Hybrid Irons, Why Not?

[Colins69]

On 10/14/2021 at 2:00 PM, ChetlovesMer said:

Life is a series or trade offs. You choose what you like/need. 

Trade offs work for me, I like hybrids for the mid and long irons but blade-ish for 9 and wedges. Because I can't work all what I call dinky shots with hybrids, back in the day I used all blades...

[Fontyyy]

On 10/13/2021 at 6:09 PM, Darkfrog said:

I don't necessarily believe the part about straighter - that has to do with face and path.

I was fitted for my irons, and I don't have any issues with launch conditions, and any bad launch conditions are a swing problem, not a club problem.

I disagree entirely, the hollow head is more forgiving of open/closed hits. You hit a path (intentional or not) that would result in a hook/draw/fade/slice and it goes straight(er) than it would with a cavity back and far straighter than it would with a blade.

Shots hit out of the bottom go higher, fats aren't punished as much, thins don't hurt (hollow club head)

That is the very nature of the hollow head, lower and further back COG etc be it these "irons", a hybrid or a modern driver.

If it wasn't the case why would people say they're harder/impossible to shape shots with?

I agree if you swing on a perfect path, with the face at the angle you intend every time, and hit ball just before turf every time you won't benefit one bit from these clubs.

 

 

On 10/15/2021 at 9:16 AM, Colins69 said:

Trade offs work for me, I like hybrids for the mid and long irons but blade-ish for 9 and wedges. Because I can't work all what I call dinky shots with hybrids, back in the day I used all blades...

This is true, they are easy to chip with (massive sole), but it's a bit like the Tiger 3 wood bump and run putt from the fringe, they jump of the face if you catch it perfect and it's very hard to get a feel for that. And somewhat alien if you've spent years using normal irons around the green.

 

 

[Darkfrog]

23 minutes ago, Fontyyy said:

I disagree entirely, the hollow head is more forgiving of open/closed hits. You hit a path (intentional or not) that would result in a hook/draw/fade/slice and it goes straight(er) than it would with a cavity back and far straighter than it would with a blade.

Shots hit out of the bottom go higher, fats aren't punished as much, thins don't hurt (hollow club head)

That is the very nature of the hollow head, lower and further back COG etc be it these "irons", a hybrid or a modern driver.

If it wasn't the case why would people say they're harder/impossible to shape shots with?

I agree if you swing on a perfect path, with the face at the angle you intend every time, and hit ball just before turf every time you won't benefit one bit from these clubs.

You still haven't shown any evidence of what you are claiming.

[Fontyyy]

21 minutes ago, Darkfrog said:

You still haven't shown any evidence of what you are claiming.

Ok, Newer HB Turbo Vs CBX

4 shots with each, 3 times tighter dispersion, longer and tighter on distance and height, higher, steeper decent.

Look at swing 4 (with the hybrid iron) 15 mph of club head speed missing, same launch angle, lower height, same distance.

Now look at 8 (with the CBX), total disaster, barely got airborne, 30 yards missing.

From here

 

 

[ChetlovesMer]

58 minutes ago, Fontyyy said:

You hit a path (intentional or not) that would result in a hook/draw/fade/slice and it goes straight(er) than it would with a cavity back and far straighter than it would with a blade.

This isn't necessarily true.

7 minutes ago, Fontyyy said:

Ok, Newer HB Turbo Vs CBX

4 shots with each, 3 times tighter dispersion, longer and tighter on distance and height, higher, steeper decent.

Look at swing 4 (with the hybrid iron) 15 mph of club head speed missing, same launch angle, lower height, same distance.

Now look at 8 (with the CBX), total disaster, barely got airborne, 30 yards missing.

From here

 

 

Look, I don't think anyone is disputing that many players, myself included, can benefit from a hybrid replace some or even many of the long irons. 

What I think most people are saying... I know I am. Is that there is very little benefit to a hybrid style iron in the short irons. This is because loft is your friend. You don't need a hybrid when you have loft. What I (and many others) are also saying is you give up a ton of distance control and the ability to hit different shots when you go with a hybrid style iron. You are stuck with a one-trick pony. 

ONCE AGAIN--- THAT's FINE! If that is what you want. But most people don't want that. That's why the industry sells tons of hybrids to replace long irons, but they sell very few hybrids to replace short irons. 

You asked the question. Many people have answered it. It's pretty straight forward really. 

ONE MORE TIME - If you like hybrid like short irons then play them. Nobody's stopping you. If you are asking why others don't do that, Read any of the above posts. 

[Darkfrog]

11 minutes ago, Fontyyy said:

Ok, Newer HB Turbo Vs CBX

4 shots with each, 3 times tighter dispersion, longer and tighter on distance and height, higher, steeper decent.

Look at swing 4 (with the hybrid iron) 15 mph of club head speed missing, same launch angle, lower height, same distance.

Now look at 8 (with the CBX), total disaster, barely got airborne, 30 yards missing.

From here

 

 

I'm not saying that hybrid irons don't work better for you. But that is a really small sample size to draw meaningful conclusions from (1 golfer, 4 swings each club).

To prove hybrid irons go straighter, show me a data set with enough inputs to be significant, and with identical club metrics; club head speed, path, AoA, and strike location (i.e., distance from center face contact) and then show me the dispersion and if there is any meaningful difference between the two. And even if there is, it is still up to the player to determine if they want to give up the versatility of regular irons for the amount of help they might get from hybrid irons.

[ChetlovesMer]

18 minutes ago, Fontyyy said:

Look at swing 4 (with the hybrid iron) 15 mph of club head speed missing, same launch angle, lower height, same distance.

This is EXACTLY why everyone doesn't play them. Some players like to hit irons different distances in different situations. If you get the same distance no matter how you swing it, that's NOT a good thing for a lot of players! 

If you like them, play them. They are NOT for everyone. 

[Sandhills Golfer]

On 10/13/2021 at 11:32 AM, Fontyyy said:

I'm going to guess here that most of us do not shoot par or less.

And we take all the help we can get with driver, fairway woods (and I'll include long hybrids and rescue clubs in there, 'cause that is where they belong).

So why not irons? Why do we shy away from real help? How many of us have even tried an "ultra game improvement" 7, 8 or 9 iron?

 

The insperation for this post was me buying some old Cleveland HiBores, the originals from 15+ years ago. Which TBF, in general, 99+% of the time return a better result than a brand new set of Cleveland CBX's.

For every given swing path from full on duff, fat or thin to slight miss-hit the ball goes higher, longer and straighter. Why, oh why, do we not want this help?

I'm with you! Love the XLI, HB3's and now XL Halo irons. They are very forgiving and pretty much eliminate any embarrassing shots. The only draw back is the previous gens were clunky in the 9-W and they lacked distance on those clubs. I think they have addressed this issue in the XL halo irons. 

 

Edited October 18, 2021 by Sandhills Golfe

[iacas]

5 hours ago, Fontyyy said:

I disagree entirely, the hollow head is more forgiving of open/closed hits. You hit a path (intentional or not) that would result in a hook/draw/fade/slice and it goes straight(er) than it would with a cavity back and far straighter than it would with a blade.

That's not necessarily true, no. The ball knows the clubface angle, the CG/MOI, and a few other things. That's about it.

Hybrid irons are tougher to control distances accurately. They're difficult to hit low intentionally.

The numbers in your chart vary across the board. And your math is bad: the one has a distribution from -39 to 13, that's 52. The other has a distribution from -23 to 19, and that's 42 yards. That's not 3x smaller. Nor does it make any sense: if one of the clubs hit one -50, -50, 50, 50 the average would be zero, but the distribution pattern would be 100 yards wide.

[ajl]

they may not be for everyone, but for me, they are excellent.  On a whim I purchased a 7h from Monark Golf.  It cost $43 for the club.  The club is a TaylorMade R11 clone (they even call it Tour Model).  It completely changed my game from 130-150 yards.  Much more accurate for reasons noted above. 

But, from 110-120 I still struggled sometimes, so I purchased the a 9h head only for $19.99, used my propane torch to pop off a 9i iron, and epoxied the 9h to the existing shaft, ferrule, and grip.  So, I repurposed my 9i for $20 I got another hybrid.  Same result. No fear from 110 - 150.  

I've thought about a hybrid PW and G, but as others have mentioned, the loft on those clubs is so high, the irons are just as easy to hit.  And, I only use them from inside 100, so I'm likely going to hit the  green anyway (well, most of the time).  And, there is a certain satisfaction in hitting an iron pure vs. a hybrid.  

But, for high handicappers like me, I would definitely say it is worth testing out.  And for $19.99, you can try one head and pop it on an old club, just to see how you like it.  

 

[mdl]

I've got high swing speed and hybrid mid irons would balloon for me and have very inconsistent distance (versus my irons).

In general, you're right that many people could probably use more forgiving clubs in different parts of their bag. But on this forum many people are pretty serious (even if not good 😆) golfers who've been fit for their clubs and hit the irons in their bag better than equivalent hybrids they've tried.

[Larrh7]

The hybrid sets are most suited for older folks like me ha.  I don't have a set but have been looking them over.  If you are a young golfer with a low handicap then you want normal irons.  These are made for older golfers or high handicap golfers.

[micha]

I started golfing at 68 after a 40 year absence i started with ping 100s. my friend used cleveland halo hybrid irons i used a couple and bought some used some some cleveland launchers hybrid irons. i hit them straighter and higher than my pings and i never looked back

[ChiTown]

On 10/13/2021 at 10:32 AM, Fontyyy said:

 

So why not irons? Why do we shy away from real help? How many of us have even tried an "ultra game improvement" 7, 8 or 9 iron

Don’t we already do that in some ways? My Titleist irons run 4-P, then I’ve added 48, 54, 58 Vokeys.  So effectively, I’m using a different set of clubs for my short game 

[RickK]

I have tried them.  Played maybe 4 months this year with the Wilson version.  At first I really like the feel of everything except the SW and LW.  I found them to be worthless out of sand so I went back to my Taylormade wedges.  I would have thought I would have hit the other irons higher than my TMs.  Not true for me.  Maybe I was just having a bad couple of rounds but one week I struggled so bad with hitting shots of any height and felt I was giving up distance.  So, the Wilson's are in the club graveyard in my garage and the TMs are back in my bag plus I am playing better now. Good experiment for me that just did not work.

Forgot to add...with the Wilson's unless I hit with a vey weak grip, they were hooking machines.  

Edited October 12, 2023 by RickK

[Vinsk]

Why not hybrid irons? Hey! I love having a bed to carry stuff but really prefer a car over a truck. Why not the an El Camino!? 
 

Because they’re hideous.

[WUTiger]

On 10/13/2021 at 10:32 AM, Fontyyy said:

So why not irons? Why do we shy away from real help? How many of us have even tried an "ultra game improvement" 7, 8 or 9 iron? ...

For every given swing path from full on duff, fat or thin to slight miss-hit the ball goes higher, longer and straighter. Why, oh why, do we not want this help?

Circa 2008 I was playing Ping Eye 2 clone irons (probably SGI in 6-category MPF system). Irons were shafted with Dynalite S300 shafts, higher launch cousin of traditional DG S300. One season, I started having trouble with inconsistent iron distances. 

I went through fittings, and tried out these UGI models: Ping G10, and Callaway Big Berthas. These are UGI models with high-launch shafts. Problem: Short irons and wedges all ballooned. {UGI head + high launch shaft} = too much help on launch.

I also tried out the Callaway X20 (SGI) and X20 Tour (GI) models. The base X20 had 106-gram Uniflex shaft (mid-launch), some 14 grams lighter than the clone set Dynalite S300s. Played the X20 model for two seasons, then upgraded to X20 Tours.

For the X20 Tours, I got more GIRs - as long as I was practicing and playing regularly. The base X20 irons got me close to green but I had more distance dispersion than with the X20 Tours.

Fastforward to 2018. I switch over to Tour Edge CB Pro Tungsten irons - hollow heads rated as GI. Shafts: KBS Tour 90. Good irons, but... the short irons and wedges were flying proportionally shorter than the 4i-6i. Solution: I put lead tape on shaft below the grips to ensure I got a full drop on the down swing.

Research on wedges and short irons suggests that for 8i and above, the launch help/hybrid head has diminishing returns. The high loft angle gets the ball up plenty well on shots with fairly decent contact. Check out the Edison wedge site for details.

And, to resolve three seasons of hit and miss, I got fitted and now play Mav MAX irons (see sig line) w/graphite shafts. On the line between GI and SGI (Hot List categories) - certainly not hybrid iron heads.

On 10/13/2021 at 10:32 AM, Fontyyy said:

"ultra game improvement"

Why, oh why, do we not want this help?

OK, level with us, @Fontyyy... Are you trying to convince us or yourself?