DQOTD: Hollow Body vs Cavity Back e.g. Mizuno Pro 225 vs JPX921 Forged

[Middler]

So what should be the difference between a hollow body versus a cavity back - or better yet the two mentioned specifically? 

I tried my JPX900 Forged 7i versus the Mizuno Pro 225 7i (1 degree stronger loft) with the same shaft and my club head speed, spin, landing angle and peak height were the same. Ball speed was 1.7 higher and carry/total distance were 2-4 yards longer. Standard deviations on all categories were about the same. I couldn’t tell an appreciable difference in sound or feel. I even had the same number of throw outs with both models, interestingly misfits were about the same distance with both models.

But it’s always tough to make a judgement with one club in an indoor hitting bay with a dozen shots or so. I really like the look of the 225, but I’m not sure I can talk myself into them on looks and 2-4 yards alone. How would they be different in the wild after thousands of shots?

[bens197]

I am in the minority of folks who were not impressed with the 225 head.  I've watched the TXG videos among others where the head received high praise.  Going in blind, I'd hoped to add them as the 4 & 5 iron in the set of 223's I just ordered.  The lofts would have worked just fine and it could have blended quite well.

When it came to swings, different story...The numbers between 223 & 225 7 irons were nearly identical and didn't show much of an appreciable difference.

Where it lost me was the feel.  I felt like the 223 was a better feeling and more solid head and did not offer any significant forgiveness as a hollow-body head.

[cnosil]

18 minutes ago, Middler said:

So what should be the difference between a hollow body versus a cavity back - or better yet the two mentioned specifically? 

How would they be different in the wild after thousands of shots?

The differences would be subtle.  Hollow body clubs are generally multi piece and allow designers to do things they couldn’t normally due in a forged, milled, or cast head.  What you find is a more blade like look and the designers ability to better control forgiveness and spin.  You will probably see slightly higher ball speeds. The con would be the complaint of “hot spots” on the face causing inconsistent distances.  This applies to all hollow body vs cavity back designs not just Mizuno.
 

What you might see is slightly more consistent results over time with those thousands of shots.  You said standard deviations were about the same, but generally they aren’t going to be huge numbers (hopefully) so you’d have to have a decent size data set to compare the prior club to the new club and most people don’t have that data.  You mentioned 2-4 yards distance not being worth it, but what if you also narrowed dispersion both in distance and left/right by 2-4 yards…..which can only be determine with a larger dataset. 

[RickyBobby_PR]

Interesting that spin was the same. I would hav expected the 225 to generate a little less while also launching slightly higher.

The designs difference as mentioned above are to allow the manufacturers to move weight, CoG, influence sound and feel. 

The jpx900 were a nice upgrade from the previous release which imo just sucked. The 921 to me are an even better improvement. I haven’t been able to hit the 22x series yet but I think I prefer the jpx921 forged from a looks perspective. 

[Middler]

In reality it’s between the Mizuno Pro 225 and the JPX923 Forged for me. I’d be surprised if the latter will be a lot different than the 921F’s - and I didn’t like them better than my 900F’s (still all 1025E), same performance and if anything Chromoly was a hair harsher sound/feel.

[MWGolf23]

On 2/23/2022 at 9:42 AM, Middler said:

In reality it’s between the Mizuno Pro 225 and the JPX923 Forged for me. I’d be surprised if the latter will be a lot different than the 921F’s - and I didn’t like them better than my 900F’s (still all 1025E), same performance and if anything Chromoly was a hair harsher sound/feel.

Sounds to me like the 223s are a smaller, compact JPX forged.