Entropy

Very intrigued by these. Have played ping irons for 16 years and have thought about upgrading my i15s to i20s and i25s but could never pull the trigger. I would really like some more distance out of my irons, hopefully these will be a bit farther than the other ping i-series clubs.

Could anyone provide some insight into how different sole grinds play into this type of pitching motion and what sort of effects these grinds have (if any) on the bounce of the club in general? Specifically I'm looking at the different grinds offered in the new vokey wedges but it seems like a lot of companies offer similar options on their wedges now. https://www.vokey.com/wedge-selection/wedge-selection-guide.aspx For reference, I have an F grind 54.14 at the moment which I picked because it had the most bounce available relative to the other sole grinds. F grind description: " Full sole with moderate camber and small trailing edge ribbon."

IMHO the debate between Chamblee and Nobilo boiled down to Chamblee saying there is a mechanical flaw in TW's current swing that is actually CAUSING TW's back problems and Nobilo basically saying that Woods ball striking is simply not up to par, the result of a lack of practice, maybe improper sequencing...a RESULT of Tiger's back problems. I guess I misinterpreted what Chamblee meant. When I heard "lean back to get his shots in the air" I thought he was talking about a reverse pivot rather than secondary axis tilt.

Did anybody catch the back and forth between Brandel, Frank, and Notah yesterday after round 1 concerning Tiger's swing? I'm not sure if I can post a link, but it was actually on yahoo's home page today. Anyway, the Chamblee was saying Tiger's new "Foley" swing has him with way too much forward shaft lean, too steep, and as a result of so much delofting, Tiger is leaning back at impact which is the cause of his bad back. Frank and Notah disagreed and hilarity ensued with Chamblee even betting Frank "everything that he owned" that Tiger's clubhead speed wasn't 120 mph last year..... Personally I didn't see what Chamblee was talking about, Tiger's weight was still moving forward, I didn't see any reverse pivot action, I just saw a tour pro hitting down steeply on his irons like so many do.

Shot the worst 79 of my life at Hansen Dam golf course on Saturday. I was 1 over after 11 thinking I had a chance to shoot under par with a few easy holes coming up and then proceed to shoot 6 over for the last 7 holes. I only missed one fairway but missed quite a few greens that I should have hit and my putting was so so. Two birdies including a chip in.

A few months back I was really struggling with my pitching from 30-70 yards. And when I say struggling I don't mean leaving myself 20 foot putts instead of 5 foot putts, I mean I was shanking about half of them, which led to a really bad case of the yips. Anyway I was playing a longish straight par 5. I hit a good drive followed by a good 3 wood (which in retrospect was a mistake because I left myself the yardage I dreaded) and had about 50 yards to the green. I walked up to my ball and I could feel the cold sweat on my forehead because I knew I could not hit this relatively simple shot. After setting up and walking off the shot a few times and a bunch of practice swings I finally pull the trigger and sure enough, dead shank into the trees, no chance of saving par. While holding the wedge I holstered it, letting the club head fall into my hands and then in one fluid move slammed the grip into my innocent golf bag...twice. On the very next hole, I had a full wedge into the green and as I take it out of my bag I notice a huge dent in the shaft under the grip. Not thinking it was a big deal I hit the shot and sure enough the shaft breaks under the grip....karma can be so fickle.

So far I've played about ten rounds with my new counter balanced putter, here are my thoughts. From 20 feet and in this thing is really great. I've never had so much confidence from this distance, and often I'm thinking of making putts that before I'm really just hopeful to get within 4-5 feet. That being said I have had a really hard time with distance control on putts longer than 20 feet. I've left more of these putts 7+ feet short with my other putters, but I think this is something that I can feel out. I think subconciously, beacuse of the extra weight of the putter, when I take it back far for one of these putts, at the apex I sort of chicken out because it feels like I'm going to smash the ball 10 feet past the hole and end up leaving it woefully short. It's something that is concerning for me, but I am pretty confident I will get it down. The imrpovement from 20 feet and in is definitely worth the extra lag putting practice. I highly recommend a counter balanced putter for anybody that has struggled with the putter.

Do you find distance control an issue as mvmac observed?

I looked at those too but the Senita just looked too funky. There is also an anser style counter balanced putter as well that isn't quite as heavy as the Senita I believe. Distance control is something I'm sure will take awhile to figure out, as I am coming from a conventional putter rather than a belly putter. That's interesting - was the extra weight an aftermarket add on to your putter? If so, why did you add it (i.e. was there a particular flaw in your putting you were trying to address with the extra weight in the handle or did it just provide better feel? Did it effect your distrance control?

I recently bought a 38" Odyssey counter balanced tank putter on a whim because it felt so stable. I'm curious if anybody here has put a counterbalanced putter in the bag and how it has affected their putting. The flat stick is the worst club in my bag so I'm always willing to try something new. Would love to hear others' experiences, good or bad, with them!

The more I look at them, the more I like them. I need to do a head by head comparison of the i25s vs my current i15s to see if there is any real improvement. I just bought a house so I probably will have to wait til these bad boys go on sale before I pick one up. I was able to hit the 14* 3 wood and I really liked it. As others have stated, the stripes are not nearly as obnoxious as they look in all these glammed up pictures.

Personally I think if you are getting the same distance from a 19 degree hyrbid and 5 wood, you're probably not putting a good swing on the 5 wood. I think the 5 wood should always be longer, even if both clubs have the same length, due to the club head design. You trade distance, with the 5 wood, for workability and ability to hit out of less than perfect lies, with the hybrid.

I've had the same dilemma. I currently game a driver - 3 wood 3 hybrid (20 degree) 4-PW, UW, SW (13 clubs). I treat my hybrid as an easier to hit 3 iron, not as a replacement for a 5 wood. I can get it out there 205-215 pretty easily out of all sorts of lies. I am planning on trying some 19 degree 5 woods to see what kind of distances I'm getting and I'm hoping I can hit it around 230 which would fill that gap pretty nicely. I'm a pretty good fairway wood player, don't really have any problems getting them into the air so I'm actually thinking of going to a strong 3 wood (13 degree), 4 wood ( 17 degree), 3 hybrid (20 degree) to get the most distance I can as I am not a very long hitter. Anyway my 2 cents is have you considered getting both the 5 wood and the hybrid and going to a 3 wedge system instead of a 4? Maybe replace your 56 and 60 with a 58 or your 52 and 56 with a 54?

@Jakester23 Will do. I'm in the same boat as you, thining of 714 AP2s and i25s. Have you given any thought to the s55's? I've hit them and they feel really nice when I'm swinging well but I don't know if my swing is consistent enough to spend the money on them.

Me (28) and my dad (56) played a round with two guys in their mid 70s at our lucal muni. My dad was still in the process of getting back into the game and was all over the course so we had gotten a golf cart while the two older guys we played with both got push carts and had no problem walking the course. The older of the two had an immaculate set of ping Eye 2 irons, 1-SW and a newer Callaway driver. No fairway woods, no hybrids. On a longish par 3 about 195 yards slightly uphill he was able to chase a 2 iron up to the green, about 35 feet from the pin. He had a chip in for birdie and probably shot something in the low 80s. It was the first time I had ever been truly impressed at the local muni golf course here.

One thing about Ping that I think separates them from the other club manufacturers that generally goes unmentioned is the fact that the design their own stock shafts rather than using a third party company. That being said, I played the g20 with their stock "tour" shaft that was 55g and it was way too whippy for me and caused a lot of problems. I'd be interested to check out their 65 and 75 g shafts.

Disclaimer: Ping fanboy post. The new i25 irons and driver are up on the ping website today. I currently game the i15 irons and was planning on upgrading to the i25s but after looking at the pics I'm not all that impressed. They don't seem to offer any major improvements over the i20s which had really positive reviews and I think they dropped the ball aesthetically on the i25s which is such a surprise because the s55 is such a gorgeous golf club. Maybe it's time for me to step up to the S series. I think the driver is butt ugly with that big racing stripe. Ping is trying to pass it off as "new technology" to help with alignment but give me a break. Anybody planning on gaming these for the upcoming season?

I had a setup question regarding the relationship between ball position and club face angle (open vs closed club face towards the target). I was at the range trying to work on controlling my ball flight and hitting it lower, so I was putting the ball further back in my stance. It is my understanding that this will serve to reduce the loft of the club and therefore hit it lower. My question is if I play the ball back in the stance, do I still aim the club face directly at my target? If I do that the club face feels very closed to me and I hit many shots to the left. When I played the ball back with the club face open to the target the shots felt awkward. Am I approaching this the right way? I hope I explained my question adequately.... Sorry if its confusing:pound:

Just got a great deal on a bunch of stuff and finished my XMAS shopping! Thank you kindly.

Jakester that is awesome. Did you have a good vantage point for Jordans bunker shot? I was wondering what the proper etiquette for asking for autographs is...I felt like Id be bothering those guys while they were on the practice green or walking to the next tee

Looks like it starts with a J. Maybe JJ Henry?

I've never owned a brand new golf club except for the wedges and have gotten everything off EBay except for the irons, which I got off amazon since I got a $500 gift card as a bonus from work Driver: Taylormade R1 TP black - $170 3 wood: Ping g20 - $130 hybrid: Ping i20 20* - $115 Irons: Ping i15 4-UW - $350 Wedges: Vokey SM4 54.12 60.08, $240 Putter: Ping Scottsdale Anser 2 adjustable - $105 Total: $1110

Would definitely get to see Zach Johnson play again at the John Deere! It would have been great to go this year to watch Jordan Spieth's first win as well. Thanks for the tip.

Glad you had a good time! It's true that everybody was more or less behaved. I did see two guys, one in one of the boxes and someone at the back of the 18th green, sort of get into a shouting match before the guy on the green turned around and flipped him off for a good while. Not cool since there were a lot of kids around. I also saw a guy take the Graeme McDowell cardboard cut out and walk out with it which was pretty hilarious. What is your guys' M.O for these events? Do you post it at one hole or do you follow a group around the course?

Awesome story, thanks for sharing. I would have loved to see Jack play life at ant point in his career. Your comment about the boy made me realize that one of the thing that separates watching live golf to other sports is truly how close you can get to these guys, to the point where you can actually say "nice shot" and have them hear it.