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1 Iron Golf Clubs


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I had to share this, does anyone else find a sense of hilarity in the idea that 1-iron golf bases their 'proper fitting' on the W-T-F measurement? ...I know people out there have these clubs but comon...wtf?

http://www.1irongolf.com/index_files/page0002.htm

edit: yes, i know it's for wrist to floor. the very idea that using one club length for the whole set is similar to the knuckleheads (sounding like charles barkley) that bought THE HAMMER with zolex...sounds ridiculous to me...just MHO

In my Titleist 2014 9.5" Staff bag:

Cobra Bio+ 9* Matrix White Tie X  - Taylormade SLDR 15* ATTAS 80X - Titleist 910H 19* ATTAS 100X - Taylormade '13 TP MC 4-PW PX 6.5 - Vokey TVD M 50* DG TI X100 - Vokey SM4 55 / Vokey SM5 60* DG TI S400 - Piretti Potenza II 365g

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i find it hard to believe you can achieve proper distance gaps with the same length shaft in all your irons...

but i've never tried these irons or any other set with equal-lengthed shafts so i can't really make fun of this company...

RBZ stage 2 driver & 3 wood

Original AP1 4-GW

Vokey 54.10 & 58.04

Scotty Newport 2

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What length would the clubs be? Theres a big difference in length between a 3 iron and a pw. Maybe if they were all the same length as a 6 iron(right in the middle) but would still seem awkward and confusing, would have to constantly check to make sure you had the right club instead of knowing by the length. I think the result would be that you would hit your short irons farther and lose distance on long irons and not really hit any of them well unless you were a beginner and this was your first set and didnt know any different. Kinda like the one iron where you can change loft, just a gimmick that will never catch on and sell well.

In my bag
Driver-top flite cannon 460 cc 10.5 deg, reg flex
3 Wood-ACUITY GOLF RCX 14°
3h-warrior golf tcp 20°
4h-warrior golf tcp 23°5h-warrior golf tcp 26° 6-pw-AFFINITY / ORLIMAR HT2 SERIES irons steel shafts regular flex56° sw-tour seriesram puttergolf balls-intech beta ti

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Greg and Bama, your initial thoughts were similar to mine, and you are correct about the distances "compressing" if you don't change the club face angles. I continued to research the idea because my intuition and common sense kept saying that "consistency" comes from "repetition" and if every club was the same (except for loft), then I should have a better chance of hitting the "sweetspot" if I practice. Authors like Tom Wishon are adament that the largest factor determining distance of a golf shot is loft angle. The degrees between each club are what make the 1 iron golf clubs work. Not for everyone, but they are worth a try.

You can't grab a Nike 7i and then hit the 1Iron Golf 7i becasue it is like hitting the same club. The difference is in the set, not the club.

I hope to drop my handicap between 5 and 10 strokes this summer, then I will really be able to give more insight.

One more point to make, for those who are having fun with the WTF measurement. You might already know this, but I can't tell from your emails and don't know your sense of humors. Wrist-to-Floor (WTF) is a very commonly used measurement for fitting golf clubs. Even big companies use it, check out the Ping Website and get Web-fit and you will see.

Driver: 600t 10.5*
3Wood: TBD
Irons: 1 Iron Golf 3i-PW
Putter: O-Blade
Hobby: I enjoy collecting samples of vintage Ping

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One more point to make, for those who are having fun with the WTF measurement. You might already know this, but I can't tell from your emails and don't know your sense of humors. Wrist-to-Floor (WTF) is a very commonly used measurement for fitting golf clubs. Even big companies use it, check out the Ping Website and get Web-fit and you will see.

its just the acronym WTF thats funny.....

RBZ stage 2 driver & 3 wood

Original AP1 4-GW

Vokey 54.10 & 58.04

Scotty Newport 2

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There was a study done back in the '70s on this and the results were that loft is what makes the difference in distance gaps. If all the heads weigh the same and the shaft length and flex is fit to your swing you'll achieve the desired results. It's not done because it's an idea that is not easily mass marketed and produced, too much inventory is required.

KZG Gemini 9* Aldila Proto By You
Leyland COPlasma 3wd
Golfsmith Q4 19*
Louisville HyLofter 24*
Wishon 770CFEs w/Nippons
Alpha P2 wedges
Louisville EWP putter

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There was a study done back in the '70s on this and the results were that loft is what makes the difference in distance gaps. If all the heads weigh the same and the shaft length and flex is fit to your swing you'll achieve the desired results. It's not done because it's an idea that is not easily mass marketed and produced, too much inventory is required.

Isn't this kinda the same as MOI matching?

In my KZG Stand Bag:
919THI 11* w/ OBAN Revenge 6 (S)
919THI 16.5* w/ OBAN Revenge 7 (S)
KZG 18* & 22* U Iron w/ Matrix Studio 84 (S)
KZG 5-PW Cavity Back Forged III w/ N.S. Pro 1050 GH (S)KZG Forged TRS 50*, 54*, 58* w/ N.S. Pro 1050 GH (S)Kirk Currie/Wright San Saba 33" e7 or TriSpeed uProMy...

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The thing most people don't realize is that long irons are not harder to hit because they are longer. If this were true, a hybrid would be just as hard to hit as a long iron.

The thing is, the loft is the biggest factor in a club being hard to hit. This is simple inclined plane theory. With a 45° 9 iron, you have exactly 1/2 of the energy going to lifting the ball up, and 1/2 of the energy going to moving it forward. With a 15° 1 iron, you have just 1/6 of the energy going to lifting the ball up.

With this , you can see why players have trouble getting their long irons airborne. The amount of energy required is sufficient to require a very good strike to elevate the ball. This basic bit of physics is often lost on people.

Now you're about to ask, "But Shanksey [or whatever golfers call eachother], why are my hybrids so much easier to hit?" Well, that's pretty simple.

The reason relies on several relegating factors. The first, and most prominent, is the fact that the center of gravity is much lower on a hybrid. Imagine a bus is sitting sideways on a freeway, and two other vehicles are coming, about to sideswipe it. A small Hybrid car hits the side of the bus near the front at 65 mph, while a semi truck, also going 65 mph hits the side toward the rear at the same time. The bus will slide forward, but the side hit by the little car will slide a lot less than the side hit by the truck.

This is what a low, and rearward center of gravity does for a club. The bottom applies more force to the ball, so it has more force lifting it.

Bottom line, these irons will be slightly easier to hit, but not much. I talked to a clubmaker who made a set, and said the long irons were still hard to hit.
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  • 1 year later...

I created a custom set similar to what 1 iron golf is offering.

My woods 1 3 5 7 are all 42 inches Nike Dymo 2 driver and sumo 5 square woods

My hybrids 5 6 7 are all 38 inches |Nike sumo 2 square

my irons 6789pas are all 36 inches |Nike Slingshot

Lofts and weights were adjusted accordingly.

I was always about a 100 golfer ( no mulligans) but just didnt have enough time to get any better. Within 5 rounds my scores dropped dramatically. Once I got the distances down, I could consistantly score in 80's.

I attributed this directly to hitting the ball in the sweet spot almost every time.

I use the single swing plane meathod.

Will I ever become a pro....nope. But I can play with just about anyone and not feel like a horrible golfer

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  • 10 months later...

So it seems the 2 or 3 people who have actually tried this type of club design like the results they get, and the detractors for the most part have not tried....

One question for those who have tried, how does the distance compare o your original clubs, especially for the clubs you thought were your best on the traditional style club sets?

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  • 2 months later...
I am 67 years old. I took up the game 12 months ago and have been diligently practicing on the range and with my artificial grass surface and net in my garage every day, two or three hours per day. My problem has always been lack of consistency, even with the short irons, and I have never had any success with the along irons. I eventually gave up on the long irons and took them out of my bag and replaced them with hybrids, which were easier to hit. Half the time I hit the hybrids and mid-irons fat or thin, and about one in three of my short irons were mis-hits. I almost never hit pure shots--strikes that compressed the ball and generated that satisfying "scrunch" sound. Last week I read David Lake's website at 1IronGolf.com and found his logic compelling, so Ibought a set of used irons (3-W) from him for $399, hoping that I would have results as good as those described in blogs by others. I held back ordering the driver and the woods until I tried the irons. Our days later my irons arrived, and they looked brand new. I immediately took the eight different irons to my net and hit each iron, one after the other, one time each. Each strike was pure. I was totally convinced. Three minutes after I had made the eighth swing, I was on line spending $700 dollars for the driver and 3, 5, and 7 woods. The change in my game has been miraculous. The average distance has shot way up, in part because the clubs were fitted to my wrist-to-floor distance, which makes the lie angle optimum. Another reason for my increased distance is that any swing with one of the irons, whether as practice or while on the course, is equivalent to practicing with any one of the other irons. Previously, practicing with my eight iron, for example, was of no help with my swings with the other irons. Now, I could practice all day with just the 3-iron, and all the other clubs would benefit equally. Thus, my consistency has increased dramatically. Of immeasurable help also comes from the increased confidence that comes with consistently great ball strikes, which fosters even greater consistency, which in turn increases confidence, and so on. I've read hundreds and hundreds of blogs about golfing, subscribed to two golf magazines, and viewed hundreds of YouTube videos, and done all of the practicing I described above, but none of those things has had as much of an impact on my game as have my eight new (used) irons by 1 Iron Golf. My game experienced a quantum jump in the space of a few minutes. I will venture the uninformed guess that these clubs might not be for the Tour professional who can take advantage of the perhaps 2% gain in distance that occurs by using mid and long irons that are slightly longer than the 1 Irons, but for the average golfer with a handicap of 10 or higher.....they should stop what they're doing right now and measure their WTF and then go to 1IronGolf.com and order a used set of irons from David Lake.
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  • 2 months later...

We are led to believe that longer golf clubs produce greater swing speeds on a linear scale and thus more distance. This is the explanation given for the 1/2 inch increase in club length between the individual irons and woods within a conventional set of golf clubs. In actuality, the only static factor that results in distance changes between clubs is the difference in the loft angle of the club-head. Our testing has shown conclusively that there is absolutely no measurable difference in distance due to the standard 1/2 inch incremental shaft length increases between clubs. The only affect of the standard length increases between clubs is to make each successively longer club harder to hit.

The armchair physicist will point to the radial arm length in a golf swing as being the prime determinant of swing speed stating that the longer the radial arm the greater the swing speed and resultant distance. A common misconception is that club length alone is used to define this radial arm length. Regardless of how many hinging points and resultant secondary arcs/planes are involved the true center of a golf swing is a point somewhere between your shoulders (this center point moves laterally between the shoulders during the swing). Hence, you must include your arm length into the radial arm length equation for any meaningful analysis. Therefore, assuming a 37 inch iron length and an arm length of 24 inches, the actual radial arm length in your golf swing is 61 inches. This means that a 1/2 inch change in club length results in a radial arm length change of only 1/122 or 0.008197. A 1.0 inch change in club length results in a radial arm length change of only 1/61 or 0.01639. Even a 2.0 inch change in club length results in a radial arm length change of only 1/30.5 or .0328. As you can see, these fractional changes in radial arm length will not produce any measurable change in swing speed or distance whatsoever.

Our testing of hundreds of golfers (including professional golfers) has shown that your highest swing speed with an iron is attained when you are hitting your favorite iron. Every time you switch to an incrementally longer or shorter iron your swing speed will decrease. The reason for this is that you have the greatest degree of confidence with your favorite iron (the only one in the bag that comes close to actually fitting you properly) and this high confidence level allows you to make your most fluid and powerful swing. Every time you move up or down one or two clubs (increasing or decreasing club length from your "favorite") your confidence level decreases and you will unconsciously slow down your swing in order to make good ball contact. This decrease in confidence level translates directly into the unconscious decrease in swing speed and applied power. With a set of single-length irons that are custom fitted for you you will experience an overall increase in power as well as a decided increase in your control and accuracy. You will be as comfortable with your #3 and #4 iron as you are with your #9 iron or wedges and you will gain distance and accuracy with every iron in your set over your old irons.

Club-head weight . What most golfers do not realize is that in a conventional set of irons the club-head weight progressively increases in 7gm increments from the #3 iron through the wedges. Therefore, a conventional #3 iron club-head weighs approximately 240 gms while a conventional PW club-head weighs approximately 292 gms. Since the club-head weight in a set of single-length irons is 273 gms you will be hitting the ball with the #3 iron incorporating more mass than a conventional #3 iron for increased ball compression and additional distance.

Ball striking consistency . Regardless of what you may have heard through advertising concerning "expanded" or "extra large" sweet spots, in actuality the sweet spot on a club-face is only the size of a pin head (the intersection of the horizontal and vertical centers of gravity) and certainly cannot be artificially enlarged. The fact is that if you miss this sweet spot by 1/4" either way you will lose 10 yards in distance and have an off-line shot. When playing a set of irons that are identical throughout the set and where you are using the exact same swing and ball position with every club and on every shot, your consistency in hitting the sweet spot increases dramatically.

The combination of using your maximum swing speed, hitting the ball with greater mass, and striking the sweet spot on the club-face every time guarantees an increase in distance with every club in your bag.

David Lake

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The physics of it just make no sense irons the same length and weight... In a perfect world would go the same distance... If each club was swung the same... Ever do the pendulum experiment in physics? You're golf swing is just a extended pendulum (at least from the point where you unbreak you wrists on the downswing to when you break them on tje follow-through) if I wanted to play the 1 iron golf system... I'd just grab my v blade 7-iron and go play with just the one club...

What's in Shane's Bag?     

Ball: 2022 :callaway: Chrome Soft Triple Track Driver: :callaway:Paradym Triple Diamond 8° MCA Kai’li 70s FW: :callaway:Paradym Triple Diamond  H: :callaway: Apex Pro 21 20°I (3-PW) :callaway: Apex 21 UST Recoil 95 (3), Recoil 110 (4-PW). Wedges: :callaway: Jaws Raw 50°, 54°, 60° UST Recoil 110 Putter: :odyssey: Tri-Hot 5K Triple Wide 35”

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Awards, Achievements, and Accolades

onthehunt526,

You would have to ask Phil Scott (Adam Scott's father) as well as Jaacob Bowden (European PGA Tour) as well as 100+ golf pros playing single-length clubs throughout the USA if they would agree with you.  Although it is too late, you could have asked Moe Norman who is considered the best ball striker who ever lived and played single-length golf clubs his entire competitive career if he would agree with you.

David Lake

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  • 3 weeks later...

My regular playing partner bought a set of 1 Iron clubs (3 iron through Lob Wedge) about a month ago; while I was somewhat skeptical, I was interested to see how it would impact his game.  He is a 12 handicap and a pretty good ball striker and has been playing Mizuno Mx 200 irons for a few years now.  We played a tough course last week and he used his 1 Irons, it was only the second time he played with them and shot quite well.  I was amazed at how well he struck the ball with them.

In reading this thread, it seems that some think these are a gimmick thing aimed at high handicappers but I can assure you my buddy played quite well with them, we played 36 holes that day and he shot both rounds in the low 80's - on a very tight, difficult course by the way and only his second round with them.

I'm not suggesting these clubs are for everybody (I like my short irons short), but I wanted to get this out there for anybody who may be considering these clubs.

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The physics of it just make no sense irons the same length and weight... In a perfect world would go the same distance... If each club was swung the same... Ever do the pendulum experiment in physics? You're golf swing is just a extended pendulum (at least from the point where you unbreak you wrists on the downswing to when you break them on tje follow-through) if I wanted to play the 1 iron golf system... I'd just grab my v blade 7-iron and go play with just the one club... And all of your shots would go the same distance. The one-irons have different lofts, which provide a consistent 8-10 yards increment from one club to the next. So, if you hit your 1-Iron eight 140 yards, you would hit your 1-Iron four 172-180 yards.
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There are other same length irons on the market as well...The Pinhawk series of clubs as well as the Integra Soo Long power bars...both sets sold at Valuegolf.com.

In my  bag:

Driver, Callaway Diablo Edge Tour 9.5 stiff

3, 5 woods: Callaway Diablo Edge Tour 15,18 degrees Stiff

2 hybrid: Callaway Diable Edge Tour 18 degrees R (out when the 5 wood is in)

3,6 hybrids: Callaway Diablo Edge 21 S and 30 degrees R

4,5 hybrids: Callaway Razr X HL 24 and 27 degrees Stiff

7-AW irons: Callaway Razr HL graphite R shafts 

SW 54 Callaway X Series Jaws CC Slate Fujikura Graphite Stiff

Putter: Odessey White Ice 1 Blade Putter. 

Ball...looking for any ball that hates water, sand, long grass, and getting lost in the woods. 

I can't find any, so forced to use ones that seem to love all the above. 

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  • 5 months later...

David Lake,

This is a new concept to me.  Just started reading about your clubs.  2 things: (probably obvious)   1. with the 1-iron system my feet would end up the exact same distance from the ball with ALL irons, right? (seems like it would be uncomfortable)     2.  intuition would suggest to me that i could get more benefit if i just reduced the length of my 3-5 irons (hardest to hit.......like many golfers) and make them the same length as my 6 iron (favorite club), but KEEP 7-pw their conventionally-stepped lengths (shorter which is nice for 100 yds in).

just curious about your thoughts on that.

thanks,

jev

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Note: This thread is 2767 days old. We appreciate that you found this thread instead of starting a new one, but if you plan to post here please make sure it's still relevant. If not, please start a new topic. Thank you!

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