Forged irons

[alleztom]

39 minutes ago, Lagavulin62 said:

Feel as in short game, putting, reading greens, trouble shots etc. The part of the game that only comes with consistence course play. 

 

 

You don't think ballstriking degrades as well with lack of practice?

[Lagavulin62]

18 minutes ago, alleztom said:

You don't think ballstriking degrades as well with lack of practice?

Who said they don't work on the long game?  And yes it would degrade, just not as quickly as short game feel. 

[Groucho Valentine]

34 minutes ago, Lagavulin62 said:

Who said they don't work on the long game?  And yes it would degrade, just not as quickly as short game feel. 

I find they're nearly one in the same. I haven't picked up a club since late November, and when i start playing again ill be hitting it all over the map and skanking chips for a few weeks. 

[colin007]

agree. if i had to take a year off, and my first shot back was either a simple pitch or hit a fairway with a driver, gimme the pitch.

[Lihu]

11 hours ago, mvmac said:

I said generally not true, meaning there are some rare examples, which I agree there are.

Basically what I'm saying is you take the average distance and GIR of an 18 handicapper and compare it to a 3 handicapper, the 3 will on average hit the ball farther and hit more greens.

Of course, that's absolutely true.

I actually don't know any 3 handicappers who hit shorter than an 18, but I'm sure there's one or two long drive competitors who just can't chip or putt to save their lives.

[iacas]

5 hours ago, Lagavulin62 said:

It's about ball striking and "handicap" is not inclusive of the whole golf community. Many don't even play enough to have a reliable handicap. That doesn't mean they are poor ball strikers.

It kinda does. If they don't play that frequently, they're not likely to be good ballstrikers… especially if you're telling me that they don't score well.

I think people delude themselves frequently into thinking they're good ballstrikers. We see it all the time here, less in recent years, but still: a player who is a 14 comes on, says he's a great ballstriker, and yet his short game or mental game make him shoot 85 to 92, not his ballstriking.

No, his ballstriking is not good.

5 hours ago, Lagavulin62 said:

Lots of golfers don't play as much and they don't practice the short part of their game. They lose a lot of feel necessary to score well.

I don't agree with that. I think most people can get back to putting and chipping and pitching relatively quickly. Those shots are much easier than striping a fairway wood from a tight downhill lie.

5 hours ago, Lagavulin62 said:

It doesn't take much to see your scores balloon to mid 80's and higher average when you stop playing regularly.

Because their ballstriking suffers. They miss a lot of greens. They're scrambling all day.

3 hours ago, Lagavulin62 said:

Feel as in short game, putting, reading greens, trouble shots etc. The part of the game that only comes with consistence course play.

I don't know that I agree.

I can take weeks off from putting and do just fine. If I go weeks without swinging a club, it sometimes feels like I haven't got a clue how to take the club back…

Plus, I too would rather hit a pitch shot than a driver after a layoff.

3 hours ago, Lagavulin62 said:

That doesn't mean they are poor ball strikers abd are better served dirching their 30 year blades for gi's.

They most likely are poor ballstrikers, though.

[Lagavulin62]

19 minutes ago, iacas said:

It kinda does. If they don't play that frequently, they're not likely to be good ballstrikers… especially if you're telling me that they don't score well.

I think people delude themselves frequently into thinking they're good ballstrikers. We see it all the time here, less in recent years, but still: a player who is a 14 comes on, says he's a great ballstriker, and yet his short game or mental game make him shoot 85 to 92, not his ballstriking.

No, his ballstriking is not good.

I don't agree with that. I think most people can get back to putting and chipping and pitching relatively quickly. Those shots are much easier than striping a fairway wood from a tight downhill lie.

Because their ballstriking suffers. They miss a lot of greens. They're scrambling all day.

I don't know that I agree.

I can take weeks off from putting and do just fine. If I go weeks without swinging a club, it sometimes feels like I haven't got a clue how to take the club back…

Plus, I too would rather hit a pitch shot than a driver after a layoff.

They most likely are poor ballstrikers, though.

You are equating good ballstriking with scoring well, which is generally true, assuming that individual plays on the course regularly. Not everyone plays enough to make scoring meaningful as the determiner of their ballstriking ability. I know to you this is a rarity, as discovering gold, but I assure you they are out there. But go ahead and believe what you want. BTW who in this thread claimed to be a perfect ball striker? 

[iacas]

16 minutes ago, Lagavulin62 said:

You are equating good ballstriking with scoring well

I'm really not. I understand how you could take it that way, but… most good ballstrikers score well. They also retain touch pretty well because if you can strike the ball well, you can generally hit the ball solidly on shorter swings like pitches and chips. Great ballstrikers have already done the hard work - hitting a ball solidly while swinging a 5-iron at 90 MPH or whatever. Chips and putts are easy comparatively.

16 minutes ago, Lagavulin62 said:

Not everyone plays enough to make scoring meaningful as the determiner of their ballstriking ability. I know to you this is a rarity, as discovering gold, but I assure you they are out there. But go ahead and believe what you want.

They're out there, but they're in a very, very small minority.

If you don't play very often, a club with some GI features is generally helpful if you care about scoring. If you, like me, simply like the feel of playing a blade moreso, and derive enjoyment from striking a blade solidly, then there are reasons to still get a blade even if you're not a great ballstriker.

Great ballstrikers who don't score very well are really rare. More often, someone's short game and putting is well ahead of their ballstriking.

16 minutes ago, Lagavulin62 said:

BTW who in this thread claimed to be a perfect ball striker? 

Nobody. You're the first person to use the word "perfect" so far as I can tell.

[Lagavulin62]

41 minutes ago, iacas said:

I'm really not. I understand how you could take it that way, but… most good ballstrikers score well. They also retain touch pretty well because if you can strike the ball well, you can generally hit the ball solidly on shorter swings like pitches and chips. Great ballstrikers have already done the hard work - hitting a ball solidly while swinging a 5-iron at 90 MPH or whatever. Chips and putts are easy comparatively.

They're out there, but they're in a very, very small minority.

If you don't play very often, a club with some GI features is generally helpful if you care about scoring. If you, like me, simply like the feel of playing a blade moreso, and derive enjoyment from striking a blade solidly, then there are reasons to still get a blade even if you're not a great ballstriker.

Great ballstrikers who don't score very well are really rare. More often, someone's short game and putting is well ahead of their ballstriking.

Nobody. You're the first person to use the word "perfect" so far as I can tell.

You snuck in that (paraphrasing) "a 14 will come in here claiming to be a great ballstriker, but just can't score because they have a lousy short game" lol and you know you were insinuating I am making that claim. But I'm glad you at least admit that's not what I am claiming. Btw I put down 15, but you know that.  And I also like the fact that these players are no longer a rarity, just a "very very small minority". We are making progress. : )

[iacas]

5 hours ago, Lagavulin62 said:

You snuck in that (paraphrasing) "a 14 will come in here claiming to be a great ballstriker, but just can't score because they have a lousy short game" lol and you know you were insinuating I am making that claim. But I'm glad you at least admit that's not what I am claiming. Btw I put down 15, but you know that.

I wasn't talking about you. I was talking about the kinds of posts we see here fairly often. Less so now than in recent years, but still… It had nothing to do with you.

[acerimusdux]

17 hours ago, Lagavulin62 said:

  And I also like the fact that these players are no longer a rarity, just a "very very small minority". We are making progress. : )

To be fair, it appears we've also moved on from "plenty" and "loaded". :)

Now if we can also move back onto topic....

I doubt whether there's any performance benefit at all in having irons forged. And technically, there are also irons that are cast with a softer metal, if you like that feel.

But I'm doubtful that cast vs. forged (or harder vs softer steel) really impacts full swing iron shots at all. I'm slightly more open to the possibility it could matter with short game wedge play. Though slower speeds mean you are also less likely to feel the difference, right?

But there are many players, especially good ones, who seem to prefer forged, softer steels. Even though they are more expensive, less durable, etc. And do grooves even wear more quickly? I think I've read where lie angles may even need to be readjusted after awhile (though I guess one advantage of the softer metal is that bending for adjustments is easier in the first place). 

 

[Hacker James]

A lot has something to do with "mind over matter". Some get the feeling of "mystique" of forged irons, mostly due to articles regarding what better players use, ability to shape shots, feed back on mishits e.t.c.  While there is something to all of that, most players really can not feel the difference.  For me, I have always used forged irons other than years ago, some of the muscle back blades I had were not.  One thing they all had in common though, is the smaller head size. The GI and SGI irons of today, just look bulky and ackward  and don't feel right to me.  At the same time, I also realize that if I were to get properly fitted with a modern day set of irons, I would notice improvement. I just cannot justify the cost at this stage in my life given I probably have only ten to fifteen years left. OTOH, I would probably enjoy the game more NOW with proper equipment.

[iacas]

2 hours ago, acerimusdux said:

I doubt whether there's any performance benefit at all in having irons forged. And technically, there are also irons that are cast with a softer metal, if you like that feel.

Yeah, there is evidence to support the idea that there is:

http://www.oobgolf.com/content/the+wedge+guy/golf+equipment/5-2032-Blades_Versus_Cavity_Backs_A_Golf_Club_Epiphany.html

And because OOB may be going the way of the dodo at some point…

---

Quote

 

the wedge guy > golf equipment Blades Versus Cavity Backs: A Golf Club Epiphany   As I've spent 50 years playing this crazy game, and 25+ years in the equipment industry, I've had a number of eye-opening "epiphanies" (the dictionary defines "epiphany" as "a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something."). One of those came in the mid-1990's as I was reviewing some Iron Byron results we were doing at Hogan. Let me set this up by saying that I've always played blades - I like the shot control, trajectory and feel of them, not to mention the clean compact appearance behind the ball. But for a few years prior to this time, I was playing Hogan Edge cavity back forgings. They felt OK, and my handicap stayed about scratch, but my game seemed different. There certainly was no question that they were forgiving. Back to the research. I was looking at a chart of shot patterns of different irons we were testing, and was particularly struck by something I saw. With Iron Byron set to swing a 6-iron with about 165 yards of distance, the cavity back irons we were testing were producing a pattern on dead center hits that was about 8' wide and about 15-17' long  ! These are duplicate swings, dead center impact, and these shots are coming out 3-4' right or left of the target line, and as much as 8-9' short or long ! Not just with one model of iron, but with nearly every cavity back we tested. Now, realize that as we moved the impact further from the center of the face, the forgiveness factor was excellent, but I was puzzled by that "dead center" pattern. Then I looked at the chart for the new Apex blade we were developing. On heel misses, it was slightly worse than the cavity back models. On toe misses, the Apex was significantly worse (blades have very little mass out on the toe). But on dead center hits - our shot pattern was about 1/4 the size of the cavity back pattern ! In other words, the perfect shots were much better ! So that got me thinking. My next round of golf, I dusted off my old set of Joe Powell blades, and I had an eye-opening day. I was playing very well at the time, but not making that many birdies. That day I hit it within 10' of the flag a number of times, and while I did experience some misses that were worse than I had been getting with the Edge irons, my best shots were better than they had been in some time. One of my friends who knows my game well exclaimed, "Where's that guy been ?" He went on to explain that he had noticed I had not been "knocking down flags" for some time, which I usually did at least once or twice a round. So, I made a permanent switch back to blade irons, my reasoning being that I will judge my rounds much more by the quality of my best shots than the acceptability of my worse ones.  I've kept that philosophy consistent. It's a common belief that mid- to high-handicap players need all the help they can get, and maybe that's true, but I firmly believe that more golfers can play blades than you might think - maybe even you !  There are some very good ones on the market now that have worked on the toe-hit forgiveness, so you might be surprised if you took a set of demos out for a round or two. Just food for thought and maybe a golf tip that will help you enjoy the game more.

 

Again: http://www.oobgolf.com/content/the+wedge+guy/golf+equipment/5-2032-Blades_Versus_Cavity_Backs_A_Golf_Club_Epiphany.html for now.

[acerimusdux]

16 minutes ago, iacas said:

Yeah, there is evidence to support the idea that there is:

Yes, but was that due to blades vs. cavity backs, or forged vs. cast?

It could be either. It could be impurities caused by the casting process (more tiny air bubbles in the metal) are causing more inconsistency on those center hits. But it could also be simply the design of blades putting more weight behind the center is the cause.

It is possible to make cast blades. I wonder if they really are less accurate than forged blades.

 

 

[Lihu]

4 minutes ago, acerimusdux said:

Yes, but was that due to blades vs. cavity backs, or forged vs. cast?

IDK for sure, but I really like the feel of forged clubs. I prefer blades or players irons because of the feel on good shots. I really hate the bad shots, but the good ones feel so good it's worth experiencing the many bad.

 

4 minutes ago, acerimusdux said:

It could be either. It could be impurities caused by the casting process (more tiny air bubbles in the metal) are causing more inconsistency on those center hits. But it could also be simply the design of blades putting more weight behind the center is the cause.

Liquid metal absorbs gases, so they could process the mold in an evacuated chamber to reduce the bubbles.

 

4 minutes ago, acerimusdux said:

It is possible to make cast blades. I wonder if they really are less accurate than forged blades.

My son uses Cleveland CG Tour which he averages 12 GIR.

[lineape]

Let me simplify this. Right now I play 714 ap1, 6-gw. I'm going to be getting a new set, just trying to figure out with my handicap, if I would be better served going with 716 ap1 or ap2 in the same 6-gw.

[Lihu]

On 2/4/2017 at 0:21 PM, lineape said:

I'm a high handicap player that uses hybrids instead of long irons. Are there any high handicap players here that use forged irons in the shorter irons for feel? I've hit a few different forged irons in a 6 iron and like the way they feel and look. Misfits aren't that much different than my ap1's, and flush hits look and feel better.

 

7 minutes ago, lineape said:

Let me simplify this. Right now I play 714 ap1, 6-gw. I'm going to be getting a new set, just trying to figure out with my handicap, if I would be better served going with 716 ap1 or ap2 in the same 6-gw.

That's a tough question without knowing your game.

If you like the ap1 why not just get another ap1? OTOH, why get a new set of clubs at all? I think "used" forged clubs look just fine. Unless, you belong to an expensive club and need to keep up appearances or something?

My first reaction is for you to continue on with your current clubs, but keep in mind that I'm a "nerdy" engineer.

[lineape]

Main reason is I can trade in all the stuff I have taking up closet space and get the 716 ap1 at no cost to me.