Toura Golf Irons Build Test: 2024 Forum Review

[ctg44]

1 hour ago, JRDuck40 said:

 

My putter on the other hand, was not to be found. I three putted the first two holes, 3 3-putts as well. To be fair, the greens were rock hard and lightening fast. Still not excuse for the trash putting. 

Onward.  

I finally had my rebuilt putter checked for specs compared to it's original build specs after my old Costco-bought (and since returned) pull cart failed to stay in "brake" mode and rolled down a hill, over a rock, and my putter ended up bent last year.  Golf Galaxy supposedly rebuilt it to the original specs and it felt pretty close, but I have had this nagging feeling this summer something was off.  I went into PGA Tour Superstore Saturday morning to use the simulator because I wasn't going to get to the course that day due to having 3 hockey games to ref later on.  After my sim session, there was no one in line for their free putter fitting sessions, so I "signed in" and went through the process.  Turns out my putter was 3° toe up in lie angle and had 2° too much loft.  Since it's one of the Sik brand putters with Descending Loft Technology, having 5° of loft instead of 3° to start was a real problem, and having it at a 72° lie angle meant I was dealing with it being REALLY toe up all year.  No wonder I was hitting everything off the heel and leaving them short.

 

At any rate, the guy took it to their Mitchell machine and fixed it, and boom, I was back to draining everything, especially the 3-6' putts where I'd been struggling the most lately.  Their SAM putt lab device confirmed my putter was a good fit for me too, which is not surprising giving my normal strokes-gained putting is usually 2-3 per round against the average scratch golfer (though I'm currently FAR from scratch myself despite normally being a really good putter).  Hopefully, this will help me get back to averaging under 28 putts a round like I was last year before the cart accident.

I can't recommend getting your putter looked at and adjusted for you enough.   Just knowing I have it back to the right settings for me is confidence-inspiring and I can't wait to get it on the course.  I will say though, I was pleasantly surprised how well I putted with the Odyssey Ai-ONE #7 Cruiser.  I've never been a fan of, A) mallet putters in general, and B) armlock or counter-balanced putters at all, but this one was pretty nice.  Still, I didn't putt any better with it than I did my Sik with the PP58 corded grip, so why mess with what I know works (especially now that it's set properly again...begging the question of why I was so dumb that I didn't get that checked all summer...ugh!).

[JRDuck40]

37 minutes ago, ctg44 said:

I finally had my rebuilt putter checked for specs compared to it's original build specs after my old Costco-bought (and since returned) pull cart failed to stay in "brake" mode and rolled down a hill, over a rock, and my putter ended up bent last year.  Golf Galaxy supposedly rebuilt it to the original specs and it felt pretty close, but I have had this nagging feeling this summer something was off.  I went into PGA Tour Superstore Saturday morning to use the simulator because I wasn't going to get to the course that day due to having 3 hockey games to ref later on.  After my sim session, there was no one in line for their free putter fitting sessions, so I "signed in" and went through the process.  Turns out my putter was 3° toe up in lie angle and had 2° too much loft.  Since it's one of the Sik brand putters with Descending Loft Technology, having 5° of loft instead of 3° to start was a real problem, and having it at a 72° lie angle meant I was dealing with it being REALLY toe up all year.  No wonder I was hitting everything off the heel and leaving them short.

 

At any rate, the guy took it to their Mitchell machine and fixed it, and boom, I was back to draining everything, especially the 3-6' putts where I'd been struggling the most lately.  Their SAM putt lab device confirmed my putter was a good fit for me too, which is not surprising giving my normal strokes-gained putting is usually 2-3 per round against the average scratch golfer (though I'm currently FAR from scratch myself despite normally being a really good putter).  Hopefully, this will help me get back to averaging under 28 putts a round like I was last year before the cart accident.

I can't recommend getting your putter looked at and adjusted for you enough.   Just knowing I have it back to the right settings for me is confidence-inspiring and I can't wait to get it on the course.  I will say though, I was pleasantly surprised how well I putted with the Odyssey Ai-ONE #7 Cruiser.  I've never been a fan of, A) mallet putters in general, and B) armlock or counter-balanced putters at all, but this one was pretty nice.  Still, I didn't putt any better with it than I did my Sik with the PP58 corded grip, so why mess with what I know works (especially now that it's set properly again...begging the question of why I was so dumb that I didn't get that checked all summer...ugh!).

That's not a bad idea. And to be 100% honest, I have never gone through a proper putter fitting. I know, I know. It's the one club you use the most. You cannot short change yourself and not be fit for a putter. That's my next BIG thing to take care of. At the moment, I'm just trying to log as much outdoor golf as humanly possible in the next few weeks. I have a very bad suspicion that the snow will be flying sooner than later in / around MKE. 

@azstu324 - LOVE that idea! It's not all that crazy of a contraption. Should be able to build it from all the scrap I have lying around the garage. Love that idea! 

 

[ctg44]

9 minutes ago, JRDuck40 said:

That's not a bad idea. And to be 100% honest, I have never gone through a proper putter fitting. I know, I know. It's the one club you use the most. You cannot short change yourself and not be fit for a putter. That's my next BIG thing to take care of. At the moment, I'm just trying to log as much outdoor golf as humanly possible in the next few weeks. I have a very bad suspicion that the snow will be flying sooner than later in / around MKE. 

@azstu324 - LOVE that idea! It's not all that crazy of a contraption. Should be able to build it from all the scrap I have lying around the garage. Love that idea! 

 

Yeah, my son finally got assigned to the MSP last week, so he's looking for places to play there that are decent and cheap (because he's 19 and USA Hockey doesn't pay officials who are trying to make it to the pro hockey ranks very much) before he gets super busy with non-stop game schedules and the weather gets nasty.  Then again, he's as much of a golf sicko as I am, so as long as the course is open, he'll play in any weather.

[JRDuck40]

@ctg44 I spent a ton of time up in / around MLPS in my early 20s. TON of great tracks around. Only issue is finding a tee time. U of M course is legit cool! https://golf.umn.edu/

Gross National is another fun track. My favorite around there is Edinburgh GC. It's a bit of a drive, but totally worth it. 

 

[ctg44]

3 minutes ago, JRDuck40 said:

@ctg44 I spent a ton of time up in / around MLPS in my early 20s. TON of great tracks around. Only issue is finding a tee time. U of M course is legit cool! https://golf.umn.edu/

Gross National is another fun track. My favorite around there is Edinburgh GC. It's a bit of a drive, but totally worth it. 

 

Thank you!  I passed those onto him.  We'll see whether he has time to get out onto the course each week, as he has mandatory skating sessions on Tuesdays and is usually recovering from the very long weekends of working physical hockey 3 games in 3 cities in 3 nights with 3-4 hour drives each way on Mondays.  He might need to get himself a PGA Tour Superstore Players' Club Plus membership too, as that's a great way to get on a simulator cheaply and frequently.

[ctg44]

One thing I have decided for the fall is that I need to rebuild my strength after 2 minor injuries from being absolutely killed by kids who are just big enough to take me out and can't skate falling at the absolute last second while skating at full speed about 3 weeks apart in September.  The 1st left me with a nasty sprained wrist and the 2nd with a sprained shoulder.  Neither were so bad that I couldn't stretch / tape / prep the injury well and still get out on the golf course a little bit, but iron play, particularly full swing iron shots, have been very hard for the past month.

Unfortunately, even after I shortened the @Toura Golf CB irons, they were still too heavy for me with the sore wrist and shoulder the past weekend, so I think I'm going to accelerate my search for graphite shafts this winter, as my elbows aren't getting any younger, and if they're going to keep getting abused when I'm reffing hockey, I'd better not add to it when hitting hundreds of golf balls a week.  Until I find something suitable to be able to properly set up the Touras, I'm going to leave them on the shelf for a few weeks and play the TaylorMade P7MCs, which are a lot less stressful on my wrists and elbows, even though they're similar in shaft length and also have X100 steel shafts, mainly because the P7MC heads are noticeably lighter than the Touras are club to club.  I know that he loved the feel of the CBs with his Recoil shafts, and my wife loves her Mizuno 923s with Recoil shafts, so maybe I will look at the Dart 105 shafts like I have in my P790 UDI and try 1-2 of those in a couple of the Touras.

[ctg44]

Well, as fate usually has it, almost as soon as I posted the above message, I was on GolfWRX during lunch and saw someone post 2 sets of SteelFiber shafts that were basically the exact setup I was looking at a few weeks ago in a set of irons at PGA SS.  Since I didn't really want to buy new irons, but just find the right shaft for the @Toura Golf CB irons, I didn't really want to buy THEIR heads, strip those shafts, and then deal with reselling their heads...so I left the clubs to A) save my butt with the wife, and B) because they were overpriced for the amount of effort it would all take.  Today's find was a total of 13 shafts in good condition, 6 of which were pured, for $250 shipped to my door...or ya know, about 1/4 of the cost of buy that many SteelFiber shafts elsewhere.  Even decent used 5-PW sets that weren't pured were going for $250 on eBay this week, so to get the 4-PW and 5-PW sets both for that and have 1 of them be pured too, well, yeah, I wasn't going to pass that up.  

So I guess I know what I'm doing next Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon after work!

 

Now, to make the REALLY hard decision - do the pured ones go in the @Toura Golf CBs or the P7MCs? and which one gets a random shaft left in the PW? Hmmm...maybe I just do the pured ones in the Touras for now, use the 4 iron shaft from the 2nd set to build the Toura 4 iron, and go from there.

 

So folks, on a good note, it looks like we're going to get to revive the "build" part of this thread.  Need to find some ferrules to put on the new shafts before they get here next week.  Thinking of something that goes with the rusty / raw look of the Toura CBs better than the Red / White / Blue BB&F Co ones do, and can get here fast enough to be able to build them starting next Tuesday...which basically means Amazon....I don't want to do a totally boring option, and I don't want to do a collared ferrule, but definitely still want something that has some quality to it.  Anyone have any ideas?  

This is about all I've found and I'm leaning a little towards thinking these are on the boring end:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D3PQMTST/?th=1

[ctg44]

So, to clarify, the Amazon link is the option I can get in time to rebuild the irons next week, and the picture is my current Toura Build in case anyone is coming into this thread late.

 

[azstu324]

7 hours ago, ctg44 said:

Well, as fate usually has it, almost as soon as I posted the above message, I was on GolfWRX during lunch and saw someone post 2 sets of SteelFiber shafts that were basically the exact setup I was looking at a few weeks ago in a set of irons at PGA SS.  Since I didn't really want to buy new irons, but just find the right shaft for the @Toura Golf CB irons, I didn't really want to buy THEIR heads, strip those shafts, and then deal with reselling their heads...so I left the clubs to A) save my butt with the wife, and B) because they were overpriced for the amount of effort it would all take.  Today's find was a total of 13 shafts in good condition, 6 of which were pured, for $250 shipped to my door...or ya know, about 1/4 of the cost of buy that many SteelFiber shafts elsewhere.  Even decent used 5-PW sets that weren't pured were going for $250 on eBay this week, so to get the 4-PW and 5-PW sets both for that and have 1 of them be pured too, well, yeah, I wasn't going to pass that up.  

So I guess I know what I'm doing next Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon after work!

 

Now, to make the REALLY hard decision - do the pured ones go in the @Toura Golf CBs or the P7MCs? and which one gets a random shaft left in the PW? Hmmm...maybe I just do the pured ones in the Touras for now, use the 4 iron shaft from the 2nd set to build the Toura 4 iron, and go from there.

 

So folks, on a good note, it looks like we're going to get to revive the "build" part of this thread.  Need to find some ferrules to put on the new shafts before they get here next week.  Thinking of something that goes with the rusty / raw look of the Toura CBs better than the Red / White / Blue BB&F Co ones do, and can get here fast enough to be able to build them starting next Tuesday...which basically means Amazon....I don't want to do a totally boring option, and I don't want to do a collared ferrule, but definitely still want something that has some quality to it.  Anyone have any ideas?  

This is about all I've found and I'm leaning a little towards thinking these are on the boring end:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D3PQMTST/?th=1

As for the pured shafts, I've heard (don't take this as any type of validity) lol, that with good graphite, especially with shafts like the Steelfibers, the tolerances are so incredibly tight and precise, that Puring really doesn't do much. With steel it can be a different story, but even those are way tighter than they were when the Puring machine was created. So my answer.. it probably wouldn't matter which set they go I .

As for the ferrules, BB&F is probably the move. They have way more options than anyone else and surely something to go with the patina on the irons. 

Lastly, there's no shame in the graphite game brother! I switched last month and love it! 

 

 

Edited October 4 by azstu324

[ctg44]

I just grabbed a couple of sets of those that I linked from Amazon. If I hate them when I get them, Amazon will get them back and I will just have to wait for some to come in from BB&F.

[ctg44]

The more I think about the ferrules though, the more I'm not sure on using anything from Amazon.  I've struggled with just about every ferrule I've ever bought from there before, and with graphite shafts in the mix, I really (REALLY) don't want to risk having to heat things back up to pull a bad ferrule install off and start over....sooooo, here's my list of options from BB&F Co. following my original gut instinct and the recommendation from @azstu324:  

These are roughly in the order I'm thinking of, but I'm really not sure if the 1st one is too "busy."  Looking for some feedback from the MGS team on what would go w/ my rusty @Toura Golf CBs the best without beingTOO flashy and yet not being TOO boring / bland (and I'm not fan of bright red, orange, gold, yellow, or brown, so those are kind of out).  Yeah, I'm being kind of annoyingly picky here, I know!

 

The goal is a clean / classic look, but do want them also to keep the high-quality, custom look they have now (other than the rustiness, ya know):

• https://bbandfco.com/collections/fresh-designs/products/eleven-angry-men
• 
• https://bbandfco.com/collections/fresh-designs/products/haunted-1
• 
• https://bbandfco.com/collections/standards-1/products/balgove
• 
• https://bbandfco.com/collections/standards-1/products/empire
• 
• https://bbandfco.com/collections/standards-1/products/fife
• 
• https://bbandfco.com/collections/standards-1/products/hooch
• 
• https://bbandfco.com/collections/fresh-designs/products/grayskull
• 
• https://bbandfco.com/collections/standards-1/products/negative-1
• 

[GolfSpy_APH]

2 minutes ago, ctg44 said:

The more I think about the ferrules though, the more I'm not sure on using anything from Amazon.  I've struggled with just about every ferrule I've ever bought from there before, and with graphite shafts in the mix, I really (REALLY) don't want to risk having to heat things back up to pull a bad ferrule install off and start over....sooooo, here's my list of options from BB&F Co. following my original gut instinct and the recommendation from @azstu324:  

These are roughly in the order I'm thinking of, but I'm really not sure if the 1st one is too "busy."  Looking for some feedback from the MGS team on what would go w/ my rusty @Toura Golf CBs the best without beingTOO flashy and yet not being TOO boring / bland (and I'm not fan of bright red, orange, gold, yellow, or brown, so those are kind of out).  Yeah, I'm being kind of annoyingly picky here, I know!

 

The goal is a clean / classic look, but do want them also to keep the high-quality, custom look they have now (other than the rustiness, ya know):

• https://bbandfco.com/collections/fresh-designs/products/eleven-angry-men
• 
• https://bbandfco.com/collections/fresh-designs/products/haunted-1
• 
• https://bbandfco.com/collections/standards-1/products/balgove
• 
• https://bbandfco.com/collections/standards-1/products/empire
• 
• https://bbandfco.com/collections/standards-1/products/fife
• 
• https://bbandfco.com/collections/standards-1/products/hooch
• 
• https://bbandfco.com/collections/fresh-designs/products/grayskull
• 
• https://bbandfco.com/collections/standards-1/products/negative-1
• 

Second go last with just a little bit of gold.

Yeah Amazon has been real hit or miss and had to do work work them in order to get them to fit on more than one occasion.

Temu same thing, but love the multi colored options they have.

[ctg44]

14 minutes ago, GolfSpy_APH said:

Second go last with just a little bit of gold.

Yeah Amazon has been real hit or miss and had to do work work them in order to get them to fit on more than one occasion.

Temu same thing, but love the multi colored options they have.

Yeah, that 2nd to last one does grab the accent colors of the Steelfiber shafts a bit, doesn't it.  Might be moving up the list a bit.  It's also on their fast delivery list, so there's that...

[azstu324]

46 minutes ago, ctg44 said:

The more I think about the ferrules though, the more I'm not sure on using anything from Amazon.  I've struggled with just about every ferrule I've ever bought from there before, and with graphite shafts in the mix, I really (REALLY) don't want to risk having to heat things back up to pull a bad ferrule install off and start over....sooooo, here's my list of options from BB&F Co. following my original gut instinct and the recommendation from @azstu324:  

These are roughly in the order I'm thinking of, but I'm really not sure if the 1st one is too "busy."  Looking for some feedback from the MGS team on what would go w/ my rusty @Toura Golf CBs the best without beingTOO flashy and yet not being TOO boring / bland (and I'm not fan of bright red, orange, gold, yellow, or brown, so those are kind of out).  Yeah, I'm being kind of annoyingly picky here, I know!

 

The goal is a clean / classic look, but do want them also to keep the high-quality, custom look they have now (other than the rustiness, ya know):

• https://bbandfco.com/collections/fresh-designs/products/eleven-angry-men
• 
• https://bbandfco.com/collections/fresh-designs/products/haunted-1
• 
• https://bbandfco.com/collections/standards-1/products/balgove
• 
• https://bbandfco.com/collections/standards-1/products/empire
• 
• https://bbandfco.com/collections/standards-1/products/fife
• 
• https://bbandfco.com/collections/standards-1/products/hooch
• 
• https://bbandfco.com/collections/fresh-designs/products/grayskull
• 
• https://bbandfco.com/collections/standards-1/products/negative-1
• 

I love the blue/gray (my 2 favorite colors) 

2nd from the bottom with the copper/gold accent ring is also pretty sweet. 

There.. my $.02

[ctg44]

3 hours ago, azstu324 said:

I love the blue/gray (my 2 favorite colors) 

2nd from the bottom with the copper/gold accent ring is also pretty sweet. 

There.. my $.02

Yeah, I'm thinking these are going to be the winners:  https://bbandfco.com/collections/fresh-designs/products/haunted-1 

Going to send back the ones from Amazon when the arrive....

[Javs]

4 hours ago, ctg44 said:

The more I think about the ferrules though, the more I'm not sure on using anything from Amazon.  I've struggled with just about every ferrule I've ever bought from there before, and with graphite shafts in the mix, I really (REALLY) don't want to risk having to heat things back up to pull a bad ferrule install off and start over....sooooo, here's my list of options from BB&F Co. following my original gut instinct and the recommendation from @azstu324:  

These are roughly in the order I'm thinking of, but I'm really not sure if the 1st one is too "busy."  Looking for some feedback from the MGS team on what would go w/ my rusty @Toura Golf CBs the best without beingTOO flashy and yet not being TOO boring / bland (and I'm not fan of bright red, orange, gold, yellow, or brown, so those are kind of out).  Yeah, I'm being kind of annoyingly picky here, I know!

 

The goal is a clean / classic look, but do want them also to keep the high-quality, custom look they have now (other than the rustiness, ya know):

• https://bbandfco.com/collections/fresh-designs/products/eleven-angry-men
• 
• https://bbandfco.com/collections/fresh-designs/products/haunted-1
• 
• https://bbandfco.com/collections/standards-1/products/balgove
• 
• https://bbandfco.com/collections/standards-1/products/empire
• 
• https://bbandfco.com/collections/standards-1/products/fife
• 
• https://bbandfco.com/collections/standards-1/products/hooch
• 
• https://bbandfco.com/collections/fresh-designs/products/grayskull
• 
• https://bbandfco.com/collections/standards-1/products/negative-1
• 

My vote is the second from the last. 

[ctg44]

Went with the Bonaventure ferrules:  https://bbandfco.com/collections/fresh-designs/products/haunted-1

I couldn't resist keeping some blue in the mix. It's my favorite color by a long margin, and I think it will pair well with the new shafts and the raw heads. I dropped them off to be rebent back to standard lie angles yesterday, but I decided to have them bent 1° strong to see if I could work out some of the lack of distance / excessive height issues I had with them even with the X100 shafts. 

 

Before I dropped off the irons yesterday, I began the process of trying to round off the sharp leading edge that was digging in too much here in our weird mix of soils in Texas.  Our courses don't drain well having been silted over with some Caliche clay on multiple occasions over the past 3 years when the large creek that runs through the course (hence the name of the club, Walnut Creek Country Club) flooded badly.  That means that they could either have hard as concrete ground under the Bermuda or soft and squishy silt, depending on what the weather's been doing.  I am looking for just a little relief similar to what the Ben Hogan or Srixon irons have with their "v-sole" leading edge setup.  I couldn't find my angle grinder, and doing anything across a bunch of clubs w/ a Dremel tool is going to be a no-go, so I'll need to find the grinder when the irons come back before I continue on that.

[Shrek74]

On 10/4/2024 at 3:51 PM, ctg44 said:

The more I think about the ferrules though, the more I'm not sure on using anything from Amazon.  I've struggled with just about every ferrule I've ever bought from there before, and with graphite shafts in the mix, I really (REALLY) don't want to risk having to heat things back up to pull a bad ferrule install off and start over....sooooo, here's my list of options from BB&F Co. following my original gut instinct and the recommendation from @azstu324:  

These are roughly in the order I'm thinking of, but I'm really not sure if the 1st one is too "busy."  Looking for some feedback from the MGS team on what would go w/ my rusty @Toura Golf CBs the best without beingTOO flashy and yet not being TOO boring / bland (and I'm not fan of bright red, orange, gold, yellow, or brown, so those are kind of out).  Yeah, I'm being kind of annoyingly picky here, I know!

 

The goal is a clean / classic look, but do want them also to keep the high-quality, custom look they have now (other than the rustiness, ya know):

• https://bbandfco.com/collections/fresh-designs/products/eleven-angry-men
• 
• https://bbandfco.com/collections/fresh-designs/products/haunted-1
• 
• https://bbandfco.com/collections/standards-1/products/balgove
• 
• https://bbandfco.com/collections/standards-1/products/empire
• 
• https://bbandfco.com/collections/standards-1/products/fife
• 
• https://bbandfco.com/collections/standards-1/products/hooch
• 
• https://bbandfco.com/collections/fresh-designs/products/grayskull
• 
• https://bbandfco.com/collections/standards-1/products/negative-1
• 

Grayskull. With that bit of copper, it goes well with the rusted heads.

[JRDuck40]

I'm totally going with the Evening Shadow for any new build! All of their options are sweet. Thanks for sharing @ctg44!

Good luck with the updated build. I'm leaning to doing the same as well in the 'off-season'. Probably going with KBS Tour white as an option. Just need to flip a few items in the back-up bag to finance the pivot. 

https://kbsgolfshafts.com/product/custom-plus-irons/

Also, played yesterday in tornado like conditions. 40+ MPS gusts. Driver was fire! Loving this new Qi10. Just couldn't roll a putt to save my life. Still, in the conditions, I was not all that disappointed with a 87. 

[ctg44]

3 hours ago, Shrek74 said:

Grayskull. With that bit of copper, it goes well with the rusted heads.

Yeah, that was a very (VERY) close 2nd.  In the end, I couldn't pass up having something in the build with blue in it.  I also use the TaylorMade / Golf Pride ZGRIP Plus2 grips that are blue and gray (see link below), so there's a lot of symmetry w/ the ferrules I chose I think.  The fact that the i125CW shafts are one of the SteelFiber options w/o any gold in them and are basically dark gray and silver also steered me towards those instead of the ones w/ gold in them.  

https://www.golfgalaxy.com/p/golf-pride-zgrip-plus2-swing-grip-24gprumsynrgyzgrpgrp/24gprumsynrgyzgrpgrp

 

[ctg44]

I got the SteelFiber shafts in yesterday that I found on the GolfWRX BST forum last week for less than 1/3 of the list price.  I prepped everything as much as possible last night, other than I found that 1 of the "premium" GolfWorks extensions they sent was a .560 version instead of a .470 version.  There's NO way I can sand that down to .440 or so to fit into the top of a SteelFiber i125CW shaft.  Fortunately, their customer service is great, and they're shipping me the correct one for the last shaft that would need an extension.  I have removed the old grips, grip tape, and got the epoxy residue from all of the shafts, and just need to do 1 more quick check of the tip sections to make sure they're free of paint and ready for insertion.  

 

I also turned my orbital sander upside down, used some soft rubber pads to wedge it into my vise, and stabilized that with some clamps so that I could use a few 80-grit and 120-grit sanding pads to wear down some of the leading edge of the @Toura Golf CB irons to clean up some of the digging issues I've had.  I rounded the edge off like it is on my P7MCs, and from the initial testing I did with the PW at Golf Galaxy last night, the ground interaction seems smoother and much improved.  I had GG bend the irons back to standard lie angles and adjust them to be about 1° strong to try and claw back that 1/2 a club of distance I lose between these and the P7MCs.  The grinding I did on the PW seemed to balance out the swing weight some, too.  I need to put it on the scale before I build it and compare it to when I first got the clubs to see how much I took off.  I went through and cleaned all of the heads thoroughly, used some CLR to get them smooth and clear, and then wrapped them in a damp paper towel and placed them inside a sealed plastic bag.  I'll go ahead and reclean inside the hosels before the build process to make sure there's no rust or contamination down inside of there.

 

I just need to decide whether to use the "pured" shafts or the other shafts in the Toura irons...and how to do the wedges.  I think I'm going to use the 4-PW set for the Touras, and then go through the "pured" shafts and basically use them as "hard stepped" options in my Edison wedges.  I have to find exactly how much to take off the shafts sanding-wise to make sure I don't get them too thin, but so that the epoxy has a good surface to which it an adhere.  With steel, that's super simple....not always the case with graphite shafts.

 

Going to do at least the 4-PW in the @Toura Golf CBs tonight, but probably my 50 / 55 / 60 Edison wedges too.  Just have to hope UPS actually shows up with the BB&F ferrules today like they said they were yesterday before a mechanical issue delayed the package, since I won't have any time to build these this weekend with officiating 13 youth hockey games for a major tournament that's in town (yes, my old @** feet are going to be dead come Monday morning!).

 

The sad news is that my left shoulder, elbow, and wrist are all still really sore from the fall I took officiating a hockey game 2 1/2 weeks ago (knocked down from behind by a bender who can't skate while a kid blindly cleared a puck that almost hit me in the head, causing me to not be balanced when I got hit), and I'm going to have to go see an orthopedic surgeon next week.  I'm a little worried that at least the elbow is going to need a procedure done on it before it will heal...BOO!  The elbow tends to swell up a lot when I hit balls, etc.

Edited October 9 by ctg44

[ctg44]

Spent all of last night RECLEANING the heads because the little "advanced rusting" experiment was a failure of epic proportions.  I think it probably had something to do with using tap water on paper towels in the bag, as the clubs did rust as expected in some spots, but others had mineral deposits on them that were hard to remove, even with MEK, alcohol, or very light sanding (like 800 or 2000 grit sandpaper).  However, since my ear infection woke me up again stupid early this morning and I couldn't go back to sleep, I got up, finished prepping the shafts, and have extensions in the shafts that need them.  I decided to go ahead and go 4-LW in the shafts and will see how the standard iron shafts work in the wedges.  Since I've been playing X100s in both my irons and wedges for the majority of 2024, and was using a MMT125TX PW shaft in my 50, 55, and 60 wedges when I had my Mizunos with those same shafts, I figure it shouldn't be a hard transition.  The good news is that I only and going to need about 1/4" of these extensions I'm installing, so there's little risk of me feeling them moving around at the top of the club, especially since I went ahead and used the full-strength DP8410NS epoxy to install them.

 

Now to decide if I want to leave the "P" stickers on the pured shafts.  It kind of goes against the clean build style of using the @Toura Golf CB irons in the 1st place, so I'll probably mark them up under the grips w/ a paint pen (that won't rub off w/ alcohol or grip solvent easily) and take off the stickers.  Time to grab some breakfast and decide if I want to build any of these irons out this morning.  If I were to be able to get them built before work, I could conceivably at least go hit some balls with them tomorrow during the day, since I'm taking the day off to "rest" since I'm working 13 hockey games as an official this weekend.  I'm not about to go try and play a round or anything, but a little range time couldn't hurt, eh?  

[ctg44]

Well, I  couldn't resist building all 10 clubs...

Little sneak preview...

[ctg44]

I will say my OCD is probably going to drive me a little insane looking down at those pured clubs that don't have the logos straight down from the grips.  It took every fiber of my being to not say "screw it" and just install them straight in... 

 

I did make 1 mistake in my haste this morning in that I forgot to take the bare shafts that were literally taped together with painter's tape to the X100 shafts I'd pulled from the Touras and use those as a measuring template for the new shafts.  Oh well.  I guess I have a chance to properly fit myself to each club based on where my hands properly fall on the shaft. 

[JRDuck40]

10 hours ago, ctg44 said:

Well, I  couldn't resist building all 10 clubs...

Little sneak preview...

Please let me know how the steel fiber goes. Very, very, very interested in how those perform.

[ctg44]

So here are the rebuilt clubs on AeroTech SteelFiber i125cw Stiff Flex shafts. Most have a small (1/4-3/8") Golfworks extension in them to get these to the right length. I cleaned the rust off to start the rebuild to make sure that I had a solid bond with the shafts and the 3M DP8410NS epoxy I used this time. After the clubs were scrubbed down a D before they were built, they were all wiped down with rubbing alcohol and MEK-alternative solvent (since Home Depot doesn't sell MEK around here any more).

I won't have much time this weekend to test these out with having to officiate 13 hockey games as part of a huge tournament that's in town, but I do plan to get to the range for a little bit tomorrow at some point.

 

 

[ctg44]

Initial range session went well, if not a little confusing on the numbers my Swing Caddie SC300 was giving me.  Balls hit with the PW or 9 iron and having what looked like a 40ish degree descent angle were showing carry / total distance (rollout distance) gaps of 10-12 yards. Even on the concrete hard greens on our Pecan Course, those would have sat within a few feet of the landing spot...1-2 yards of rollout tops.

 

At any rate, I hit 250 balls this morning (most off of the mats) with elbows and a shoulder both already very sore from my hockey officiating injury 3 weeks ago and don't notice any extra soreness 12 hours later,  so maybe there is something to this graphite vibration reduction thing...

[ctg44]

I got in a quick 9 holes on a local public course yesterday since our club was closed (normally open on holiday Mondays,  but not this week).  I hit the @Toura Golf CBs with the newly-installed SteelFiber shafts about 5-6 times, and most notably into holes 4, 7, and 8 (par 4 and par 3).  On 4, I had a side-hill / uphill lie (the best I could do even with a drop) after a 3W into the penalty area.  I hit 8i into the green and it spun back to me about 4'.  The wind was about 10 mph and seemed to be swirling a bit throughout the 9-holes.  On 7, I hit a PW about 125 into the wind that landed about 12' from the pin and spun back to 15'.  On 8, I was downwind and went just past the pin...and unfortunately, did not get the spin back down the hill, because even with a very light touch on my 1st putt, it still ran by about 4' making my par putt a lot harder.  I didn't need the Touras on 9 because I drove it 365ish into the greenside bunker.  To be fair, it was also downwind, and the green is about 15-20' below the tee, with the bunker another 10' lower than that.  

 

I will say that after a couple of quick range sessions and 9 holes, I'm pretty impressed with the SteelFiber shafts in the Touras.  They are a marked upgrade over the entry-level (non-Tour Issue) X100s in the Touras before.

[ctg44]

Also, even in my Edison wedges, the SteelFiber shafts are a big improvement.

 

One other thing: I am using GolfPad as my GPS / shot tracking right now, and they have these little low-profile tags that are smaller than the Arccos tags that go on the end of your clubs. Even better, the end of the tag has a lip under it where I was able to fit a little over 2 grams of tungsten tape, making the tags weigh 4.5 grams on average and helping balance the swing weight just enough for me.  I do plan to do a little more leading edge grinding on some of the irons, but that'll have to wait until next week.

[ctg44]

As part of the above comment about grinding on the leading edge, I'd reached out to JB @Toura Golf to get the stock weights of the CB heads.  From 4-PW, the stock weights are (in grams):

  4    /   5   /   6   /   7  /   8   /   9   /  PW
252 / 259 / 266 / 273 / 280 / 287 / 295

My iron heads weighed the following after the initial grinding / cleaning and before rebuilding last week:

   4    /   5   /   6   /   7  /   8   /   9   /  PW

251 / 258 / 265 / 273 / 278 / 286 / 291

 

I would say it's not a coincidence that I have found that the 2 clubs w/ the most removed to be the best feeling and the best for turf interaction so far (8 iron / PW) and the one with basically nothing removed (7 iron) to feel the worst.