Most Underrated Clubs

[marfau23]

Wanted to start this to hear the community’s opinion on what club sticks out in your mind as the most underrated or even which club is still your gamer despite technology allegedly passing it by a decade ago. 
 

For me, it’s my RBZ Stage 2 Tour 3-wood. Not sure what it is about that club but it still FLIES off the face and I haven’t found anything that is clearly superior. I HATE the look of it with the white crown and tacky graphics but it just performs for me. In an age of club fitting and really dialing things in, I think my off-the-shelf 3-wood will stay in play until it gives up on me. 

[slash25rc]

1 hour ago, marfau23 said:

For me, it’s my RBZ Stage 2 Tour 3-wood. Not sure what it is about that club but it still FLIES off the face and I haven’t found anything that is clearly superior. I HATE the look of it with the white crown and tacky graphics but it just performs for me. In an age of club fitting and really dialing things in, I think my off-the-shelf 3-wood will stay in play until it gives up on me. 

Big fan of the older TM woods! My wife still has an RBZ driver and I had a Sim2 3 wood that i recently parted with that I wish I hadn't of. My FIL has a Callaway Fusion 3 and 5 wood and I swear they are money. I think my favorite club I about ever had was a Callaway Big Bertha (from 90s) 9-wood that was passed down from my dad. Wasn't a shot you couldn't hit with it in the beginner 170-180 yard range. 

[Gravenor]

9 hours ago, marfau23 said:

Wanted to start this to hear the community’s opinion on what club sticks out in your mind as the most underrated or even which club is still your gamer despite technology allegedly passing it by a decade ago. 
 

For me, it’s my RBZ Stage 2 Tour 3-wood. Not sure what it is about that club but it still FLIES off the face and I haven’t found anything that is clearly superior. I HATE the look of it with the white crown and tacky graphics but it just performs for me. In an age of club fitting and really dialing things in, I think my off-the-shelf 3-wood will stay in play until it gives up on me. 

My underrated WITB:

 Driver: Nike Vapor Speed

 

 Fairway Woods: Taylormade R9

 

 

 Irons: Callaway Razr-X Forged

 

 Wedges: Ping Tour Gorge

 

 Putter: Yes! C-Groove

[marfau23]

28 minutes ago, Gravenor said:

My underrated WITB:

 Driver: Nike Vapor Speed

 

 Fairway Woods: Taylormade R9

 

 

 Irons: Callaway Razr-X Forged

 

 Wedges: Ping Tour Gorge

 

 Putter: Yes! C-Groove

Completely forgot about the R9 series! The R9 Supertri TP is probably the prettiest golf club ever made in my opinion. Great list and beautiful bag!

[Off Map Oscar]

Bombtech makes great clubs for the beginner 

[Donn lost in San Diego]

I will offer a few.  I recently picked up a New Old stock, 2021 Mizuno ES21, black on black, 58 x 08.  It did not catch on with the low hdcp and was probably overlooked by we duffers.  I love it for the 30 yard and less over the junk shot.

I also have 2 ancients: an original Hogan Sure Out sand wedge, 56 loft and a sole the size of Connecticut; and a Rat Pack era Don Martin up-n-in brass and copper, no groove, 25 degree chipper.  Martin and Stan Thompson (Ginty) were club makers in Palm Springs when the Sinatra gang were hot stuff there.

I also still have a 2012 Adams Speedline LP (low profile) 3 wood on the bright blue Radix Matrix shaft.  I use it more on the range, I have a newer Callaway, but there is something about this Adams that works for me.  The flat bottom makes it a confidence club off the fairway.  My 5h is a 2016 era Mizuno JPX Fly-hi and it works like a charm on the rare occasion I use it.

[BIG STU]

For me it is my old TM-V-Steel 7 wood. My go to club. Has been in the bag since new some 21 years now. Will not go anywhere unless it breaks or they pull it from my cold dead fingers

[BIG STU]

9 hours ago, Gravenor said:

My underrated WITB:

 Driver: Nike Vapor Speed

 

 Fairway Woods: Taylormade R9

 

 

 Irons: Callaway Razr-X Forged

 

 Wedges: Ping Tour Gorge

 

 Putter: Yes! C-Groove

Some great ones there---- MY Doc who is a golf bud still plays that exact driver and knocks the crap out of it. The yes! putter my wife putts with a Dianna I built for her. 

[Gravenor]

Just now, BIG STU said:

Some great ones there---- MY Doc who is a golf bud still plays that exact driver and knocks the crap out of it. The yes! putter my wife putts with a Dianna I built for her. 

The Vapor Speed driver is honestly fantastic and I never see it mentioned, genuinely an incredibly underrated club.

Yes! putters are also amazing, their whole lineup was pretty outstanding. 

[BIG STU]

1 hour ago, Donn lost in San Diego said:

I will offer a few.  I recently picked up a New Old stock, 2021 Mizuno ES21, black on black, 58 x 08.  It did not catch on with the low hdcp and was probably overlooked by we duffers.  I love it for the 30 yard and less over the junk shot.

I also have 2 ancients: an original Hogan Sure Out sand wedge, 56 loft and a sole the size of Connecticut; and a Rat Pack era Don Martin up-n-in brass and copper, no groove, 25 degree chipper.  Martin and Stan Thompson (Ginty) were club makers in Palm Springs when the Sinatra gang were hot stuff there.

I also still have a 2012 Adams Speedline LP (low profile) 3 wood on the bright blue Radix Matrix shaft.  I use it more on the range, I have a newer Callaway, but there is something about this Adams that works for me.  The flat bottom makes it a confidence club off the fairway.  My 5h is a 2016 era Mizuno JPX Fly-hi and it works like a charm on the rare occasion I use it.

I have quite a few Hogan wedges among them a Sure Out exactly like you described. Since I normally carry only 11 or 12 clubs as SOP I slip it in when I play neighboring courses with fluffy greenside bunkers. Yeah it is big and heavy with a lot of bounce but it does work

[RetiredBoomer]

On 9/12/2024 at 8:52 AM, marfau23 said:

Wanted to start this to hear the community’s opinion on what club sticks out in your mind as the most underrated or even which club is still your gamer despite technology allegedly passing it by a decade ago. 
 

 

2024 has been a very rare season for me--extraordinarily rare-- because except for my Tad Moore putter, I've played just about the entire season with brand new clubs.  My present bag didn't evolve in any normal way.   It exploded onto to the scene all at once, with a reboot here and there, but still, everything new the whole way.

Part of it is that I recovered from serious back injury and found myself unexpectedly able to play again.

Thus, I don't have any underrated clubs.  Everything I bought was rated pretty high with a price tag to match, unfortunately.

What I do have, however, is a vintage bag that I could bring out onto the grass right now. 
The clubs might feel a bit heavy, some of them, but I could definitely play them and enjoy them.

Ping Rapture V2 12° driver
Titleist PT 17° fairway metal
Top Flite Intimidator 400Ti     21°  and 25°  fairway metals.
Mizuno Fli Hi II___18° driving iron
Titleist DCI 962 [stainless steel] 5-PW
Cleveland 588__53°
Cleveland 691___58°.

No junk in these thirteen.  
All of them could play better than I could.
Almost everybody is back to forged now, even in modern, multi-piece, hollow irons,
but the stainless steel DCI 962s could find their way around a golf course.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Bossfan]

The Adams Super S line was pretty good. 

[Donn lost in San Diego]

2 hours ago, RetiredBoomer said:

2024 has been a very rare season for me--extraordinarily rare-- because except for my Tad Moore putter, I've played just about the entire season with brand new clubs.  My present bag didn't evolve in any normal way.   It exploded onto to the scene all at once, with a reboot here and there, but still, everything new the whole way.

Part of it is that I recovered from serious back injury and found myself unexpectedly able to play again.

Thus, I don't have any underrated clubs.  Everything I bought was rated pretty high with a price tag to match, unfortunately.

What I do have, however, is a vintage bag that I could bring out onto the grass right now. 
The clubs might feel a bit heavy, some of them, but I could definitely play them and enjoy them.

Ping Rapture V2 12° driver
Titleist PT 17° fairway metal
Top Flite Intimidator 400Ti     21°  and 25°  fairway metals.
Mizuno Fli Hi II___18° driving iron
Titleist DCI 962 [stainless steel] 5-PW
Cleveland 588__53°
Cleveland 691___58°.

No junk in these thirteen.  
All of them could play better than I could.
Almost everybody is back to forged now, even in modern, multi-piece, hollow irons,
but the stainless steel DCI 962s could find their way around a golf course.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Congrats on recovery.  from a retired boomer.  with a spine curved like pretzel.  I play golf in between injuries and arthritis repair surgeries.

[RetiredBoomer]

2 hours ago, Donn lost in San Diego said:

Congrats on recovery.  from a retired boomer.  with a spine curved like pretzel.  I play golf in between injuries and arthritis repair surgeries.

Hang in there, Donn.    At least you won't have snow interrupting your  determined comebacks.

[BIG STU]

7 hours ago, RetiredBoomer said:

2024 has been a very rare season for me--extraordinarily rare-- because except for my Tad Moore putter, I've played just about the entire season with brand new clubs.  My present bag didn't evolve in any normal way.   It exploded onto to the scene all at once, with a reboot here and there, but still, everything new the whole way.

Part of it is that I recovered from serious back injury and found myself unexpectedly able to play again.

Thus, I don't have any underrated clubs.  Everything I bought was rated pretty high with a price tag to match, unfortunately.

What I do have, however, is a vintage bag that I could bring out onto the grass right now. 
The clubs might feel a bit heavy, some of them, but I could definitely play them and enjoy them.

Ping Rapture V2 12° driver
Titleist PT 17° fairway metal
Top Flite Intimidator 400Ti     21°  and 25°  fairway metals.
Mizuno Fli Hi II___18° driving iron
Titleist DCI 962 [stainless steel] 5-PW
Cleveland 588__53°
Cleveland 691___58°.

No junk in these thirteen.  
All of them could play better than I could.
Almost everybody is back to forged now, even in modern, multi-piece, hollow irons,
but the stainless steel DCI 962s could find their way around a golf course.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes things just evolve. I know all about back injury. Broke both sides of the L-2 and collapsed the disc in an accident in 2020. Even though one side of the L-2 is fused I do pretty well. Had to revamp my swing and my game. Had to shorten the swing to be able to play and learned to deal with the reduced distance as a result. I played more modern graphite shafted irons for darn near 2 years. Back in the spring I had healed enough and had learned to throttle down enough to put my beloved VIPs with steel shafts back in the bag

[RetiredBoomer]

7 hours ago, BIG STU said:

Sometimes things just evolve. I know all about back injury. Broke both sides of the L-2 and collapsed the disc in an accident in 2020. Even though one side of the L-2 is fused I do pretty well. Had to revamp my swing and my game. Had to shorten the swing to be able to play and learned to deal with the reduced distance as a result. I played more modern graphite shafted irons for darn near 2 years. Back in the spring I had healed enough and had learned to throttle down enough to put my beloved VIPs with steel shafts back in the bag

MacGregor made them some sweet clubs in their day, didn't they?

[Donn lost in San Diego]

15 hours ago, RetiredBoomer said:

Hang in there, Donn.    At least you won't have snow interrupting your  determined comebacks.

Last night I wrote but didn't get to post:  retired boomer listening on a kilobuck vinyl LP stereo rig, to top shelf vinyl Jim Croce, Emerson Lake & Palmer, the under rated Scot Donovan Leitch.  I rested Joni Mitchell Blue, it is my #1 fav.  No punk, garage, no synth drum, just real people playing live their fav strings on a geetar, their own piano.

[Donn lost in San Diego]

11 hours ago, BIG STU said:

Sometimes things just evolve. I know all about back injury. Broke both sides of the L-2 and collapsed the disc in an accident in 2020. Even though one side of the L-2 is fused I do pretty well. Had to revamp my swing and my game. Had to shorten the swing to be able to play and learned to deal with the reduced distance as a result. I played more modern graphite shafted irons for darn near 2 years. Back in the spring I had healed enough and had learned to throttle down enough to put my beloved VIPs with steel shafts back in the bag

Big Stuuuu have you heard my pitch to learn Alexander Technique?  It is an excellent tool to re-learn the least misuse of skeletal/muscle movement, posture and balance.  Like slow motion yoga, easier than Pilates, easier to learn and practice than Tai Chi.

[zengineer]

On the internet, anything more than one year old.

[BIG STU]

14 hours ago, Donn lost in San Diego said:

Big Stuuuu have you heard my pitch to learn Alexander Technique?  It is an excellent tool to re-learn the least misuse of skeletal/muscle movement, posture and balance.  Like slow motion yoga, easier than Pilates, easier to learn and practice than Tai Chi.

Thanks you will have to let me in on that little tidbit

[BIG STU]

18 hours ago, RetiredBoomer said:

MacGregor made them some sweet clubs in their day, didn't they?

Oh absolutely. All of the American "Big 4" made great clubs back in the day. The possibilities were endless in those days too. All of those companies had extensive custom departments too. 

[BIG STU]

14 hours ago, Donn lost in San Diego said:

Last night I wrote but didn't get to post:  retired boomer listening on a kilobuck vinyl LP stereo rig, to top shelf vinyl Jim Croce, Emerson Lake & Palmer, the under rated Scot Donovan Leitch.  I rested Joni Mitchell Blue, it is my #1 fav.  No punk, garage, no synth drum, just real people playing live their fav strings on a geetar, their own piano.

Love ELP---- Welcome Back My Friends To The Show That Never Ends. If you notice vinyl is making a comeback

[RetiredBoomer]

5 hours ago, BIG STU said:

Oh absolutely. All of the American "Big 4" made great clubs back in the day. The possibilities were endless in those days too. All of those companies had extensive custom departments too. 

It was a lot easier to offer custom service on classic style clubs than on modern, multi-piece construction clubs.

Today we get the advanced tech at the cost of customization.  
They could lathe a wooden wood anyway they wanted.
They could grind a one-piece iron anyway they wanted.

That's simply not possible with high tech clubs.
I don't think the younger players completely comprehend this.
I can tell by their posts that every few generations
grow up in a totally different world.

[Donn lost in San Diego]

8 hours ago, BIG STU said:

Thanks you will have to let me in on that little tidbit

F. M. Alexander was a stage actor whose voice kept cracking when he was live on stage.  He spent 1000s of hours studying himself in the mirror.  He developed a method to re-train people on posture and movement.  You are taught very small incremental changes in how you stand, sit, and walk.  The changes become ingrained thru a few weeks of training, 1 or 2 x a week, an hour session, almost all teach in their own home on a P.T. table.  By retraining, we strain less, we unlearn habits that pit muscles against each other when they should be at rest.   It is simpler than 100s of yoga postures, it is slow motion yoga or pilates.  It is easier on the body and better long term than chiro because you become your own agent of change.  Many actors, singers, and dancer who seem to have perfect posture learned it.  I have Stacy Lewis amount of curved spine, but never had surgery.  I am susceptible to neck, back, and shoulder problems.  I had elbow nerve totally trapped by scar tissue.  Was on disability 3 years.  It took 2 surgeries to get rid of the scar tissue.  I went from that to become a wine salesman, lugging a 20 pound bag of wine bottles, and throwing cases in and out of the car.  And I golf.  My swing speed is limited because the core muscles just are not able to move that fast, but I reach mid 80s mph but NO PAIN, except arthritis.  3 arthritis surgeries so far: knee, thumb, toe.  All successful.  Look up Alexander Technique on the web.  They are all low key, few advertise, they don't over- promise.  

He was from Australia and then moved to London, died in 1950.  My teacher 25 years ago was an elderly and very spry Brit woman who learned from Alexander when she was a in her 20s.

From their UK website:  There is an impressive list of world famous actors who have recommended the Technique; Dame Judi Dench, Alan Rickman, Sir Ian McKellen, Lenny Henry, Kenneth Branagh, Jesse Eisenberg, Jennifer Saunders, Hilary Swank, Julie Andrews, Stephen Dillane to name but a few.

[Donn lost in San Diego]

8 hours ago, BIG STU said:

Thanks you will have to let me in on that little tidbit

Here is a great summary from acting magazine .com

The Basics of the Alexander Technique

Before delving into its benefits for actors, let’s briefly recap the fundamental principles of the Alexander Technique:

Awareness: The technique places a strong emphasis on heightened self-awareness, allowing practitioners to recognize and address habits of tension and poor posture.

Inhibition: Inhibition, a key concept, enables individuals to pause and withhold automatic responses. It empowers them to interrupt habitual reactions, fostering the ability to choose more beneficial patterns of movement and thought.

Direction: Mental directions are used to guide the body into healthier, more efficient states. These directions encourage the release of tension and the restoration of natural coordination.

Primary Control: The Alexander Technique focuses on the primary control of the head-neck-spine relationship, which can positively impact the entire body’s alignment and function.

[KC Golf]

On 9/13/2024 at 4:22 PM, RetiredBoomer said:

2024 has been a very rare season for me--extraordinarily rare-- because except for my Tad Moore putter, I've played just about the entire season with brand new clubs.  My present bag didn't evolve in any normal way.   It exploded onto to the scene all at once, with a reboot here and there, but still, everything new the whole way.

Part of it is that I recovered from serious back injury and found myself unexpectedly able to play again.

Thus, I don't have any underrated clubs.  Everything I bought was rated pretty high with a price tag to match, unfortunately.

What I do have, however, is a vintage bag that I could bring out onto the grass right now. 
The clubs might feel a bit heavy, some of them, but I could definitely play them and enjoy them.

Ping Rapture V2 12° driver
Titleist PT 17° fairway metal
Top Flite Intimidator 400Ti     21°  and 25°  fairway metals.
Mizuno Fli Hi II___18° driving iron
Titleist DCI 962 [stainless steel] 5-PW
Cleveland 588__53°
Cleveland 691___58°.

No junk in these thirteen.  
All of them could play better than I could.
Almost everybody is back to forged now, even in modern, multi-piece, hollow irons,
but the stainless steel DCI 962s could find their way around a golf course.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back in the day DCIs were lights out great when this game improvement category was still relatively new.

[BIG STU]

19 hours ago, RetiredBoomer said:

It was a lot easier to offer custom service on classic style clubs than on modern, multi-piece construction clubs.

Today we get the advanced tech at the cost of customization.  
They could lathe a wooden wood anyway they wanted.
They could grind a one-piece iron anyway they wanted.

That's simply not possible with high tech clubs.
I don't think the younger players completely comprehend this.
I can tell by their posts that every few generations
grow up in a totally different world.

Well now it is the difference between night and day. Back then clubs were forged in the good old USA out of good old American steel. All of the Big 4 had skilled craftsmen hand grinding clubs too. Now days the quality of steel is not as good as it once was IMHO with different alloys etc. I do not think anyone forges clubs anymore in the USA. Today you have totally differently engineered clubs and processes. But then again things change. I can see it because I still play hickory shafted forged clubs too. Today clubs are more mass produced because you have more people playing golf and purchasing clubs than ever in the history of golf. 

A lot of it I have always said on the club end is the era one learned the game in and the equipment they learned with. I play with the type of equipment I learned with. I absolutely will not push the fact that the old blades work for me over someone playing more modern CBs.

Yeah I still play full vintage rounds with either my 1955 Hogan Irons or 1962 MacGregor CF-4000s and persimmon woods along with some kind of vintage putter. Do not care about the score there or trying to prove anything to myself or anyone else. I just enjoy doing it. Fact is I still played persimmon woods front line until like 02 or so. I was the last man standing on the SE Mini Tours with persimmon in the bag. 

Today looking at my signature you will see what I have posted is what I play darn near every day in my league and small money games. I am not trying to prove anything to anybody that is just the stuff I am familiar with and want to play

[CPP]

On 9/12/2024 at 8:52 AM, marfau23 said:

RBZ Stage 2 Tour 3-wood

Never used one of those, like you I just couldn't handle the white.  But one of my fav 3 woods in the M6 3 in 16 degrees, with a Project Evenflow MaxD 5.5. 

Edited September 16 by CPP

[braincramp]

On 9/13/2024 at 3:49 AM, BIG STU said:

I have quite a few Hogan wedges among them a Sure Out exactly like you described. Since I normally carry only 11 or 12 clubs as SOP I slip it in when I play neighboring courses with fluffy greenside bunkers. Yeah it is big and heavy with a lot of bounce but it does work

The Hogan Sure Out might be one of the best sand wedges ever along with the original ping Glide 58ES. 

[RetiredBoomer]

29 minutes ago, braincramp said:

The Hogan Sure Out might be one of the best sand wedges ever along with the original ping Glide 58ES. 

If you were looking for a specialty sand wedge that you weren't going to try to hit from a tight grass lie,
there were many semi-mongrel brands that worked really well--Lovett, Tiger Shark, Alien, Concave, etc.
Even Callaway made an excellent hickory-shafted 59° that was killer in sand.
The Wilson R-90 was a classic for decades.  The current Cleveland Smart Sole works well.

If you want to use a sand wedge of any loft that's very playable from turf, however,
you're going to need technique... and there's no getting away from it.