The Wrong Fairway

Well this is the bag of sticks I have chosen to use ( may swap out the even number irons for odd numbers every few weeks) Driver is 43 inch as I'm a lot more accurate at this length. 18* hybrid trusty 913hd 4 iron will change to MP fli hi or if the 4 iron doesn't behave the old adams idea pro hybrid will take that spot. 6 iron, 8 iron mizuno MP 57 PW MP 60 SW frozen rope ( nope I'd never heard of them either, got it stupid cheap and it's fantastic, one of those forged in the fires of mount Doom Japanese wedges hand ground by some kind of magical elves I'm guessing) Putter ( yes callie f but this is also under threat from my old Scotty red X putter waiting to pounce the second I have a bad putting day) Just need this snow to disappear now so I can get out on the course and have some fun with them.

Why do you think that your guaranteed to score better because you have more clubs in your bag than someone else? I'm genuinely interested. It's not retro playing less clubs it's just a different way of playing the game.

I don't play in comps and 90% of the time im on the course on my own so not sure who exactly I'm trying to get noticed by. It makes the game more fun for me, I like the challenge as well. I get it it's not for you, you don't have to do it but I want to and I'm interested to hear from others that do. Funny thing is you say it's an easy way out but I'm still yet to find someone who has had there scores get worse from carrying less clubs.

That sounds like great fun using old hickory shafts. I'm really struggling to find any down sides to 8 clubs ( I know some will say not having a 7 iron etc but it's not that hard to choke down on a 6 iron and in my case I get a lower ball flight from it). The bag is sooooo light now it will be a breeze when I walk 18. I'm really looking forward to having to create shots and hopefully getting deadly with one wedge. I'm putting my 4 iron back in to hopefully be a bit more workable and to force me to use it ( 4 iron has been benched for a while in favour of a hybrid).

I tend to play different courses each week. I've played them all before so I know the layouts of the courses. Think the first couple of months will be an experiment to see which combos work for me. I can have a think about the course I'm going to play and set my bag out accordingly. I know there are people out there that will think it's stupid not to have all 14 clubs but for me this has actually got me really looking forward to get out on the course again. I really like the idea of choke down, knock down, punch in golf playing. This all started with getting rid of fairway woods and playing my sand wedge as my only wedge. I then realised whilst playing in wind that the really stupid high ball flight I get was killing me so started to club up and choke down and found I'm pretty good at using 1 club for different yardages.

I've found a few discussions online about using half sets or minimalist golf setups but I can't find anything current. I'd like to hear from anyone still going down this route. I always walk and carry when I play and I've always been intrigued by playing far less clubs than the 14 allowed. Now I don't hold a handicap. My scores can vary between finishing a round 4 over par on a good day and 10/12 over is the norm. I've decided for this year I will only carry 8 clubs. 4 clubs in my bag will always stay the same and they are putter, sand wedge, driver (much more accurate for me than a fairway wood and fairway wood from the deck was one of the reasons that got me started on the golf bag diet). Last club that will always stay is my Titleist 913hd 2 hybrid because quite simply I think it is one of the best clubs ever made, can't get across how much I love this club, never lets me down. The following 4 clubs will be 4,6,8 irons and PW or 5,7,9 and 50 degree gap wedge probably alternate between them every couple of weeks and see over time if the is a particular club that I miss or any clubs I don't think are worth bagging. Interested to hear from others on this topic. I'm someone that can suffer from paralysis from analysis so a simplified golf bag I think will allow me/ force me to just get out there and play the game I love.

After quite a few years on tinkering I think I have finally settled on my clubs. It's taken a lot of experimenting to find what works for me but here it is Driver, callaway big Bertha alpha 3 wood, big Bertha alpha 815 Hybrid, Titleist 913hd 18* Mizuno MP fli hi/Adams idea pro 23*. I swap out either 4 iron or hybrid depending on course, weather or just how I'm feeling that day. Irons, mizuno MP 57 5-pw Wedges, cobra trusty rusty 51/55/61 Putter, odyssey white hot xg #7 Ball, Titleist dt trusoft Only club under threat is the putter as I haven't had it long and it has to live up to my old really beat up Scotty red X putter. Really happy with my set up

I bought a 913d2 driver off of that we'll known auction site. When it arrived I realised that the person I had got it from had failed to mention it was playing at 43.5 inches. I got the driver cheap so thought I would give it a try before looking for a new shaft. Turns out it was one of the best things that could happen to my game. More accurate and I picked up distance as I hit the middle more than I used to. Didn't need to mess with swing weights as it felt fine to me. Try it on an older/cheaper driver. Worse that can happen is you have to put some lead tape on it or maybe a new shaft. You can pick them up really cheap as long as your not obsessive over what shafts you play. Titleist drivers seem to me to be good for it as you can adjust the loft and lie with the surefire hostel and you can change the weights in them. I would be quite surprised if you didn't come back on to post that you had big gains from shortening the big stick.

I have a shim ready for when I build the club as all the shafts I have are .355 taper iron shafts. I'm just a bit stuck as to which shaft to use. From the research I've done it seem the AWT is probably the lightest at around the 100g mark. It would mean that I would then have the same shafts from my 4 hybrid through to my 58 wedge. It makes me lean towards the AWT shaft. I still get drawn towards the stiff flex though as I've always hit hybrids better with stiff flex albeit with graphite not steel. Not sure if this would translate over to steel shafted hybrids though. I didn't know the dg SL were low launching, I have used these shafts before in a set of irons and always hit moon balls with those. Think that was prob more to do with my swing at the time though.

Hi, just looking for some advice/ experiences from other members. My long irons are on the naughty step again and the 4 hybrid is back in the bag. I want to take out the long light graphite shaft and replace it with a steel shaft. I can't afford to buy a new shaft as I know people will tell me to go for the kbs hybrid shaft. Im doing the work myself on my old adams idea pro and the plan is to use one of a few shafts I have from previous experiments. My choices are a dg s300, dg sl r300 or taking the ping AWT reg flex shaft from my ping 4 iron. Anybody had good or bad results using any of these shafts in hybrids? The reason there is a stiff flex option in there is I have always used stiff graphite in hybrids before as I always lose the ball right with reg flex. I play reg steel shafts in my irons and I plan on building this hybrid to play at 4 iron length. Any words of wisdom appreciated. Cheers.

I'm also interested in hearing some comments on this. I have a 2014 mizuno jpx ez 3 wood that's not behaving and I think a lot of it is down to the stupidly long and light shaft. When I think back the fairway woods I've hit the best have all been steel shafts. Thinking of taking the steel shaft out of an old 5 wood and putting that into the jpx ez and playing it at 41.5 inches. I also have the 19 degree jpx ez hybrid that I'm tempted to put a 3 iron shaft in.

The ball height was fairly similar, I would say the stiff flex was slightly lower (hard to tell with the naked eye) but seemed to have a lot more forward motion to it. The shots with the reg flex did their usual. They get to their peak height and just drop out of the sky whereas the stiff flex got to the peak height but carried on a bit more. When I had hit the stiff flex shots, as they got to peak height I was expecting the same as the reg for them to just drop out the sky but they kept going landing approx 20 to 25 yards further. They all went nice and straight (I'm a straight hitter, only fade or draw the ball if needed for the shot) so no probs with dispersion.i was picking a target in the distance as a reference point. With regards to the scooping I was expecting this to be the main problem and had been working a lot at a later release and concentrating on keeping my hands ahead of the ball at impact. Like I said in my earlier post all the shots were comparable.i will be doing more testing to make sure it wasn't a freak occurrence. I'll be out on the course at the weekend so will be taking the stiff flex 6 iron with me to test on the course along side the reg flex. Thanks

Hi, thought I would give a little update. As I said in an earlier post I have got a mp 52 6 iron with an s300 shaft. I took this club and the 6 iron from my set that has the sl r300 shaft. Luckily were I walk my dog is a large field surrounded by woodland ( strangely enough I've always thought it would make a cracking dogleg par 4). I took both clubs with me and 6 golf balls which were 2 titleist dt solo, 2 bridgestone e6 and 2 srixon z star. These are all golf balls I would normally game. I set myself up and hit one of each ball with the reg flex and then repeated this with the stiff flex club.all shots from as close to the same spot and lie as I could get. Honestly the results were astounding. I'm trying not to get carried away and I will be doing a lot more testing between the 2 but the shots I hit with the stiff flex shaft were a good 20 yards longer, if not more than the shots from the reg flex. They were all comparable strikes. I've never known anything like it. Could it be possible I can pick up 2 clubs worth of distance from simply changing shafts? Amazing

Thanks for the replies. The loss of distance I spoke about is with the same clubs and shafts. When I first got the mp 52s I hit them the same distance I've always hit a my irons. I've always hit the same distance regardless of flex it's just as I've been swinging better these irons are going higher and shorter than ever. I have just ordered a 6 iron with stiff flex so I think it will be a few weeks of testing the two 6 irons at the range and on the course to see if there is a difference. I have read a few people saying that the mp 52 irons I use are quite high launching. I also have an old set of t zoid irons with stiff shafts in them so may test that 6 iron along side the other 2 to see if a more muscle back iron might help lower ball flight as well.

I've always been the opposite. I've always hit the ball high but never like this. I've worked on my swing a lot recently and I'm reaping the rewards with my driver, 3 wood and hybrids. I'm hitting them better and further than ever but my iron play even though I feel I'm striking the ball better than I ever have are launching soooo high and going nowhere. An example is I played a round on Sunday, par 3 which was 133 yards to the middle of the green (according to the hole 19 app I have been using) and into the slightest bit of wind. I took my 7 iron and hit it really well. It launched into the air but I couldn't see it down as there was a mound in the way which means you can't see most of the green. When I got up there I discovered my ball on the fringe at the front of the green. 127 yards from a 7 iron that I consistently used to hit 140. I'll try to have a look around to find somewhere that does a fitting but for a city with so many courses around I'm really struggling to find somewhere that does it. Does anyone know how much a fitting normally costs in the UK. I can do the work myself so would only have to pay to find out what shaft would be best for me.

Ok thanks. I feel like I am stuck right between reg and stiff. Hard to tell though as the last time I hit stiff flex in my irons my ball striking wasn't as good or as consistent. I play stiff flex in my driver, 3 wood and hybrids but that's mainly for consistency. I've always had a high ball flight since I started playing golf but lately it's become ridiculously high. Do you guys think moving over to stiff flex would help with lowering the ball flight.

Hi. I'm looking for some advice. I have played a set of mizuno mp 52s for the last year fitted with DG SL r300 shafts. Over the last 5 or 6 rounds I have noticed that my normal high ball flight has now started to land with moon dust on my ball it's going that high and I'm losing nearly a clubs distance. The main prob is I'm hitting the ball better than ever. I'm not a long hitter, my 7 iron is 140 yards with a good strike. My last round I was constantly coming up at least a club short.getting really frustrated playing well but constantly leaving myself 20 foot putts for birdie/par. I've decided to try reshaft have my irons with DG s300 shafts in an attempt to try and bring down the ball flight a bit. I've hit stiff flex before and not noticed any loss in distance and accuracy. As I only play 5-pw and the set of s300 shafts I've bought are 4-pw im wondering whether it might be an idea to soft step them. I'm asking because I'm always reading it's best to play the softest flex possible. Does soft stepping make much of a difference? Would it make them a firm flex? Any advice/experience appreciated.

All depends on what side of the bed i get out of. I can have the same ball for 3 or 4 rounds but could quite easily lose one on my first tee shot. Also depends on how much I'm playing full shots with my sand wedge because that club chews up balls quickly.

Thanks loads for all the advice. I can assure you that there is no ego in wanting to play long irons over hybrids/ fw. I just simply prefer looking down at an iron than a hybrid/fw. I've also tried a Adams DHY 4 iron and have to admit that helped with distance gaps but I draw/hook the hell out of it yet every other club goes nice and straight for me. I've never had the left prob with hybrids before. I have been using my 23 degree hybrid for the last few rounds and it has helped with consistency so it will likely stay in the bag. The other thought I have been having is experimenting with the 3 iron. I want to change the shaft anyway so before I do Im thinking of cutting it to 5 iron length and adding some lead tape to it to increase swing weight. I will primarily be doing this to see if it will give me a club to use when the wind is blowing. The theory is the 6 degree gap between my 3 and 5 iron with more chance of good contact will give me the distance gap I need between the 2 clubs and I'll have a club I can use consistently. Has anyone else tried this? Again thanks for all the help and advice.

Thanks for the replies. I think something got lost in my original post. I don't hit my 3 iron well 1 in 10 shots I tend to hit it as well as my 4 and 5 iron. Don't get me wrong I still duff shots with them like all of my clubs but I just don't get the distance I would expect from a good strike. I've been searching around for some ideas and stumbled across a thread about Anthony Kim and the way he chokes down on all his clubs. Thought I would try it whilst walking the dog. Took a couple of practice balls and absolutely pured both hits, got so much height with them. Unfortunately the field is all long grass so have no way of measuring how far I hit them but they felt fantastic and I was so much more confident stood over the ball. I might also look into having the lofts strengthened as they only have 3* between them. Do you think that could also help the distance gaps. Thanks.

I would try choking down to the length your thinking of shortening it to. Should give you an really good idea of what the club will feel like after cutting the shaft and then you can decide if you will want to add weight to the head. I've cut down plenty of shafts on drivers, fairway woods and hybrids before and if I'm honest most have been fine if not felt better TO ME ( that's the important bit, maybe the original swing weight wasn't right for me ) without adding weight but a few I've had to as they didn't feel right shortened. Try it and see. I've also heard a lot of people say they did this and but used a slightly heavier shaft. Hope it works out.

Hi. I'll try not to ramble on too much. I have a pretty consistent and good swing. I hit my long irons well. I don't have the usual problem of hitting long irons too low I can launch my 3 and 4 irons just as easy as the rest of my irons ( my long irons are mizuno mp Fli hi's). My problem is that my 4 iron just doesn't go much further than my 5 iron and my 3 iron will only go further than my 4 iron maybe 1 shot in 10. I've tried replacing my 4 iron with a hybrid ( I built myself an old Adams idea pro 23* with a steel 3 iron shaft fitted) and I'll be honest I hit this hybrid really well so you would think job done but the pull of that satisfaction of nailing a long Iron keeps pulling me back to them. My question is if I can hit them fine why am I not getting the distance I would like. I'm tempted to cut them down and add weight so they play the same length as my 5 iron and have an experiment at Brysoning my long irons. Sorry that was a ramble in the end. Any help much appreciated. Cheers

Getting everything to click at the same time, I break my game down into 5 sections Driver Fairway woods/hybrids Iron play Shortgame Putting I always seem to have one area that lets me down.

Most expensive thing I've bought were my ping i15 irons that cost me £150. Cheapest was my mizuno mp t10 lob wedge for the pricey sum of £3.68.