High MOI Iron Experiment

After participating in some of the blade/cavity discussions I decided to do a little experiment this year. I have used MB or players CB designs for the last several years, mostly from Mizuno and Cobra. After discussing and reading things in the previously mentioned threads, I decided to build me a set of high MOI irons and play the remainder of the year with them to see what difference it would make in my game. Most of my MB/PCB clubs have a clubhead MOI in the 2100-2500 range. I chose the Mizuno JPX EZ cast irons (with an MOI of 3400) because I like the brand and I can pass them on to my youngest son when I'm done with them. There were some Ping heads that were slightly higher, but cost was much higher and the clubhead MOI difference was marginal. As most know, I play graphite in my irons for pain reasons and I got some Matrix Program F15 120 S flex shafts to replace the stock steel ones. I built them up this past weekend using my preferred fitting parameters (SSx1 due to online reports of playing flex) and the ever-present Grip Master Master Perforated leather stitchback grips. In other words, when I swing these I can't tell them from all my other irons.

I got my first round in yesterday at a local course (6400 yds) and wanted to give a first impression of the clubs. No ranges are open within an hour of my home due to COVID, so I was going out virgin other than dry swings in the garage. Because of hole length, I figured I wouldn't get to use these irons very many holes, so I decided to drop balls randomly as I played the round just to try some shots. I typically play a slight draw with my regular sets and I expected to have excessive draw issues with these due to the increased offset. However, that was not the case. I ended up with straight to slight push on most shots. I did play some intentional draws to flags and was able to pull these off in typical fashion. Feel at impact was a bit harder than I am used to, and the sound was a bit louder. I had, what I felt was, a 1-club wind on the back 9 and found these clubs seem to balloon more into the wind and fly farther with it, than I am used to. Something I'll have to bring into the equation as I get more rounds in. Proximity to pin avg was 37' (mostly short/long on back 9). Should get better once I'm more familiar with them. I ended up 11 over on the round mostly due to poor greenside shots on greens that were WAY FIRMER than anything else in my area. Had to resort to bump and run on almost all greenside pitches.

As I get more rounds in, I will update this thread for those who might be interested. As I mentioned above, I am doing this to see IF playing a much higher MOI iron clubhead will have an actual impact on my scoring over time.

BT

5/17/20 Triggs Memorial GC - Providence

Played 18 with my youngest son who is getting into the game after a young career in hockey.

Course has been closed since early Feb (IIRC) due to COVID-19 and was reopened last week. Firm conditions and recently aerated greens (also firm). We've had a very wet spring and I'm looking for courses that drain well to keep from needing waders to play, LOL. Also, no courses have the ranges open, so I have to start off cold each time.

I've gotten more accustomed to aiming the offset faces and most shots were either on target or slight push (common with everything I play). I am still having issues with distance control as I had shots that ended up both short and long. I also played a few draws and cuts which worked out fine. I'm beginning to think I shouldn't have soft-stepped the shafts because they feel a little soft at times. Lastly, the turf interaction is different with these heads than what I'm used to. They tend to bounce more than my other clubs. Most of my shots with the JPXs were mid-irons (4, 5 & 6) with one 8i on a short par 3. I didn't have any off-center shots, so I can't comment on the help of the tech for this round. I finished with a +11 again. Looking forward to the next one.

BT

Lake of Isles North Course - Foxwoods Casino, CT - Course in Great condition!

Played 18 alone behind groups. 78* wind 5-10 mph. Since play was slow, I got the chance to hit A LOT of practice shots with these irons. They also had their range open, so I got to warm up normally, which I had not been able to do previously. BTW, I don't think I mentioned it before, but I am playing the Vice Pro ball for all of this testing. It is the ball I have been playing the last 3 yrs and I know how it typically performs for me.

During the course of play, I hit MANY approach shots with all irons from various distances (repaired ALL pitchmarks!!). I am still having distance control issues with all irons except 9i & PW. They seem to be consistent and slightly shorter than my MP5s by about 5 yds. I have also noticed spin issues with all clubs. The greens today were semi-firm (pitchmarks 1/2" deep) and I was seeing repeated 10'-15' rollout with the PW & 9i, and increasing on up. Not a problem on back pins, but front pins were a lost cause. I had one par 3 (50" drop to green), 179 to a front pin. I hit a hard 7i that hit just past the front edge and rolled (uphill) to within 5' of the back edge! I could only hold greens that had considerable back to front slope and was always left with a downhill put no matter what I tried. NOTHING pulled back with the JPX EZs. Not even the PW, four of which I hit into the same green (moderate back to front slope) from pristine fwy lies.

Another issue is, I have yet to get 200+ with the 4i (22*) no matter what I do, although I HAVE hit the 5i over 200 a couple of times without even trying! So, don't know what's going on with that. In all, the irons were okay today. I had a few off-center shots and did notice them ending up short by 10 yds at least. I am still seeing nothing groundbreaking as far as accuracy over my other sets. I ended up 12 over and would have been FAR worse had my greenside wedge game not been really good.

BT

6/5/20 Range Session -

The range near my house has finally opened, so I thought I would get in some much needed practice with the JPX EZ set. I have been thinking that these clubheads seem to be designed for players with a more shallow sweeping swing, so I thought I would give that a try and see how things went. After warming up, I grabbed the PW and hit about 15 balls focusing on the proper ball placement to give me a more neutral AoA. Contact felt a lot better and the shots were flying pretty much right at the target. Only issue was they were REALLY high and coming up short of my typical PW landing area by about 10 yds. I then moved to the 7i and agin, contact and shot direction were better than what i had been getting from these irons. Oddly, the 7i shots were landing about 5 yds FURTHER than my typical 7i landing area. Very perplexing!?!? I then move to the 4i and that's when the wheels flew off. I could not hit the ball clean to save my life. I thought maybe I had gotten a bit to far forward with my ball placement, but nothing would work. I hit about 20 balls and decided to put it away and hit a few with the MP-18 Fli-Hi driving iron I have to see if perhaps I had just lost my mind. Nope, The driving iron was crisp and clean with good trajectory and distance. I tried a couple more with the JPX 4i and the same lousy results came right back. I retired it and finished the bucket with my 7w and 3w.

The only thing I can think of is the offset on the long irons is really getting into my head. It's like I can't see how to hit the ball with that club. 5i is not bad, but he 4i is horrible. Funny thing is, these types of iron heads are supposed to be EASIER to hit! Very perplexing.

6/9/20 - Cypress Lakes Golf Club - Houston

Had a trip down South this week with a corporate scramble scheduled for 6/11. I decided to bring my MP5s instead and give the JPXs a break. I finished up my meetings by Noon on Tuesday and dropped by CLGC to get a quick round in. I got about 30 mins on the range before playing and MAN, is it good to be hitting my regular clubs. Crisp contact and solid shots through the bag. 4i was a joy to hit after the Friday session. I got paired up with a college kid playing Miura blades and ST190 woods. He worked part time at a local golf store, so we got to talk shop a lot through the round. The wind was pretty stiff with the passing of the tropical storm earlier this week and clubbing was a bit of a challenge. I ended up 5 over on the front due to a bit of over-draw with my driver putting me in some difficult situations. The back 9 was frustrating as always (don't know why it doesn't agree with me) due to my wedge play failing me for some reason. Ended up with an 83 and was really tempted to toss my wedges in the lake by the 18 green, but talked myself out of it because I would be setting a terrible example for the young man playing along with me.

6/11/20 - Jennings G&CC

The day of the scramble, I got to the course early, dropped off my door prizes and went directly to the range. Full shots were feeling really good, so I went over to the pitching /chipping green to work on those stinking wedges. I discovered what I was doing and got them to acting much better. Finished with a bit of putting and grabbed a bite of lunch before teeing off. Sure, today's round is a scramble, but I typically get paired up with pretty high handicappers in these things, so I get a pretty good idea of how I would have played individually. Sure enough, I had two 30 caps and an 18. Driver was on today and I only had a few that didn't find the fairway. All drives were mine except two, where we had one in the short grass that left a longer shot, but with a much better angle for the other players. Had 12 GIRs and we came in 9 under. Ball-striking was quite good. IIRC, I had one slightly fat shot 7i and one thin wedge. I will get back to the JPX clubs next week and see if I can fair any better with them.

BT

Reserved for future rounds.

Very cool. Looking forward to this!

For those following this thread, I just watched this Mark Crossfield video, in a MB/CB discussion, that is a real eye opener.

BT

Mark Crossfield is the epitome of golf video fluff. 90% of the time he spends on a video is hot air filler time. He’ll make a video on the same topic 100 times and and make 50 more contradicting them. Lol @ real eye opener as well. When he puts some 40 year old blades in his bag and starts playing a callaway SuperSoft ball I’ll at least give him some credit for practicing what he preaches.

I haven't followed his stuff in quite some time. Is he still sponsored by Titleist? I was surprised to see him wearing a Srixon hat in the video posted above, but again, I don't keep up with most of these YouTube personalities.

He signed on with Srixon/Cleveland. The deal with Titleist didn’t seem to last very long.

As stated above he loves contradicting himself. When he was with Titleist he was fit into a blend of irons, non of which were blades. He was all about the tech and how much easier the clubs were to hit. Then moved on to Srixon/Cleveland and test the Launcher irons and raved about them and how he could game them. Now he’s back to his stance from years past that blades are more consistent, which I’m not disagreeing with, but just proves there isn’t much stock in anything he says, he just pushes whatever his current sponsor wants.

Interested to see how this turns out for the OP. I’ve tried this experiment several times and always end up back where I started, a 1 piece forged blade or players cavity.

I've done a similar experiment to this myself. With the exact same shafts and specs, I played mp67s and mp60s for over a season and alternated back and forth while my handicap ranged between 8 and 16. I also played a 3i and 4i mp-FliHi "forgiving" irons to replace either of the 3i and 4i in both sets. End results were that there was ZERO "forgiveness" from the mp-FliHis and the mp60s. Furthermore the FliHis were the worst clubs. I hit more bad shots with them than their equivalents in the other sets. Furthermore on average I shot the same exact scores between the mp60s and mp67s on bad and average days. Furthermore on my best ball striking days I shot my lowest scores with the mp67s.

Also please note that the physics model of high MOI = "forgiveness" is flawed. It's based on the asinine assumption that the clubhead somehow will rotate at the point of impact so that putting more weight at both ends of the clubhead will help to prevent this. Spoiler alert: this is physically impossible and will NEVER happen. The shaft and connection to the clubface at the hosel is ALWAYS going to be the clubface and clubhead point of rotation at impact. The shaft is what is supporting the clubhead and so any force applied to the face is resisted by it. Sorry, but high MOI clubfaces will NEVER help prevent or limit a clubface rotation at the point of impact because it NEVER happens in reality anyway.

Also, regardless of this issue a high MOI clubhead also reduces the literal amount of metal and mass behind the ball at impact. This makes the clubface flex more from impact with a round ball, and moreover this flex is variable based on varying the point of impact on that face. Ultimately because of this, you will get varying levels of compression on the ball which will cause varying levels of spin on it, making it MORE inconsistent from a ball spin perspective. The only way around this is to either put more materials behind the impact point to strengthen and prevent that flex or give up entirely and just go back to a thicker muscle design. With a thick amount of metal behind the ball at impact, the compression and thus spin on the ball will be MORE consistent.

All this matches my own experiences in using high MOI and low MOI clubs. This is why I'll play blades no matter what my skill level is. They are technically superior in all ways.

But, as usual, your mileage may vary as compared to mine with all this and you may have a different opinion on the science as I do. And that's ok by me. We should all play the clubs that give us mental peace of mind.

And on that note I'm out of this thread and won't be coming back. OP, good luck to you on your quest for knowledge. I hope sharing my own for you helps.

My understanding of forgiveness for hi MOI is that off center hits have higher ball speed and better feel. I was unaware of the less twisting theory other then on putters.

Also the clubhead rotates around the center of gravity it does not rotate around the hosel.

This is why golf is great. My experience is completely the opposite of yours. My distance totals are far more consistent with the Speedzone long irons than they were with the J40CB or Srixon 765's(the only two sets that I have that are one piece that I have played while my swing is the same as now).

I have the data to back it up to, it's not just conjecture.

With a 22* iron (within 1/4" length the same) my proximity to the hole with the J40 was 75' with the 765 is was 72' and with the speedzone so far this year it was been 57'

With a 27* iron (within 1/4" length the same) my proximity to the hole with the J40 was 62', with the 765 it was 61' and with the speedzone so far this year it has been 41'

The clubs I am comparing are within .5 swingweight of each other and the total weight is within 2 grams and I am using the same shafts (and I tried other shafts as well that weren't as good in each)

Conjecture part of the story, when I mis-hit the speedzones the distance isn't affected as much as it was in my other two sets. ie, a slight miss with the 22* doesn't leave me 10-15 yards short of the green like it did with the other two sets. Has dispersion changed? Sure it is probably a bit better, but most of my gains from proximity to the hole appear to be based on being short or long of the hole much more so than it does being left or right of the hole.

Continuing in the "golf is great" vein, my results are the opposite of yours. Until a couple years ago, it was purely anecdotal, but that couple of years ago, I was able to compare various clubs I was testing at 2nd Swing to one of my own Golden Ram irons.

Before I finish the post, I want to clearly state that I am not saying my info is correct, and your info is not, or that my results are more valid, or any of that crap. Only that this is how it works for me, and I fully accept that it works for you differently.

Getting on with it.... I've always felt I was more accurate with my blade irons than with the CBs I've tried. The good shots were tighter, the bad shots were tighter, all that fun. My scores have always been better with my Rams or Mizunos, I just went with it.

Then, a few years ago, had the above mentioned chance to compare my Golden Ram 5 iron to various other CBs, including the TP MC irons I now own, but didn't then. The dispersion pattern of the Golden Ram was one third or even one fourth the size of any of the other clubs I was hitting at the time. DGS, DGX, ZZ65, Rifle, it just didn't matter. The irony is that the shafts in the Rams were the Precision stepped shafts, which I wasn't fond of; I much prefer DG.

Just another example of how Golf is not One Size Fits All.

Yeah... kind of disproved yourself. The MOI on the MP67 is actually higher than the MP60. You'd need to do this test with a blade vs a Ping G series or something to even have the conversation be relevant.

https://www.golfworks.com/images/art/MPF_MIZUNO.pdf

He had a contract with Titleist. The contract was up, and he wants to sign with multiple companies, and not stick to one brand for a long time.

He did have some blades in his Titleist bag. He went CB at the 5 iron.

He is playng 2 sets of clubs now, an all Cleveland set with the hybrid irons, Launcher driver, 3 wood, etc., and he has a Srixon set, with 785 irons, and a mix of Srixon hybrids and Cleveland Launcher hybrid

New round entered above.

BT

DeNinny is reinventing physics again. Don't take the bait.

High MOI irons are great for guys that regularly miss the center of the face (like me.) If you hit center strikes most shots they add only minimal (or no) advantage. That's all.

The club heads point of rotation is its Center of gravity when we make impact outside of COG.

This goes for both axises, The horizontal when impact is heel or toe side vs COG, and the vertical, if impact is higher or lower than VCOG

Toe side impact OPEN face angle and cause the shaft to twist and bend forward. This is whats causing Horizontal gear effect where we get "hook spin" (tilt on the spin axis to the left) even with a face angle square to path.

Heel side impact CLOSE the face and cause the shaft to twist and bend backwards. Again we activated Horizontal gear effects, this time against "Slice" (tilt on the spin axis to the right)

The same "opening or closing" of face angle makes a influence on direction itself.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NceHUbLafOQ

Gear effects is stronger on the Driver and woods vs Irons, but they are still present on irons.

There are other people reading and besides, it doesn't hurt to have a little hope that he might actually learn something from it.

What you are seeing is pretty prototypical of someone with stronger lofted clubs that probably doesn't need them. The wider sole and deeper CG promote higher initial launch while the stronger lofts promote faster ball speeds that help generate a bit more spin and higher average peak height. If that is something you don't need, this experiment will be favoured towards a harder to hit club. I suspect the issue is spin because you have noted how you are running out on shorter shots and finding your longer irons coming up short. This is likely due to a lack of spin. You could try changing a golf ball, like the Tour B XS, and increase spin by 800-1000 RPMs just from this alone. The other glaring thing to me is not every head works in every shaft, so that could be an issue here of presenting too little or too much dynamic loft if the shaft and head have a weird interaction.

Pretty much my conclusion in my last post. Lofts aren't really that different from what I typically use (2* 4 & 5, 1* on down), however, the launch IS higher and spin is obviously less. This was the best clubhead I could find to increase clubhead MOI without messing with vCoG and rCoG too much. Another thing bothering me about this head design is the sole design. There's a considerable area (1/8" approx) on the front edge that has tremendous bounce and then the rest of the sole is normal. I tend to deloft the club some and take a fair divot. These clubs have a hard jarring feeling when the club hits the turf immediately after impact. It's actually causing a bit of discomfort in my wrists after my rounds. I can move the ball forward in my stance and sweep it to reduce this, but that creates a whole other set of problems. I don't want to have to change a swing that works to try a club that is supposed to be easier to play. It's pretty irritating that any clubhead with high MOI also has these other things that make them unappealing to many players. Sure, I can go with a players cavity, but the MOI difference between them and my MP5s is minuscule. As I have mentioned before, I HAVE a few sets of players cavities and they are no different than my MP5s, MP4s or MP69s. As I've said before, I will finish this and give my opinion, I just don't know if I can go the whole summer.

BT

As a high handicap I have been a huge proponent of forgiveness. However I am beginning to wonder what the difference truly is between something like the i210 and g410 or Mizuno EZ and EZ forged really is.

Now I know I have no business playing a miura baby blade, but I'm not certain my scores would be any different with i210 vs g410.

That's exactly what I'm wanting to know. The science can't be refuted, but the quantification has never been clarified. Sure, we can all see how much more the MOI of a clubhead is when compared to another, but what does that actually mean on the course? How much does it affect one's game in a positive AND/OR negative manner? This is the information that I have great difficulty finding.

BT

enjoying the read. Best of luck with future rounds

Glad you are documenting this test for you. Definitely an informative and interesting read.

Updates above.

BT

I got in three more range sessions and have everything but the 4i working now. I have adjusted my ball placement so that I don't get the jarring from impact with firm turf or mats and can hit the ball cleanly on 90% of my shots. They are pretty straight as long as I aim them straight. They also hook and slice if I put that swing on them. The one thing I CAN'T do is flight shots down with any of the clubs. They are all high, high shots. I can literally hit a lower shot with my SW than I can with the 7i! I suspect this is exacerbated by the necessary ball placement and sweeping the ball instead of pinching it as I do now. The inability to control the height of my shots is going to affect me negatively on some days and in some trouble situations. I am also still having distance control issues with these irons. I don't know if it is the spring face or what, but the inconsistency is in no way making my game better. With all of the play I have done so far, I see no added benefit to playing these irons. I have not had lower scoring and have actually had far fewer birdie chances than is typical. I am seriously thinking about ending the test now and cutting my losses for the year.

One of the things I find the most frustrating is that I have had to modify my swing more with these "game improvement" clubs that are "so much easier to hit" than I have EVER had to do with any of my other 9 SETS OF BLADES OR PLAYER CAVITIES!! If the tech is such a benefit, why does one have to work so hard to make them work?

Your thoughts.

BT