What a difference!

[sigfan2340]

Recently I switched my irons from TaylorMade 2.0's to Mizuno JPX800HD's. I test hit the Mizuno irons and love the feel of them. I have found though after playing a few rounds with them that I hit them shorter (but a lot straighter) than the 2.0's. Hitting them shorter has been a benefit so that's not the complaint. The complaint is actually with the 2.0's..... I sold my old set to golf league partner and last night in league he made a comment on how much further he hits the 2.0's compared to his older set.

So this got me thinking so I walked over to his bag and pulled his 6 iron out and compared it to mine. His angle to the ground was much steeper on his 6... so compared the 7 and so on and everyone of the clubs were angled different. his 6 was like my 5, his 7 like my 6, his 8 like my 7...... and this was the same all the way up! No wonder why the 2.0's claim to be longer, they are lofted different... atleast compared to my Mizuno's.

Has anyone else compared the difference from manufactures like this or am I late to this party?

[WUTiger]

Lots of research, analysis and  ( ) marketing hype on this.

Clubhead loft not only figures in, but also the location of the center of gravity. The lower the center of gravity, the higher the ball will launch. The amount of cavity back/perimeter weighting also figures in. ...

Back in the mid-1980s, Ping started developing perimeter weighting. Ping noticed that the heavier sole and perimeter weighting launched the ball higher, BUT it also cost the club a little distance compared to other standard irons of the era (for standard iron good hits, at least). So, to prevent distance loss, Ping strengthened the iron lofts a couple of degrees.

But then, the marketing departments of golfdom got involved, and everyone starts making stronger lofts, initially going for the 175 yd. 7 iron, and now the 200 yd. 7 iron. Then we got the Gap Wedge to cover the resultant 8-10 degree loft gap between PW and SW.

Other things that will affect launch angle are the shaft characteristics (including length), your swing characteristics (hand loading + clubhead speed), and the type of ball you play.

In your case, however, I would say that stronger iron lofts (a TM characteristic) contributed a lot to the distance difference - especially since your JPX HD is a high-launch iron head.

[saevel25]

2.0's are stronger and very much longer iron shafts as well, and have a hotter clubface, all equal more distance. But not what matters most if you are more confident with the mizuno's

[clearwaterms]

Originally Posted by WUTiger

Lots of research, analysis and  () marketing hype on this.

Clubhead loft not only figures in, but also the location of the center of gravity. The lower the center of gravity, the higher the ball will launch. The amount of cavity back/perimeter weighting also figures in. ...

Back in the mid-1980s, Ping started developing perimeter weighting. Ping noticed that the heavier sole and perimeter weighting launched the ball higher, BUT it also cost the club a little distance compared to other standard irons of the era (for standard iron good hits, at least). So, to prevent distance loss, Ping strengthened the iron lofts a couple of degrees.

But then, the marketing departments of golfdom got involved, and everyone starts making stronger lofts, initially going for the 175 yd. 7 iron, and now the 200 yd. 7 iron. Then we got the Gap Wedge to cover the resultant 8-10 degree loft gap between PW and SW.

Other things that will affect launch angle are the shaft characteristics (including length), your swing characteristics (hand loading + clubhead speed), and the type of ball you play.

In your case, however, I would say that stronger iron lofts (a TM characteristic) contributed a lot to the distance difference - especially since your JPX HD is a high-launch iron head.

So here is a follow up question.  Are today's clubs really longer (distance)  I was just comparing the Ping EYE2 to my Ping G25's and I noticed that the EYE2's 7 iron (36 deg of loft, 62.5 deg Lie, and 36.75") is really only 4 degree's weaker than the G25 (32, 62.25, 36.75) The length of the club is the same.  It seems to me that engineers are making stronger lofts to adjust to the improvements in other parts of the game (shafts and balls)

If we matched shafts, balls, and swings, would we see a similar ball flight?  Would we see similar distance?  Would the ball have approx. the same amount of spin imparted on it?

What I mean is that the golf balls of the past didn't travel as far.  Look at this blog post, where somebody compared the ProV1 to Tour Balata balls, and he noticed that the Balata spun more, but had alot less height.  http://0to300golf.blogspot.com/2013/03/titleist-tour-balata-90-v-titleist-pro.html

edited to make the post more understandable

[saevel25]

As for the golf balls, yes, specifically with the drives. Groove's haven't changed much on irons until the USGA outlawed U shaped grooves, and went to V shaped.

As for drivers, they use to have more grooves on them, they were smaller. Which meant you hit down on the ball, used backspin, and worked the ball more. Today's balls are designed with multiple layers, each being activated depending on how hard you hit the ball. Basically a driver will reach the inner core of the ball, while the irons will interact with the more outer layers. This allows them to develop golf balls that can tune in spin and increase ball speed through out the whole set. So what happens is the inner core is for low spin, meaning the drivers today are larger, no grooves on the clubface sweet spot, and the MOI is high. So you hit up on the ball to gain more carry, low spin, lot more roll on the ball as well.

The reason why clubs are getting longer is because even blade irons are getting very much more forgiving. There is perimeter weighting on virtually every iron now. So, what this allows is longer iron shafts, with lower COG, higher MOI, means even if you mis hit, your getting distance and very little left to right miss.

[clearwaterms]

Originally Posted by saevel25

As for the golf balls, yes, specifically with the drives. Groove's haven't changed much on irons until the USGA outlawed U shaped grooves, and went to V shaped.

As for drivers, they use to have more grooves on them, they were smaller. Which meant you hit down on the ball, used backspin, and worked the ball more. Today's balls are designed with multiple layers, each being activated depending on how hard you hit the ball. Basically a driver will reach the inner core of the ball, while the irons will interact with the more outer layers. This allows them to develop golf balls that can tune in spin and increase ball speed through out the whole set. So what happens is the inner core is for low spin, meaning the drivers today are larger, no grooves on the club face sweet spot, and the MOI is high. So you hit up on the ball to gain more carry, low spin, lot more roll on the ball as well.

The reason why clubs are getting longer is because even blade irons are getting very much more forgiving. There is perimeter weighting on virtually every iron now. So, what this allows is longer iron shafts, with lower COG, higher MOI, means even if you miss hit, your getting distance and very little left to right miss.

So it sounds to me like the increasingly lower lofts that today's clubs have isn't just a marketing ploy to make LONGER golf clubs.  More that today's golf clubs are longer because of technology advancements outside of the club head.  The golf club engineers are building clubs to interact appropriately with the conditions today's golfers face (modern golf balls, modern shafts, etc.) instead of the conditions of the past (balata golf balls, permission and/or steel drivers, etc.)

The perception that is prevalent on TST (and most other places) isn't that clubs are getting lower lofts because of a marketing play to hit clubs longer, but more likely a side effect of advancing technology.

[saevel25]

Yes and no. Its not really the golf ball, golf balls have been changing with technology. Really, golf balls didn't change much, until the boom in the past 10 years or so. It really use to be very cheap golf balls, or very expensive golf balls. Now there is a whole range, and a ton more manufacteurs. So, i would say that golf balls have changed because clubs have changed.

The reason clubs have changed is because of procession techniques that allow the intermixing of metals.  Alot of clubmakers are casting clubs, and putting in a softer metal groove plate, which makes the club feel closer to a forged iron with traditional cavity back forgiveness. But basically club makers have found out they can make clubs lower lofted, shift the COG lower, push the weight to the perimeter more, increase MOI, and use multiple metal alloys to create clubs that feel good, hit it longer, go higher, land softer, and are forgiving. I might be willing to say we are in the golden age of irons right now. The advancement in the last 10 years with irons has been amazing. Long iron shafts are just a natural progression because of the increased forgiveness. Why not, an extra half an inch to each club might give a golfer an extra 5 yards. Add that with lower lofted irons, you got irons when compared to past generation irons are just inadequate. Especially when they still just label the irons

3,4,5, ect...

So when you compare a 7 with a 7, you might really be comaring a 6 or 5 to a 7 iron depending on specs.

[clearwaterms]

Originally Posted by saevel25

Long iron shafts are just a natural progression because of the increased forgiveness. Why not, an extra half an inch to each club might give a golfer an extra 5 yards. Add that with lower lofted irons, you got irons when compared to past generation irons are just inadequate. Especially when they still just label the irons

3,4,5, ect...

So when you compare a 7 with a 7, you might really be comaring a 6 or 5 to a 7 iron depending on specs.

My first post pointed out that looking at Ping (so others might be different) but Ping hasn't lengthened the 7 iron from the EYE2 to the G25.  Ping also doesn't struggle with distance compared to other manufacturers (it isn't the longest or shortest)  Both stock clubs are 36.75"

Ping EYE2: http://www.americangolf.com.au/irons_classics.html

Ping G25: http://www.ping.com/clubs/ironsdetail.aspx?id=15155

But the G25 is 4 deg stronger, at 32 deg, it is really a 6 iron with a shorter shaft.

[TJBam]

This thread is relevant in helping to target and explain the burners being longer. http://thesandtrap.com/t/67827/why-does-my-buddys-taylormade-7-iron-outhit-my-titleist-755-7-iron-by-15-18-yards

[clearwaterms]

Originally Posted by TJBam

This thread is relevant in helping to target and explain the burners being longer. http://thesandtrap.com/t/67827/why-does-my-buddys-taylormade-7-iron-outhit-my-titleist-755-7-iron-by-15-18-yards

What are the club lengths like though?  Are the Burner clubs the same length as the Titleist clubs?  If the lofts are lower, but the length is the same, that could be an effect of the CoG changing and the manufacturer trying to keep the height of the golf ball reasonable.

Per the post that I posted.  Ping hasn't just labeled an old 6 iron the 7 iron.  Yes, the loft of the 7 iron now mirrors the classic 6 iron, but the club has more perimeter weighting changing the Center of Gravity to give it a higher ball flight.  So while the loft is stronger, the ball flight is the same, its just longer because of like saeval said because technology, multi metal casting, etc. has made a longer golf club.

In the end, does it really matter which golf club you use to put it on the green?  I heard a story once.  A playing partner was at an all weekend golf outing, they had a hole in one contest on one of the par 3's.  Every day the prize was different.  One one of the days, a player got a hole in one.  Later when he was retelling the story to his buddies that didn't witness it, one of them asked him what club he hit.  He proudly responded "Driver".  It was a short hole, but at the end of the day, he got to put a 1 on his score card, and nobody else did that weekend.

No score card that I have ever used has pictures of golf clubs, or video's of golf shots.  In the end, the goal is to put the small ball in the slightly larger cup in as few swings as possible.  If you do it in fewer strokes than I do, you beat me.  I don't care if you used a USGA legal shovel to do it, you still win.