PING S55 irons: Sneak Peak

[mvmac]

Ping Golf has brought its new S55 irons to Liberty National Golf Club, site of this week's Barclays Championship, where the clubs will be made available Monday for staff players to use for the first time.

Like the S56 irons that they replace in Ping's line, the new S55 irons are designed for accomplished players who prefer a small, blade-style head. The S55 irons will be available to consumers starting Nov. 1.

Matt Rollins, Ping's senior PGA Tour manager, said, "Size-wise, the new clubs are very, very similar [to the S56]. They're almost identical in size actually."

Made from 17-4 stainless steel like their predecessor, the new S55s have a thinner face designed to increase ball speed, along with a tungsten weight in the toe of each club to pull the sweet spot more to the center of the hitting area and to increase forgiveness.

Though Rollins said that the topline for both irons are exactly the same, he noted that the center of gravity (CG) is lower and slightly farther back in the S55 – especially in the long irons – so shots should fly a little bit higher.

Because the CG position is lower in the long irons, Rollins says that Ping was able to strengthen the lofts by one degree. However, he expects many pros will want their S55 irons delofted to match their old S56 irons. That can easily be accomplished and will produce a touch more bounce in the sole of the irons, which Rollins says could actually be an additional benefit.

"One of the things for [Ping staff player] Bubba Watson is that he wants to be able to curve the ball a little bite more," Rollins said. "We want him to put these in play, so we had to made them a little more playable."

Because most golfers are right-handed, the first versions of most golf clubs are made for right-handed players. However, Rollins said many of the original prototype S55 irons were made left-handed so that Watson could try them and give his feedback. "That's very unusual, but we had him involved with this a while ago," Rollins said.

The S56 had two stabilization bars behind the face, but there is only one in the back of the S55. The bar behind the long irons is smaller, to keep the CG down; in the short irons it's larger to raise the CG, which should help to flight shots lower for more control on approach shots.

"Last week I was in Dallas with Hunter Mahan and the first thing that he said to me was that the S55 feels softer," Rollins said. "There (are) two reasons for that. First is the stabilization bar, and second is the weight that goes behind the face is a lot softer."

In fact, the weight cartridge actually "gives slightly" when pressed upon.

Ping has not yet announced the stock shaft nor the price for the S55 irons.

http://golfweek.com/news/2013/aug/19/ping-s55-irons/

[saevel25]

They look better than the S56, got to see how there priced and the shaft options.

[newtogolf]

Ping is making more visually attractive clubs these days.  I like the look of these, the i20's and G25's.

[Jakester23]

Those are gorgeous. My wife might not be getting a bday present.

[Pretzel]

If these are reasonably priced or the s56's go on sale upon release I may have to look into these.

[mchepp]

Very nice. Classy.

[cipher]

Quote:

How much are the i20's ? From what I've read the s55's are going to be under $1000.

Moving this here Jakester, since I don't really want to talk about it on my swing thread.  I am trying to keep that more about what I am working on with my swing.

If these will be under $1000 for a full set that is a pretty decent price.  I thought they would be more.  Even still the i20's to me look just about as sexy and are now under $100 per club.

[saevel25]

They should be i think the i20's were only $800 dollars when they came out.

[cipher]

Originally Posted by saevel25

They should be i think the i20's were only $800 dollars when they came out.

I think if you got an aftermarket shaft like I did, they were just over $100.

[Jakester23]

This is probably a dumb question but how did youknow what after market shafts to get? I've been trying to look at the differences in shafts for my driver and I can't seem to get any real good ideas on which direction to go. If the S55's are near $1000 I'd like to get fitted for a set and I'd like to know my opinions for the shafts

[cipher]

Originally Posted by Jakester23

This is probably a dumb question but how did youknow what after market shafts to get? I've been trying to look at the differences in shafts for my driver and I can't seem to get any real good ideas on which direction to go. If the S55's are near $1000 I'd like to get fitted for a set and I'd like to know my opinions for the shafts

I just knew which ones I liked.  Ideally you want to get fit yes.  You should be able to visit a ping club fitter and do that.. I think?

[Jakester23]

Did you read about different shaft options online or just hit clubs with all different shafts to find the ones you wanted? Id like the set I buy next to be the one I'm hitting for quite a while. I just want to make sure I know as much as I can before I go to get fitted.

[Pretzel]

Originally Posted by Jakester23

Did you read about different shaft options online or just hit clubs with all different shafts to find the ones you wanted? Id like the set I buy next to be the one I'm hitting for quite a while. I just want to make sure I know as much as I can before I go to get fitted.

Your 3 main shaft choices to look at will likely be Dynamic Gold _-300's, Project-X _._, and KBS Tour shafts. The _'s are where you would insert the stiffness of the shaft when the stiffness is in the name of it (ex: Dynamic Gold S-300, Project-X 6.5). For me the Dynamic Gold's were inconsistent in terms of both distance and accuracy, but I know there are guys who see the same thing with the other two shafts. I preferred the feel/performance of the KBS Tour shafts, which produced a slightly lower trajectory and felt better to me than the Project X shafts. However, the Project X had slightly smaller dispersion, so I'm tempted to look into possibly hardstepping the Project X shaft by one to lower the flight and see how that would work since I'm interested in these irons when they release.

Just make sure that you at least try those big three (Dynamic Gold, Project X, and KBS Tour or C-Taper) and compare your dispersion with each. You can look at more exotic options if you'd like, but they might cost you extra or require an installation fee from the location you are buying them at. I'm not sure exactly how that ends up working out.

[cipher]

^Great post. I play the TT DG S300s and like you say, I am one who loves their consistency and flight. I have a project x on my 3i and like that a lot as well. I have just played the 300s for a while and like them. In reality even the stock ping shafts will probably be pretty decent on the s55 irons as well.

[Pretzel]

I have to say that Ping has some of the highest quality of stock shafts in all of the clubs I've tested. I still prefer the aftermarket shafts over the stock ones, but I wouldn't shy away from starting out with a Ping shaft and then waiting to be sure you like the irons before dropping another $200 into them. I know this from my testing of the S56 irons versus some other irons I've been looking at (even the s56, AP2, and MP59's were feeling just as forgiving, yet more accurate than my "well loved" Eye 2's).

As an interesting side note, Ping's s56 irons tested out to go much further for me than the other irons. My dispersion remained about the same, as well as the lofts being in the same ballpark, but I got longer numbers than I'm used to from them. I'll be interested to see how much of a difference the strengthened lofts makes (To be fair, I tested a slightly broken AP2 that had a loose-ish head and Mizuno DID have weaker lofts by 1-2*). I also want to know how the s55 feels since they're saying it's better with the "flexible" weight instead of it being rigid. Would definitely consider purchasing these if it makes a noticeable difference while still retaining what I liked about the s56.

[Pretzel]

To clarify the difference between the shafts, I'll go ahead and add this: Dynamic Gold 300 series: Sorted by weight, meaning every shaft will be almost exactly the same weight. However, this also means that the stiffness COULD (not that it always will, remember that) vary between shafts by a small amount. I believe their regular shaft is supposed to be around a 5 or so. Project X: These shafts are sorted by stiffness. The stiffness is listed in the name of the type of shaft. The weight from shaft to shaft will LIKELY (again not always, but actually pretty probable) vary since it isn't sorted by weight. Regular is 5.0, and they go in .5 increments from there (5.5 = Stif Regular, and so on) KBS: These shafts are sorted by stiffness, but are slightly stiffer than Project X. The same weight variance will apply. A regular is a 5.2, stiff a 6.2 and so on (hence the reason a hard stepped Project X would give me similar ballflight as the KBS). Two kinds of shafts here, the Tour version and the C-Taper. The Tour is their standard shaft, whereas the C-Taper is a bit interesting. It's designed to have much lower ballflight and spin, which comes in handy if you want to have the effects of a stiffer shaft without actually stepping up in stiffness. It basically acts like a stepping stone between the flexes of the Tour shafts, while maintaining the same flexes. A regular flex C-Taper behaves similarly to how a "stiff-regular" of the Tour shaft would (they don't actually make stiff regulars I don't think).

[Jakester23]

So does the ball flight and distance change drastically from shaft to shaft? I hit the ball kinda high so which is best for my ball flight.

[Pretzel]

Ball flight, yes. Distance, not necessarily. You will gain distance if you change to a proper flex from an improper flex usually, but otherwise you likely won't unless your spin/launch are way out of whack. If you're launching it too high, then you could look into a higher kick point shaft such as the C-Taper or get something hard stepped/half a flex stronger. If it balloons in the air, then you also would want to get a lower spinning shaft, which would increase distance in that case.