TaylorMade Tour Preferred irons

[RichF]

Anyone notice Sergio Garcia has just switched to using the TaylorMade Tour Preferred irons this week?

Anyone else used these?
http://www.taylormadegolf.com/produc...il.asp?pID=228

[st0wgolf08]

They look so hideous, i doubt it. I thought golf companies were starting to move to cleaner looking clubs with their blades and other players irons. All the newer taylormade irons are starting to look like crap. I thought the muscleback racs looked fantastic but these just are horrible.

[monsterputt]

Anyone notice

Great question. I would be interested to know if anyone has tried them out and what they think.

[RichF]

They look so hideous, I doubt it

No - I'm pretty sure he

is using them. The commentators stated numerous times that he was using new irons for this tournament and the following photos from this tournament show that the back of these irons are not RAC MB TPs: You can clearly see the cavity-back and black paint-fill....

[st0wgolf08]

I meant I did see sergio use them, I thought you asked if any other Tour pros used them, not if anyones hit them. sorry!

[RichF]

I meant I did see Sergio use them, I thought you asked if any other Tour pros used them, not if anyones hit them. sorry!

Oh right!

Anyways, he's been using the RAC MB TPs for about five years now - I guess such a radical change hasn't damaged his game - he's leading The Tour Championship and looking likely to win if he doesn't implode later today....

[golf_junkie27]

This is just speculation but perhaps he might not be playing any more tournaments in the States, this year. Therefore, TM may have asked him to use them, this week. If you notice, he did not have them at the Ryder Cup.

This will give TM the "advertising" it needs to push these irons on the market: "Sergio used them to win at East Lake."

As for the irons, color scheme aside, they are almost identical to the 2005 RAC TP and the 2008 TM that were originally released in Japan and are in Mike Weir's bag.

I love the 2005 RAC TPs and from a review I read, these new TM TP Preferred play almost identical. These have a slighter offset and the distances are nearly the same.

[RichF]

This is just speculation but perhaps he might not be playing any more tournaments in the States, this year. Therefore, TM may have asked him to use them, this week. If you notice, he did not have them at the Ryder Cup.

Is this common practice with pros?

[golf_junkie27]

Is this common practice with pros?

I can't speak for all golfers but my guess is yes. TM has all of Sergio's specs, obviously. They would just have to build the clubs and get feedback from him. I know he likes the leading edge shaved a bit and he uses a special grind. I would not imagine something like this taking longer than a few hours in their facility and range.

[Young Golf Prodigy]

Oh right!

Speaking of imploding, congrats to Camilo! The Tour Preferred don't look that hot, but I want some hot blades like the TP Smoke to replace my crappy cobras. They's getting old, man!

[Smilesy]

I agree they don't look that good, but they may play well. It may be a performance thing for him.

[elchene]

Anyone notice

Yeah, I noticed that Sergio was playing the tour preferred irons. I love the new white new decade mcc's that he has on those irons.

[RichF]

This is just speculation but perhaps he might not be playing any more tournaments in the States, this year. Therefore, TM may have asked him to use them, this week. If you notice, he did not have them at the Ryder Cup.

Well, he's still using them - and he's switched to the R7 Limited driver.

And he's now #2 in the world!

[golf_junkie27]

Well, he's still using them - and he's switched to the R7 Limited driver.

Yes, and from what I read, altough identical to what you can find in stores, the heads on these bad boys are actually smaller, heel to toe.

FWIW, I hit these, last Friday. You cannot see the cavity back from address and the top line is not overly thick. In fact, it looks almost identical to the blades. You can feel the mishits, too, something I'm sure that is important to a player of his caliber. The clubs are actually nice looking, too. The pictures on the 'net don't do them justice.

[rjfan91]

Sadly, first thing that came to mind is that back cavity slowly filling with dirt/mud... I like having blades that I can simply wipe with a towel.

[obsessedgolfer]

They might have the same specs as blades but they feel like crap, most of the pros dont have to do with them bieng cast because most of the Taylormade pros get their stuff forged by miura.

[ERC7.5]

I just got back from hitting these clubs and thought they felt great. I haven't hit many "player" irons but I struck all but two shots quite well and they felt very good. As golf_junkie said, you cannot see the cavity at address and they do look way better than any of the images on the net. I had intended to upgrade my irons this season to more of a GI set but now I am almost completely sold on these. Still looking at hitting a few other brands first though.

Here is an image from the main portion of this site that do the clubs a little more justice than I have seen on other sites (including TM's):

[RocketSauce]

the TaylorMade irons look like they were designed by Nascar to me