps and distances. My scorecard only asks for the number of strokes I took on any given hole and does not ask what club I played.

 

[NiftyNiblick]

With GPS, it's hard to not know your typical distances with or without a fitter.

I was, for my level of play, exceptional at clubbing myself, even before GPS.

If I was short, it was because I completely missed my shot, not because of optimistic clubbing.

 

I hate jacked lofts because I always had a deep interest in the equipment side of the game,

and nothing about modern lofts

makes any sense at all to me.  Marketing took precedence over actual golf considerations, and given my personal inclinations, i couldn't respect that.

[NiftyNiblick]

7 minutes ago, chisag said:

... Seems we go over this every time it comes up. I don't think anyone here is saying that jacking lofts is "unimportant". What most of us are saying is that it is what it is, so unless you are a grumpy old man and proud of it, you might as well accept it. Nobody is saying you have to like it. He!! I don't like it, but I accept it because there is nothing I can do about it. I absolutely love my P790 irons that are crazy long and forgiving and I gave up on expecting standardized lofts long ago. These are the best all around irons I have ever played and I really don't care how they are numbered because I have irons to cover all my gaps and distances. My scorecard only asks for the number of strokes I took on any given hole and does not ask what club I played.

 

I understand what you're saying, Chi, but let's be real--I definitely am a grumpy old man.

I just wish that they'd stop using club numbers if club numbers are going to be meaningless.

We got along without them fine in the hickory shaft era, used them in the steel era, and should get rid of them again in the graphite era.

 

 

[Angry Yeti]

28 minutes ago, RickyBobby_PR said:

... the ones who hate their buddies/playing partners bragging they hit a 7i when the guy who hates jacked lofts hit a 5 or 6.

 

That's it, I'm ordering a custom 4 iron stamped with an 8. Screw everyone, I hit my irons farther than all of you... 

 

I think the number on the bottom of the club serves only one purpose - to not mix up clubs when going to grab one we want. You can use loft, iron #, letters, or a series of hieroglyphs. it doesn't matter as long as it informs you which club is the one you intend to grab. Gapping and distance is unique to each golfer. Differences in irons aside, given the exact same club I'm going to hit it a different distance than my father will. Loft/lie/length are measurements that allow us to try and repeat, or predict, results from one club to another. It's a shoe size for clubs. When I want to replace my club that goes 180 yards, I'm going to start looking at whats available in the same L/L/L as the club currently in that spot and adjust from there. Sure there are other metrics that contribute to things like spin and shot shape - but just keep adding measurables to make your "shoe size" 10 variables, it's the same function just different levels of detail.

The frustration I understand is if you are trying to piece together a combo set from different lines or manufacturers. Jacked lofts would mean you had to pay more attention to which clubs you grabbed to fill which gap, and who wants to add more difficulty to piecing together their golf bag.

 

[RickyBobby_PR]

1 hour ago, Angry Yeti said:

That's it, I'm ordering a custom 4 iron stamped with an 8. Screw everyone, I hit my irons farther than all of you... 

 

I think the number on the bottom of the club serves only one purpose - to not mix up clubs when going to grab one we want. You can use loft, iron #, letters, or a series of hieroglyphs. it doesn't matter as long as it informs you which club is the one you intend to grab. Gapping and distance is unique to each golfer. Differences in irons aside, given the exact same club I'm going to hit it a different distance than my father will. Loft/lie/length are measurements that allow us to try and repeat, or predict, results from one club to another. It's a shoe size for clubs. When I want to replace my club that goes 180 yards, I'm going to start looking at whats available in the same L/L/L as the club currently in that spot and adjust from there. Sure there are other metrics that contribute to things like spin and shot shape - but just keep adding measurables to make your "shoe size" 10 variables, it's the same function just different levels of detail.

The frustration I understand is if you are trying to piece together a combo set from different lines or manufacturers. Jacked lofts would mean you had to pay more attention to which clubs you grabbed to fill which gap, and who wants to add more difficulty to piecing together their golf bag.

 

The last paragraph is spot on. Many of the companies have been doing a good of either selling combo sets or designing their entire line like Mizuno with the mp18 to make comboing clubs easier. 

[revkev]

Lost in this discussion and of course to fuel it further is the reality that so called loft jacking isn’t all about marketing.

GI and distance irons launch the ball higher, if you launch the ball enough higher you need less loft to preserve proper gapping. Lofts aren’t “jacked” solely for distance and ego’s sake - trajectory and even gapping are a large part of the equation.

I don’t get why somebody would care that I bag 5 clubs that fit into an arbitrary category called wedge. I’m flattered that they care enough about my set make up that it disturbs them. Frankly I’ve had the same set make up (same lofts) where only 3 of the clubs were considered wedges.

I have much better control of my current set - the 4 numbered wedges that I carry are very easy to flight down or up.


Sent from my iPhone using MyGolfSpy