Single Length Irons - Nike Blades

[Large chris]

I've been interested in trying single length irons for a while in an attempt at more consistency. There have been a few threads but mostly to do with buying specific single length sets, from the Tommy Armour EQs, Ostrich, 1irongolf etc. onwards. I also had a little correspondence with Dave Tutelman on a few club matching ideas. Instead of buying a set, I've just made my own equal length irons, based on some second hand nike 2003 blades. My normal specs are x100 std length, so I ended up buying 9 identical x100 SL DG shafts in the 7 iron, butt trimmed only. Basically I bent all the irons to the same lie as the 7 (yes 3 or 4 degrees for the 3 iron - no breakages), then added a load of lead (a lot, upto 50g in the 3 iron) to match up all the club weights. The swing weights do go up, no easy way to avoid that, because you are adding 1.5 inches to the PW / SW which adds a few points, and then matching the other clubs to that. I went with the super light shafts (very impressive by the way) to try and cancel some of that additional weight. I've just gone and hit them for the first time with mixed, though maybe promising results. For a start I've never hit so many shanks before. This maybe until I get used to the heavier weights. But there definitely were some nice shots in there. You would expect constant length sets to suffer from 'range compression', which is definitely true, but it didn't seem too bad. I had a worry because I tried a test club (hogan apex 3 iron trimmed and weighted to a 7 iron) and I could barely launch it. This set seems much more playable. I think it's too early to be definitive about the results, I need to do a fair bit of practice to get used to them. I know from previous comments another common concern is really 'long' short irons and wedges, particularly for chipping. I have a possible answer to that, which is that a legitimate chipping method is having the heel of the club raised up to lessen turf drag. So choking down on these longer short irons might still work for the short game.

[logman]

Interesting stuff LC. I read a story a while ago about a guy who used 2 lengths. sand to 7 were 36 or something and 6 to 3 were something else. Geez that was helpful haha

[Large chris]

I think Logman that there is mileage in having just two lengths in the irons as you say, the range compression will come right down by doing this. Or even three lengths, which splits up 9 clubs neatly. My idea was that the 7 iron is the longest club I can consistently keep a flat left wrist with - don't know why....

[logman]

I love having a bit of a tinker with golf sticks. At the moment I'm playing Cleveland niblick wedges(sand, 49, 42) the same length and I'm thinking of doing a set of "all hybrid" clubs from about 8 to 4. The set ups as we currently have them with 1/2 inch gaps in length seems to be  more an anoyance than essential

[Large chris]

I agree on the annoyance point, 14 completely different clubs.... And if you see the pros warm up they will hit ten superb 3 irons in a row on the practice ground, but on course their odds are reduced a lot....