WillieT

Getting Introduced: I had been around golf growing up as I had a couple of uncles who played at the local country club. I recall having an iron or two at home with a couple of golf balls we would hit back and forth. Still no real interest. In the late 90's a friend gave me his old set (a mix of Spalding, MacGregor, and Lynx irons and "real" woods). My joy at that time was to take varying irons to the local softball outfield where I would try to hit the balls to a given spot. I quickly learned I had a lot to learn. As I was not in a place where I could get on a course, I chose to put the clubs back in the back till this past summer. My FIrst Real Time on the Course: Fast fwd to around '09 where I went on a company trip that included a team building exercise involving best ball play with some very good players. I was the "D" player though I felt more like a "Z" as I had no idea of what I was doing. The exercise playing the back nine and I had fun slicing, hooking and worm burning the ball. When we were thru, my boss and a couple others wanted to play the front nine. I was asked to join if I wanted. I said I would like to as I was starting to get the itch. I was totally dismal on the drives and after the 2nd hole, a friend offered to let me play his tee shots. I politely declined as I wanted to do well, he said that I may want to use the 3 wood as it is easier to hit. The next hole I nailed the drive and I was hooked. By the end of the round, my friend Rudy said I had learned more in those 9 holes than most learned in a life time. I told him I was "retiring" as I would never be better than that day and I did not want to spend a fortune trying to get there again. Now: This past summer our church's men's group started having a monthly 9-hole best ball outing. My 2nd oldest son wanted to go, so I drug out the old starter set complete with the real woods and dry rotted grips and away we went. The foursome we were in included a couple of course regulars so we followed their lead. I truly enjoyed the day, more because of my time with him than anything else. Yet I still remember the 8th hole where the magic happened. My tee shot was the best, my approach put us within 15' of the hole and I was the only one to make the hole in one putt. As one of the guys said, "You truly owned the hole". I was hooked on the enjoyment of the game.

Interesting insight and makes sense. This would make sense why the trend appears to be using wedges in lieu of irons on bump and run/chips around the greens. And as JxQx said, more and more folks tend to want to up and down the ball onto the green rather than roll in. Also as I was comparing lofts of irons these days - my 9i is 44* (its an early edition TA 845s Silver Scot) and I have seen current 9 irons in the upper 30's (which is between my current 7i @ 36* and 8i@ 40* (again TA 845s Silver Scot). So it makes sense - with improved greens (as compared to the original greens of long ago where bump and run was a necessity on approaches), better club technology - it becomes easier to see why "bump and run" is a fading skill whereas chipping with wedges is the norm. Good talk folks, thanks for helping this newbie learn a little more about this game.

Thanks guys for clarifying the terminology as to what is a proper bump and run versus a routine chip shot and it makes perfect sense. You have given me inspiration to work more on my 52* wedge work. I am going to do more research on "bump and run" shots to see how they truly work.

I took DaveP043's advise and chased down some reading over in the Instructional Area and mvmac's posts. One that caught my eye was where he wrote: "Let's say I'm six paces off the green and have 30 feet of green to the hole, I can make a simple "chitch" stroke with a 7 iron where I would really have to "hit it" with a putter which can create some inconsistencies with contact and how the ball launches off the putter. Point of the video is to give people another option, go out and experiment with it and see if it works for them." This reminded me of my error last Friday when I "thought" it best to try to punch the ball from the edge of the rough in a slight downhill lie. I was about 10' from the edge of the fringe and should have used what he calls a "chitch" shot with a wedge. Instead when I punched it with the putter, it not only left the rough, but rolled right past the green and took the downhill ride till about 30' from the hole. Needless to say I learned my lesson. If I had taken a moment to just use the putter stroke with the wedge I would have likely been set up well to make a decent putt. Thanks for the input and how it really boils down to what the situation is and what the skill set is of the player at that moment. For me, I will be working on the putter stroke with the 7i - SW sticks.

When I read this it was a combination of "ah-ha" and "oh yea". "Ah - ha" as I had just started doing this in my chip practice with the 7-GW irons in the back yard. It was "Oh yea" when I saw the ball rocket from the rough (10' out) across the green to the rough now 30' out and down hill......needless to say "lesson learned". I am looking forward to the next time out and making use of this technique.

I was catching some of the LPGA Aussie Open coverage today on the GC. I heard one of the commentators mention how the golfers were almost exclusive on using wedges around the greens and not doing bump and runs with 7 & 8 irons. It has me wondering if this a prevailing shot selection process these days with most players to use wedges more around the greens as opposed to bump and running with irons. As a newbie, I love taking my 5 - 8 irons and work on bump and run shots in the yard. Practicing everything from 5 to 30 yard chips. I pick my target zone and then focus on landing the balls there. So is bump and run becoming a thing of the past or am I keying on an abstract thought of a golf commentator.

Bucki1968 - I like that synopsis. 5i on down - no divot, not so good shot. While I try to "size" my divots based on the iron in use, I know that I just need to focus on make solid contact rather than trying to "sweep".

Yes, I do. It kind of breaks down like this: Driver - off the tee, if there is a divot, I need to rethink this game altogether; Fairway woods - a sweeping divot that is more along the lines of a pick; Hybrids (3h & 4h), Long irons (5i - 7i) - more of a divot (closer to a scalp the size of a dollar bill); Short irons-wedges (8i - SW) - deeper divot w/solid scoop; i try to analyze the divot taken with the shot made to correlate what I should see and NOT see and hopefully learn to either repeat the good or not repeat the bad. Have to say this focus on these executions has decreased the "fat" shot content by 90% or more.

Good discussion - however as a newbie to the game I am not qualified to make a qualified assessment of what is the proper technique. I know that for me I try to go for the scalp/slight divots on everything except the driver. Sand wedges are totally different as I go for a good dig about 2" behind the ball - which worked well twice yesterday.

Was thinking that it was that based on what I had researched on the web since posting. From what I understand that’s good steel. Now that the wait is over it’s time to swing the clubs!

Picked up a couple of Tommy Armour 845s Silver Scot wedges to complete my irons - a 52deg W3 (Gap) Wedge w/original TA grip and 56deg Sand Wedge w/jumbo Golf Pride Tour Wrap grip. My other irons all have Golf Pride Tour Wrap grips standard size and I love them, so I picked up a couple of grips to change out the wedge grips. The Gap wedge grip came off w/no problems and the rubber was literally breaking apart as I peeled it off. Did find on the shaft the following lettering "DGIR 300 35". Not sure what those numbers mean. Applied the new tape and the Wedge Guys grip solvent. New grip slid on just like the YouTube videos. Woo hoo! One down, one to go. I was slightly torn about the Sand Wedge as this was a relatively new grip. But the jumbo grip felt too fat in my hands, so out came the knife and off came the grip. If I had been paying attention, I would have noticed that when the grip came off the tape underneath still had the outer paper on it....I could have just peeled it off, applied the solvent to the new grip and slid it on. But no, I had to be overzealous and remove perfectly fine tape. End of day, I have same grips on all the irons and life is good.

Decided that I would continue exploring the 'inherited set' as it is truly a mix of irons different models from same/different manufacturers. Today, I took out the resident 4 iron, a Macgregor Tourney. (see pic) I have not seen much on this "version" and as it is the only one of this model in the set, I figure it is a lone wolf acquisition that the PO had made in the past. I paired it against the TA 845s Silver Scot 4i just for kicks. Knew this would be more of a test as I typically don't swing long irons in my around the yard practice ball sessions. Between the clubs, the results were amazingly similar, the first round with the MacGregor was sweet! Club felt sweet and shots were pretty true. The TA 845s was almost as true as I had few more missed hits but still fun to swing. Definite fun comparing irons...

Flashypaws - great info! I appreciate, as a newbie to understanding club design, the clarification on what is a muscleback. Guess the Nicklaus could be called a "fatback" because you will tend to hit fat....seriously your input confirmed what I was feeling about the Souchak design as being the better design of the "inherited" clubs. I am enough of want to know more person that this exercise was great fun in trying to figure out what club designers were trying to accomplish at that time. For now I will stick with the TA 845s Silver Scots as my main clubs. I have noticed how lofts have become stronger where my TA 845s 8i is 40deg would play similarly loft wise to either a current 91 or even a PW....I tend to be older school with things - I love old guitar amps, older guitars and even effects. I am still much an analog person in a digital world. So I will always behind the curve on things like current golf technology....still its fun to read about it. All that to say, I may look for a set of Wilsons from that era just to have for fun.

Yes I actually play the Tommy Armour 845s Silver Scots as I just started to play last summer and they were available at a great price (less than $50 for for 3-PW). Since they are "Pat Pend" I am figuring they are close to 30yrs old. I know its older technology and there are much more forgiving irons out there and as such I am considering newer production irons, but have a real fascination with the older irons and yes even "true" wood woods.

Today I decided to try something for fun. In the set of irons I "inherited" there is a mix of what I understand are department store style clubs - namely MacGregor, Spalding and even Lynx. For this very unscientific test I chose to limit it to 7 and 8 irons (I have the widest distribution of brands in those styles). What did I learn? Well some clubs swing much easier than others. As the Silver Scots are the most "modern" club I own, this was more of an exercise of what how they compared to basically one generation earlier designs. I used a Callaway driving pad to cut down on the divots in a my somewhat soggy yard. Still some hits were on bare grass to get a more realistic feel. Here we go: 8 iron contingent (only two to compare here): MacGregor Nicklaus Golden Bear (Reg.084) - very heavy almost clumsy feeling club. I tended to be way fat on most strikes, really noticed this on bare grass swings. Also on most swings I was way open resulting in slices - I am thinking it's weighting was such that it was me being slow in getting the club around. The club itself has a large mid-back hump, I guess which is what is deemed "muscleback" in design. (see pic) Tommy Armour 845s Silver Scot - this is the club I have been hitting the most so its the most familiar. Some slicing (still working on the videos for the My Swing section) but overall much lighter in feel. 7 iron contingent (three to compare here): Spalding Johnny Palmer Tournament - this club I am sure is a "department" store style club. I am intrigued at its length and feel. It was not a "weighty" as the Golden Bear but still did not feel totally comfortable. Hits were more direct, i.e. fewer slices. It looks to be more of a "blade" design. Not as fat in the swings as the club came around better. Of the three 7's tested it was the longest about 1/2" longer than the TA 845s 7. It really needs cleaning and new grips installed. Tommy Armour 845s Silver Scot - like the 8 above, this is part of the playing set I am using. It swings well and I tend to hit it pretty straight - most times than night. Very few fat shots and when I swing it well, ball launches with good trajectory. I love using it to practice bump and run chip shots around the yard, as its length is conducive putter style swings. MacGregor Mike Souchak TSL 090 - I am presuming this another "department" store style iron as well. This club really surprised me. It has a balance very similar to the cavity backs of the 845s yet it is a blade design that swings very well. It's shaft length is about 3/4" shorter than the 845s. It did not matter if I was on the driving pad or the grass, the club landed consistent on the ball with a small divot after and great ball flight. It was a fun exercise that revealed to me that it is not always a new club that makes the player, but rather how the player adapts to whatever club they are handed. One thing I would like to do, is locate a full set of the Mike Souchak irons to play and see how a full set feels. In the same respect I have wondered if I ought to shorten the 845s to better match my height/wrist to floor length (5'-6", 32"). I know the best thing would be to go and be properly fitted....but for now, its just fun randomly trying fun stuff.