Macgregor CF4000 MT timeline.

[okesa]

I would be extremely grateful for any input into my latest Mac attack,which is a set of CF4000 MT's,I would very much like to know when they were produced and what the difference is between the diamond muscle models and the scooped muscle variety.

Was it to produce a different ball flight?

[xgolfx]

The flame ceramic coating was discovered by Toney Penna at the Illinois Institute of Technology. It was used to coat the inside of jet engines. The number comes from the temperature necessary for application. It was almost akin to sandpaper when new. Toney was amazed when the USGA approved its use. The problem was the substance would chip off when struck with the other clubs in the bag. I still use a Penna wedge with the black coating, but it is not the reason I can spin the ball.

CHARLEY PENNA

[rex235]

[i]Okesa-[/i]

[i]First of all, Congratulations on getting these...not many were made.[/i]

[i]The 1961 MacGregor "Big M" Tourney LH2 irons with Flame Ceramic 4000 faces remain one of the most sought after sets, as the 4 mill cut "diamond back" MacGregor irons were played by Jack Nicklaus after signing with MacGregor.[/i]

[i]The 1963 MacGregor "Oval MT" Tourney M2 irons, also with Flame Ceramic 4000 faces, were the transitional year between the 3 mill cut MT irons, and the 1964 MacGregor DX Tourney Irons with 4 mill cuts. [/i]

[i]Charley Penna has already posted the Big M design done by Uncle Toney, but have not seen anything on the "Oval" design.[/i]

[i]Since these both have "2" flex shafts, these irons should play pretty much the same.[/i]

[i]Unfortunately, MacGregor did not translate ANY of these milling cuts into the LH Tourney Pitching and Sand Wedges. [/i]

[i]And Charley just posted the origin on the FC 4000 faces. [/i]

[i]The LH Collection of George Peters has - Big M Tourneys, DX Tourneys, and MT Tourneys.[/i]

[i]If yours are in good shape....well done![/i]

[rex235]

[quote name='xgolfx' timestamp='1394241513' post='8822905']
The flame ceramic coating was discovered by Toney Penna at the Illinois Institute of Technology. It was used to coat the inside of jet engines. The number comes from the temperature necessary for application. It was almost akin to sandpaper when new. Toney was amazed when the USGA approved its use. The problem was the substance would chip off when struck with the other clubs in the bag. I still use a Penna wedge with the black coating, but it is not the reason I can spin the ball.

CHARLEY PENNA
[/quote]

Charley-

Are there now specific EPA restrictions related to the construction of these FC 4000 faces?

[super20dan]

i was given a set of these recently. if winter ever quits even here in fla i hope to test them out.

[okesa]

[size=5]Thank you very much indeed for the information,I have the 'oval' MT irons on the way,2-9,they are not in great condition but will be fine as a playing set and am looking forward to getting them out onto the turf.[/size]

[xgolfx]

[quote name='rex235' timestamp='1394242254' post='8822963']
[quote name='xgolfx' timestamp='1394241513' post='8822905']
The flame ceramic coating was discovered by Toney Penna at the Illinois Institute of Technology. It was used to coat the inside of jet engines. The number comes from the temperature necessary for application. It was almost akin to sandpaper when new. Toney was amazed when the USGA approved its use. The problem was the substance would chip off when struck with the other clubs in the bag. I still use a Penna wedge with the black coating, but it is not the reason I can spin the ball.

CHARLEY PENNA
[/quote]

Charley-

Are there now specific EPA restrictions related to the construction of these FC 4000 faces?
[/quote]

I do not know the answer. However, I think a logical assumption would be that many of the steps used to make a club at that time would not be possible today

CHARLEY PENNA

[okesa]

[size=5]I'm in good company.....[/size]

[HoganApexBlades]

[quote name='okesa' timestamp='1394559262' post='8848383']
[size=5]I'm in good company.....[/size]
[/quote]

I thought Jack used Tommy Armour SS1 diamond back irons during the early to mid '60's until he switched to the VIP's around '66-'67???

[attachment=2113793:Jack'sirons.jpg]

[okesa]

[size=5]What? You don't mean to say that there was something misleading in their advertisement do you?[/size]
[size=5]Another sleepless night.........[/size]

[rex235]

Checking the Kaplan MacGregor Catalog- The first photo of Jack using MacGregor was in reference to the 1964 MacGregor Professional Catalog.

Okesas' ad is definitely from 1963 (but not across the pond- Cincinnati, OH) as the 1963 MacGregor Professional Catalog shows these "Oval" MTs with Flame Ceramic 4000 heads and M1 shafts.

Both of you are probably right, as Nicklaus, by contract, could have easily played (and won) using these iron models, as they both featured the FC4000 faces.

[HoganApexBlades]

I just wonder if Jack ever had a set of "Golden Bear" irons for his kids or did he saw down the SS1 or Oval MT shafts for them!!! HAHA

[xgolfx]

The ad says that Jack plays MacGregor Tourney irons. However, it does not say which model, or which year he uses.

CHARLEY PENNA

[HoldenCornfield]

Okesa, according to Maltby's Playability Factor any iron that has a rating between 0 and 250 is "Not recommended. Few if any tournament pros still play clubs in this category. It is absolutely essential that the ball be struck very close to the club's center of gravity..."

And his rating on these clubs is -341 (yeah, NEGATIVE 341), LOL. Does that mean the ball goes backwards when you strike it with these clubs?

My Hogan PC7's aren't rated but the Bounce Sole +1 that came out a year later and is nearly identical in design has a rating of -6.

BTW, the worst rating I've found is a Spalding Symetric Set from 1936 that checks in at -606.

MPF is a controversial metric, some put a lot of store in it (I don't) while others strongly disagree with it, like Tom Wishon.

Here's a link:

[url="http://www.golfworks.com/article.asp?ai=870&eid=IronMPF"]http://www.golfworks...870&eid=IronMPF[/url]

That low rating on the MacGregors [i]really[/i] makes me want to buy a set. I suspect that they are very fine golf clubs.

[Ironmaster Oddities]

With a little imagination, you could argue that they are some of the earliest attempts at toe-heel weighting. But the weight was also taken out of the lower parts of the back of the irons. This would make them a little more difficult to get the ball in the air. had they moved the muscle-back weighting lower, they might have created a true game improvement club.

[super20dan]

i hope to test my set out soon.

[stixman]

I've got two sets of 'Big M' Diamondbacks, the CF 4000 MT2 and the PT2 Recessed Weight with Colokrom finish.
Never mind what Maltby claims, I find they play fine, the CF 4000 with a slightly less challenging sole than the earlier PTs. They do not forgive pecking or hitting from the top, a nice clean descending blow thru. the ball and they go as well as anything. The big plus is the rock and roll 'sweet shop' finish, the only thing missing is Marilyn Monroe and Cadillac fins. And the shafts, what chrome, complete with copper underlay! you don't get that out of China!

[okesa]

[indent=1][size=5]Holden,thanks for posting that,I think it a perfect example of how figures and statistics can mean absolutely zero,or in this case less than zero![/size][/indent]

[indent=1][size=5]My cf4000's have been out on field test,I spent an hour or so hitting balls with the 3,5,7,9 and only struggled with getting a decent flight on the 3-iron,all the others behaved well (no finger tingles!) with decent ball flight and acceptable distance,in fact I had played with Muirfields the previous day and found the MT's more pleasant to use.[/size][/indent]

[indent=1][size=5]There was a brief pause while I ran downstairs to accept delivery of another box,this one containing the Jack Burke Colokroms....'bye for now,must dash![/size][/indent]

[xgolfx]

Do not think that Kaplan is dogma. There are too many years missing from the compilation of catalogs. There are no reflections of the clubs from the custom department

CHARLEY PENNA

[Shallowface]

[quote name='HoldenCornfield' timestamp='1394667699' post='8858887']
Okesa, according to Maltby's Playability Factor any iron that has a rating between 0 and 250 is "Not recommended. Few if any tournament pros still play clubs in this category. It is absolutely essential that the ball be struck very close to the club's center of gravity..."

And his rating on these clubs is -341 (yeah, NEGATIVE 341), LOL. Does that mean the ball goes backwards when you strike it with these clubs?

My Hogan PC7's aren't rated but the Bounce Sole +1 that came out a year later and is nearly identical in design has a rating of -6.

BTW, the worst rating I've found is a Spalding Symetric Set from 1936 that checks in at -606.

MPF is a controversial metric, some put a lot of store in it (I don't) while others strongly disagree with it, like Tom Wishon. Not surprisingly, some of the highest rated clubs are Maltby's. Hmmm....

Here's a link:

[url="http://www.golfworks.com/article.asp?ai=870&eid=IronMPF"]http://www.golfworks...870&eid=IronMPF[/url]

That low rating on the MacGregors [i]really[/i] makes me want to buy a set. I suspect that they are very fine golf clubs.
[/quote]

There are several factors for the low rating.

The "C Dimension" indicates the center of gravity is very near the hosel. Don't you want it in the center of the blade, where you're trying to hit it?

The actual vertical center of gravity is .937. The center of gravity of a golf ball is .840. It's next to impossible to hit truly solid shots with this type of club.

Now that said, this is one head that Maltby measured. It's a hand made forged club. It is certainly possible he got a poor example.

But it's also possible that designs of this type are why MacGregor lost ground to Wilson and others during the 60s and 70s, and quite honestly never really recovered.

Look at the Winged MT example from MacGregor's 1950s heyday. While the center of gravity was toward the heel, the actual vertical center of gravity is .742, well below that of the ball. This is an excellent design.

And then look at the final MacGregor designs from the Greg Norman ownership. While cosmetically attractive, they mostly have the centers of gravity in the wrong place. Failure. Out of business. House brand at Golfsmith.

I don't know why MPF is controversial. It simply measures the mass and dimensional properties of a clubhead. It attempts to take the emotion and prejudice out of determining what makes a good clubhead.

I also wish I had a dollar for every time I read where someone has a problem with Maltby's designs being at the top of the MPF list. I guess he should have designed his clubs with high heelward centers of gravity to take away any suspicion that MPF was somehow self serving. Seriously? Sheesh!

I've hit plenty of Maltby's designs. They are some of the best, most solid, easiest to hit clubs ever made. What makes more sense than to design clubs with sweet spots low and in the center of the blade? Nothing, IMO.

[okesa]

[size=5]And what do Maltby clubheads offer in the way of nostalgia,the 'look',the pleasure in playing vintage forged irons?[/size]
[size=5]Less than nothing IMO.[/size]
[size=5]You miss the point entirely about owning and playing clubs like the CF4000,if I had wanted a set of irons with top rating on the MPF list I would have bought them but I (and lots of others like me) enjoy vintage MacGregors,I'm not playing them because they're the easiest to hit clubs ever made,it's the chrome,the ferrules,the style and all the associations with MacGregor,'The Greatest Name in Golf'.[/size]

[birly-shirly]

I find most of what Maltby posts about golf club design highly educational and interesting - but I still think his MPF is poorly-conceived [b][i]as a numerical measure of clubhead playability[/i][/b]. I think too many people use it in too uncritical a way - more so than Maltby himself would claim was justifiable.

At the end of the day, an MPF rating equates to an apple multiplied by an orange times a pear.

If you're not shanking, then who really cares whether your clubhead CoG is a bit closer to the heel?

As for the vertical height of the clubhead CoG, Tom Wishon is on record as saying that across ALL the iron clubhead designs that he's ever examined, he's never seen that measurement vary by more than a very few millimeters, to the extent that he practically discounts it as a substantive variable in fitting. That's one way of explaining the success of those MacGregor Tommy Armour designs with the inverted muscle - that the location and distribution of the non-discretionary mass in an iron clubhead (face of a certain minimum height, clubhead of a certain minimum thickness, hosel of a certain size to support the shaft, etc) means that the rest, muscle-back design and all that, is largely window dressing.

Lastly, is there any advantage in the clubhead having a particularly low CoG location? For optimum distance, you'd want the clubhead CoG to align with the ball's CoG. Too low is going to cause the same degree of "mishit" as too high - although a high-CoG location is going to give you a lower-launching, higher spinning ballflight - so much so that Karsten Solheim designed that feature into his clubs, which I think is one of the reasons that classic Pings tend to score relatively poorly on the MPF scale.

On the other hand, as far as I can make out, Maltby's and Wishon's measurement of clubhead MoI can vary by up to a factor of 2.

[Shallowface]

[quote name='okesa' timestamp='1394916463' post='8878343']
[size=5]And what do Maltby clubheads offer in the way of nostalgia,the 'look',the pleasure in playing vintage forged irons?[/size]
[size=5]Less than nothing IMO.[/size]
[size=5]You miss the point entirely about owning and playing clubs like the CF4000,if I had wanted a set of irons with top rating on the MPF list I would have bought them but I (and lots of others like me) enjoy vintage MacGregors,I'm not playing them because they're the easiest to hit clubs ever made,it's the chrome,the ferrules,the style and all the associations with MacGregor,'The Greatest Name in Golf'.[/size]
[/quote]

You miss the point entirely of my post.

The question was does the MPF have credibility.

I believe it does, and I attempted to explain why the FC4000's rating was as low as it is.

I offered no criticism whatsoever of anyone's choices. The mention of the playability of Maltby's designs was nothing more than to support that the MPF has credibility. I never suggested someone should play Maltby instead of MacGregor or anything else. Not once. Go back and read it again.

My posts speak for themselves. I'm as into the classics as anyone here.

There's no question that the MacGregor clubs have a style all their own. But when I run across them in the thrifts, I pass every time. The long hosels and sharp flat soles just don't suit me at all.

I enjoy playing the classics, but some classics are more playable than others. And I haven't given up on shooting the lowest score I can. So I make the same choice I no doubt would have made had I been a consumer fifty years ago, and that's to seek and play the clubs that are the best.

There must have been some reason why people drifted away from MacGregor, despite the fact that the greatest player of all time was an endorser. Perhaps the MPF measurements hold the explanation.

[Shallowface]

[quote name='birly-shirly' timestamp='1394930217' post='8879585']
I find most of what Maltby posts about golf club design highly educational and interesting - but I still think his MPF is poorly-conceived [b][i]as a numerical measure of clubhead playability[/i][/b]. I think too many people use it in too uncritical a way - more so that Maltby himself would claim was justifiable.

At the end of the day, an MPF rating equates to an apple multiplied by an orange times a pear.

If you're not shanking, then who really cares whether your clubhead CoG is a bit closer to the heel?

As for the vertical height of the clubhead CoG, Tom Wishon is on record as saying that across ALL the iron clubhead designs that he's ever examined, he's never seen that measurement vary by more than a very few millimeters, to the extent that he practically discounts it as a substantive variable in fitting. That's one way of explaining the success of those MacGregor Tommy Armour designs with the inverted muscle - that the location and distribution of the non-discretionary mass in an iron clubhead (face of a certain minimum height, clubhead of a certain minimum thickness, hosel of a certain size to support the shaft, etc) means that the rest, muscle-back design and all that, is largely window dressing.

Lastly, is there any advantage in the clubhead having a particularly low CoG location? For optimum distance, you'd want the clubhead CoG to align with the ball's CoG. Too low is going to cause the same degree of "mishit" as too high - although a high-CoG location is going to give you a lower-launching, higher spinning ballflight - so much so that Karsten Solheim designed that feature into his clubs, which I think is one of the reasons that classic Pings tend to score relatively poorly on the MPF scale.

On the other hand, as far as I can make out, Maltby's and Wishon's measurement of clubhead MoI can vary by up to a factor of 2.
[/quote]

Which classic Pings score poorly on the MPF scale?

None that I can see. They still stack up very well against the offerings of today.

I've had my say. We'll agree to disagree. When someone provides hard and fast measurements of the properties of clubheads, I can't discount that information. The sales success of some older designs is due to the fact there was no competition, nothing else available at the time was better. When better designs became available, people gravitated to them. Historical fact. There must have been a reason.

[ChristianMc]

I played a set of FC4000 mt9's (slightly longer shaft by half inch) which has the same back design and is from '63, i.e. like the one's in the advert of Jack. I have many FC sets including the SS1's and the PT19's with the woods to match. I seem to have a love of collecting the FC sets. My partner also has the Louise Suggs equivalent. Long story short: I play off 5. Played these irons with a 1 and 4 SS1 driver (1960) around an old English course (Thorpeness - 6,150 yards) and hit my handicap, oh and with a 'new' Mac tourney ball from the early 70's which really did go all over the place of its own accord! In simple terms these old classic clubs, when played with a good rhythm and some decent knowledge of swing mechanics applied, play well. In the long run they improve the game.

[birly-shirly]

[quote name='Shallowface' timestamp='1394931344' post='8879699']
[quote name='birly-shirly' timestamp='1394930217' post='8879585']
I find most of what Maltby posts about golf club design highly educational and interesting - but I still think his MPF is poorly-conceived [b][i]as a numerical measure of clubhead playability[/i][/b]. I think too many people use it in too uncritical a way - more so that Maltby himself would claim was justifiable.

At the end of the day, an MPF rating equates to an apple multiplied by an orange times a pear.

If you're not shanking, then who really cares whether your clubhead CoG is a bit closer to the heel?

As for the vertical height of the clubhead CoG, Tom Wishon is on record as saying that across ALL the iron clubhead designs that he's ever examined, he's never seen that measurement vary by more than a very few millimeters, to the extent that he practically discounts it as a substantive variable in fitting. That's one way of explaining the success of those MacGregor Tommy Armour designs with the inverted muscle - that the location and distribution of the non-discretionary mass in an iron clubhead (face of a certain minimum height, clubhead of a certain minimum thickness, hosel of a certain size to support the shaft, etc) means that the rest, muscle-back design and all that, is largely window dressing.

Lastly, is there any advantage in the clubhead having a particularly low CoG location? For optimum distance, you'd want the clubhead CoG to align with the ball's CoG. Too low is going to cause the same degree of "mishit" as too high - although a high-CoG location is going to give you a lower-launching, higher spinning ballflight - so much so that Karsten Solheim designed that feature into his clubs, which I think is one of the reasons that classic Pings tend to score relatively poorly on the MPF scale.

On the other hand, as far as I can make out, Maltby's and Wishon's measurement of clubhead MoI can vary by up to a factor of 2.
[/quote]

Which classic Pings score poorly on the MPF scale?

None that I can see. They still stack up very well against the offerings of today.

I've had my say. We'll agree to disagree. When someone provides hard and fast measurements of the properties of clubheads, I can't discount that information. The sales success of some older designs is due to the fact there was no competition, nothing else available at the time was better. When better designs became available, people gravitated to them. Historical fact. There must have been a reason.
[/quote]

If you look more closely, you'll see some rather strange rankings that fly in the face of historical facts.

For instance, according to the MPF, the Eye 2 was the WORST clubhead design that Ping had ever produced (give or take the Ballnamics, which Maltby doesn't list). Doesn't that seem a bit odd?The Eye2 held onto that "worst ever" ranking until Ping released the i3 - which in many people's opinion rehabilitated a company which had been somewhat in decline [i]since its Eye2 heyday[/i]. I find it very difficult to reconcile those rankings with what happened in the real world, and that leads me to think that the ranking system must be flawed.

I like the fact that Maltby is measuring, and publishing, certain aspects of clubhead design - I just disagree with the way in which a limited number of design criteria are being interpreted, weighted and prioritised to produce a supposed index of playability. I strongly suspect that the effects on playability of differences of a tenth of an inch or so in the vertical height of the clubhead's CoG are being greatly exaggerated, whilst some other factors go entirely unmeasured. If you understand the actual measurements, then I daresay it's a fine resource - but not so much if you just look at the final index.

[stixman]

I recall trying Pings when first they came into our Pro Shop.
I hated them in comparison to my traditional Dynapowers. In order of primary sensory impact, one...they felt horribly harsh, two...the top line was ugly, three...visually, a cold pizza looked more appealing. My home Pro, Bryon Hutchinson of Moortown GC,said, 'don't worry Chris, I'll sell plenty of these 'game improvement' clubs, they aren't made with you in mind'. That was a long, long time ago and I'm still playing proper golf clubs at 69, and still getting that primeval thrill.

'Ping' and 'classic' you can find in the same phrase in relation to putters, maybe woods at a stretch, but anywhere else is an oxymoron

[Shallowface]

[quote name='birly-shirly' timestamp='1394960179' post='8881453']


If you look more closely, you'll see some rather strange rankings that fly in the face of historical facts.

For instance, according to the MPF, the Eye 2 was the WORST clubhead design that Ping had ever produced (give or take the Ballnamics, which Maltby doesn't list). Doesn't that seem a bit odd?The Eye2 held onto that "worst ever" ranking until Ping released the i3 - which in many people's opinion rehabilitated a company which had been somewhat in decline [i]since its Eye2 heyday[/i]. I find it very difficult to reconcile those rankings with what happened in the real world, and that leads me to think that the ranking system must be flawed.

I like the fact that Maltby is measuring, and publishing, certain aspects of clubhead design - I just disagree with the way in which a limited number of design criteria are being interpreted, weighted and prioritised to produce a supposed index of playability. I strongly suspect that the effects on playability of differences of a tenth of an inch or so in the vertical height of the clubhead's CoG are being greatly exaggerated, whilst some other factors go entirely unmeasured. If you understand the actual measurements, then I daresay it's a fine resource - but not so much if you just look at the final index.
[/quote]

The Eye2 ranked as it did because it had a higher center of gravity than the previous models. It has a deeper face. I notice these things. My favorite iron of all time is the Browning 440. That's the reason for my pen name!

The Eye2 sold as it did because it was the first Ping club to find wide acceptance among tour pros (mostly because of the grooves), not necessarily because it was a better golf club (although the difference in MPF points was nearly negligible). The slightly higher center of gravity actually suited them better than the earlier offerings.

Having hit and played all of them, I personally never thought the Eye2 was as good as the earlier offerings. I didn't know exactly why until the MPF rankings came out. As they did in so many cases, they simply confirmed my experience.

I have a set of the I3 O-Size which is in my primary modern bag. I play them because the high degree of bounce works in the wet fairway, heavy rough conditions I live with. I think the reason they sold well was because it was the first Ping iron to depart from the tumbled finish, pointy headed look. But everything they've come out with since has a lower center of gravity to some degree. And all of the offerings between the Eye2 and the I3 had COGs which were too high. People hit them. They didn't feel solid. The look was always an issue. And sales suffered.

I think about center of gravity this way. If I have a really tight billiard table fairway lie (which is common where I play), and I have two clubs, one with a COG of .840 and one with a COG of .715, it's like the ball is teed up an eighth of an inch with that second club. I think that's significant. Isn't any iron (except the 440s!) easier to hit from a tee or when it's slightly perched in the rough?

The final index is consistent from club to club based on how the measurements are weighted. MPF doesn't quantify feel, and some of the highest ranking clubs don't feel good to me at all. That's usually due to the sound produced by thin faces. But the results are there. MPF doesn't quantify sole design, which I am very sensitive to because of course conditions I deal with. There are some older clubs very highly ranked otherwise that IMO don't have great soles. And it only ranks clubheads. A given clubhead with two different shafts can play quite differently. Finally, Maltby himself says that if a person is comparing two different clubs, they may not notice much difference if there is less than 200 ranking points between them. I tend to think that depends on the two clubs being compared, but that's what he says.

But this started about the FC4000. The old tour pros knew where the sweet spot (COG) was, and it often times was near the hosel. Most of us don't have the skill to try to hit it there without too many hosel rockets, so we try to hit it on the middle of the face. If we're successful, we've essentially hit it on the toe. If the COG is above the middle of the ball, there's some point in the set where the iron won't have enough loft to compensate for it. The same thing occurred when irons got oversized in the late 80s and 90s. The faces got deeper, the COG got higher, the long irons became unplayable and that's why we have hybrids (with shallow faces, gee, how about that?). You give a hybrid lover a long iron with a low COG, very little offset and a wood like shaft and he'll hit it just fine. I've shimmed wood shafts into long iron clubheads. It works.

It's amusing that the MPF, which was conceived to take the debate out of the merits of one clubhead versus another, didn't help that one bit!

[okesa]

[size=5]Excellent post Shallowface;I remember those 440's only too well as I was in the gun trade at the time selling Browning products,there are echoes of MacGregor to be found there with the insistence of management that there was a need to diversify,I know we all had a good laugh when the agent came round and suggested they might ask Tony Jacklin to design their next shotgun or rifle![/size]
[size=5]However,the big problem I have with MPF is that the evidence on this page contradicts what Maltby says,you have here the testimony of ChristianMc who is an accomplished golfer and MacGregor enthusiast,Stixman confirms that they play well and lastly myself,currently playing off 11.7,if Maltby is correct I should not be able to play them yet they are ok.[/size]
[size=5]Only thing I can think of is that all of us play in the UK,perhaps the MPF doesn't apply in an English location.......[/size]

[Shallowface]

[quote name='okesa' timestamp='1394971461' post='8881671']
[size=5]Excellent post Shallowface;I remember those 440's only too well as I was in the gun trade at the time selling Browning products,there are echoes of MacGregor to be found there with the insistence of management that there was a need to diversify,I know we all had a good laugh when the agent came round and suggested they might ask Tony Jacklin to design their next shotgun or rifle![/size]
[size=5]However,the big problem I have with MPF is that the evidence on this page contradicts what Maltby says,you have here the testimony of ChristianMc who is an accomplished golfer and MacGregor enthusiast,Stixman confirms that they play well and lastly myself,currently playing off 11.7,if Maltby is correct I should not be able to play them yet they are ok.[/size]
[size=5]Only thing I can think of is that all of us play in the UK,perhaps the MPF doesn't apply in an English location.......[/size]
[/quote]

Thank you!

And your experience is why I mentioned earlier that I have to wonder if he measured a poor example. No iron from that era is probably going to have a really high MPF, because the COG gets dragged heelward by those long hosels. But were they all as bad as that rating would indicate? Many folks experience says otherwise. Those heads were virtually handmade. I'm sure there were variances. I have to doubt that Jack's clubs were a negative 341. If they were, he's even greater than we thought he was!

One thing that's in Maltby's MPF book that I found interesting was when he posted MPF rankings for a very few complete sets. Not every club matched the ranking for the 5 or 6 iron. The differences weren't huge, but they were surprising. A three iron might have a really low COG, the 4 iron less so and the 5 iron back to something lower. Could be as simple as manufacturing tolerances or how the metal flowed when it was being forged or cast. But it was interesting nonetheless, to me anyway.

Golfworks doesn't seem to be all that interested in MPF these days. They still do a bit of it, but not what they used to do. Maltby is semi-retired (I think he's around 70) and spends a lot of time in Florida (and considering how Winters are in Ohio who can blame him). I find that sad somehow, but we all grow old. I learned so much from him and will be forever grateful.