Master "Forged vs. Cast" or "Blade vs. Game-Improvement" Iron Thread

[Jack_2251]

I have heard that a nice set of forged cavity's (such as 695.cb) feel just as nice as players blades, with about 20% more forgiveness. Also, forged cavitys would be made to hit more greens, forged blades would be to hit more pins.

[WilsonsRBest]

I have heard that a nice set of forged cavity's (such as 695.cb) feel just as nice as players blades, with about 20% more forgiveness. Also, forged cavitys would be made to hit more greens, forged blades would be to hit more pins.

How does one quantify this? What does "20% more forgiveness" mean when dealing with the many variables pertaining to the swing and impact?

It just proves my point that most golf equipment buyers will believe anything that they read or hear when it comes to golf equipment.

[DaveLeeNC]

Below is a quote from Tom Wishon on this subject. In a nutshell what he is saying is that the real progress in iron forgiveness these days is in face design, not cavity (Vs MB) considerations.

dave (new guy around these parts)

TCPRO:

Good question and I really liked Jim's comment because that REALLY brings up a great point as well related to this. There is an old statement in clubmaking which says, "Loft is the great forgiver of mistakes." In short, once you get to the loft of today's 8, 9, wedges the off center hit forgiveness of a deep cavity vs a muscleback is almost negligible. Good players can FEEL when they hit a short iron off the toe or heel, but distances are very close to the same for off center hits with cavity backs and musclebacks when loft hits close to 40* and higher.

So that means off center forgiveness in irons is pretty much centered in the middle and long irons. Speaking in purely technical terms, you cannot compare the off center hit capability of an iron like the 770 to irons like the 550C, 752TC, 991C. The reason is because the latter three models are thick faces like so many other irons today while the 770s are a thin face design. In that sense, the thin face contains so much more of the off center hit forgiveness than will the MOI of the 770 head design itself. A normal thick face iron can only get its off center hit forgiveness from the MOI of the head, ie the depth of the cavity/amount of perimeter weighting that resists the off center hit twisting of the head.

So any well designed thin face iron will always out perform any thick face iron for off center hit capability because it is the thin face that is doing most of the forgiveness by flexing more even from an off center hit to give the ball more speed than it would have had if that iron had a thick face. Hence a thin face to a thick face is apples to oranges.

In apples to apples, I can measure a very slight increase in off center hit forgiveness of the deeper cavity of the 752 and 991 over the more shallow cavity of the 550c. Not much, more like 2-3 yds at most. Some golfers will never notice that. Others might. To me, 2-3 yds is not enough to write home about. But I guess if you are hitting an iron into a green where water hugs the entire front edge and you catch it out on the toe, it is possible that the 752/991 could leave you dry, hanging on the edge while the 550c might be plunked. Won;t happen that much because that's a rare one to have a shot be of a distance where that little tiny amount of forgiveness results in dry vs wet.

Normally all we see in a slight off center hit improvement between deep cavities and medium depth cavities is a 50 footer to have to 2-putt instead of a 60 footer. To some, maybe that's improvement, but to me, it's not. Hence my reason for saying that after a certain point, such as a move from a small, very shallow cavity back to a mid/larger sized deep cavity back, after that, deepening the cavity more is not adding much.

But do understand that irons which are starting to appear more these days like the 770s are a whole quantum leap beyond conventional deep thick face cavity back irons - but because of their FACE DESIGN and not because of their cavity depth. Although if you could make the 770s with a 30-40 gram tungsten weight on the toe and heel and still have the same size and face design, you could possibly squeeze out maybe another 5-7 yds from an off center hit from the effect of THAT MUCH more toe and heel weighting on the MOI which then could stack on top of the face's off center hit capability. Hmmmmmmmmm

TOM

[Oliver C. Porkman III]

Nice explanation, but you missed reviewing the "feel" department in detail which is also debated on another thread. Moreover, using blades somehow lets you to keep your fundamentals always in check. It'd be good if you write more about these topics.

I agree "feel" is probably the most important aspect of the golf stroke IMO. Also using blades does force you to make better swings. One might look at this as a reason to avoid using blades but the up side is that by using blades your other clubs respond better. I find my drives more accurate because I use better fundamentals in my swing then I did previously. the bottom line is if you only play once a week or less you would be better served using a more friendly game improvement product but if you have the golf bug and can't play enough then it might worth your while to try a set of forged musscle back blades.

[Beach Golfer]

Off your handicap there is no point buying a full set of blades, buy a set of players cavity back irons for 3-7and but musclebacks for your 8-PW. With this set up you will be fine.

Also, don't let people off high handicaps tell you that you should be using blades because they don't know how well or badly you hit the ball most of the time, low handicappers do know how good you hit the ball and it is not good enough to be using blades.

[Jack_2251]

How does one quantify this? What does "20% more forgiveness" mean when dealing with the many variables pertaining to the swing and impact?

Well 20% more forgiveness was meant to mean that when I (me) hit a ball something like 1 inch to the toe, the ball flew about 20% further than the same shot did with the blade club. So, maybe a 9 iron off the toe went 100 with a cavity, it went 80 with a blade. Just my point of view sorry if I offended anyone like WilsonsBest.

[Stuart]

I switched from the Titleist 755's to the 695cb's mainly because i prefer the less amount of offset in the 695's and I wanted a lower ball flight. They are both great clubs and I have not noticed any difference in forgiveness. For a players cavity back iron I think the 695cb's are very hard to beat, but if you already hit a low ball then maybe the Mizuno MP57's or the Titleist 735 or 755's would be awesome. IMO all are fantastic clubs.

[chrisu]

I switched from the Titleist 755's to the 695cb's mainly because i prefer the less amount of offset in the 695's and I wanted a lower ball flight. They are both great clubs and I have not noticed any difference in forgiveness. For a players cavity back iron I think the 695cb's are very hard to beat, but if you already hit a low ball then maybe the Mizuno MP57's or the Titleist 735 or 755's would be awesome. IMO all are fantastic clubs.

I left my 690MBs for awhile, went to CBs, even went to Cally X18Pros, all in a new idea I was trying after I got fitted with my D1 Driver (Which I love, for now). I thought that more foregiveness in every part of my game would make a difference, and it did in my driving. But not because of the clubs, because I stopped trying to play a 40yd draw around a dogleg, I just go over it now.. but in the end I hit more fairways, but was further from the stick on my approaches. Because I do controll all my iron shots, and the MBs do it best for me. Lets face it in 8-pw, there is little feel differance, if any in a MB vs CB, but the 5 iron and 6 iron I could really tell, maybe because I tend to change the flight of the ball alot. I play in lots of wind so keeping it down, or letting it ride, can really make an impact. So bottom line, if you want to get better, use the feedback you get to do so, but use a players club, not a PI club to do it. If you play once a month then get some PIs and hit straight (hopefully) and high (defiently)... MBs vs CBs..... you have to try to decide... what other people think or say really has no true baring, cosmetics and setup really effect some others not so much.... The real question to consider is players clubs vs player improvement clubs, and how much imporvement you want, vs fixing that swing flaw that we all have.

[DaveLeeNC]

I had an interesting experiment with this question several years ago. I had just returned to golf after a 25+ year hiatus from the game (this was in the 2002/3 timeframe). I had been playing Tommy Armour 845 Silver Scots purchased at a good price on ebay (CB's). My index at the time was in the 8-10 range.

A local golf shop was moving and had much of their inventory on sale. They had a set of 1980'ish Hogan Director blades in HORRIBLE condition for $20. I would assume that the 7i would be ruled an illegal club just because the rust on the face MUST violate some kind of rule

I bought them strictly as practice clubs under the assumption that old blades would provide more feedback and would possibly improve my swing. Low and behold I liked these things more than my TA 845's. I played them on the course for a couple of months but they REALLy were UGLY (a statement of their condition). And for some reason I hated the PW (E club in Hogan speak).


I ended up with a set of reshafted Hogan Apex Channelback (MB clubs - circa 1995) that I played for a number of years. And I did an interesting experiment with these clubs vs. the TA 845's. I hit a WHOLE BUNCH of 6i's (5 TA's, 5 Hogan's, 5 TA's, etc) and watched and measured the results. I came to the conclusion that if there was a difference in the dispersion between the two clubs, it was REAL SMALL. So I played the Apex MB's for a number of years.

More recently I did some more experiments (not well structured from a scientific perspective) and came to the following conclusions.

1) There isn't a big difference between a "moderate cavity back" and a modern MB from any perspective (feel or results or .... )

2) "Extreme" cavity backs are a totally different animal. They are definitely more forgiving than MB's. A Titleist 695CB would be a good example of a moderate CB. A Callaway Big Bertha would be a moderate example of "more extreme" CB, but hardly the most extreme out there.

3) I make better ball contact with blades and moderate CB's than I do with more "extreme" CB's (and hybrids for that matter). This remains an unexplained phenomenon in my mind.

FWIW I am now playing Wishon 550C's down to 5i and Alpha RX hybrids replacing the 3i and 4i. I'm going to be trying out the Wishon 560MC 4i soon.

dave

[koadog71]

I grew up playing blades because that's what my father would hand down to me. I hit my first "oversized" cavity head about 15 years ago and my game got better. For the past 10 years I have played with the original Taylor Made Bubble irons. I made three attempts to move back to a blade in that time period, but always go back to my trusty TM's. This summer I made the switch to the TP R7's w/ TT S300 shafts.

[wmolaw]

I'm about the same handicap as you and use the mp-33's. They're great. Mizuno has a new iron out, the mp-57 which, while forged, is more forgiving than the 33's or the 67's. May be worth a look.

I just can't imagine hitting a non-forged iron. Have seen the new forged irons callaway is coming out with and while they aren't as gorgeous as the Mizunos, they seem to be getting great reviews.

[Oliver C. Porkman III]

I have been having trouble finding which irons I am going to purchase this season.

I just switched to forged clubs. I have been playing for 8 years. I play a lot of golf usually at least 3 times a week and at times everyday. I am told that you need to play frequently to appreicaite the blades. I am a decent ball striker with a very repeatable swing which has probably made it easier for me. If you play a lot I think you might benefit from the blade style club. A weekend warrior who plays once or twice a month would be better going with cavity IMO

[deakanutz]

Its all personal feel, some love Cb some love blade, whatever gives you confidence go with it. Did ya see the dude who made it thru Q school and played all Q with CB's and he had always played Blades. He shot lights out and said CB was the best thing in the world for him and couldn't bellive he used Blades all this time. I do love those Titleist 695 CB's, they hit it nice and low and very sweet. Very easy to line up to target.

[treekiller]

I agree with that picture of Eveleth!

[JMMARICH]

CB's here. All I have ever played with, and with all the stories of blades bending you over, I will stick with CB's until I break below 90 :).

--Josh

[Dr.Golf]

Well for me, Titleist blades works best. I have tried cavity backed irons and really didn't notice any change in my game. Do not want to pass up the feel of a blade.

doc

[dohn javid]

How about the best of both worlds. If you can get your hands on a set of Hogan FTX irons, I think you will be pleasantly surprised. E-8 are blades. 7-2 are cavity backed. I think Titleist and a few other brands came out w/ a similar set. Sets start out as blades with the scoring irons and gradually morph to a more forgiving cavity as they get longer, I think may be the answer to your predicament.

[Steaksauce]

I have a set of perimiter weighted forged Hogans, which I think were one of the first styles made for that, and they seem to be working pretty well with a good feeling at impact and slightly more forgiving than blades, although it is still very noticable on a mishit.

Hopefully once I get a little better I can trade these in with my dad for his Hogan Apex blades next year. For some reason I seem to focus so much more with them and rarely ever hit a bad shot with them. Probably because I know I won't be able to feel my hands for the next 3 holes if I do.