I guess it depends on how you define forgiveness.
To me, forgiveness means one thing. Ball speed retention on off center hits. As a long time blade player, that now plays a forged CB. that means my toe misses are closer to the green than they were with blades. But that's really the only difference.
Game Improvement irons are designed to do two things. Hit the ball higher, and farther, regardless of where you hit it on the face. A byproduct of this type of club is that distances can vary greatly depending on where you hit it on the face. Hollow distance iorns have the same issue.
Blades and one piece forged CB's don't have springy hot faces, so don't have these massive distance variations across the face.
Apex 16 is what I use. Forged cavity back.
My distances are reliable, and I can work the ball a decent amount on the longer irons.
I got them used slightly from 2nd swing. Spent about 600 for 3i to pw.
I found the Apex 16s to be super hot with their “Cupped Face” tech and strong lofts. The Apex Pro from that year was a little more of a standard CB with some interesting helper tucked inside. Traded the reg Apex 16s for Titleist 716CB which is a traditional forged CB and those babies are an entirely different animal. Can’t imagine trying to square up a MB and get consistent results…
I actually have Apex CF16 ...it was definitely an upgrade from my Titleist DCI irons.
The Apex helped me go down a 1.6 last year. Truly made my iron game more dependable. Now, if I could only chip better * I actually bought a AW in Pro....didnt like it as much.
Had the Apex '19s. I switched for the exact reason OP is mentioning. I could hit a random 200+ yard 7i and then the next time 160y. Playing a mkII ZX5/7 combo set now. No longer have to worry about that random 200 yard shot. Sure I'll catch one right in the sweet spot on occasion but it's only a few more yards longer than a small mishit, not 20.
Interesting. I haven't had that issue yet. Low on the face yea.
My stock 7i is 160 to 170 in the summer and I have needed to blast one 200 to carry trees, but I was at a 95%+ swing. Epic shot last year on a blocked drive par 4. Landed 10 ft and stopped. Missed the putt*
2015 OnOff Forged Kuro, from Japan. One of the best forged CB's ever made. Forged by Endo, for incredible feel. Tungsten in the sole of the 3-7 irons for higher launch. Look great.
I picked these up last fall from Japan on EBay for $375, in nearly new condition, then swapped the shafts for AMT White X100's.
https://preview.redd.it/abqju6fbe1vc1.jpeg?width=2253&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=42a894ef0568853b48a10b22b6b88e5e08f77725
I've been in love wirh my MP-64s since I got them. I've tried a few others over the years and nothing has been good enough to knock them out of the bag. I played MP-53s before the 64s and still have them. They're a great set of sticks as well.
The 2 newer irons I'd like to try are the Taylormade P7MC and the Miura MC502, both seem to be a pretty direct modern answer to the 64s I've had for so long. That said, with a 1 piece forged club head I'm not sure how much things have actually changed in those 10 years.
V1 Zx7s are dirt cheap for slightly used and are absolute butter. Me and my buddy are like a 15hc and had zero issues using them. The v1s look better than the v2s imo
If you're open to smaller brands, give New Level a look. I play the PF2s and had previously played Miura CB501 and Mizzy JPX800 pro.
They are a very good iron, and I think they'll do a free trial.
As others have mentioned, JPX 92x Tours *are* forged cavity backs. They are not blades. If you like them, go for it. I would consider getting a set of the Tours from GW to 7 and then Forged in 5 and 6. That's what I have in the 921s.
FWIW, I got the 921 Tours as a \~15 index and am now a 7-8. I added the Forged 5 and 6 last year and I find they inspire a lot more confidence than I had with the 5/6 Tours.
Nike forged pro combo set can be found for like $180 -300 and perform just as well and any modern forged set. I know from experience
Also, used Ben Hogan PTx Pros
I bought a set of honma forged cbs thinking they were suitable for a high handicap and it took me a long time to figure out how to make decent contact with them. Once I did though, they were way more forgiving than I originally thought. You get some great feedback from a forged CB but the best thing like you said is the dispersion of distance across the face. At least now if I’m hitting a 7 at the green I know even if I don’t make great contact it’s probably going to land within a reasonable zone. Striping a game improvement iron would have sent it to the next tee box
I play as a solo a lot, with a lot of randoms, and always see people hitting over the green.
Distance control is one of my strong suits, but with a forged CB, I never hit a ball over the green, unless I blade a wedge.
This is kind of getting into the weeds here, but blades/cavities/GIs etc, shouldn’t just be matched up to handicap or even club head speeds, but by delivery. The reason most amateur golfers hit blades so short compared to other irons is because you’re delivery too much loft, and getting too much spin. Compare this to a tour delivery; much more shaft lean, much more shallow club path, and you’ll see why they need traditional lofts (whether with blades or tour cavities). This is why I get kind of frustrated when I see people here admonishing blades for anyone who isn’t on tour, as well as people who pine about how jacked lofts are. If you match loft with delivery, it all makes sense.
And to echo that, what also matters is what kind of result the player wants. I’m willing to give up distance for spin, because the ball stopping where it lands is how I want to play my shots. Other folks might like 15-20 yards of roll out.
Ex-fucking-actly
The vast majority of golfers don't have good launch conditions. They're adding loft and spin and thus need juiced lofts.
So when I read people here using traditional lofts shitting on people with juiced lofts who the traditionalists claim give them shit because they gotta hit the gym, well, they probably should be using juiced lofts themselves. I'm 95% confident in that, because 95% of players don't make good divots.
this is also why a good ball striker with a blade is liable to duckhook a gi or sky the ball too long and far. amateur clubs are built for amateur tendencies like hitting off the toe or failing to close the face by impact. hard to hit a super offset club when thats not your miss. some pros like jt have clubs made with almost zero offset. when pros do use an "easier" club its not like its how they come off the rack either, its been modded like crazy from the clubfitter to actually work with that sort of swing.
How I like to describe it is that the blades punish your good shots in order to keep all shots closer together in distance. Notice in the graphs how the distance irons are always longer than the blades. I have a better comparison video to demonstrate. While these aren’t blades this video shows the effect best because it’s a direct speed comparison. https://youtu.be/VSNTiiOwc2Q?si=CPTiav7zTHaAf1sR Even bad shots are longer. But as you move farther away from the center of a distance iron you begin to lose the effect of the trampoline effect. It becomes less and less efficient at giving you extra speed.
Whereas the blade or a solid back cavity gives you no extra speed from a trampoline face. So your good shots go shorter. But there isn’t also the loss of trampoline effect as you move off center. So the bad shots go shorter but the difference between bad and good is less.
So when considering only the distance control of a strike the blades are more consistent than a distance iron. But this is only one aspect of forgiveness. And this is where the blade falls short. Blades have a smaller face making them harder to hit. Blades have a sharper leading edge making it easier to hit fat. Blades have less MOI making off center shots go a tiny bit less straight (this is often way overstated).
But the biggest problem for most golfers is that blades have a higher center of gravity making shots launch lower. This is especially important with the longer irons. Most people could hit a 7 iron blade but struggle to get anything lower loft up in the air. Basically a blade player needs to bring their own speed.
So when people say that blades punish mishits. that’s a myth based only on the fact that blades give you more feel when you miss the center. The ball still goes the distance. But the rest of the blade is designed for players that can bring their own speed. Hit a relatively small head and don’t struggle with turf interaction. You still need to be relatively good to play a blade. But there’s certainly not as hard to hit as most people think they are.
Everyone I bring this up with thinks I’m insane. But about 5 years ago I was fit into a set of players distance irons after playing a 20 year old set of traditional cavities and my game went absolutely backwards because I lost all my distance control. During the lockdown I started looking into this issue and discovered some Mark Crossfield videos demonstrating the consistency of blades. I decided to order some having never hit them before and since it was lockdown I couldn’t go and hit any.
But my first round with the new blades was five strokes better than my best round all year with the old “forgiving irons.” My handicap has dropped 8 strokes with blades vs the distance irons. I spent the next few years trying to understand why my experience was different than what people said. This cool clubs data was the first good robot data that showed this.
thats a bit of a bad comparison in the video because for one the i230 has different lofts. of course its shorterthan the 7 iron in the g425 because really its the 6 iron in the i230 that is compatible (29.5* 6 iron vs 30* 7 iron g425). the i230 is also not a blade, ping doesn't actually make any true blades in fact. its true blades launch lower but thats a good thing. a lot of guys under like 50 years old are too strong for their game improvement clubs and are launching them way too high and long and missing a lot of greens as a result. I always feel bad when I get paired up with a random guy who is hitting really well but he just can't get a gir because he's always spraying it so long and high over the green because of those clubs he's hitting. Probably has no idea either and is blaming himself and his swing which is actually perfect and not the club fit.
Yeah the video isn’t a perfect comparison but it’s still a player iron used in tour that’s designed for consistency and higher swing speeds. The key thing is that the GI iron has a much longer distance between best and worst strike. It’s the only one I found that had the same swing speed.
Here’s the Mark Crossfield video that I talked about . https://youtu.be/nnIR2oCRWYM?si=MsvYlSk2Povc6-Ue
I switched from GI to a forged cavity quite a few years ago. You'll never guess what happened... I got better at golf. The irons exposed my faults and forced me to learn to hit the ball better. I could actually feel the mis-hits. The clubs also had a much tighter dispersion inherently more accurate on pure strikes.
GI is a misnomer...
I started with pro cavity and am now hitting blades. I've never hit a shot where I wish it was a different club in my hands. If I hit a bad shot there's no saving it, a slice is a slice and there's also no club that can save a chunk. But, they are amazing from a distance gapping perspective. my distances are all dialed. If I pull the wrong club its maybe off by at most 1 club. Swing feels a lot comfortable having the same shaft and head from 2-pw. No big fear stepping behind a long iron because you can fool yourself easily into thinking you are looking at the 7 iron. I'm definitely a lot more accurate with irons than most people I see. some people hit it much more powerfully than me but they are usually doing it with game improvements and therefore don't have the accuracy: their shots are all going super long and high and they usually totally miss the green complex with an iron, usually missing very long sometimes losing the ball. Like if you are an adult male in decent health you are probably too strong for a game improvement iron to not be too powerful. Old man golf is a different story some of these guys need that sort of club to get the ball up at all.
GI clubs have blunted leading edges and wide soles. They are less punitive on slightly fat shots and a little easier to get the ball in the air from light/moderate rough. (Super fat shots and absolute shit lies didn’t make a difference)
When I tried blades as a 10hcp, I found that I lost more distance on toe shots vs my Ping i5 irons. I’d often get a shot that landed well short and right of the target. Perimeter weighting seems to have helped here.
But the fats and rough were where it was clear that I just didn’t have the swing for blades.
You can imagine how if you improved your swing some, e.g. got better at closing the face from the sound of it, you might be missing left now going back to the i5 since its designed to help you close the face with the offset. thats another key side effect of blades. your swing might not be all there to close the face with a blade from the start, but it will get there and you will be better for it.
I was curious about the loft effect, but had trouble finding dispersion charts comparing irons of different lofts.
I did, however, find an article from Brad Sherman of Practical Golf where he had 20 shots from a PW, 5I & 8I. Here are the front-to-back dispersions:
PW: 20 yards
8I: 23 yards
5I: 23 yards
Loft doesn't seem to matter much for distance dispersion.
I got fit for ping i525s. I'm a 10 hc, so I don't hit the ball terribly, not amazing but not bad. Anyway, when i was getting fit, I asked the guy if I could hit a few of the ping blueprint blades to see the difference. He obliged, and I was very quickly humbled by the blueprint. Hitting 170 with the i525 compared to 140 with the blueprint.
Everyone's different, so I can't talk for everyone, but I definitely noticed a massive difference in those 2 clubs
I think the point OP is making here is that with your Ping i5 series irons, which are pretty hot hollow bodies, the distance dispersion between a good strike and a poor strike is pretty high. This isn’t because they aren’t forgiving, but because the center of the club face is so damn hot, and spin numbers are usually on the lower side. With a blade, like a blueprint t, your overall distance will likely be lower, spin rate will be much higher, but you’d probably be pin high more often. The issue I’ve found with muscle backs is the distance loss on thin strikes, which is my miss and why I moved out of my MP-18s.
They are hard to hit. I would consider the JPX forged. Not much harder to hit than the hot metals, but will be less hot, have less offset, and smaller than the hot metals.
This testing I imagine is missing a key part of forgiveness. *Ground interaction.*
A novice player will be hitting behind the ball a lot on average.
The blade club digs, instead more of a slide or bounce off the turf on a game improvement.
This bounce/dig effect will change both the club speed and the strike location vertically on the face impacting both exit velocity & angle.
The higher impact locations going further on the GI clubs is by design. As the club is bouncing from ground first contact the ball moves up the face. So that area launching further because the club is slowing through soil is the forgiveness.
I've talked about this ad-nauseam on my TikTok account and the amount of blade shamers is ridiculous lol. I'm playing the TS4 blades from golf works and they're money but then again most of golfworks designed stuff doesn't suck in my experience.
The only time I would use a club that isn't a blade/cb is if that club needs to be a poke distance club (where you poke the green for longer distance and trade off some dispersion). That's in my 3/4 iron though, maybe a 5 depending on if I need to cut down on spin.
Did they not test blades with 80mph swing speeds? Seems like a miss in their review.
In my experiences over the years, I (as a particularly average 12 hcp) have found that I prefer the predictability of forged irons/blades vs game improvement (and definitely hollow body) irons. Yes, the good shots with a blade tend to be less “good” (that is, far) than with a GI iron, but the bad shots are very much less bad and less likely to land in trouble.
Everyone has their preferences though.
8-9 handicap here... I play the JPX Tours today, I friggen love them... but I just got fitted at a Mizuno fitting event, and ordered some Mizuno Pro 245's. The faces are still small, but the 8i and longer have hollow bodies. I found that my dispersion was really good, even though I was hitting the ball like crap at the fitting (it's early in the season, gimme a break). I got them bent 2\* weak, so at the end of the day, they will be 1\* stronger than my JPX Tours. I'm really excited to get some forgiveness and a little length on the longer irons. If PW-8i end up being juiced, I'll probably just order those 3 in 241's. The 245 PW and 9i pretty much look exactly like the 241s at address, the 8i has a thicker top line.
Robot testing is not going to be a reliable predictor for what happens when you hit the club.
Moi and cog will play a large factor in the dynamic loft and your ability to deliver the face squarely. Moi will also help keep the face stable on mishits, but that's not the only benefit.
I guess it depends on how you define forgiveness. To me, forgiveness means one thing. Ball speed retention on off center hits. As a long time blade player, that now plays a forged CB. that means my toe misses are closer to the green than they were with blades. But that's really the only difference. Game Improvement irons are designed to do two things. Hit the ball higher, and farther, regardless of where you hit it on the face. A byproduct of this type of club is that distances can vary greatly depending on where you hit it on the face. Hollow distance iorns have the same issue. Blades and one piece forged CB's don't have springy hot faces, so don't have these massive distance variations across the face.
Yes, forged CB might be the way to go. Which ones in particular do you like?
Apex 16 is what I use. Forged cavity back. My distances are reliable, and I can work the ball a decent amount on the longer irons. I got them used slightly from 2nd swing. Spent about 600 for 3i to pw.
I found the Apex 16s to be super hot with their “Cupped Face” tech and strong lofts. The Apex Pro from that year was a little more of a standard CB with some interesting helper tucked inside. Traded the reg Apex 16s for Titleist 716CB which is a traditional forged CB and those babies are an entirely different animal. Can’t imagine trying to square up a MB and get consistent results…
I actually have Apex CF16 ...it was definitely an upgrade from my Titleist DCI irons. The Apex helped me go down a 1.6 last year. Truly made my iron game more dependable. Now, if I could only chip better * I actually bought a AW in Pro....didnt like it as much.
That’s great, glad they (obviously) work so well for you!
Had the Apex '19s. I switched for the exact reason OP is mentioning. I could hit a random 200+ yard 7i and then the next time 160y. Playing a mkII ZX5/7 combo set now. No longer have to worry about that random 200 yard shot. Sure I'll catch one right in the sweet spot on occasion but it's only a few more yards longer than a small mishit, not 20.
Interesting. I haven't had that issue yet. Low on the face yea. My stock 7i is 160 to 170 in the summer and I have needed to blast one 200 to carry trees, but I was at a 95%+ swing. Epic shot last year on a blocked drive par 4. Landed 10 ft and stopped. Missed the putt*
2015 OnOff Forged Kuro, from Japan. One of the best forged CB's ever made. Forged by Endo, for incredible feel. Tungsten in the sole of the 3-7 irons for higher launch. Look great. I picked these up last fall from Japan on EBay for $375, in nearly new condition, then swapped the shafts for AMT White X100's. https://preview.redd.it/abqju6fbe1vc1.jpeg?width=2253&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=42a894ef0568853b48a10b22b6b88e5e08f77725
https://preview.redd.it/s3kczrwde1vc1.jpeg?width=4000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=67cacbb08eb08a9709e6733e83e8fe3905c7a2b6 New shafts and BB&F ferrules.
Holy fuck those are pretty.
You can get the v1 version of zx5/7 new for under 600 and used under 450
This is what I went with, bought a new combo set on eBay for $550. Absolutely love them.
It's kind of insane how forgiving they are off the toe. I have a ZX5 only set, but wish my wedges to 8i were ZX7.
Best $600 I’ve spent on golf
that's what jpx tours are. You aren't hitting blades
Yep,. Good clarification. Sometimes forget coming from game improvement.
JPX Tours are forged CB. I have the 900's and toe misses and a groove low hit greens.
I've been in love wirh my MP-64s since I got them. I've tried a few others over the years and nothing has been good enough to knock them out of the bag. I played MP-53s before the 64s and still have them. They're a great set of sticks as well. The 2 newer irons I'd like to try are the Taylormade P7MC and the Miura MC502, both seem to be a pretty direct modern answer to the 64s I've had for so long. That said, with a 1 piece forged club head I'm not sure how much things have actually changed in those 10 years.
V1 Zx7s are dirt cheap for slightly used and are absolute butter. Me and my buddy are like a 15hc and had zero issues using them. The v1s look better than the v2s imo
If you're open to smaller brands, give New Level a look. I play the PF2s and had previously played Miura CB501 and Mizzy JPX800 pro. They are a very good iron, and I think they'll do a free trial.
As others have mentioned, JPX 92x Tours *are* forged cavity backs. They are not blades. If you like them, go for it. I would consider getting a set of the Tours from GW to 7 and then Forged in 5 and 6. That's what I have in the 921s. FWIW, I got the 921 Tours as a \~15 index and am now a 7-8. I added the Forged 5 and 6 last year and I find they inspire a lot more confidence than I had with the 5/6 Tours.
Playing 921 tours as a 15…wow. Were you a good ball striker or what?
Nike forged pro combo set can be found for like $180 -300 and perform just as well and any modern forged set. I know from experience Also, used Ben Hogan PTx Pros
I bought a set of honma forged cbs thinking they were suitable for a high handicap and it took me a long time to figure out how to make decent contact with them. Once I did though, they were way more forgiving than I originally thought. You get some great feedback from a forged CB but the best thing like you said is the dispersion of distance across the face. At least now if I’m hitting a 7 at the green I know even if I don’t make great contact it’s probably going to land within a reasonable zone. Striping a game improvement iron would have sent it to the next tee box
I play as a solo a lot, with a lot of randoms, and always see people hitting over the green. Distance control is one of my strong suits, but with a forged CB, I never hit a ball over the green, unless I blade a wedge.
This is kind of getting into the weeds here, but blades/cavities/GIs etc, shouldn’t just be matched up to handicap or even club head speeds, but by delivery. The reason most amateur golfers hit blades so short compared to other irons is because you’re delivery too much loft, and getting too much spin. Compare this to a tour delivery; much more shaft lean, much more shallow club path, and you’ll see why they need traditional lofts (whether with blades or tour cavities). This is why I get kind of frustrated when I see people here admonishing blades for anyone who isn’t on tour, as well as people who pine about how jacked lofts are. If you match loft with delivery, it all makes sense.
And to echo that, what also matters is what kind of result the player wants. I’m willing to give up distance for spin, because the ball stopping where it lands is how I want to play my shots. Other folks might like 15-20 yards of roll out.
Ex-fucking-actly The vast majority of golfers don't have good launch conditions. They're adding loft and spin and thus need juiced lofts. So when I read people here using traditional lofts shitting on people with juiced lofts who the traditionalists claim give them shit because they gotta hit the gym, well, they probably should be using juiced lofts themselves. I'm 95% confident in that, because 95% of players don't make good divots.
When im flushing it I dont take divots
Strike is everything, the rest is flair.
this is also why a good ball striker with a blade is liable to duckhook a gi or sky the ball too long and far. amateur clubs are built for amateur tendencies like hitting off the toe or failing to close the face by impact. hard to hit a super offset club when thats not your miss. some pros like jt have clubs made with almost zero offset. when pros do use an "easier" club its not like its how they come off the rack either, its been modded like crazy from the clubfitter to actually work with that sort of swing.
How I like to describe it is that the blades punish your good shots in order to keep all shots closer together in distance. Notice in the graphs how the distance irons are always longer than the blades. I have a better comparison video to demonstrate. While these aren’t blades this video shows the effect best because it’s a direct speed comparison. https://youtu.be/VSNTiiOwc2Q?si=CPTiav7zTHaAf1sR Even bad shots are longer. But as you move farther away from the center of a distance iron you begin to lose the effect of the trampoline effect. It becomes less and less efficient at giving you extra speed. Whereas the blade or a solid back cavity gives you no extra speed from a trampoline face. So your good shots go shorter. But there isn’t also the loss of trampoline effect as you move off center. So the bad shots go shorter but the difference between bad and good is less. So when considering only the distance control of a strike the blades are more consistent than a distance iron. But this is only one aspect of forgiveness. And this is where the blade falls short. Blades have a smaller face making them harder to hit. Blades have a sharper leading edge making it easier to hit fat. Blades have less MOI making off center shots go a tiny bit less straight (this is often way overstated). But the biggest problem for most golfers is that blades have a higher center of gravity making shots launch lower. This is especially important with the longer irons. Most people could hit a 7 iron blade but struggle to get anything lower loft up in the air. Basically a blade player needs to bring their own speed. So when people say that blades punish mishits. that’s a myth based only on the fact that blades give you more feel when you miss the center. The ball still goes the distance. But the rest of the blade is designed for players that can bring their own speed. Hit a relatively small head and don’t struggle with turf interaction. You still need to be relatively good to play a blade. But there’s certainly not as hard to hit as most people think they are. Everyone I bring this up with thinks I’m insane. But about 5 years ago I was fit into a set of players distance irons after playing a 20 year old set of traditional cavities and my game went absolutely backwards because I lost all my distance control. During the lockdown I started looking into this issue and discovered some Mark Crossfield videos demonstrating the consistency of blades. I decided to order some having never hit them before and since it was lockdown I couldn’t go and hit any. But my first round with the new blades was five strokes better than my best round all year with the old “forgiving irons.” My handicap has dropped 8 strokes with blades vs the distance irons. I spent the next few years trying to understand why my experience was different than what people said. This cool clubs data was the first good robot data that showed this.
thats a bit of a bad comparison in the video because for one the i230 has different lofts. of course its shorterthan the 7 iron in the g425 because really its the 6 iron in the i230 that is compatible (29.5* 6 iron vs 30* 7 iron g425). the i230 is also not a blade, ping doesn't actually make any true blades in fact. its true blades launch lower but thats a good thing. a lot of guys under like 50 years old are too strong for their game improvement clubs and are launching them way too high and long and missing a lot of greens as a result. I always feel bad when I get paired up with a random guy who is hitting really well but he just can't get a gir because he's always spraying it so long and high over the green because of those clubs he's hitting. Probably has no idea either and is blaming himself and his swing which is actually perfect and not the club fit.
Yeah the video isn’t a perfect comparison but it’s still a player iron used in tour that’s designed for consistency and higher swing speeds. The key thing is that the GI iron has a much longer distance between best and worst strike. It’s the only one I found that had the same swing speed. Here’s the Mark Crossfield video that I talked about . https://youtu.be/nnIR2oCRWYM?si=MsvYlSk2Povc6-Ue
I switched from GI to a forged cavity quite a few years ago. You'll never guess what happened... I got better at golf. The irons exposed my faults and forced me to learn to hit the ball better. I could actually feel the mis-hits. The clubs also had a much tighter dispersion inherently more accurate on pure strikes. GI is a misnomer...
That’s what I’m finding. Realizing that I was quite lazy before. Having to sharpen things up.
someone's trying to drive traffic to their website
Mizzy blade gang rise up! Btw the tour isnt a blade. MP20s are where its at fam
I started with pro cavity and am now hitting blades. I've never hit a shot where I wish it was a different club in my hands. If I hit a bad shot there's no saving it, a slice is a slice and there's also no club that can save a chunk. But, they are amazing from a distance gapping perspective. my distances are all dialed. If I pull the wrong club its maybe off by at most 1 club. Swing feels a lot comfortable having the same shaft and head from 2-pw. No big fear stepping behind a long iron because you can fool yourself easily into thinking you are looking at the 7 iron. I'm definitely a lot more accurate with irons than most people I see. some people hit it much more powerfully than me but they are usually doing it with game improvements and therefore don't have the accuracy: their shots are all going super long and high and they usually totally miss the green complex with an iron, usually missing very long sometimes losing the ball. Like if you are an adult male in decent health you are probably too strong for a game improvement iron to not be too powerful. Old man golf is a different story some of these guys need that sort of club to get the ball up at all.
GI clubs have blunted leading edges and wide soles. They are less punitive on slightly fat shots and a little easier to get the ball in the air from light/moderate rough. (Super fat shots and absolute shit lies didn’t make a difference) When I tried blades as a 10hcp, I found that I lost more distance on toe shots vs my Ping i5 irons. I’d often get a shot that landed well short and right of the target. Perimeter weighting seems to have helped here. But the fats and rough were where it was clear that I just didn’t have the swing for blades.
You can imagine how if you improved your swing some, e.g. got better at closing the face from the sound of it, you might be missing left now going back to the i5 since its designed to help you close the face with the offset. thats another key side effect of blades. your swing might not be all there to close the face with a blade from the start, but it will get there and you will be better for it.
I was curious about the loft effect, but had trouble finding dispersion charts comparing irons of different lofts. I did, however, find an article from Brad Sherman of Practical Golf where he had 20 shots from a PW, 5I & 8I. Here are the front-to-back dispersions: PW: 20 yards 8I: 23 yards 5I: 23 yards Loft doesn't seem to matter much for distance dispersion.
I got fit for ping i525s. I'm a 10 hc, so I don't hit the ball terribly, not amazing but not bad. Anyway, when i was getting fit, I asked the guy if I could hit a few of the ping blueprint blades to see the difference. He obliged, and I was very quickly humbled by the blueprint. Hitting 170 with the i525 compared to 140 with the blueprint. Everyone's different, so I can't talk for everyone, but I definitely noticed a massive difference in those 2 clubs
I think the point OP is making here is that with your Ping i5 series irons, which are pretty hot hollow bodies, the distance dispersion between a good strike and a poor strike is pretty high. This isn’t because they aren’t forgiving, but because the center of the club face is so damn hot, and spin numbers are usually on the lower side. With a blade, like a blueprint t, your overall distance will likely be lower, spin rate will be much higher, but you’d probably be pin high more often. The issue I’ve found with muscle backs is the distance loss on thin strikes, which is my miss and why I moved out of my MP-18s.
Is that dispersion chart for the Callaway Apex 21 for real?
2.9 index, gaming the 921 tour. Don't do it, maybe a split set if you really want to but above 7i they are hard to hit. The 4i is basically a blade.
They are hard to hit. I would consider the JPX forged. Not much harder to hit than the hot metals, but will be less hot, have less offset, and smaller than the hot metals.
Mizuno Pro 243s are another great option.
This testing I imagine is missing a key part of forgiveness. *Ground interaction.* A novice player will be hitting behind the ball a lot on average. The blade club digs, instead more of a slide or bounce off the turf on a game improvement. This bounce/dig effect will change both the club speed and the strike location vertically on the face impacting both exit velocity & angle. The higher impact locations going further on the GI clubs is by design. As the club is bouncing from ground first contact the ball moves up the face. So that area launching further because the club is slowing through soil is the forgiveness.
I've talked about this ad-nauseam on my TikTok account and the amount of blade shamers is ridiculous lol. I'm playing the TS4 blades from golf works and they're money but then again most of golfworks designed stuff doesn't suck in my experience. The only time I would use a club that isn't a blade/cb is if that club needs to be a poke distance club (where you poke the green for longer distance and trade off some dispersion). That's in my 3/4 iron though, maybe a 5 depending on if I need to cut down on spin.
Did they not test blades with 80mph swing speeds? Seems like a miss in their review. In my experiences over the years, I (as a particularly average 12 hcp) have found that I prefer the predictability of forged irons/blades vs game improvement (and definitely hollow body) irons. Yes, the good shots with a blade tend to be less “good” (that is, far) than with a GI iron, but the bad shots are very much less bad and less likely to land in trouble. Everyone has their preferences though.
Also thought this was weird. It's like they tested different clubs with different golfers.
8-9 handicap here... I play the JPX Tours today, I friggen love them... but I just got fitted at a Mizuno fitting event, and ordered some Mizuno Pro 245's. The faces are still small, but the 8i and longer have hollow bodies. I found that my dispersion was really good, even though I was hitting the ball like crap at the fitting (it's early in the season, gimme a break). I got them bent 2\* weak, so at the end of the day, they will be 1\* stronger than my JPX Tours. I'm really excited to get some forgiveness and a little length on the longer irons. If PW-8i end up being juiced, I'll probably just order those 3 in 241's. The 245 PW and 9i pretty much look exactly like the 241s at address, the 8i has a thicker top line.
Robot testing is not going to be a reliable predictor for what happens when you hit the club. Moi and cog will play a large factor in the dynamic loft and your ability to deliver the face squarely. Moi will also help keep the face stable on mishits, but that's not the only benefit.