Workability in an iron - is it overrated

[mmoan2]

Just saw that Tiger fired Foley. Wow! Cleaning house, I see...

Anyway,

I'm going to purchase TM Speedblades from a friend. He got them cheap as part of some promotional deal and he wants to dump them. I hit them this weekend at Golfsmith and like them. I've been playing "player's" muscle backs for a while, and want to give clubs that are designed for a mid-handicap a try. I guess I've never understood why game improvement clubs are considered to have less workability. If you apply the laws of physics in your golf swing properly, why would it matter? What do muscle backs have that game improvements don't? The best shot of my life was hit with a clunky game improvement iron - a 35 yard hook around a tree from deep rough to a 150 yard pin that I hit to the fringe. Would I have put it on the green with a pro iron?

Side note : I just wrote a long review of the Speed Blades that took me over an hour. When I tried to post it, the TST gave me an error message and my review doesn't seem to be saved in a draft. GRRRRRR!!!!!

Can it be recovered? Thanks

[Tee2Trees]

Three characteristics seem to define GI irons vs players irons:

- Large face/sweet spot

- Wide sole

- Offset

I happen to be with you in thinking that none of these features should preclude a player from being able to draw or fade the ball.  The ball flight laws tell us that path vs face angle determine the curvature, period.  None of the above characteristics should affect one's ability to control face angle vs path.  The other end of "working the ball" involves flighting it high or low.  Yes, wide-soled clubs want to go high, but still, this isn't anything that can't be accounted for.  Ball position plus shaft lean will determine the launch angle for any club.  The annals of history are littered with players that got down to single-digit handicap using GI irons, then made the switch to "player's" irons and ceased to improve (or maybe got worse) from there.  Lee Westwood is a prime example.

While every manufacturer offers a variety of irons along the GI spectrum, where the club industry lets us down is in providing GI wedge selections.  You have to either be lucky enough to locate the G,S, and L wedges that go with your GI iron set (and pay a fortune for them), or play non-offset blades for this difficult-to-master range of clubs.  The sole exception seems to be the Ping Eye reissue wedges, which came about as a response to the number of pros and better players snapping up the vintage sticks out of complete sets when they could find them.

[aaronwright21]

I'm no golf expert at any means but I've just bought some new AP2's and I feel I can provide a little insight.

What I've noticed about hitting my new irons in the first few weeks since I've got them is the consistency when trying to work the ball.  I've noticed that rarely do any of my shots go straight.  With my old irons, they absolutely went straight.  Now there is a consistent draw to my shot and I can plan for it.  With my old irons (Callaway RAZR X Black) it was much harder to produce a draw or fade and it was not consistent in terms of how much it would fade/draw.

You are correct that if your swing has the right physics the ball has no choice but to draw/fade.  But since muscle back irons are made for players who wish to hit a straighter ball, the draw/fade must be hit very precisely in order for it to work.

[saevel25]

IF you are hitting the sweet spot in the club, then no there is no significant difference in the ability to work the ball.

I do believe muscleback irons curve more on off center hits, they also travel less. I remember someone posting a study done that showed that muscleback irons were more accurate in dispersion on solidly struck hits. I think the theory is, when you widen the sweet spot you are giving the player more leeway in the swing to not hit the absolute center. I do think each club does have an exact sweet spot. So when you hit it slightly off, it might not curve as much back as you want, or might just deviate slightly more. So I do think Muscleback irons are just a tad more accurate for better players.