W/S FG-17 Facts, Figures, & Stuff

As promised in my other thread, I wanted to start one talking more specifically about the specs, swing mechanics, and distances that I am finding with my FG-17 irons as I creep back into the game. I sure found a lot of talk about these clubs here and other places, but it was usually mixed in with other topics and I hope we can use this as one place to discuss these clubs.

First, I have a little info on the specs for lies and lofts, but never have found anything solid about the length. I assume (wasn't sure I knew how to measure comparably) that each iron would be about like the next higher one in a more modern set keeping lofts and lengths consistent. Anyone have the details of the original lengths or any corrections for the LOFT/LIE info that I have? I really don't think mine have ever been changed.

As I think they are:

LOFT LIE My est. L-T Distance

2 20 57.0 215

3 23 58.0 205

4 26 59.0 190

5 30 60.0 180

6 34 60.0 165

7 38 61.0 155

8 42 62.0 145

9 46 62.0 130

PW 49 63.0 115

Honestly, I was such a non-thinking feel player that I had never really paid any attention to any of this until this current overnight affair with the game. Getting into my own experience with these irons (later) will probably give me an opportunity to get into some of the oddities that I have always felt with certain clubs and such and see that LIE and LENGTH were probably messing with my "feel" (setup and swing) here and there.

What I hope to do here is to flesh this out a bit with the LENGTHS, my current/future distances, distances of others, and how all of those fit together and compare with comparable irons of other types. I guess that would include PGA and "typical" golfers, too. That should let me find a place to get into the yards-per-loft stuff that interests me.

For now, please help me to verify and complete those specs, but I'd sure like to know the kinds of distances that you get out of these irons. My numbers above were pretty darned consistent from my early 30s through about the age of 50. I think that I'm swinging better and about a club shorter now.....next post.

Okay. I thought it best to keep that one simple to start the discussion. I left out what I think my current distances are, but my thinking is just to shift all of the distances one club shorter. Actually, I don't believe that will be accurate because of two things:

1. My normal "good" shot with these irons was always to pull them a little "long & left" with a slight fade. I think that made my distances a little longer than they should be. My current better swing will result in shorter distances, but clean up some of the oddities that seem to show up in the L-T distances above.

2. I am much better with the long irons now and really think that my current distances with the 2/3/4 are probably at least as long as these old ones. I was so inconsistent with them back then that they were just guestimates of that occasional shot.

I now have a GPS app (Golf Pad) that I will be using to get those distances fairly quickly once I can find the time and the dry courses to play a little more.

I guess I want to talk about my swing mechanics just a little, but that's really only relevant to the discussion that I hope to see here in the sense that I would like to know the general approach of others when using these clubs. For me, that is now a pretty steep swing plane with a sense of really hitting DOWN on the ball despite playing it a good bit further forward in my stance than I used to. I guess I must be really leading with my hands but catching up somewhere very late based on what I am seeing. Moving the ball forward and back was my normal way to adjust for shot height or run (and distance), but I'm having some trouble doing it that way these days. Now, those results are more easily found in opening and closing my stance and club head. This feels a lot better to me and I'm pretty much avoiding coming over the top and that pull or even slice. Current misses seem to be slightly heavy leaving it right (guess I don't quite catch up those times). Anyway, what is YOUR basic approach?

(I don't have time to post more today, but my next thought would be back to the differences in clubs based on those loft/lie numbers. I think it's fair to say that these irons were famous for having 2-3 FAVORITES for each player. Mine used to be the 5 and 8. Now, that would have to be the 2 and the PW, believe it or not. I think the 5 is going to make the cut, but I haven't hit it enough to be sure yet. Smooth layups have seemed fine with it, but I haven't had to zero in on distance consistency very much with it at this point.)

Just where are you located?

Speaking strictly for myself, I feel as we play now, in the downhill slide of pur golfing lives, that we do so armed with a more intellectual approach to the game, which translates into better mechanics and an overall well rounded dynamic for the game.
I find my own distances to be somewhat hard to calculate with my ho'ing ways with respect to which clubs I use.

My late father bought a set of FG17s new. Unbelievable feel. I used them on and off between swapping sets a few seasons ago. R flex pre Gold Dynamic shafts. R flex was actually firm. Great for working the ball. Pitching wedge was razor sharp and you had to be very precise to not chunk it. Loft wise I imagine they were at least 3 degrees weak in the longer irons and 4 weak in the shorter irons. A great set of irons for the purist.

I still have the set I got new from 1983. A quick comparison shows that the 4 iron is the same length as my i5 Ping 6 iron. So that would make the 5 iron 37 inches for the Staff. As for lofts I believe the PW is 50 and goes 4 degrees until the 5 iron, then 3 degrees from there. I have 1 thru PW and a JPII SW. Hope this helps... I think I'm close but could be off a bit as this is how I remember them. Great irons. Played them for years. 11 to be exact.

[quote name='johnstitch' timestamp='1444503970' post='12438472']
My late father bought a set of FG17s new. Unbelievable feel. I used them on and off between swapping sets a few seasons ago. R flex pre Gold Dynamic shafts. R flex was actually firm. Great for working the ball. Pitching wedge was razor sharp and you had to be very precise to not chunk it. Loft wise I imagine they were at least 3 degrees weak in the longer irons and 4 weak in the shorter irons. A great set of irons for the purist.
[/quote]Yep that is why they are known affectionantly as "butter knives" by us old farts

From the 1982 catalog.[attachment=2987478:WSFG1701.jpg][attachment=2987480:WSFG1702.jpg][attachment=2987482:WSFG1703.jpg]

Nice looking post Shallowface, with so much info in the specs sheet.

Shallowface.....Great look at the catalog. Thank you' that's just what we needed right here. I think I'd like to have the PDF of that whole catalog if you have it. Maybe my own version of "Classic Wilson Staff" bag needs the woods from that same catalog. Anyway, this does leave me with some questions, perhaps. I guess that they were just calling the FG-17 set "Staff" in the specifications table? If I read it that way, the only difference that I see is 50 vs. 49 degree loft on the PW. Interesting, but can accept as more authoritative than my earlier source. This does give me the lengths that I didn't have, though. Appreciate it.

oldschoolrocker....I'm in Sumter.

I'd still like to hear some details of swing approaches, distances, and oddities before I wade deeper into my own perceptions.

Tuffy,
How did you guys make out with the flooding?

Well, it was very hit-and-miss. We have LOTS of roads and routing problems and the rain yesterday actually added to them. Those that had individual flooding wouldn't like the perspective, but the fact is that the general impact on individual properties was pretty scattered. I actually had more yard water from yesterday than from last weekend, it seems. A "disaster" can be ONE home, of course, but we weren't hit as hard as some might picture from the focus on those real instances. The infrastructure damage is going to be huge, though, I'm afraid....here and in a LOT of areas.

[quote name='TuffyE' timestamp='1444583436' post='12442036']
Shallowface.....Great look at the catalog. Thank you' that's just what we needed right here. I think I'd like to have the PDF of that whole catalog if you have it. Maybe my own version of "Classic Wilson Staff" bag needs the woods from that same catalog. Anyway, this does leave me with some questions, perhaps. I guess that they were just calling the FG-17 set "Staff" in the specifications table? If I read it that way, the only difference that I see is 50 vs. 49 degree loft on the PW. Interesting, but can accept as more authoritative than my earlier source. This does give me the lengths that I didn't have, though. Appreciate it.

oldschoolrocker....I'm in Sumter.

I'd still like to hear some details of swing approaches, distances, and oddities before I wade deeper into my own perceptions.
[/quote]
Well when you consider the length of the 5 iron is the same as a modern 7 iron and the loft is about what some 6 irons are you can expect some differences. That being said when I break mine out I pay no attention to what "modern" club I would hit in a particular situation and just hit the one from the Staff set I think will get the job done. When these were my everyday set in 83 I could hit my 5 iron 190 to 195 yards. Now being 50 I still hit a 5 iron but the the specs are completely different from then. Soooo I guess what I'm trying to say is expect some differences in what your expectations of a shot with the Staff irons versus what you would hit with your modern set. Interestingly I shoot the same scores and have no problems making decent contact. Keep in mind the specs of these irons. Making the lofts weaker will cause them to dig a little. Enjoy them! They're a great set of irons.

[color=#222222]I'm sure with you, Ping, and not comparing these with any other clubs, actually. These are the only ones that I have owned (or even played with) since they were new in the early 80s. I just wanted to use those values to try to understand (and improve) some of my swing results over the years compared with the experiences of others. I always had some "gaps" and weak clubs that I didn't understand that I think I can now better understand... and handle. I guess I should go into some of that instead of just hinting about it. [/color]
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[color=#222222]My long-term experience with these irons was that it was always like having more than one set with some rough transition points between them. Maybe the details of the specs can explain some of that. [/color]

[color=#222222]Generally, my 7,8,9, and PW were consistent and solid, but I always wondered why the PW seem to require more of a swing adjustment than other one-club moves and why the 7 just didn't add very much distance over the 8-iron. I now see that there was very little length difference between the 9 and PW, but there was a normal LIE and LOFT difference. It requires about the same stance and swing between the two and that always felt uncomfortable until I was close enough to not really be taking a full-swing with the PW. I realize that I have been subconsciously adjusting for that recently by opening my stance a little more with the PW and playing a little mini-fade to take the club a little more outside and avoid the fat shots that the lack of length difference had always caused me to have. The PW is too long in the sense of set consistency. Let's call it the first FG-17 personality quirk.[/color]
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[color=#222222]The 7 appears to have a unique LIE for any of the mid-to-short irons and requires a shift from the 8/9 mindset, but always seemed like part of that group and I guess I have always needed to group it with 5 and 6 in terms of approach. As with the others, the 5 and 6 were always very consistent clubs for me and actually where I felt the best sense of effective distance. The 6 was always 160-165 and the 5 was a pretty solid 180. However that 7 had been much closer to the 8 for me than it was to the 6. How could I be hitting the 8-iron 148 yards, the 6-iron 165 and the having to strain to get 155 out of the 7. It was a worst transition than I even still want to admit (note the way I grouped it positively above). The LIE of the 8 and 9 were leading me astray and those were the clubs I was hitting the most, given the courses and drive distance at the time. Now, I haven't hit it enough to work it out these days because I honestly don't know what distance to expect out of it. I guess, given my perceived "one-club-shorter" situation, I should now be hitting it 145-148, but I'm VERY aware of my old issues with it and probably tend to over-swing it. For me, I'll call it Quirk 2.[/color]

[color=#222222]The 4-iron has ALWAYS been a real problem for me. I have always thought that there was something WRONG with my particular one, but have never had it checked out extensively. I have had the LIE and LOFT and condition looked at a few times, but nobody ever saw anything. It did have some sole damage very early and that may just have gotten in my head about it. The chrome was chipped off in a strip there and I always SAW that when taking it out of the bag. I did purchase a few odd clubs for the set recently, including the 4 and hope that there will be a difference now. It remains to be seen whether or not it will be the 180 iron that my 5 always was, though. I can't call this a set quirk; just an oddity in my own mental/physical makeup. Curious if anyone else has seen anything though.[/color]
[color=#222222] [/color]
[color=#222222]That gets me to the 2 and 3 irons. I've never really felt uncomfortable with these clubs, but think that I used to adjust my swing much too much for them and experienced too much inconsistency with them because of it. Recently, they seem to be no problem at all. I guess it's no surprise that I can really notice the distance effects of any slight misses with them, though. The loft gaps between the 2, 3, and 4 are only 3 degrees, unlike the 4 degree gaps of the higher irons. It looks to me like that's pretty standard with newer W/S irons and many other brands, but strikes me as being a rarely-mentioned explanation of why the long irons have such bad general reputations; they ARE different, at least in the transition sense. Despite the commonality of this, I'll still call this Quirk 3.[/color]
[color=#222222] [/color]
[color=#222222]My thought is still to understand individual experience with the FG-17, but looking at the specs and really thinking about my past/current experiences tells me that it might be unreasonable to talk about consistent swinging across this, or any, set. I guess there is a reason that we use the terms "Long", "Middle", and "Short" irons. One can, and should, use the SAME swing, but it's not easy to transition up and down the set in doing that. Someone point me to some thread, video, or website on the topic?[/color]
[color=#222222] [/color]
[color=#222222]That's about the drift of my experience. Heck, the realization of trying to write about it has probably helped me....IF I don't try to overdo the transitions. I suppose that, right now, I feel good about the "Short" and "Long" irons and hope not to be lost with the "Middle" ones. That would be a shame, particularly in light of my driver distance issues and the increased opportunities to hit 4/5/6 irons. My mental salvation is that I don't feel like my swings are different; it's just the setup issues after all is said and done, I think.[/color]

[attachment=2988518:WS82Woods01.jpg][attachment=2988520:WS82Woods02.jpg][quote name='TuffyE' timestamp='1444583436' post='12442036']
Shallowface.....Great look at the catalog. Thank you' that's just what we needed right here. I think I'd like to have the PDF of that whole catalog if you have it. Maybe my own version of "Classic Wilson Staff" bag needs the woods from that same catalog. Anyway, this does leave me with some questions, perhaps. I guess that they were just calling the FG-17 set "Staff" in the specifications table? If I read it that way, the only difference that I see is 50 vs. 49 degree loft on the PW. Interesting, but can accept as more authoritative than my earlier source. This does give me the lengths that I didn't have, though. Appreciate it.

oldschoolrocker....I'm in Sumter.

I'd still like to hear some details of swing approaches, distances, and oddities before I wade deeper into my own perceptions.
[/quote]

Damn they look good. I'm feeling the itch that only ebay can salve.

I believe I have a set or two of those in the now to be referred to as "The Flood Hoard." I'll check tomorrow.

Thanks yet again, Shallow. I take it that the Tour Block is what they called the Model 11 in the charts. That takes me back a ways. I'm pretty sure that the woods that I had when I got those irons were from a set of "Johnny Miller Champ" clubs. That must have been the Jr. set back then, huh? That was a version of the Clima Guard Strato-Bloc woods, whatever that was. I think it was the finish on their mass productions clubs for a number of years. That sound right?

Find us something good, Rocker.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that those are exactly the woods that I need in my set for the "Vintage Bag". Since the FG-17 set IS the Regular Bag too, I'm not really sure that they wouldn't stay. It would hinge on how much I lost from the fairway with the 3-wood and if I were able to control the driver as well and keep it IN the fairway. I really don't think I would notice much distance difference at all with the driver. I can't imagine what I could NOT hit as far as I'm hitting the ones that I have. Heck, I'm probably hitting the 2-iron further pretty often.

Waiting for the Great Flood Hoard Sale ! ! !

I did find a set of Wilson Staff II Tour Blocks 1,3 &5 this morning.

Also just located a very nice Wilson 4300 Staff Personal in very good condition. A four screw solid block persimmon.

Hmmm.... Wonder how much old gear like that might run a fellow. Heck, I ain't even sure what the Staff Personal is, but I reckon you done explained it. You got any poor-man prices for them things? Maybe some people might find something like that and be interested in trading them for turkey calling/hunting lessons or some such. Ya never know. Some of that might look right nice in a bag with some ole beat-up FG one-seven metal golf eye-RONS, don't ya think? Seems like a shame for them to get stuck up in the corner of some garage down yonder with all that salty air blowin' all over da place all da time. Got any photographs of them things?

Anyone have/use an FG-17 SW? I have some off-the-wall thing that I've had forever, but think there is such a thing. Isn't there? It would fit well, but, like my cheap 3-wood, I'm kind of afraid of touching it.

LOL. One thought leads to six more. Sorry, all.

Given the conversation above, what in the world would I ever use a 5-wood for. I've never found a use for it and tend to sky it anyway. It's the match to the 3-wood that I have, but certainly not in playability for me. I've probably never hit any 5-wood more than a total of 5-6 times in my life. Under what circumstances do you guys use yours? Just when the long irons don't feel good and/or you are concerned about stopping the ball on the green? I think, the way I hit it, that I would be using it in place of my 4 or even 5 iron and I hit them pretty darned high with very little roll-out. The 5-wood is a waste or just lost-on-me?

Why not consider a W/S Tour Blade J.P. Grind SW for your set? Period correct. Good performer. Easier to find than a FG-17 one.

I equate my Hogan persimmon 5W to a 4H (22*) in distance and ball flight. For me, more consistent ball striking with it than a 3 or 4 iron. Big fan of the 5 percy. No experience with Wilson offerings.

In the modern kit, would agree that a 5 metal is a club that I rarely use. Typically 3W, 7W or 23* hybrid are fairway clubs of choice based on yardage.

I was messing in a local second hand store yesterday. He had a set of the fg17 irons. Nice looking blade. Pictures never really show the correct justice they deserve.

Did you bite, pd, or just sniff ?

Didn't even sniff. I went to get some Intel on the old ping putters with the slot line. Got sidetracked. Came away with a mizuno ms pro putter instead.

Shouldn't have opened this thread. I don't really regret giving mine away, but somewhat regret giving mine away.

C'est la vie.

Man, I still have the matching 1 and 3W in the garage and they are not very nice.

Sounds like a successful trip pd. if you're interested in the bronze ansers with the slot cut in the flange, I can let you try one next time I see you.