Specs to set new irons to?

Last week I was at my local shop and ran across a set of 'used' irons that were very close to what I had been considering for a while.  They're a mixed set of the TaylorMade Tour Preferred - TP CB for the 3i-6i, TP MC 7i and TP MB for the 8i-PW.  I got a terrific price, so I jumped on them.  Unfortunately, I didn't quite check all the specs - I'd asked one employee if they were standard length and lie, to which he replied, 'Yes'.  It turned out that the 8i-PW were actually an inch over length.

Since the long shafts on the short clubs definitely don't feel right, I picked up a set of the shafts I had been intending to get when I had the clubs built - Project X Flighted 6.0.  Since I have to get the shafts changed out, I'm wondering about having some of the other specs tweaked while that's done.

I did a 'quick fitting' at the local Golfsmith and pretty much found out what I already knew - PX 6.0 is about right for me, standard length, possibly 1 degree flat, although it could be my inside-out plane with my irons that creates the off center mark on the lie board.

So, here's the standard specs of my old clubs and the new clubs, followed by some questions...

Questions:

• Would I expect to see any sort of distance increase if the lofts were identical to my old DCI's?  Because this is a mixed set, there are some odd gaps between clubs.  I was thinking to go to a 35 on the 7i, 31 on the 6i and 27 on the 5i to make the gaps between clubs more uniform.
• The standard lie angles on the TaylorMades are a bit more upright in the long irons, moving to a bit flatter on the 8i & 9i.  Would a single degree flatter across the board from the standard specs make a significant difference?
• The stock length of the TaylorMade PW is 1/2" shorter than my old DCI's.  Any particular reason for that?  My wedges are Volkey's - 52, 56 & 60 and the 52 is 35.5, so it seems odd for me to have my gap wedge shorter than my pitching wedge.  As such, I'm thinking to stay with 35.5 on the PW.
• Should I be concerned about the swingweights at all?  It seems like this would be a good, natural progression on the swingweights and would lead into my wedges better, where the swingweights run D4-D5-D5.

One last question - I immediately had the clubs regripped with my preferred Star Grip Smoothie grips.  Is there any reason not to reuse those grips, presuming the shop can remove them without too much fuss?

Thanks for any feedback on this - I'm expecting my shafts to come in on Wednesday, so I'm hoping to have a solid spec sheet to hand over with the clubs on exactly how I want them to come out.

In my own opinion and personal experience... cavity backs tended to go a little farther, yes i knew they were strong lofted as well. a 20* 3 iron is damn near close to a 2 iron and being a cavity back may still be tough to hit but I don't know you or your swing so for all i know it will be your best club. I would recommend (this may only be for myself) if i had this exact same set i would do something like...

3-21*

4-24*

5-27*

6-31*

7-36*

8-39*

9-43*

PW-47*

If you were to flatten or upright the irons all it really does is prevent a push or a pull more than hooks and slices.

I have the Taylormade MB and had the 3-9 lengthened .5" and the PW lengthened 1". I also found it very odd that the pitching wedge was so short in this set...? and all except for the PW come in the classic taylormade .25"-.5" longer than your standard clubs.

If your talking about the swing weights on the back of the clubs, its more for pros that reallllly know what they're doing and want a specific ball flight but with your specs here and the standard swing weights this set should be set up great for you and I really like it. I'm a big fan of the taylormade tp irons and this is a pretty nice mixed set. However I would recommend the lofts I have on here as the cavity backs are gonna help you out a little bit more and be a little more forgiving so if you do happen to miss the center your still going to pretty far down the fairway.

Ive never reused grips simply cause i heard that they get stretched out when they take them off the previous clubs. but that may be rumor.

Hope this helps!!!

What you should be concerned about is the yardage gap between irons - especially at the blend point between sets - rather than the loft degrees per se. Before you bend lofts, get on the launch monitor and see if there's a yardage gap at the blend points.

As for comparing the club distances between the TMs and the DCIs . several factors are at play. First, there's the internal design of the head, and how it influences a given iron's loft. The lower the vertical center of gravity (VCOG) of the clubhead, the higher it will launch the ball (all other things equal).

Also, the shafts in each iron would influence launch angle and playability. Both the DCI and the selected TM models get rather low marks on Maltby Playability Factor, which gauges the user-friendliness of the clubhead design. As far as adjusted VCOG, it's pretty much a wash between TM varieties and DCIs.

Conventional irons have the characteristics of muscleback blades, while classic irons usually only work with scratch golfers who are excellent ballstrikers (if you can play classics, you don't need to...).

When shaft comes into play, {shaft + head + clubhead speed + loading} influences how high and far the shots will fly. This would be a test situation of whether the TMs or the DCIs would have the better yardage for a given golfer. There might be a third head + shaft combo which might be better than either for a given golfer.

Given the factors at play, you'd have to get on the launch monitor and compare the TMs vs. the DCIs.

Thanks to you both for the great info.

I think my decision will be to get the PW made to a 35.5" length to match my DCI PW.  I'll have the loft and lie tweaked a bit to what I think will work and then I'll test them out to see if I made the right call...

Since I'm not totally getting my head wrapped around this - 64.5 would be a half degree flatter than 64, correct?

Shafts should arrive tomorrow, just talked to my buddy at the shop, he's going to re-shaft, adjust loft and lie and swap the grips out for $80 on the whole set - heck of a deal!  Drop them off Thursday am, pick them up Friday evening and test them out... hopefully hit the course with them on Sunday...

You can ask them when you get there they'll explain it all. If I knew the difference I might be able to tell you but I only know flat or upright when they put that little tape on the bottom. I'm 3/4" inches long and 2* upright in all my clubs. the more you extend them the less upright you need. No idea about flat tho..

Let us know what you think of your new clubs and how it goes!!

I have similar ocd thoughts and wrote about them in many threads much to dismay of many of the members here. Now I can resurrect one of them here:

http://thesandtrap.com/t/9728/traditional-lofts-versus-modern-lofts

Bwahahaha....

To sum it up I played TA 845s for 16 years (similar to DCI, I think they were designed by the same person). They were set up 1/2" long and went 21-24-28-32-34-38-42-44-48. My current sticks are Titleist 735 CMs which are a combo set (3-4 cavity, 5-7 mid, 8-pw blade) and came 22-25-28-31-35-39-43-47 at standard length. In order to avoid a gap wedge and to give me a little more room between the 4-5-6, I bent the 3 and 4 a degree strong, kept the 5 iron the same, and went one weak on the rest so that I came back to 21-24-28-32-36-40-44-48 and added a 54-60 for the wedges and a 18 2H. The gaps worked out great and the distances were almost identical to the 845s even though they were a 1/2" longer (I do have s300s in the 735s so I have a much better flight. I don't find that the cavity backs go any farther than muscle backs except on mishits because they are more forgiving. The only concern that I would have with your set is if they are truly compatible like the 735s are. Other than that, set them up and see how they do.

First of all you are going about this all wrong. You have all the makings of a star but you have no agent to manage you. You need to take your technical  leanings and harness them better.

Change your all out, all or nothing approach.  You can remove grips and shorten what you have one club at a time using masking tape to identify sweet spot strike % as you cut off the inches. Do not throw this opportunity out by just removing shafts and replace them on speculation and assumption.  You may find chart lengths to be bogus based on your actual testing. You may find that women's length minus 1 inch results in you never missing the sweet spot.

Have one club altered as you "THINK" you need. Then hit it on the test board to work out your lie angle. I am rather certain that any in to out or out to in will not be a factor. One you have identified that lie angle you can build the clubs a bit on either side. the longer clubs or shorter.may have a different lie angle. ALL THE CHARTS SAY BASED ON MY HEIGHT THAT I NEED 4 DEGREES UPRIGHT - I ACTUALLY USE 6 DEGREES FLAT

YOU CANNOT USE CHARTS AND GRAPHS TO BE CERTAIN ABOUT END RESULTS

Take you best guess and then proceed incrementally proving the assumptions as you go. This is much less eye opening than ending up with a complete set of OOPS