Blade irons for practice?

[G56788]

I recently read an article where the author said he gamed a set of cavity back or similarly forgiving irons, but that he purchased a set of blade irons to use for practice to improve his ball striking. He said that his ball striking became much more consistent after practicing with the blades because of the feedback they provided on each shot. Just wondering, has anyone tried doing this? What were the results?

[GolfSpy_APH]

1 minute ago, Golfer56744 said:

I recently read an article where the author said he gamed a set of cavity back or similarly forgiving irons, but that he purchased a set of blade irons to use for practice to improve his ball striking. He said that his ball striking became much more consistent after practicing with the blades because of the feedback they provided on each shot. Just wondering, has anyone tried doing this? What were the results?

I had blades (still do, but now as wall hangers) as gamers and I can't say it helped that much. 

Altho i think in theory it could work, the different swing weights or feels could be a factor. It would not only just be the heads, but also shafts and grips that would need to match which could be tricky. 

I would imagine other forms of training could be better and cheaper even just foot spray to see where you are hitting may be of greater benefit.

[MacTourney]

8 minutes ago, Golfer56744 said:

He said that his ball striking became much more consistent after practicing with the blades because of the feedback they provided on each shot. Just wondering, has anyone tried doing this?

No doubt in my mind it works but is still an ongoing debate.   Swinging a stiff crowbar is still the best way to bang your way out of a barn. 

[GolfSpy TCB]

I employ this technique... but with a caveat.  I played blades for 25+ years, so for me it is taking it back to basics to re-groove my swing.   Most of those years I played the MP33's, but I now have a set of MP68's that I pull out for range sessions and some on-course practice.  One of the things I use them for is to manage my swing path.  With the blade, even a solid center contact with a bad path will DEFINITELY accentuate my standard fault (outside in path resulting in a weak fade/slice or a dead pull).  Technology of PD and GI clubs help me with that as well... but I prefer to not place a band-aid on my swing wound... and try to address the root cause (This is my Tim Root Cause Analysis  ).  I also usually pick up one of my blades when I'm swinging on my home range... as I'm not as focused on distance (the traditional lofts of the MP68's compared to my current gamers are from two different worlds regarding distance - but I'm not here to debate that, haha).  

If I can groove the butter feel with the blades, I have more confidence when I head out to the course with my gamers.  

I am constantly battling the distance vs. feel argument in my head.  I would have no issue gaming the blades, other than the fact I have lost so much swing speed in my ripe old age, my gapping distances are all bunched together between 95 and 155.  The GI irons give me some more spread and I can get out into the 180-190 range without having to put a 2 iron knife in my bag.  Also, I have grown to appreciate the all the help the GI irons give me in the middle of the round when I make a bad swing.  So, I have pretty much committed to the blades being my practice set when needed, rather than putting them into play for scoring.  

That is my approach, anyway.  YMMV.

 

[G56788]

1 hour ago, GolfSpy_APH said:

I would imagine other forms of training could be better and cheaper even just foot spray to see where you are hitting may be of greater benefit.

1 hour ago, Golfspy_TCB said:

One of the things I use them for is to manage my swing path.  With the blade, even a solid center contact with a bad path will DEFINITELY accentuate my standard fault (outside in path resulting in a weak fade/slice or a dead pull).  Technology of PD and GI clubs help me with that as well... but I prefer to not place a band-aid on my swing wound…

 

Maybe that’s the value in having blades for these purposes—to address a swing flaw in the same way you would with another training aid or, if they are an old set, to see how your swing stacks up over the years. 

[Will_Mac]

Most I've read, vehemently claim it not to work. But I did it years ago with Hogan Apex PC blades and it seemed to work very well for me. Like using a restricter golf hole insert or shooting hoops into a smaller rim, making clean contact harder, I found that it helped to hone a shorter and more efficient swing over time.

I'd consider it again as my swing has become long and sloppy but my back has been so bad and for so long, I hardly bother with practice anymore.

[chisag]

... I really hate this idea. I always have. As much as we would like to think it can be simple, the golf swing is such a complicated movement demanding all body parts work together to be most successful. That includes your clubs. When you add controlling distance, spin and trajectory, all paramount to hitting it close, I have always felt practice should be with the same clubs you play. Not only because you want to hit the same shots on the course that you do on the range, you also want to build ultimate confidence in the irons you play. In an ideal world you would hit your irons so much learning exactly how they perform with any given swing from full to 3/4 to knockdowns that hitting another iron would feel awkward. LOL, I know a foreign thought on a golf forum. But you don't learn to have ultimate control of your ball flight be hitting different irons on the range. So the more you can hit your irons the better. One of my favorite golf commercials is Tiger controlling his ball flight:

 

 

[AntLockyer]

I ended up with a theory. That blades and x100s was a self fulfilling prophecy. Everyone who plays them is good because of the club not the other way round.

I was playing a cavity back with a light nippon shaft. I bought a titleist mb 7 iron with x100 and took it to the range.

A bucket of ball later and my body had organised itself to make nice swings with it. Several weeks of daily practice and I basically couldn't go back to the lightweight and clunky heads.

When I got fitted I said I'd lay whatever gives me the best result and that ended up being a heavy shaft in an MB head.

If people don't practice constantly I cam see why it wouldn't work but for any true golf junky I think it's worth trying.

[russtopherb]

This type of thinking always baffles me. If you want to get better a bike riding, you don't ride a 30" unicycle to "practice". If you want to get better at baseball, you don't use a heavy wooden bat or a tiny glove to "practice".  People who actively make things harder on themselves astound me. 

[MacTourney]

2 hours ago, russtopherb said:

This type of thinking always baffles me. If you want to get better a bike riding, you don't ride a 30" unicycle to "practice". If you want to get better at baseball, you don't use a heavy wooden bat or a tiny glove to "practice".  People who actively make things harder on themselves astound me. 

I wore ankle weights once and became faster, stronger, and probably used better technique when running.     As an aside since you referenced ball,  the best way to teach kids how to field a ground ball is not by changing glove sizes it's by using no glove at all since it tends to bring forth an instinct to use two hands instead of just the glove hand.  The glove is just a luxury within the game, just like having14 clubs in the sack is a luxury too. 

The size of the club is not really the main issue, it's the dead weight, shaft behavior, club head design, and what skills are brought to the table by the player.  

Edited January 2, 2023 by MacTourney

[chisag]

1 hour ago, MacTourney said:

I wore ankle weights once and became faster, stronger, and probably used better technique.

 

... I get it but you are talking about a training device. Equated to golf your example is like weighted clubs for speed training to increase speed. With all due respect to Allen Iverson, when you practice using a different club that is more difficult to hit you are using the same technique and swing you will play on the course. You aren't strengthening muscles or increasing speed or range of motion or hitting a small face with a bent shaft  forcing someone that flips to make contact with their hands ahead at impact or a myriad of other attributes a training device is trying to accomplish. But you are never hitting shots with the swing you will use when playing. When you practice, you want to hone the exact skills you will use on the course, not gain a physical attribute. 

... Most probably remember Tiger taking the illegal drop at the Masters because moving back 2 yards gave him a perfect distance to hit his wedge. 2 yards! And his pitch mark was right by the whole, skipping forward then spinning back for a tap in. This is exactly what everyone of us should aspire to and you get that kind of precision by knowing exactly how your club performs because you have hit thousands of shots with it. Obviously Tiger is on a completely different level of play and many here may be happy to just be on the green so the parameters are different but the concept is the same. The last thing anyone should want is hitting a MB for practice that flights the ball a little lower with more spin then face that same shot with a GI or SGI that launches higher with less spin. Clichés are cliches for a reason and Perfect Practice Makes Perfect is one of them.   

[russtopherb]

49 minutes ago, MacTourney said:

I wore ankle weights once and became faster, stronger, and probably used better technique when running.     As an aside since you referenced ball,  the best way to teach kids how to field a ground ball is not by changing glove sizes it's by using no glove at all since it tends to bring forth an instinct to use two hands instead of just the glove hand.  The glove is just a luxury within the game, just like having14 clubs in the sack is a luxury too. 

The size of the club is not really the main issue, it's the dead weight, shaft behavior, club head design, and what skills are brought to the table by the player.  

[MacTourney]

32 minutes ago, chisag said:

When you practice, you want to hone the exact skills you will use on the course, not gain a physical attribute. 

This could become an epic thread  but I won't carry this out too much further as it seems like a debate without end.    But while reading your comments Forest Gump came to mind with his leg braces- attached weight that produced range of motion limitations  with the desired goal being a correct path forward.   I don't feel blades are any harder to hit to begin with, they are more penal in my opinion but not any harder to put the exact same move with upon the ball as any other iron club in hand, in fact I think it helps to see how weight affects path.   It's mostly all shaft anyway. 

Edited January 2, 2023 by MacTourney

[chisag]

10 minutes ago, MacTourney said:

  I don't feel blades are any harder to hit to begin with, they are more penal in my opinion but not any harder to put the exact same move with upon the ball as any other iron club in hand.

This could become an epic thread  but I won't carry this out too much further as it seems like a debate without end. 

 

... While we disagree on this as in my world more penal is by definition harder to hit, that isn't my point. I think you would admit a MB produces a different shot than many players irons and certainly very different than GI's and SGI's. I believe everyone should practice with the same clubs they use on the course and the more the better. Interestingly I never hear anyone recommend hitting ugly SGI's on the range when they normally play MB's so they can practice more aggressive and freer swings. But "training" is different than practicing and if someone wants to use an MB to train themselves to make better contact (again over looking the fact that can be accomplished with any iron) without regards to spin, trajectory distance or accuracy but just a pure training device, I can at least understand that rationale as a mental influence.  

... And as long as these kinds of debates are friendly and respectful, they are hopefully informative for others reading our comments that don't always join in. 

[RickyBobby_PR]

A clue that’s harder to hit doesn’t fix a swing fault. One doesn’t go from and inside rolled takeaway to an on plane takeaway because they have blades. One doesn’t go from over the top to and in to our swing because they have blades.

The whole argument if it makes me concentrate more it’s malarkey. You should be concentrating on every shot regardless of what club is in your hands 

now it’s possible that the weight and balance of the club impacts the way the golfer moves their body so if changing the club, shaft and feel of the club does that it could happens with a cb, players distance, gi or sgi club.

[MacTourney]

Bradley Hughes had a great first-hand, as I recall, account from Price or Faldo, about just one of the differences between muscle backs and cavity backs.  

Their best shot, in terms of strike location precision and shot result, with a muscle back felt like a 10 and their worst shot with a muscle back felt like a 4, whereas their best shot with a cavity back felt like a 9 and their worst shot with a cavity back felt like a 7.  The difference being a more diluted sweet spot on the cavity back didn't transfer feedback as directly as a muscle back does for a direct smack into it- more mass, more feel.  

The bottom line, on a Sunday afternoon coming down the stretch the difference between having a 10, or a 9, as the outcome potential for your strike quality directly in your own hands can mean the difference between receiving a first or second place check. 

 

Edited January 2, 2023 by MacTourney

[RickyBobby_PR]

2 hours ago, MacTourney said:

Bradley Hughes had a great first-hand, as I recall, account from Price or Faldo, about just one of the differences between muscle backs and cavity backs.  

Their best shot, in terms of strike location precision and shot result, with a muscle back felt like a 10 and their worst shot with a muscle back felt like a 4, whereas their best shot with a cavity back felt like a 9 and their worst shot with a cavity back felt like a 7.  The difference being a more diluted sweet spot on the cavity back didn't transfer feedback as directly as a muscle back does for a direct smack into it- more mass, more feel.  

The bottom line, on a Sunday afternoon coming down the stretch the difference between having a 10, or a 9, as the outcome potential for your strike quality directly in your own hands can mean the difference between receiving a first or second place check. 

 

Irrelevant to practicing with a blade to get better especially as pointed out by others that you should be practicing what you are playing with.

Also there are many pros not playing muscle nada including some of the best in the world. There’s a large number playing i210 or moving to i230 which are more of a GI club.

The number one iron on tour was the AP2 and now is the T100. 

[MacTourney]

42 minutes ago, RickyBobby_PR said:

Irrelevant to practicing with a blade to get better especially as pointed out by others that you should be practicing what you are playing with.

You might be in the minority section on that one, I know Tiger occasionally practices with a persimmon wood when he has trouble finding the no-roll point, although it's a wood to iron comparison for practice purposes it's still in the same neighborhood as a mechanism for improvement,  so it's hardly irrelevant in my estimation.   

Edited January 2, 2023 by MacTourney

[MacTourney]

18 hours ago, chisag said:

 

 

One of my favorite videos and not the easiest for me to find searching for it a few years ago.    I always kinda wondered if Nike had second thoughts about the commercial fearing some kids would find a building somewhere and have at it under cover of darkness.    Looks like fun, I think I could get it done with a little practice.    Any information on distance to building and club he used. 

[silver & black]

6 hours ago, RickyBobby_PR said:

A clue that’s harder to hit doesn’t fix a swing fault. One doesn’t go from and inside rolled takeaway to an on plane takeaway because they have blades. One doesn’t go from over the top to and in to our swing because they have blades.

The whole argument if it makes me concentrate more it’s malarkey. You should be concentrating on every shot regardless of what club is in your hands 

now it’s possible that the weight and balance of the club impacts the way the golfer moves their body so if changing the club, shaft and feel of the club does that it could happens with a cb, players distance, gi or sgi club.

I 100% agree with this. I play MP64's..... a semi, quasi blade? They are catagorized as players' cavity backs. To me, they are more muscle backs than anything, although, there is a slight cavity in them. 

I hit them just fine. Could there be more 'forgiveness'? Maybe/probably. I can say with full confidence that any problem I have is not because the irons are 'blade like'. They are because I have swing flaws.

[russtopherb]

1 hour ago, MacTourney said:

You might be in the minority section on that one, I know Tiger occasionally practices with a persimmon wood when he has trouble finding the no-roll point, although it's a wood to iron comparison for practice purposes it's still in the same neighborhood as a mechanism for improvement,  so it's hardly irrelevant in my estimation.   

What a PGA professional practices with has absolutely no relevance at all with what 99.99% of the other golfers in the world practice with.

Go back up to this comment, read it again, and then read it a few more times for good measure.

 

[MacTourney]

No need to read again, I'm thinking OP's question has been addressed, and maybe he's drawn his own conclusion.  

[RickyBobby_PR]

1 hour ago, MacTourney said:

You might be in the minority section on that one, I know Tiger occasionally practices with a persimmon wood when he has trouble finding the no-roll point, although it's a wood to iron comparison for practice purposes it's still in the same neighborhood as a mechanism for improvement,  so it's hardly irrelevant in my estimation.   

Comparing what Tiger does or any top level tour pro to any non high level amateur is irrelevant. The majority of amateur golfers especially those who wonder if practicing with a blade will make them better have swing flaws that a blade Isn’t going to fix. 
 

Theres been threads on multiple forums with this same topic and most people say it’s not going to make a golfer better.

[chisag]

1 hour ago, MacTourney said:

One of my favorite videos and not the easiest for me to find searching for it a few years ago.    I always kinda wondered if Nike had second thoughts about the commercial fearing some kids would find a building somewhere and have at it under cover of darkness.    Looks like fun, I think I could get it done with a little practice.    Any information on distance to building and club he used. 

 

... Sorry, but no idea on distance or club used. I do remember Tiger talking about the execution saying it was one continuous take, not "photo shopped" as some thought. I have little doubt I could do it, but odds of accomplishing it in 3 consecutive swings is very, very, very small. 

[G56788]

34 minutes ago, MacTourney said:

No need to read again, I'm thinking OP's question has been addressed, and maybe he's drawn his own conclusion.  

All things being equal, I tend to believe that finding ways to make the game harder in practice makes me a better golfer. There’s no hiding a mishit on a blade. That’s why I was curious. I didn’t mean to suggest that anyone should never hit their gamers in practice or that a blade will fix all swing flaws. 

[RickyBobby_PR]

11 minutes ago, Golfer56744 said:

All things being equal, I tend to believe that finding ways to make the game harder in practice makes me a better golfer. There’s no hiding a mishit on a blade. That’s why I was curious. I didn’t mean to suggest that anyone should never hit their gamers in practice or that a blade will fix all swing flaws. 

There’s no hiding a mishit with any club, designs just make them less penalizing. But if one hits off the toe on their shots does that person know why and what needs to be done to fix it? 
 

You want to make practice harder then practice with a purpose. Hit balls to specific targets instead of just beating balls or aiming straight down the range.

Hit different shots with each club. Heck do tigers 9 shot drill.

[G56788]

27 minutes ago, RickyBobby_PR said:

Heck do tigers 9 shot drill.

I’d need a blade to work the ball like that…

[RickyBobby_PR]

3 minutes ago, Golfer56744 said:

I’d need a blade to work the ball like that…

Why?
 

Ball flight laws don’t change with the club. All that you need is to adjust your stance to manipulate the path. Easier to do than trying to do it with hands. As for the the higher and lower shots change the ball placement. 

[MacTourney]

1 hour ago, Golfer56744 said:

All things being equal, I tend to believe that finding ways to make the game harder in practice makes me a better golfer. There’s no hiding a mishit on a blade. That’s why I was curious. I didn’t mean to suggest that anyone should never hit their gamers in practice or that a blade will fix all swing flaws. 

Exactly.  If you're thinking about landing a blade club, or two, for practice I recommend something before 1980 with a longer hosel, plenty of stuff on Ebay for cheap.   Also try to get a similar shaft weight/flex you currently use and/or pull the shafts and install a good shaft for you, and you're good to go.   The blade tends to encourage more of a mass and path event, and a CB tends to encourage more of face event.  Any questions shoot me a personal message. 

[russtopherb]

11 hours ago, Golfer56744 said:

All things being equal, I tend to believe that finding ways to make the game harder in practice makes me a better golfer. There’s no hiding a mishit on a blade. That’s why I was curious. I didn’t mean to suggest that anyone should never hit their gamers in practice or that a blade will fix all swing flaws. 

I believe I look just like Chris Evans.

Doesn't make it true, though.