Iron set bundling, and why it can be bad.

[Grumpter]

1 hour ago, dkolo said:

I went to a pizzeria yesterday. I only wanted one slice but, would you believe it, these pricks charged me more for one slice than just taking the price of a pie and dividing by eight. Gouging bastards. 

Egg-xactly. I went to the pizza shop and ordered a full large pie and they had the gall to charge me $14 when I can get 3 large pies, a 2 liter of soda and 8 wings for $32. I should have been able to get the large pie for $10.67 and then they could have poured 2/3 of a liter of soda plus given me 2.67 wings to boot.

The other thing is the upkeep to account for 10 clubs individually in a set is more intensive than having say two sets made up. To enter, maintain and charge for those items individually takes more labor and time.

Edited January 7, 2016 by Grumpter
2/3 a liter not 1/3 since it is a 2 liter

[dsal89]

I was able to buy individual irons for my ap2 716 irons. Got 5-pw at 125 a club. Could have went 7-pw or just a 7. 

 

 

[WUTiger]

On 1/5/2016 at 0:57 PM, Grumpter said:

If I buy a partial set I wouldn't expect the same pricing as buying a full set. It would be nice to get the same price for individual irons but I can see why they would charge more for a smaller sub set.

It has to do with economies of scale. If  your base model is 4i-PW + GW, or 3i-PW, you have easy planning for how many of each type of head you'll fabricate for a model's production run. Also, you have a common shaft mixes you send out to golf shops as finished sets. For our GI iron model, we might fit it primarily with DG S300 and PX 6.0. You have less handling of small-numbers orders if you offer golfers a standard club bundle, with a limited number of stock shaft options.

Same thing with some of your exotic shafts. If you have your local clubsmith order you an exotic Mitsubishi Fubuki driver shaft, it may cost you $400. But, you may be able to get that shaft as stock on a driver, with the total driver costing $375. Since the OEM bought 10,000 copies of the shaft, he got a better price break than you did on your unit-of-one purchase. 

Circa 2014, Bridgestone still sold 5-PW as its basic iron bundle, with a 4i or 3i as a separate purchase. For 2016, Bridgestone offers the 4i-PW as stock bundle for most of its irons. The exceptions are  J15.CB Lefthanded (3-PW) and J15.Cast (5i-AW). For a 3i, you would have to phone them (no online click-on for 3i).

[onthehunt526]

We unfortunately don't have a Golfsmith in Upstate New York, so I either have to order online or go to Dick's and hope they can special order it. I get most of my gear online because TEE equipment is kind of a secret in my area, for instance I only know 4 or 5 people, who play TEE and one bought a set from me.

Golfsmith, Dick's and Golf Galaxy not withstanding, some retailers have bundling issues... I personally order online mostly, but I go to a smaller Golf shop that orders my stuff for me and I also know one shopowner on eBay who is an authorized Tour Edge dealer who can order me just about anything an have it drop shipped.

So maybe it's just some consumers not realizing they have options...

With that, I appreciate all of the feedback I received.

[WUTiger]

5 hours ago, onthehunt526 said:

... I personally order online mostly, but I go to a smaller Golf shop that orders my stuff for me and I also know one shopowner on eBay who is an authorized Tour Edge dealer who can order me just about anything an have it drop shipped. ...

You are a truly loyal TEE player... a TEE high roller! In Las Vegas, the casinos fly their high rollers in for free to show their appreciation. Any chance TEE would comp your plane ticket to Chicago area so you could get  your annual Tour Edge refitting?

[trombettista_vecchio]

I think that Hogan is doing it better than anybody right now with their PTx cavity backs and their FW-15 blades.  Both of these clubs are offered in 28 lofts, 20 to 47º, so you can not only choose your lofts, but more importantly, your loft increments.  The TK-15 wedges that match both the aforementioned iron models also come in every loft from 48 to 63º

The only draw back to the wedges, if one would consider it so, is that only the Reid-Lockhart / Scor type grind is available in contrast to Vokey and Edel's multiple grind choices. 

Let's say that you're a walker and only want to carry ten clubs. It's pretty hard to put together a comprehensive ten club set using clubs built for a 14-club complement.  With the Hogans, you can gap your clubs in six degree increments, similar to the old hickory shaft era clubs, and you're all set.

Irons aren't my problem.  I can't hit 460cc drivers and am trying to choose between a modern mini-driver or something like a Titleist 975D (or Titleist 975J at the biggest.) 

 

[Pretzel]

2 hours ago, trombettista_vecchio said:

Let's say that you're a walker and only want to carry ten clubs. It's pretty hard to put together a comprehensive ten club set using clubs built for a 14-club complement.  With the Hogans, you can gap your clubs in six degree increments, similar to the old hickory shaft era clubs, and you're all set.

I've never had an issue with my clubs being the heavy part of my golf bag. The shaft for your iron weighs maybe 100 grams, with the clubhead weighing perhaps another 250 grams. All told the individual iron should weigh less than a pound, meaning you're picking up maybe 3 extra pounds to have a full set versus 10 clubs? This is also assuming you're dropping irons, the heaviest clubs, from your set exclusively. Both the shafts and clubheads for drivers, woods, and hybrids are generally lighter than those used in irons (because they're graphite shafts and hollow heads), meaning if you cut out a hybrid or a wood from your bag instead of an iron you would be losing less than 3 pounds by carrying fewer than 4 clubs.

For reference, 10 golf balls weigh 1 pound. Many golfers carry upwards of 15 golf balls in their bags, meaning that if they dropped down to around 5 golf balls at a time they'd shave an easy pound there without sacrificing any performance. Keeping a lighter umbrella, or none at all (if the weather is nice) in your bag allows you to shave off another pound. Removing miscellaneous gloves, tees, ball markers, trash, yardage books, and scorecards can often remove another pound of weight.

The biggest reduction, however, comes in the form of buying a lightweight bag. I use an older Sun Mountain Three 5 bag, which weighs under four pounds and shaves off over two pounds compared to other six pound bags that are more common.

That, combined with just not carrying stuff you don't need, means my golf bag weighs only about 15-20 pounds when it's fully loaded for tournaments (meaning I have a water bottle and food in there). I would call this a very reasonable weight for a golf bag, and I wouldn't want to have larger distance gaps between all my clubs for the sake of having a slightly lighter bag, though your mileage may vary depending on clubhead speed (since a slower clubhead speed would have smaller gaps to begin with). 

2 hours ago, trombettista_vecchio said:

I think that Hogan is doing it better than anybody right now with their PTx cavity backs and their FW-15 blades.  Both of these clubs are offered in 28 lofts, 20 to 47º, so you can not only choose your lofts, but more importantly, your loft increments.  The TK-15 wedges that match both the aforementioned iron models also come in every loft from 48 to 63º

If I'm not mistaken, most modern manufacturers would let you do the same thing by ordering a club and having them bend it to a different loft. For example, if you wanted 6* loft increments as you mentioned earlier (I'm using my PING s55's as reference lofts), you could get a 60* wedge, a 54* wedge, a pitching wedge 2* weak, a 9 iron 1* weak, and 8 iron 1* strong, a 6-iron, a 4-iron, and an 18* hybrid. This would give you consistent 6* loft increments throughout your set, and the most you would have to bend any one iron is 2*. You might want to grind the sole slightly when you receive the pitching wedge just because it would have slightly more bounce, but I imagine it wouldn't be enough of a difference for most golfers to notice.

[trombettista_vecchio]

On ‎1‎/‎8‎/‎2016 at 4:02 PM, Pretzel said:

 

If I'm not mistaken, most modern manufacturers would let you do the same thing by ordering a club and having them bend it to a different loft. For example, if you wanted 6* loft increments as you mentioned earlier (I'm using my PING s55's as reference lofts), you could get a 60* wedge, a 54* wedge, a pitching wedge 2* weak, a 9 iron 1* weak, and 8 iron 1* strong, a 6-iron, a 4-iron, and an 18* hybrid. This would give you consistent 6* loft increments throughout your set, and the most you would have to bend any one iron is 2*. You might want to grind the sole slightly when you receive the pitching wedge just because it would have slightly more bounce, but I imagine it wouldn't be enough of a difference for most golfers to notice.

 

The Hogans are made in 44 lofts without bending, and the stamping on the soles is accurate.

I like them.  No club is for everybody, obviously.

 

[Mr. Desmond]

21 minutes ago, trombettista_vecchio said:

 

The Hogans are made in 44 lofts without bending, and the stamping on the soles is accurate.

I like them.  No club is for everybody, obviously.

 

Edel apparently offers any loft you want in irons or wedges - no bending, all custom. 

[trombettista_vecchio]

6 minutes ago, Mr. Desmond said:

Edel apparently offers any loft you want in irons or wedges - no bending, all custom. 

Yes--if you prefer a gray stainless steel iron to a shiny, chromed type, Edel is a great alternative to Hogan.  I know a guy who raves about his.  One similarity to Hogan is the old school conservative cosmetics 

I'm pretty sure that I could play the Edels.  They fit my eye. 

 

[dave s]

On 1/7/2016 at 0:00 PM, mvmac said:

I disagree, retailers allow you to mix and match models and you can get individual irons. If you want to order a PING i 7-iron from Golfsmith and have it shipped to your house, you can do that. 

This is true. I just demoed Ping irons and purchased what I needed/wanted:  6-9 irons and the PW and UW.  I have hybrids (4 and 5) that work great and 2 Vokey wedges on the other site.

6 club Ping G iron set on the way due Feb 10.

dave