Oldie but Goodie

[ConnorWade 9]

Recently I have been feeling like I'm getting Stuck with my current irons (TaylorMade RSi TP) and have decided to go back to my old faithful Cleveland GunMetal TA5 irons from 2001. There has just always been something about these irons that just work!

 

In light of Tiger going back to his OG Scotty putter I wanted to see who else has a older go to club that they just can't get rid of and always falls back on it?!

 

 

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[DPattGolf 1,624]

I bet its the offset on the TA5's compared to the RSi TP's

[DPattGolf 1,624]

I have a hard time getting rid of both my Titleist 913H.d 2 hybrid and 915F.d 3 wood despite both being decently older than everything else in my bag and being a bit beat up. 

[deejaid 3,939]

Very nice set of clubs. The Cleveland TA5 and TA7 are some of my all-time favorite irons. Good luck with them!

 

I've got a 1950's H&B putter I bought at a yard sale in 2004 for $5. I used it for years with great success. Then after returning to golf from a hiatus of a few years I was worried that I needed something modern.

 

Well, after trying high MOI, mallets, face balances, milled, etc; I finally put my H&B back in the bag two weeks ago and had my best putting round in a long time, including 5 consecutive 1-putts my last round.

 

Sometimes familiarity beats technology.

 

 

 

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[ConnorWade 9]

I bet its the offset on the TA5's compared to the RSi TP's

That and I think they built the TA5s with a touch black magic.

 

 

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[ConnorWade 9]

Very nice set of clubs. The Cleveland TA5 and TA7 are some of my all-time favorite irons. Good luck with them!

 

I've got a 1950's H&B putter I bought at a yard sale in 2004 for $5. I used it for years with great success. Then after returning to golf from a hiatus of a few years I was worried that I needed something modern.

 

Well, after trying high MOI, mallets, face balances, milled, etc; I finally put my H&B back in the bag two weeks ago and had my best putting round in a long time, including 5 consecutive 1-putts my last round.

 

Sometimes familiarity beats technology.

 

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Love it!! Sometimes it just needs to feel good to you and then nothing else matters!

 

 

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[PlaidJacket 7,725]

There's not a set of old irons I have that I'd want to go back to. Several reasons. Poorly fit to my current ability being the first reason. Secondly, some of my irons are 10-20 years old and like the clubs I've gotten older too. Lastly they are not as forgiving as my current set. Some too are old blades and I'm not about to touch those old beasts again.

[deejaid 3,939]

Love it!! Sometimes it just needs to feel good to you and then nothing else matters!

 

 

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Absolutely. I think with all equipment it's a matter of understanding how it works. Some clubs we just “get”, we know exactly how to swing them to make them perform. Many times we are told that a club is superior due to technological advances but we don't quite know how to swing it. Hence why I've played narrow sole irons my whole life.

 

 

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[ConnorWade 9]

Absolutely. I think with all equipment it's a matter of understanding how it works. Some clubs we just “get”, we know exactly how to swing them to make them perform. Many times we are told that a club is superior due to technological advances but we don't quite know how to swing it. Hence why I've played narrow sole irons my whole life.

 

 

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It's so easy to get sucked into the new clubs that are better than what you have. Makes you doubt what you play even if it works well for you. Sometimes if it ain't broke don't fix it!

 

 

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[revkev 22,895]

There's not a set of old irons I have that I'd want to go back to. Several reasons. Poorly fit to my current ability being the first reason. Secondly, some of my irons are 10-20 years old and like the clubs I've gotten older too. Lastly they are not as forgiving as my current set. Some too are old blades and I'm not about to touch those old beasts again.

I'm with this guy. If everyone wants to go back a decade or two with their irons Plaid and I will gladly take you on so long as we are all using are current handicaps.

 

The technology improved cements in irons make this a tough move. As someone observed it's more than likely that the OPs current set is not a good fit for his swing type.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[chemclub 1,025]

For me - it is the Maxfli Rev black. I still look at these in the garage with fond memories. Always put the ball where I wanted to with this set. It was never fit and is, in fact, 1" shorter than my current fitted irons. These were zero offset, my current set has some offset and I notice it.

[NiftyNiblick 1,972]

I'm with this guy. If everyone wants to go back a decade or two with their irons Plaid and I will gladly take you on so long as we are all using are current handicaps.

 

The technology improved cements in irons make this a tough move. As someone observed it's more than likely that the OPs current set is not a good fit for his swing type.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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An alternate view, Rev, is that golf club technology was mature  fifty years ago,

and if we want to modify that to thirty years ago,

I accept the premise immediately.

 

These companies have to release new models on schedule, and I absolutely don't believe that tech is coming close to advancing at the pace of the new release schedules. 

 

The TaylorMade CEO made that very admission on television about five or so years ago.

 

In all of sports,

 

both recreational sports and spectator sports entertainment,

 

every decision is decided on the criterion of what maximizes revenue; and that being the case,

then by definition, what's good for the sport is NOT the primary criterion.

 

The way real rather than manufactured demand for high end golf clubs would naturally exist,

new clubs wouldn't need to be made at all until they were ordered.

Used clubs would meet the demand for immediate club sales.

which, unfortunately for a great sport, is waning.

 

I'd love to see how fast golf club designs would evolve if they were all made to order

 

Just a view from a different place.

[chisag 12,155]

These companies have to release new models on schedule, and I absolutely don't believe that tech is coming close to advancing at the pace of the new release schedules. 

 

The TaylorMade CEO made that very admission on television about five or so years ago.

 

In all of sports,

 

both recreational sports and spectator sports entertainment,

 

every decision is decided on the criterion of what maximizes revenue; and that being the case,

then by definition, what's good for the sport is NOT the primary criterion.

 

 

 

... Nifty there is some truth to this, but every new club is a technical improvement over the last years clubs. Sometimes that technical improvement is so small it makes zero difference in performance. But sometimes it is a leap forward and those are the clubs that should be on someones radar if they are looking for new clubs.

 

... Contrary to popular belief, all OEMs do not make more money with a new generation of clubs. Often they lose money but it is a gamble they have to take. Talking with an OEM off the record so I cannot say which one, but was told the one year they did not release a new club they got killed in their global market because everyone has some version of the Hot List. And if your clubs are not on it, sales suffer. He said they would rather release new clubs every other year or even 3 to 4 years if their current club is really good and they have nothing new to challenge it. 

 

... He went on to show me clubs in the pipeline for the next 3 seasons. Next season was a minor tweak, mostly cosmetic but with a very small increase in some performance parameters. The 2nd year was still a tweak with again some cosmetic changes but he said they were continuing to test some variables to milk every once of performance out of that club. But the 3rd year was a new club with new technology they were still working on. Perfecting it takes time and he was sure that in 3 years it would be ready. And it was easy to see his passion for his clubs and the desire to give his customers something that will actually improve their game, so don't lump all new clubs or OEM's into one basket, especially the VP's of Engineering an Club Development that have zero to do with sales. 

 

... So a lot of what goes on behind the scenes is not as cut and dried as many would like to believe. TaylorMade released several new balls with some standard and typical marketing hype but when they came out with the TP5x they were off the charts excited and it was easy to tell this was very different than past marketing, because they knew this was not a tweak but a leap forward in ball performance. 

 

... All that said most irons, more so than other clubs, are not night and day different from irons quite a bit older. MSG just gave the top distance iron award to the Fourteen TC788 that is quite similar to the Rev Blacks already reference in this thread. They are both solid cavity back forgings with complete perimeter weighting for their design. And one thing often over looked is the confidence factor. If you have an older set of irons that are correctly fitted for you, and you love the performance and are very comfortable with using them, switching to a new irons can cause a loss in that confidence for a myriad of reasons. And improved performance never outweigh's a loss of confidence. Something ConnerWade is experiencing with his Clevelands. 

[BIG STU 7,642]

How much time do you guys have and how gigabytes does MGS have for me to list? I never get rid of my old stuff. Now I will concur that the biggest changes have been in shaft design. Now I will tell you my Callaway Forged do hit longer than my 80 Macs. Part of it is loft and part of it is shaft. Now on the metal persimmon end there is no contest the modern metals are longer I will admit. Now on metal versus metal fairways certainly steel is longer than persimmon  but sometimes newer is not better. I go back time and time again to those old V-Steel fairways. I get every one I can get my hands on. But yeah I love playing my vintage stuff for me it is all about the feel

[NiftyNiblick 1,972]

The new tech could be real, or it could be a long con.

It's fun to debate about it.

 

There are specific examples, however, that are very convincing to me.

 

One would be the Titleist PT metalwoods.

 

PTs  were introduced in 1992. 

 

They're shaped exactly like post WWII model persimmon or laminated  woods.

They had not yet acquired the larger, modern metalwood look.

The stock, flatter lie angles and minutely open face angles also mimic real wood offerings from the past.

 

When you set up behind the ball, the toe does not point to the sky.

Nobody is compensating for alleged "shaft droop" with the lie angle.

 

(I called BS on that the first time that i read the term, by the way. 

They didn't compensate for "lack of shaft droop" when they went from hickory to steel.

Then I actually saw "shaft droop" on high speed images and

comparing what my lying eyes saw  to what I actually experienced,

it was still BS as far as I was concerned.)

 

When I was younger and healthy, I absolutely smoked these metals.

I used the 13º  2-wood as my driver and routinely drove the ball with 230 yards plus of carry,

 

and while internet forum contributors seem to routinely drive the ball 285 yards (especially on the other forums),

I don't recall always being the first man playing second shot., Quite the contrary.

 

The ninth at pre-redesigned Middleton was a 225 yard pancake flat par three, unprotected directly in front,

and I never failed to reach it with the 17. 

 

In fact once, I had a little too much adrenaline and bounced my tee shot off the clubhouse deck directly behind the big ninth green. People sent their  beverages flying and really gave me the business over it.

 

Now they've had a quarter century to improve on that club.  People presently burn incense at the altar of the new Cobra F8s. for example.  But as long as I was still playing the game, the good engineers at Callaway and TaylorMade and Ping  couldn't come up with a damned thing to permanently knock those PTs out of my bag.

 

Even Ttleist themselves tried a through-bore version of the very same club a few years later and it wasn't as good from what I could tell.    I hit driving-iron looking line drives, losing carry, trying the through-bore PTs.

 

So now the question is, what hype do you believe over your own results?

[ConnorWade 9]

I'm with this guy. If everyone wants to go back a decade or two with their irons Plaid and I will gladly take you on so long as we are all using are current handicaps.

 

The technology improved cements in irons make this a tough move. As someone observed it's more than likely that the OPs current set is not a good fit for his swing type.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I'm never said that it's “better” I just find that sometimes I go back to it because it just works. I've shot 80 several times with both sets of irons so to say one is better than the other...? Just don't put to much stock into the clubs when the user is really all that matters in the end.

 

 

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[BIG STU 7,642]

The new tech could be real, or it could be a long con.

It's fun to debate about it.

 

There are specific examples, however, that are very convincing to me.

 

One would be the Titleist PT metalwoods.

 

PTs  were introduced in 1992. 

 

They're shaped exactly like post WWII model persimmon or laminated  woods.

They had not yet acquired the larger, modern metalwood look.

The stock, flatter lie angles and minutely open face angles also mimic real wood offerings from the past.

 

When you set up behind the ball, the toe does not point to the sky.

Nobody is compensating for alleged "shaft droop" with the lie angle.

 

(I called BS on that the first time that i read the term, by the way. 

They didn't compensate for "lack of shaft droop" when they went from hickory to steel.

Then I actually saw "shaft droop" on high speed images and

comparing what my lying eyes saw  to what I actually experienced,

it was still BS as far as I was concerned.)

 

When I was younger and healthy, I absolutely smoked these metals.

I used the 13º  2-wood as my driver and routinely drove the ball with 230 yards plus of carry,

 

and while internet forum contributors seem to routinely drive the ball 285 yards (especially on the other forums),

I don't recall always being the first man playing second shot., Quite the contrary.

 

The ninth at pre-redesigned Middleton was a 225 yard pancake flat par three, unprotected directly in front,

and I never failed to reach it with the 17. 

 

In fact once, I had a little too much adrenaline and bounced my tee shot off the clubhouse deck directly behind the big ninth green. People sent their  beverages flying and really gave me the business over it.

 

Now they've had a quarter century to improve on that club.  People presently burn incense at the alter of the new Cobra F8s. for example.  But as long as I was still playing the game, the good engineers at Callaway and TaylorMade and Ping  couldn't come up with a damned thing to permanently knock those PTs out of my bag.

 

Even Ttleist themselves tried a through-bore version of the very same club a few years later and it wasn't as good from what I could tell.    I hit driving-iron looking line drives, losing carry, trying the through-bore PTs.

 

So now the question is, what hype do you believe over your own results?

One of the Mods over on WRX went from modern back to vintage. He went to mid 70s Titleist Tour blades and you guessed it PT-13 woods. Today I payed strictly vintage with my 54 Hogan Precisions and a Persimmon Penna with a factory HM-40 graphite in it. I just got that Penna Tuesday and had never hit it until today. Man I was nutting that thing hitting some old Strata 90 Balata balls. Hit my old persimmon Mac DX woods too. I never carry a rangefinder when playing classic golf but estimated ( and I know that course well too) I was hitting with roll out and all about 250 with that driver. Of course this course just opened up and the fairways had sparse grass and were baked out so lots of roll. My wife and I played 36 shot 79 77 from 6100 yds at sea level. I beat the 3 Balata Stratas up pretty good the first 18 so I switched to the Wilson Duo for the second 18. Got a little more distance off the irons with the Duos but it was not really noticeable off the driver or fairways. this course has brand new greens and I was having to cut spin the short irons to get the ball to stop. Like I said I beat the Stratas pretty good but did not cut any of them

[NiftyNiblick 1,972]

By the time I was in my late 20s, not cutting balatas was no problem for me, Stu.

I just stopped playing them when the Top Flite came out!

 

Before that, though, i had many opportunities to see what rubber windings looked like.

[BIG STU 7,642]

By the time I was in my late 20s, not cutting balatas was no problem for me, Stu.

I just stopped playing them when the Top Flite came out!

 

Before that, though, i had many opportunities to see what rubber windings looked like.

Trust me I have put the smile on many a one especially with a butter knife 2 or 3 iron. When we were kids we used to find smiley ones all around the course and would hit them to hear the windings distengrate further and watch fome funky dying Quail flights. 

[chisag 12,155]

Trust me I have put the smile on many a one especially with a butter knife 2 or 3 iron. When we were kids we used to find smiley ones all around the course and would hit them to hear the windings distengrate further and watch fome funky dying Quail flights. 

 

... One of the HUGE differences in the game then and now was hitting a balata ball off the bottom of a persimmon driver produced a horrendous shot and of course put a smile in the ball. Today hitting a premium urethane ball off the bottom of a 460cc titanium driver produces a low bullet that travels farther in the air than it should and runs for miles so the only smiling that takes place is the drivee thinking about birdie.