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wdgolf Review - Dynacraft Prophet Tour CNC Forged Irons


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Link to the MGS review: http://www.mygolfspy.com/ultimate-review-dynacraft-prophet-tour-forged-irons/

 

Product Page: http://info.hirekogolf.com/dynacraft/prophet/prophet-tour-cnc-forged-irons/

 

 

Dynacraft Prophet Tour CNC Forged Irons

 

I've been gaming these irons since I built them in March 2011, but I think I may be the only forum member to play them so I thought they deserved a bit of additional attention. Most pictures were taken using my trusty Pentax K-X camera.

 

Shaft: Apollo Phantom S

Grip: Karma Jumbo White (+ 1/16")

Length: + 0.5"

Lie: Std (should be +2* flat)

 

Specs:

 

Dynacraft Specs.jpg

 

Did I mention my handicap is 19? Yeah, it's still there, which has pissed me off for some time, but my swing has gotten a helluva lot better. The 19 is more due to the amount of time I can play rather than anything else, given a week of straight golfing, I shoot in the low to mid 80s, two weeks off and I'm back in the mid 90s. I really hate this sport sometimes :D.

 

 

The Marketing Angle

 

The Dynacraft Prophet Tour CNC is a new concept in forged iron production techniques. We invested in tooling to create an entire set of raw forgings with the hosels spin welded onto the body. However, these raw forgings are dimensionally thicker and substantially overweight (a little more than 100g) with enough material that we could create a traditional blade, full cavity back or semi-cavity design by CNC milling the entire back. The key building block was to select the right shape, blade length, offset, and toe radius that more accomplished golfers would find timeless.

 

Once we finally selected that right shape, our next step was defining what the inaugural model would look like. The Dynacraft Prophet Tour CNC is a ¾ cavity with a defined toe area to complement the appearance of the investment cast 304 stainless steel Prophet Tour iron.

 

The fabrication starts with each raw head placed in a special fixture to hold it securely in place while a CNC machine precisely mills the entire back of the raw forging to form the cavity area. After the cavity is formed the milling doesn't stop there. One additional step creates a slight undercut cavity (what we call a Stability Slot) for a deeper weight distribution not possible with traditional forging techniques. This is also what provides its very distinctive appearance.

 

One of the other things we set out to accomplish was creating some game enhancement features into a player's blade. One way of accomplishing this feat was to shorter the hosel area and take that weight and reposition it so that the center of gravity would be in the center of the score line area to reward a well struck shot. Many players' blades today still have a heel biased, not to mention higher, center of gravity location requiring a player to hunt for the sweet spot.

 

Each groove is CNC milled to conform to the Rules of Golf.

 

 

How I tested

 

Performance wise it's very difficult to compare different irons when they're hit on the sweet spot, so rather than focus on distance or accuracy which can be highly skewed day by day due to the golfer swinging the club (me), I wanted to focus on forgiveness. To do so, I went to the driving range with a dry erase marker. After warm up, I drew a line on the ball so I could know exactly where on the club face I was making contact to determine the sweet spot and what happens when the sweet spot is missed.

 

Here are images illustrating three shots, one close the the heel, one smack on the sweet spot (go me), and one on the toe. I swear I was intentionally missing the sweet spot on the misses :).

 

2012-10-06_14-28-45_874.jpg 2012-10-06_14-26-43_431.jpg 2012-10-06_14-22-28_923.jpg

 

Yep, those are my size 13 feet wearing awesome Ecco street golf shoes.

 

Feel tests go hand in hand with forgiveness. How much does it hurt to miss and how nice does it feel to get perfect contact? In this regards, I did a head to head comparison with some Mizuno MP63 irons several months ago (link), but more on that later if you're too lazy to read the link...

 

 

Looks

 

These clubs are very compact, more so than most player's CB irons I've tried. Here's the good ol' club head against a ball picture to show this point:

 

IMGP3523.JPG

 

I'll say right now that I love the compact head, but that's where things end for me in terms of looks. After browsing so many golf stores and sampling out many, many different irons, I've come to the conclusion that these just don't compare to what the big guys produce. I have a theory as to why too, mainly while these are forged, they are also very reasonably priced compared to other clubs. Without getting ahead of myself too much, performance has never been an issue, but I think where Hireko had to cut costs was in the aesthetics. The lines are rather simple and sharp at times and the stamp on the back leaves much to be desired.

 

 

Sound & Feel

 

On the sweet spot, these things are fucking better than buttah. Hitting them just right makes you want to quit your job and try to become a pro. On the flip side, hit them poorly and you'll feel it. I've done side by side comparisons with MP63 irons and on those pure shots, I'd say the MP63 did come out ahead, but only by a very slim margin. Both felt pretty awful when hit off the toe or heel.

 

Other clubs I've tried: Adams CMB, Adams Pro a12, Adams CB3, Mizuno MP59, Mizuno MP53, and TM Tour Preferred. The Dynacrafts held their own to all but the MP59s and easily bested the TM TP and Adams CMB, though part of the reason for that was the shaft of the CMB.

 

 

Performance

 

Here's where I spent the most time. As I've said I've played these irons for two seasons. While the bug keeps biting at me to buy something new and shiny, I've always come back to my trusty Dynacrafts, thought the wear is starting to show on them. I'd estimate they have a total of 40 rounds and who knows how many driving range sessions.

 

As mentioned before, my focus was mainly on forgiveness, though I will go into a bit of ball flight. Here is a diagram of where I've decided the sweet spot was, based on ball flight, feel, distance traveled, and the mark left by the dry erase ink. Given a launch monitor I'm sure I could have been more scientific, but that wasn't available to me for these tests.

 

Dynacraft Sweet Spot.jpg

 

As I think I said, these are player's CB irons. The green circle is for those prefect shots. The yellow circle is where the forgiveness of the iron is helping you only lose a few yards. Quickly jumping back to feel, anything outside the green is noticable. Hit it outside of the yellow circle and you get a harsh impact and you're going to loose at least 10 yards on your shot, which was probably over water, or supposed to be over water.

 

With my current setup I hit the ball very very high. I also have very little trouble curving the ball, which I'm starting to think may not be in my best interest because my bad misses tend to be massive hooks. I won't pretend to know how much this has to do with the shaft, though I'm sure it plays a big factor. I've been fit for KBS Tour S using MP59 irons, which is a much lower launch shaft and about 30g heavier than the Apollo Phantoms. With that combo I seemed much more accurate and gained about 10 yards. Point is, while these heads are fantastic, if you get them, make sure you get the correct shaft.

 

In the hands of a very skilled player who knows how to work the ball, I can see these being deadly.

 

 

Conclusion

 

At $30 a clubhead or $45 base price assembled, these clubs are a fantastic price. Technology of irons boils down to a few things: feel, forgiveness, and aesthetics. These clubs may not be the best looking of the lot, but they hold their own very well compared to other player's cavity back models out there in terms of forgiveness. In the feel category these things are hard to beat.

 

IMGP3512.JPG

 

IMGP3515.JPG

 

IMGP3519.JPG

 

IMGP3520.JPG

 

IMGP3521.JPG

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Thanks, I'm considering this setup for next year, with a couple of questions:

 

1. If you were reshafting, would you go to something heavier? I'm not S300 material, but would like to play a player's CB, but not as heavy as TT DG.

 

2. How do you like the Dynacraft wedges? These have my eye, too.

 

Thanks,

Mike Garrard

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Nice review wd :)

 

I´ve got the Prophet Tour Forged with graphite shaft. Don´t even remember the shaft brand, just took the cheapest I could get :lol: Even with that shaft these irons are awesome. Pure feel on good strikes, but not an iron you want to play if you need help from the clubs to play golf.

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1. If you were reshafting, would you go to something heavier? I'm not S300 material, but would like to play a player's CB, but not as heavy as TT DG.

 

Once I reshaft I'm probably going to go with the KBS Tours, which are around 120g. I'm still debating with myself whether I want to get a more forgiving head though, so it'll be a while before I pull the trigger either way. I went to a Mizuno event months ago and used their shaft optimizer to help determine which shaft was best for me, since then I've tried S300s, Dynalites, KBS Tour 90s, and C Tapers and I always like the KBS Tours best.

 

The Phantoms or KBS Tour 90s may not be a bad option for you if you want slightly lighter than S300s and a mid ball flight. Choosing a shaft all depends on the person, how much load they put on the shaft and how high they hit the ball. As a general rule, someone who puts a lot of load on a shaft and hits the ball high should go with a heavier shaft and people with smoother tempos should go with lighter shafts. But there are a ton of caveats around that, so I'd highly recommend going to a fitter or trying the Mizuno shaft optimizer.

 

The optimizer isn't perfect, but from my experience it seems pretty good.

 

 

2. How do you like the Dynacraft wedges? These have my eye, too.

 

I love my wedges. I don't ever take huge divots, so I like that they're low bounce. The only thing I don't like is there is no 50* option, but I may just bend my current 52* to 50* and 56* to 55* so I even out the gaps between the wedges.

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Nice review wd :)

 

I´ve got the Prophet Tour Forged with graphite shaft. Don´t even remember the shaft brand, just took the cheapest I could get :lol: Even with that shaft these irons are awesome. Pure feel on good strikes, but not an iron you want to play if you need help from the clubs to play golf.

 

Thank you furu!

 

Couldn't agree more about the forgiveness. I may replace them next year with something more forgiving, but keep these things around for range sessions since you really know it when the ball isn't struck on the sweet spot.

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That´s actually exactly what i do :D I always have the 6i in my bag when I go to the range. If I feel that I´m not hitting the ball well I´ll take a few swings with it. It´s almost like using a Tour Striker :)

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That´s actually exactly what i do :D I always have the 6i in my bag when I go to the range. If I feel that I´m not hitting the ball well I´ll take a few swings with it. It´s almost like using a Tour Striker :)

 

I have one of those too, though I've focused so much on not flipping the club that I pretty much know when I do it. The tour striker works as a helpful confirmation of when I do it right or wrong, great club to have.

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1. If you were reshafting, would you go to something heavier? I'm not S300 material, but would like to play a player's CB, but not as heavy as TT DG.

 

The same happened to me. According to Mizuno, I needed a few more mph to fit the S300 properly, so the other 2 options were KBS Tour and PX. The KBS Tour felt much better than the PX to me.

I tried the KBS Tour 90 for fun, too light and too high-launching for my taste.

:cobra-small: SpeedZone 9* w/ Aldila Rogue Silver 60 S
:callaway-small: X2 Hot 3 Deep 14.5* w/ Aldila Tour Green 75 S
:taylormade-small: JetSpeed 5W 19* w/ Matrix Velox T 69 S OR :adams-small: Super LS 3H 19* w/ Kuro Kage Black 80 S
:mizuno-small: JPX919 Forged 4-PW w/ Modus3 105 S
:titelist-small: Vokey SM7 50/08F, 54/14F & 58/08M w/ Modus3 115 Wedge
:EVNROLL: ER1 34" w/ SuperStroke Fatso 2.0
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My reviews: MLA Putter // Titleist SM7 // PING i500 // PuttOUT

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Great review WD.

AJ

WITB

Driver: Ping G25

FW: TM RBZ

Irons: Miura 57 Series w/KBS C-Taper

Wedges: Vokey SM4 52-08,56-12,60-04

Putter: Watch This Space

Ball: SRixon Z Star

Other: Tourstriker 7i

 

"Go Hard or Go Home"

 

"Do or Do Not. There is NO "TRY"

 

"Be normal, and the crowd will accept you. Be deranged, and they will make you their leader"

 

"I don't fail. I succeed at finding what doesn't work"

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That's a pretty sweet review WD -- always thought Dynacraft/Hireko fell under the "if it sounds to good to be true" heading. Glad to know they make a quality club at a nice price. Thanks for posting...

 

What's in the bag:
 
Driver:  :titelist-small:TSR3; :wilson_staff_small: DynaPWR Carbon
FW Wood: :wilson_staff_small: DynaPWR 3-wood; :titleist-small: TSR 2+
Hybrids:  PXG Gen4 18-degree
Utility Irons: :srixon-small: ZX MkII 20* 
Irons:;  :Sub70:699/699 Pro V2 Combo; :wilson_staff_small: D9 Forged;  :macgregor-small:MT86 (coming soon!); :macgregor-small: VIP 1025 V-Foil MB/CB; 

Wedges:  :cleveland-small: RTX6 Zipcore
Putter: :cleveland-small: HB Soft Milled 10.5;  :scotty-small: Newport Special Select;  :edel-golf-1:  Willamette,  :bettinardi-small: BB8; :wilson-small: 8802; MATI Monto

Ball: :bridgestone-small: Tour B RXS; :srixon-small: Z-STAR Diamond; :wilson_staff_small: Triad

Stat Tracker/GPS Watch: :ShotScope:


 
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