Testing Cobra F9 One-Length Irons

[Grass Destruction]

Winter is the worst. I get bored and start browsing eBay for golf club deals. Of course I usually find something that makes me go 'hmmm'. This time it's a barely-used set of Cobra F9 Speedback One Length irons (5-PW). I was the only bidder so I got a great deal on them. I had to change the grips to my usual midsize CP2 (hated the feel of the standard Cobra Arccos grips) and then added some tungsten to the heads to get the swing weight back to D1. I really like them except for the 5i. I'm guessing the problem is in my head (swinging too hard?) because I hit the rest of them great. The distances are all in line with my old irons but the consistency and dispersion is much better (according to TopTracer at the golf dome I use). 

Next weekend I'm heading to Orlando for a 10 day golf trip with 23 other guys. So I'll get a good sample of how they perform and report back. 

[kenstl]

Good luck, I am big fan of playing SL clubs

[cooke119]

Yes, tell us how they work out. I interested in how the normally shorter clubs work out, i.e., the 9i, PW, GW and SW with the longer shaft.

[Grass Destruction]

 

20 hours ago, cooke119 said:

Yes, tell us how they work out. I interested in how the normally shorter clubs work out, i.e., the 9i, PW, GW and SW with the longer shaft.

I only go down to the PW in single length and so far I like it testing in simulators. I'll be using my ShotScope  GPS so I'll have actual measured distances to report. Saturday can't get here soon enough! 

I forgot to add that I ordered a Mavrik Max driver and Mavrik 3h thru Global Golf's UTry program ($25/ea to play/test for 2 weeks) so I'll report how they work out too. 

[cooke119]

3 hours ago, Grass Destruction said:

 

I only go down to the PW in single length and so far I like it testing in simulators. I'll be using my ShotScope  GPS so I'll have actual measured distances to report. Saturday can't get here soon enough! 

I forgot to add that I ordered a Mavrik Max driver and Mavrik 3h thru Global Golf's UTry program ($25/ea to play/test for 2 weeks) so I'll report how they work out too. 

I like the Mavrik driver, just not paying $500 for one.

[3jacker]

I tried them last year.  I liked (loved) hitting the 4 iron. Definitely produced a more penetrating flight that needed a little setup change to recover the height I want but even making these adjustments it felt like hitting a comfortable 7.  It was really fun, couldn't put it down.  

The short irons felt very odd to me. Those would take some work to get used to. I can see using a set where the 4,5,6 were the length of a 6 iron and rest were graduated normally.  Since I'm a decent ball-striker that has learned with a varying length (traditional) set, I don't think that would be a big deal.  To someone newer at the game, it would likely defeat the intent of a truly same-length set.

[DrvFrShow]

I have the F9 OL. I play the set from 6i - GW. No problem with the 9i-GW length. I originally had 5-SW. I didn't like the SW because I choke up and play too many partial shots with a 54 and so I went with a MD-4 54/10 to replace it - MD-4 58/8 is the other wedge. I found I didn't hit the 5i particularly well either and went with a 24 degree hybrid - standard length F9, also a 21 degree F9 standard hybrid to round out the irons.

I, too, hated the original grips and went to the CP2 Pro Midsize.

[Grass Destruction]

@DrvFrShow it sounds like we have very similar tastes! Love the CP2 Midsize grips! 

I'm back from my golf trip and I can confidently say that I will be playing these irons this year. I still want to see how the 5 iron distance compares to the 6 iron and 4 hybrid. There may not be a big enough gap to justify keeping it in the bag. I forgot to recharge the Shot Scope watch a couple times so I didn't get as many rounds recorded as I'd like. It was fairly windy most days so the yardage numbers are a bit skewed until I get more rounds recorded. 

Playing Averages so far for the F9 One Length: 

5i - 168

6i - 165

7i - 160

8i - 150

9i - 130

PW - 115

 

[kenstl]

Glad you are liking the SL irons.  I played 6-GW for the first two years and then added a 5 and SW.  The 5 iron was the harder of the two clubs to adapt to as initially I kept feeling like I had to swing super fast and I was not getting good contact or the distance out of it.  After I settled down and starting swinging smooth and natural with it, my strikes became consistent and on center along with the distance gap over my 6 iron.  

[Grass Destruction]

10 hours ago, kenstl said:

Glad you are liking the SL irons.  I played 6-GW for the first two years and then added a 5 and SW.  The 5 iron was the harder of the two clubs to adapt to as initially I kept feeling like I had to swing super fast and I was not getting good contact or the distance out of it.  After I settled down and starting swinging smooth and natural with it, my strikes became consistent and on center along with the distance gap over my 6 iron.  

Yep, I hit the 5 on a couple of par 3s and found a smooth swing worked best, then I'd get around 170-ish. I just have to keep telling myself it's a 7 iron that will go 5 iron distances. 

[pganapathy]

On 3/5/2020 at 1:11 AM, Grass Destruction said:

Playing Averages so far for the F9 One Length: 

5i - 168

6i - 165

7i - 160

8i - 150

9i - 130

PW - 115

 

It is the difference between lengths that gives me pause.  8 to 9 is 20 yards.  5 to 7 is 8 yards. 9 to P is 15.  Not easy to play when you have that much dispersion.  Or are these carry distances

[DrvFrShow]

On 3/4/2020 at 11:41 AM, Grass Destruction said:

@DrvFrShow it sounds like we have very similar tastes! Love the CP2 Midsize grips! 

I'm back from my golf trip and I can confidently say that I will be playing these irons this year. I still want to see how the 5 iron distance compares to the 6 iron and 4 hybrid. There may not be a big enough gap to justify keeping it in the bag. I forgot to recharge the Shot Scope watch a couple times so I didn't get as many rounds recorded as I'd like. It was fairly windy most days so the yardage numbers are a bit skewed until I get more rounds recorded. 

Playing Averages so far for the F9 One Length: 

5i - 168

6i - 165

7i - 160

8i - 150

9i - 130

PW - 115

 

I understand these are yardages on a windy day and therefore not representative. Still interesting.... Here's my carry distances with the clubs from a gapping session on a GC Quad:

GW: 103

PW: 118

9i: 131

8i: 143

7i: 156

6i: 170

I get the occasional flier, and the GW tends to go short because I tend not to swing full with it... because wedge. But here's my standard F9 hybrids:

5H - 24 degree: 185

4H - 21 degree: 199

My 5i distance was 180... when I didn't duff it. The standard hybrid is a lot more forgiving.

 

 

[Grass Destruction]

Adjusting for the elevation difference (Orlando vs Minnesota), windy conditions, and limited number rounds registered yet, I think I'll be pretty close to the same yardages @DrvFrShow. I was at the golf dome tonight with a couple of the irons to work on my swing and check on yardages. The PW and 8 iron are the same carry yardages as yours. The 6 is more like 165. Are your 5 and 4 hybrid single length or standard? 

[DrvFrShow]

21 hours ago, Grass Destruction said:

Adjusting for the elevation difference (Orlando vs Minnesota), windy conditions, and limited number rounds registered yet, I think I'll be pretty close to the same yardages @DrvFrShow. I was at the golf dome tonight with a couple of the irons to work on my swing and check on yardages. The PW and 8 iron are the same carry yardages as yours. The 6 is more like 165. Are your 5 and 4 hybrid single length or standard? 

I went with standard length F9 Hybrids. I don't have a problem with the longer hybrids. It was the shorter clubs like the 9i, PW, and GW. That was why I went OL. 

 

[Grass Destruction]

So I have lots more rounds under my belt with the F9 OL so I thought I'd update this thread. Here are the 'performance average' numbers as ShotScope calls it (the normal distance you hit the club when it's well struck, highs and lows removed). The 6 and 7 are almost the same but I think that's mostly because I rarely hit a 6 iron. I consider it my 170-ish club and I don't usually end up with that yardage unless it's a windy day or something. I really love that I just setup to the ball the exact same way each time unless I need to hit a low/high shot. Handicap has dropped from around 8.5 to 6.0 as of today! 😍

 

[DrvFrShow]

Glad to see they're working out for you. The lowest lofted iron I can consistently get in the air is 24 degrees. But then I have a 19 HC vs your 6. The 5i in the set is 22.5. I have the Cobra 3-4 Utility Iron set at 24 degrees which I can use off the tee if I want. 

[Grass Destruction]

It's been over a year since I last updated this post so I wanted to document where I'm at. The bag is pretty much the same. Using a TS2 driver instead of a Cobra F8, and the GW is now single length too (love it BTW). The 54 and 58/lob are standard wedge length.

Below is what Shot Scope shows for my 'playing average' (total distance, not carry). I don't usually use the 5i much in a normal round at my home course, but it looks like the gap between it and the 6i is getting narrower as I get older (and slower). I will probably look into getting a hybrid to replace it this fall/winter. Lately I've noticed that if I have the ball a little forward in my stance that I'm getting much better height and distance (especially on the lower lofted clubs). 

 

[Colins69]

I bought a set of one length iron heads on eBay because I was having trouble with the short irons, I've set them at 8 iron length because I hit the 8 well. The one length heads didn't have a gap wedge so I've used a cobra g/w that's within 5grams of the total weight of each iron, the gaping is about 12metres between the S g/w w 9 iron but the 8iron is only 5meters even though it's within 5grams of the other irons. I've used a set of Ping stiff graphite shafts that feel quite good, I'm thinking about using regular length shafts for 8 7 6 5 iron heads and see what that gives me before I cut another set of irons because it it doesn't work then those shafts are binned...