Need opinions on my iron set

[littlewag7]

Little background first, I started golfing "seriously" at the end of last year. I've dropped my handicap from a 16 to a 7 now.

I bought taylormade burner plus irons last year because they were cheap and good game improvement irons with a lot of forgiveness. 

Im at a point where I'm only planning to get better at golf from here, I hit the burners well, good distance, can work them a little and they have a good trajectory, but in my mind, I feel like I should be using "better" irons if I wish to continue improving.

i played a round today using my friends Mizuno MP69 blades and shot a 38 with them. They felt good, but nothing too much different than my burners, other than not being forgiving on slight miss hits.

If I continue to improve my game, when should I upgrade my irons? What's a good dictating factor for when I'm "outplaying" my current ones?

[DrvFrShow]

Considering some pros play GI irons, I have to ask you, are you happy with your Burner Plus Irons? If the answer is yes, stay with them. If the answer is no, then get new ones.

The goal of playing golf is lower scores, not playing playing with blades. If you mishit a GI iron it isn't going to go as far as when you flush it. It simply isn't going to punish you as much as when you mishit a blade. 

We're all planning to get better, but how much time are you willing to put into practice? Golf is hard. Why not use the easy button?

[newtogolf]

I know some good golfers that play Burners, so no reason to dump them unless you think they are somehow holding you back from scoring even lower.

The knock on GI irons is some find them harder to work (draw, fade) and some claim their dispersion isn't as tight as forged players irons.  Test out some irons against your Burners and see what the launch monitors report and how they feel.  

[WUTiger]

6 hours ago, newtogolf said:

... The knock on GI irons is some find them harder to work (draw, fade) and some claim their dispersion isn't as tight as forged players irons. ... 

Several things to consider...

• working the ball: a golfer can hit a basic fade or draw with almost any iron model, as long as he understands how tot set up for a golf swing. Do you have enough time to practice and become proficient at different semi-trick shots.
• dispersion isn't as tight as xxforgedxx player's irons: This is true, if the player is a very good ball striker. A more precise way of saying it: on solid, sweet-spot hits, a player's iron delivers more precise distance than a GI or SGI iron. If you're not a solid hitter, however, your misses will be magnified more with a player's iron than a more forgiving iron.
• forged # ! ~ : Forging is a manufacturing process. It just so happens that player's iron heads are more likely to be forged than GI or SGI irons. But, other than possibly tighter manufacturing tolerances,  forging doesn't produce a more accurate iron head than casting.

So, the thing to do would be compare your Burners with other irons. If the other irons deliver better results (data, and hopefully on course), consider a switch.

Note: Titleist and Bridgestone will send you test sets of clubs to try out.

[brettfan]

This is a great question and one that I have been struggling with recently too.  I have gotten my handicap down to a 7.5 and have wondered about getting new irons myself.  I have a set of Taylormade Rocketbladez irons that are 4 years old. Every year I go hit the latest and greatest irons and I just don't see any meaningful difference so I have kept my current set.

 

Interestingly, I was overseas playing a round with family and had to use a rental set.  They were a 10 year old set of Big Berthas with tons of offset and huge cavity backs... super game improvement irons.  I found that the long irons were so much easier to hit with no appreciable loss of distance... mid/short irons easy to hit but I thought they were somewhat less accurate than my rocketbladez.  What I ended up doing was buying a set of the Berthas off ebay and then replacing my 3-5 irons with the Berthas... now I have the super game improvement Berthas for my long irons and kept my rocketbladez for the mid/short irons.  It seems to have worked great so far.

 

Lastly, I asked my local pro about switching to a more advanced set of irons and he asked me a really good question.  "Justin, how often are you going to try to fade or draw a ball into a tucked pin location".  The answer is almost never... if I can't throw the ball and get it closer than I would with a swing then I aim for the middle of the green.  As such, if I'm really just looking for solid contact and consistent distance I really don't need a club that is more "workable".  Golf is hard enough as it is... playing with a club that makes it harder to hit the ball squarely doesn't make sense when I look it it like that.

[pganapathy]

For me the key to a set of clubs is how much dispersion I get with the set and how consistently I get the same distance of the same club.  Provided both are good with your current set, don't change.  There are pro's that use GI and SGI clubs so don't worry too much about it.  The only advantage of blades is the ability to work the ball better provided you have perfect contact.

[rehmwa]

I know of 3 scratch golfers here locally and all of them have moved to GI irons in the last couple years from what is 'supposed' to be higher skill level designs.

They still score extremely well, but it's easier for them to do so.

(buy irons based on what feels and scores well, not just because they are 'supposed' to be for higher end players)

[WUTiger]

2 hours ago, rehmwa said:

I know of 3 scratch golfers here locally and all of them have moved to GI irons in the last couple years from what is 'supposed' to be higher skill level designs.

They still score extremely well, but it's easier for them to do so.

I played in a scramble a few years back with a former Division II college golfer. He had played blades in college with a scratch HDCP. But, he switched to GI irons once he got a job and family, and less golf time. He said the forgiveness more than made up for any shaped shots he had to avoid.

[rehmwa]

5 minutes ago, WUTiger said:

I played in a scramble a few years back with a former Division II college golfer. He had played blades in college with a scratch HDCP. But, he switched to GI irons once he got a job and family, and less golf time. He said the forgiveness more than made up for any shaped shots he had to avoid.

Same story with my friends.  And, frankly, you can still shape your shots with any club.  Forgiveness is more designed in the take off angle (controllability), not in shaping (workability) - I believe.

[onthehunt526]

A lot of the newer "players" irons actually have a little bit of GI look and features to them.

For example, I have Tour Edge Exotics EXi irons(2016 model close cousin of Silver Medal Hot List winner the EXd). They are very workable.... And pretty precise with distance, however if you mishit them the forgiveness kicks in. Even with my lousy outside to in path I don't lose very much distance...

The Ping i, Callaway Apex CF 16, even AP2s (I can't believe I just endorsed Titleist on anything but golf balls)...There are probably more, however, the TRUTH is a better player will take all the forgiveness he can get. Just keep it in a compact clubhead... And don't let a good player see the forgiveness features.