Throwback question 1980s and early 90s

[onthehunt526]

5 minutes ago, Fourputt said:

For a time early in his career Davis didn't even use a driver because he was too long and didn't have fine enough control with it.  His tee play was predominantly 1 iron at that time.

Yes, it was...

Even though he led the tour in Driving Distance in '86, he did hit the "chicken stick" a lot, when he won Heritage in '87 he hit the 1-iron a lot...

But that's off topic...

Did any of the Universe here on The Sand Trap, play with the wood driver, metal fairway wood combo?

Edited February 29, 2016 by onthehunt526
grammar

[SavvySwede]

56 minutes ago, Fourputt said:

For a time early in his career Davis didn't even use a driver because he was too long and didn't have fine enough control with it.  His tee play was predominantly 1 iron at that time.

Driving distance is only measured on the two holes where the player is most likely to hit driver. (i.e long and relatively wide open) So those 1 iron shots aren't much of a factor because Davis would still be hitting driver on those holes.

[onthehunt526]

6 hours ago, SavvySwede said:

Driving distance is only measured on the two holes where the player is most likely to hit driver. (i.e long and relatively wide open) So those 1 iron shots aren't much of a factor because Davis would still be hitting driver on those holes.

@SavvySwede it is only "officially" measured on two holes... it's "actually" been measured on every hole since ShotLink went live on tour in the early 2000s...

Does anyone know (maybe Erik, Dave, or Mike) know if the pre-Big Bertha '91 metal Drivers were actually as heavy and clumsy as people say they were? Maybe that's why some pros were okay with switching their fairways to metal before the driver? 

Since this is a throwback thread, I'll open up another part of it...

As was stated in other threads, Tom Kite was the first prominent pro to add a 60° wedge to his bag (circa 1980). I know a lot of pros from that era, took a long time to add a third wedge, some never added a 60°. Anyone know why it took until really the early 90s until a majority of pros dumped a long iron for the extra wedge?

[SavvySwede]

9 minutes ago, onthehunt526 said:

@SavvySwede it is only "officially" measured on two holes... it's "actually" been measured on every hole since ShotLink went live on tour in the early 2000s...

I know, the point was that the driving distance stat isn't skewed by Davis hitting other clubs.

12 minutes ago, onthehunt526 said:

As was stated in other threads, Tom Kite was the first prominent pro to add a 60° wedge to his bag (circa 1980). I know a lot of pros from that era, took a long time to add a third wedge, some never added a 60°. Anyone know why it took until really the early 90s until a majority of pros dumped a long iron for the extra wedge?

Greens were slower and they still had spinny balata balls. A 60 wasn't as necessary in those conditions.

[onthehunt526]

 

 

 

@SavvySwede typically the more wide open par 5s will be measured driving holes, I guess they attempt to do it on more straightaway holes, though I have seen longer par-4s be measured driving holes, the stupid one is at Augusta, #5 is one where 50-60% of the the field, hits less than driver, and #15 isnt dumb, but is downhillish, but they do go in opposite directions... 

I totally understand the whole 60 degree wedge dilemma... they didn't start cutting the greens at .105 inch and double rolling them to make them run around 14 on the stimpmeter every week... 

Even when Augusta went from bermuda to primarily bent, they were much slower than they are now. I'm not saying they were like 10 and now they're 15... I'm saying their definitely a couple of feet faster than 30 years ago when Jack won number six... 

Back to the original topic of wooden drivers, metal fairways, I found it interesting, Jack actually went the other way on that, Metal Driver, with that 1950s MacGregor Tommy Armour he carried for every single major he ever won including his 2 U.S. Amateurs... But I believe Jack played one of the very first titanium drivers (Jumbo Ozaki introduced it to him)...

Another yesteryear equipment question... I know some guys carried 2 fairways, (Curtis Strange carried 3 and 4), Others carried Driver + Bastard wood (There really wasn't an actual name for it, it was like a 3 wood or a stronger or weaker version).... But nearly everyone played 2-PW, SW as their standard irons... Does anyone know when OEMs dropped the 2-iron from the standard bundled set? 

 

 

[ppine]

The irons pros carry started to change radically when the manufacturers started to deloft irons.  They did that as a way to show that their new irons would hit the ball further.  But then there were gaps at the back end.  An early 9 nine iron had about the same loft as today's gap wedge.  The sand wedge has been around at 56 degrees since Gene Sarazen invented it.

[onthehunt526]

8 hours ago, ppine said:

The irons pros carry started to change radically when the manufacturers started to deloft irons.  They did that as a way to show that their new irons would hit the ball further.  But then there were gaps at the back end.  An early 9 nine iron had about the same loft as today's gap wedge.  The sand wedge has been around at 56 degrees since Gene Sarazen invented it.

Yeah in GI/SGI sets the decreasing loft disease is prominent... The GI 7i: in 1990 around 36°. Today's GI 7i: 31°-32°, Players irons haven't strengthen that much, most 7i are 34 or 35 and have stayed there, in Player's irons the PW was 49° or 50° in 1990, Today its 46° or 47°, hasn't been that much, because the CG in Player's irons  hasn't been lowered as much as in GI/SGI/UGI irons. So Player's irons have been effected the least

maybe in some OEMs the Gap wedge is 47° but most are 49° or 50° which in an old Pitching wedge. 

Edited March 6, 2016 by onthehunt526

[SavvySwede]

9 hours ago, ppine said:

The irons pros carry started to change radically when the manufacturers started to deloft irons.  They did that as a way to show that their new irons would hit the ball further.  But then there were gaps at the back end.  An early 9 nine iron had about the same loft as today's gap wedge.  The sand wedge has been around at 56 degrees since Gene Sarazen invented it.

Yeah but the launch angles are the same.

[saevel25]

9 hours ago, ppine said:

The irons pros carry started to change radically when the manufacturers started to deloft irons.  They did that as a way to show that their new irons would hit the ball further.  But then there were gaps at the back end.  An early 9 nine iron had about the same loft as today's gap wedge.  The sand wedge has been around at 56 degrees since Gene Sarazen invented it.

Lofts is the primary cause of launch angle. Yet a few things can change that. 

1. Longer shafts increase dynamic loft
2. Lower CG increases launch angle
3. Lower CG decreases spin

Modern GI clubs NEED to have lower lofts. They also produce more distance because they produce less spin. 

Still it doesn't matter when you consider that golfers need to create a full set of clubs that fit gaps. So it doesn't matter if a 9 iron in the days is today's gap wedge. That just means they are not carrying 2 irons or 1 irons anymore. They are stopping at 3-irons and 4-irons. So they carry the same number of clubs over the same range of lofts. It the labelling that has changed. In the end, that doesn't matter much. 
 

[onthehunt526]

37 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

Lofts is the primary cause of launch angle. Yet a few things can change that. 

1. Longer shafts increase dynamic loft
2. Lower CG increases launch angle
3. Lower CG decreases spin

Modern GI clubs NEED to have lower lofts. They also produce more distance because they produce less spin. 

Still it doesn't matter when you consider that golfers need to create a full set of clubs that fit gaps. So it doesn't matter if a 9 iron in the days is today's gap wedge. That just means they are not carrying 2 irons or 1 irons anymore. They are stopping at 3-irons and 4-irons. So they carry the same number of clubs over the same range of lofts. It the labelling that has changed. In the end, that doesn't matter much. 
 

@saevel25 they are a little lower even in the player's irons... Basically in so many words, players used to cover for sake of argument clubs that covered 20-50 degrees in iron form they just happened to read: 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 P on them, and now they basically cover the same loft range but the 9 clubs read 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 P G on the bottom.... (I know the longest iron in a lot of tour players bags now is closer to 23-24°)... Also a std 5-iron was 37" in the 80s... the 30-31° iron is still around 37" (in some companies it's a 6, others its a 7)

Does anyone know if iron total headweight has changed for the number stamped on the bottom... for instance has the total headweight of the "7" changed? Is it lighter than they used to be?

[boogielicious]

20 hours ago, ppine said:

The irons pros carry started to change radically when the manufacturers started to deloft irons.  They did that as a way to show that their new irons would hit the ball further.  But then there were gaps at the back end.  An early 9 nine iron had about the same loft as today's gap wedge.  The sand wedge has been around at 56 degrees since Gene Sarazen invented it.

 

11 hours ago, onthehunt526 said:

Yeah in GI/SGI sets the decreasing loft disease is prominent... The GI 7i: in 1990 around 36°. Today's GI 7i: 31°-32°, Players irons haven't strengthen that much, most 7i are 34 or 35 and have stayed there, in Player's irons the PW was 49° or 50° in 1990, Today its 46° or 47°, hasn't been that much, because the CG in Player's irons  hasn't been lowered as much as in GI/SGI/UGI irons. So Player's irons have been effected the least

maybe in some OEMs the Gap wedge is 47° but most are 49° or 50° which in an old Pitching wedge. 

As @SavvySwede and @saevel25 stated, the iron measured loft is only part of the equation. Manufacturers focus on launch angle when they design clubs. Irons many years ago were lower launching than today's irons because the head center of gravity was higher as in muscle back irons (even more so than today's muscle backs). So if they wanted a 6 iron to launch at 14 degrees for example, they would have the head loft at ,for example, 31 degrees. 

But as cavity backs and other GI designs evolved, with lower center of gravity that increases launch angle at impact, the designers had issue with too high a launch angle at the same loft. So to optimize launch angle for the intended user, the lofts are changed to get the appropriate launch conditions. It not a marketing ploy per se, but an optimization of the hitting characteristic for the intended customer.

Many Pros use muscles back irons. But Pros also average the fastest swing speed. So muscle back irons are designed for that swing speed to launch at angles that will optimize launch for that head. 

GI irons, however, are for amateurs who generally have lower swing speeds. GI irons launch higher but can still balloon. So they lower the loft to get the optimum launch angle for the lower swing speed. Spin is also part of the design criteria, but let's save that for another discussion.

When I reviewed the Titleist AP1 iron here, I was getting the same launch angle between my 714 AP2 irons and the 716 AP1. This is for both the 7 iron and the PW, which I tested. But there is a full three degrees difference in the measured loft of the irons (714 AP2, 7 iron 34 deg, PW 46 deg, 716 AP1, 7 iron 31 degrees, PW 43 deg). Face loft is lower by 3 degrees, but launch angle is the same. Launch angle is THE most important angle in the design of a head, not the measured loft.

Bottom line is the loft is not a "disease" @onthehunt526, it is just a number. They should more appropriately publish launch angle as the number and not measured launch. This is why they just put a number of the head and not the loft.

 

 

[nevets88]

Here's a quick overview of the lofts issue:

 

 

[ppine]

You guys are starting to lose me. All I know is getting back into the sport after a long lay off, I am carrying 4 wedges to account for the changes in the way clubs are manufactured, and to add an L wedge which I have never had before. It pisses me off to realize that the PW I had been playing for years has a loft of 46 degrees, when the PW I grew up with was more like 50.

[saevel25]

19 minutes ago, ppine said:

You guys are starting to lose me. All I know is getting back into the sport after a long lay off, I am carrying 4 wedges to account for the changes in the way clubs are manufactured, and to add an L wedge which I have never had before. 

First, I would never consider a pitching wedge and gap wedge a wedge even though they have a name in it. They are not designed like a wedge. They are designed like an iron and meant to be hit on full shots. 

Second, then don't use a lob wedge. 

20 minutes ago, ppine said:

It pisses me off to realize that the PW I had been playing for years has a loft of 46 degrees, when the PW I grew up with was more like 50.

Why? Why does it upset you that now the lofts are different? Why does it matter now you stop at a 4 iron instead of a 2 iron? Honestly I don't get this sort of thinking. The label of the club has no meaning than a simple way to remember which club flies what yardage. Every time I get new clubs I go out and figure out how far they go. 

[onthehunt526]

@boogielicious "Decreasing Loft Disease" aren't my words though I use them a lot... 

Back on topic, does anyone remember back around the 1991-92 season... (I think it was then),  the driver John Daly played... I don't think it was wood... 

[saevel25]

19 minutes ago, onthehunt526 said:

@boogielicious "Decreasing Loft Disease" aren't my words though I use them a lot... 

Back on topic, does anyone remember back around the 1991-92 season... (I think it was then),  the driver John Daly played... I don't think it was wood... 

1995 he was playing Wilson clubs, 
 

Quote

Wilson Golf, which makes clubs Daly endorses, thought it would be a good idea to have him take his new Invex driver and try to knock the cortex out of a golf ball.

http://articles.latimes.com/1995-08-09/sports/sp-33038_1_british-open-champion

 

[onthehunt526]

3 hours ago, saevel25 said:

1995 he was playing Wilson clubs, 
 

http://articles.latimes.com/1995-08-09/sports/sp-33038_1_british-open-champion

 

I know he played Wilson in 1995... I think he signed with them around 1993?? I'm talking about the Driver he won the '91 PGA and '92 B.C. Open with, I was watching the 1991 Skins Game where he won some skins... the driver he played didn't sound like it "pinged" like a metal wood, but it sounded kind of like the "crack" of wood, just a bit more muffled.

[saevel25]

I would still say it's the Wilson driver.