Semi - Blades AKA muscle cavities

[trashpar]

10 years ago when I got away from my blades and started using Eye2's, I was a lot better on miss hits but my swing suffered since I had very little feedback. My last two sets have been cavity forged (690 CB's and now 735 CMs) and I would rather live with the bigger misses and have the feedback, especially on the shorter clubs.

[diesel]

Just ordered a set of Titleist 695MB with TTDG S300 shafts.

Been playing Callaway's and don't like how what can feel and sound like a 'good' shot fall out of the sky early.

[John Boy]

Progressive clubs are the answer...

Long irons need a little of forgiveness and usually dont require that much workability in the shot. Mid and short irons need to have more feedback and workability because that is where the money is made. I am not sure about hybrid to blades, because that seems to be a little extreme, but Titliest is doing it right with there line of progressives. I think that will be my next set. I know one big advantage of blades is the lie adjustments. A blade cuts threw rough better and I feel it is much easier to pick a blade clean off a really tight lie.

[Black_Black]

Yeah after years of playing with both 990b's and 690's (no dot) progressive sets are defintely for me. I feel I would rather sacrifice a little(and I mean a little) workability and feedback for a little more reassurance that the club I am hitting is going to help me out on the slightest mis-hits. Progressive sets give you the best of both worlds, precise control with the shorter clubs and and more forgiving easy launching long irons that don't sacrifice aesthetics (this is key). The only knock I have on my 735's is that the 7 iron isn't a muscle back.

[trashpar]

  Black_Black said:

Yeah after years of playing with both 990b's and 690's (no dot) progressive sets are defintely for me. I feel I would rather sacrifice a little(and I mean a little) workability and feedback for a little more reassurance that the club I am hitting is going to help me out on the slightest mis-hits. Progressive sets give you the best of both worlds, precise control with the shorter clubs and and more forgiving easy launching long irons that don't sacrifice aesthetics (this is key). The only knock I have on my 735's is that the 7 iron isn't a muscle back.

Yeah, I like you, wish the 7 was a muscle back too. But you gotta love that 8 - PW.

[Naruto]

  gas_can said:

Naruto,

WRONG!!! the center of gravity being lowered affects the trajectory .... if anything the club face being farther back would lower the trajectory due to the fact that your hands are farther ahead of the ball at impact..... offset is to minimize slices which is what 95% of golfers fight....that extra split second makes a difference.....it could be the difference of 2* open vs. 1* and with a driver that will make a huge difference.... if you watch the pros at impact when they hit a hook, their typical miss, the club face is only slightly closed...its not like the thing is 4* overrotated...we are talking .5 - 1*

[gas_can]

  Naruto said:

WRONG!!! the center of gravity being lowered affects the trajectory .... if anything the club face being farther back would lower the trajectory due to the fact that your hands are farther ahead of the ball at impact.....

Naruto,

Please open your mind and listen to what I'm trying to tell you. It's nothing personal and I'm not pulling this stuff out of thin air. I learned about club design and fitting from the best people in the industry, and that's where all my info comes from. Golf myths are everywhere and they're flat out wrong and they feed people misinformation that does not help them. Of course, perhaps you'd care to take this up with other technical gurus such as Tom Wishon? http://www.wishongolf.com/tech_talk/...wers_page2/#42

  None said:

42. What really is the effect of offset on ball flight as a clubhead design specification? If the hands are more ahead of the clubface from the offset, won't that decrease dynamic loft and trajectory rather than increase it? Actually to be totally honest with you, most designers, me included, did not realize until more recently that the primary influence of hosel offset on ball flight was in how it positioned the Center of Gravity of the head further back from the shaft. The more the distance from the hosel to the leading edge of the head, the farther back the CG of the head will be in relation to the shaft centerline. And the more this distance, the more tendency there will be for the mass of the head to cause the shaft to bend forward before impact, which in turn increases the 'dynamic loft' of the head at the moment of impact. That in turn can cause a higher flight for any given loft. This tendency to bend the shaft forward happens for the same reason that you have to fit lie angle with a 'dynamic lie fitting' procedure. The preferred method of lie angle fitting is to have the golfer actually hit shots with each iron off a hard surface. This is so the effect of the downward "bowing" of the shaft can be taken into account. This downward bowing or bending of the shaft happens because the CG of the head is not in line with the shaft, so during the force of the downswing, the CG of the head "tries" to get in line with the shaft, thus causing the shaft to bend downward. Same thing happens with the CG in the plane of bending of the shaft toward the target. The CG being behind the shaft wants to also get in line with the shaft in this plane of bending too, which causes the shaft to bend forward before impact. That bending forward actually increases the loft of the head at the moment of impact. This effect is much less visible on irons than it is on offset woods for two reasons. 1) Wood shafts do bend a lot more than iron shafts because they are longer and smaller in the tip diameter. Therefore, the same amount of CG offset force will cause the wood shaft to bend more and thus with it, increase the dynamic loft more at impact. 2) Because woodheads are deeper in dimension from face to back than irons, the CG of an offset wood is already farther back from the shaft much more than it is on an iron. And the farther the CG from the shaft, the more pronounced its bending force will be on the shaft.

[NCGolfer]

gas_can,

In your original post, you lumped closed drivers in as being a "myth". From personal experience, I know that there was a noticable difference in trajectory/direction. I played with a TM R7 460 (the normal, closed version) for about 2 months. On a regular basis, I found myself hitting low hooks with the driver. After a while, I switched to the TP version (a straight-faced club) and, as expected, my results were much better. I had a higher trajectory and have not had the hooks I experienced with the non-TP version.

I've always respected your commentary here and would love to hear you elaborate on this "myth". As an experienced golfer that has experienced this first hand, I'd love to learn your point of view.

Thanks!

[iacas]

  NCGolfer said:

In your original post, you lumped closed drivers in as being a "myth". From personal experience, I know that there was a noticable difference in trajectory/direction. I played with a TM R7 460 (the normal, closed version) for about 2 months. On a regular basis, I found myself hitting low hooks with the driver. After a while, I switched to the TP version (a straight-faced club) and, as expected, my results were much better. I had a higher trajectory and have not had the hooks I experienced with the non-TP version.

In addition to having a more closed face, Dave, the non-TP r7 drivers put more weight in the heel, too. TM has told me that if you put the "heaviest" weights in the toe and the lightest in the heel, you can get back to neutral weighting (but still with the closed face).

So how did you have the weights arranged in both the non-TP and the TP models?

[NCGolfer]

  iacas said:

In addition to having a more closed face, Dave, the non-TP r7 drivers put more weight in the heel, too. TM has told me that if you put the "heaviest" weights in the toe and the lightest in the heel, you can get back to neutral weighting (but still with the closed face).

Ahhhh...good point. I actually had more weight shifted to the toe in the non-TP version...14-2. The TP version is 10-6 I believe...but I'll have to check. So the rundown of my drivers are/were:

TP version: Neutral weighting, closed face. non-TP version: Toe weighting, straight face. The 10-6 toe weighting may explain some of my "hook" correction, but I still think the closed face was the main culprit of my problems.

[Naruto]

i do apologize...you are correct...to verify shafts bending forward toward the target before and at impact i went to tiger's swing portrait and watched it in slow motion...it definitely bends forward....

of course it is exaggerated with the driver being a thinner tipped material and a graphite shaft. still every other site is saying that the major advantage of offset is it is harder to slice.

having played both, i find that offset in my hands equals hooks, so blades it will be and i hit my 32's high anyway so i definitely need to avoid offset clubs...

[iacas]

  NCGolfer said:

Ahhhh...good point. I actually had more weight shifted to the toe in the non-TP version...14-2. The TP version is 10-6 I believe...but I'll have to check. So the rundown of my drivers are/were:

You may have to edit that... I'm trying to say that it's impossible to get toe-weighting on the non-TP r7 460. Again, putting all the weight in the toe (2 heel, 14 toe) makes it neutrally weighted.

The TP version is neutrally weighted at 8-8.

[Wannabe Paper Tiger]

Iacas,

You just got the 67s , no? Why the switch to the ap2s? Just curious as I have not hit the ap2s but instead decided to order the 67s with the project x shaft 6.0.... thanks in advance...

[iacas]

  Wannabe Paper Tiger said:

Iacas,

Because I'm going to review the AP2s. I haven't even hit a piece of lint let alone a golf ball with the 67s.

[Wannabe Paper Tiger]

ooo... nice... so i guess if you like the aps then you won't ever hit balls with the 67s? looking forward to reading the review...