Blade users thread (NO DEBATING CLUBHEADS! NO Buy Sell Trade!)

[bladehunter]

so.......you know its going to be a long winded post when it starts with so...... lol

 

 

so i made it out to try to play 9 and of course the rain hit us during hole 4.... but i went par par birdie birdie.... and missed a 5 footer for birdie on 2.... All i can say is these things work out in the wild ! man.... partly because my swing has been progressing since my back injury small steps on top of small steps... it is as connected now as it has been in my life! 1st hole was a ho hum missed green up and down for par... 2nd hole is a hard dogleg left.. 4 iron off tee left me 178 in becuase i didnt draw it around the corner far enough.... hit a choked down 6 iron to 5 ft.... man its like a switch flipped in me..... 3rd hole i was left with 73 yards in and i hit the flag with my lob wedge... dead center and came back 15 feet... drained the putt... 4th hole 3 wood leaves me 165 in uphill.... by then im pumped full of adrenaline...and i hit an 8 iron to 8 feet ...putt dead center... and the bottom fell out...lol so we all jumped on the 1 cart the group had and rode like the wind back inside....the funny thing is im hitting the small blades the same distance i was the leagcy blacks..which are much stronger in loft.... i hit the small blades higher..but farther than the 680... go figure.... same exact shafts..

so it short im not saying the clubs are magic.. they arent.. im just hititng it that good right now... but what i can say is that they are amplifying my good swings to the point that its spilling over into my wedge game and driver/3 wood.... has to be a good thing ! Im pretty well hoooked at this moment !

[mallrat]

So let me ask this, I've always been prone to hitting a tad towards the heel. Could that explain why blades feel good to me right off the bat? Having the CG a little more towards the hosel than toe?

[NRJyzr]

So let me ask this, I've always been prone to hitting a tad towards the heel. Could that explain why blades feel good to me right off the bat? Having the CG a little more towards the hosel than toe?

 

 

That's the old "classic wisdom" about blades, that they work better for heel misses than toe misses. Not many blades do well with the old toe miss.

 

Interestingly, Palmer Standards seemed to be one of the few that I found would work decently with the toed shot.

[mallrat]

So let me ask this, I've always been prone to hitting a tad towards the heel. Could that explain why blades feel good to me right off the bat? Having the CG a little more towards the hosel than toe?

 

 

That's the old "classic wisdom" about blades, that they work better for heel misses than toe misses. Not many blades do well with the old toe miss.

 

Interestingly, Palmer Standards seemed to be one of the few that I found would work decently with the toed shot.

 

Interesting, cause I can count on 1 hand how many toe misses I've had. Even my most pure strikes with CB's were a little to the heel and by that I mean around 1/8" nothing drastic.

[Bigmean]

so.......you know its going to be a long winded post when it starts with so...... lol

 

 

so i made it out to try to play 9 and of course the rain hit us during hole 4.... but i went par par birdie birdie.... and missed a 5 footer for birdie on 2.... All i can say is these things work out in the wild ! man.... partly because my swing has been progressing since my back injury small steps on top of small steps... it is as connected now as it has been in my life! 1st hole was a ho hum missed green up and down for par... 2nd hole is a hard dogleg left.. 4 iron off tee left me 178 in becuase i didnt draw it around the corner far enough.... hit a choked down 6 iron to 5 ft.... man its like a switch flipped in me..... 3rd hole i was left with 73 yards in and i hit the flag with my lob wedge... dead center and came back 15 feet... drained the putt... 4th hole 3 wood leaves me 165 in uphill.... by then im pumped full of adrenaline...and i hit an 8 iron to 8 feet ...putt dead center... and the bottom fell out...lol so we all jumped on the 1 cart the group had and rode like the wind back inside....the funny thing is im hitting the small blades the same distance i was the leagcy blacks..which are much stronger in loft.... i hit the small blades higher..but farther than the 680... go figure.... same exact shafts..

so it short im not saying the clubs are magic.. they arent.. im just hititng it that good right now... but what i can say is that they are amplifying my good swings to the point that its spilling over into my wedge game and driver/3 wood.... has to be a good thing ! Im pretty well hoooked at this moment !

 

So when I first got mine, and even to this day, one thing is that you can get a lot of very good golf shot out of a non flushed hit....now when I say that I mean a shot that you would think is flushed with most sets. The SS IMO is about a true 1/8-1/4' inside the center of the grooves, and no i am not kidding. If you start finding more shots away from the toe side of center combined with the fact they are just so easy to setup and hit, I think that will do wonders, some of=f my better rounds this summer you could count on one hand the number of flushed shots I had with them, but that ball that is just outside or dead center flys as though it was flushed, just a thwack. Spend a range session hitting cuts flirting with the hosel, that is best way to try to figure them out.

[Bigmean]

So let me ask this, I've always been prone to hitting a tad towards the heel. Could that explain why blades feel good to me right off the bat? Having the CG a little more towards the hosel than toe?

 

In a nut shell, yes. I am a heel misser. I relate very little to all this blade punishment you read about. Now missing it high and low on the face....that is a whole other problem I can get myself into...

[DeNinny]

So let me ask this, I've always been prone to hitting a tad towards the heel. Could that explain why blades feel good to me right off the bat? Having the CG a little more towards the hosel than toe?

 

Hitting as close to the hosel as possible without hitting it is a good thing from a physics perspective, and you don't even need to consider the CG location in any of it. The basic torque equation suffices for the physics explanation (without CG). Torque = force x distance the force was applied from a fulcrum. In this case the force is from impact with the ball and distance is how close impact was from the shaft centerline which is the fulcrum (and yes, the wrists hinge is another fulcrum). So based on this simple equation alone, the closer to the shaft that you can hit the ball (without hitting the hosel), the LESS torque on the clubhead and ultimately this means the 'easier' or 'sweeter' the twist feel is on the hands. And again, CG location doesn't even play into this. It's just a basic leverage equation.

[Sir Slicealot]

Wish I were closer I'd take you up on that. And that sounds cool as crap to arrive by ship. Only thing better would be helicopter to the practice tee. Lol

I take it you are distant to Charleston. Pity. It is indeed an awesome idea to travel by ship for golf. Think of it as a paid vacation with random fire alarms and a lot of responsibility.

 

They have a helicopter to a tee somewhere. I want to say it's on one of the world's longest courses. $200 for that hole alone.

[No_Catchy_Nickname]

Wish I were closer I'd take you up on that. And that sounds cool as crap to arrive by ship. Only thing better would be helicopter to the practice tee. Lol

I take it you are distant to Charleston. Pity. It is indeed an awesome idea to travel by ship for golf. Think of it as a paid vacation with random fire alarms and a lot of responsibility.

 

They have a helicopter to a tee somewhere. I want to say it's on one of the world's longest courses. $200 for that hole alone.

 

I think it's that hole in South Africa (Legend Golf Resort?) where you hit down from the top of a cliff to a green in the shape of Africa.

 

Found it:

http://www.dailymail...l-1million.html

 

[media=]

[/media]

[Jonesy]

^^^ That's on the bucket list for sure! Interestingly if you go onto the Legends website they have a full leaderboard for the hole, the highest score: 76

[bladehunter]

so.......you know its going to be a long winded post when it starts with so...... lol

 

 

so i made it out to try to play 9 and of course the rain hit us during hole 4.... but i went par par birdie birdie.... and missed a 5 footer for birdie on 2.... All i can say is these things work out in the wild ! man.... partly because my swing has been progressing since my back injury small steps on top of small steps... it is as connected now as it has been in my life! 1st hole was a ho hum missed green up and down for par... 2nd hole is a hard dogleg left.. 4 iron off tee left me 178 in becuase i didnt draw it around the corner far enough.... hit a choked down 6 iron to 5 ft.... man its like a switch flipped in me..... 3rd hole i was left with 73 yards in and i hit the flag with my lob wedge... dead center and came back 15 feet... drained the putt... 4th hole 3 wood leaves me 165 in uphill.... by then im pumped full of adrenaline...and i hit an 8 iron to 8 feet ...putt dead center... and the bottom fell out...lol so we all jumped on the 1 cart the group had and rode like the wind back inside....the funny thing is im hitting the small blades the same distance i was the leagcy blacks..which are much stronger in loft.... i hit the small blades higher..but farther than the 680... go figure.... same exact shafts..

so it short im not saying the clubs are magic.. they arent.. im just hititng it that good right now... but what i can say is that they are amplifying my good swings to the point that its spilling over into my wedge game and driver/3 wood.... has to be a good thing ! Im pretty well hoooked at this moment !

 

So when I first got mine, and even to this day, one thing is that you can get a lot of very good golf shot out of a non flushed hit....now when I say that I mean a shot that you would think is flushed with most sets. The SS IMO is about a true 1/8-1/4' inside the center of the grooves, and no i am not kidding. If you start finding more shots away from the toe side of center combined with the fact they are just so easy to setup and hit, I think that will do wonders, some of=f my better rounds this summer you could count on one hand the number of flushed shots I had with them, but that ball that is just outside or dead center flys as though it was flushed, just a thwack. Spend a range session hitting cuts flirting with the hosel, that is best way to try to figure them out.

 

 

agree with that ... doesnt seem to be a badspot to hit them... and i think your correct on the sweet spot... ill get into more and more of a groove with them im sure.... just cant get over how much better the distance control is than other irons.... seems like its down to the yard... even with yesterdays wind....really really looking forward to having my swing grooved around these for next summer!

[Bigmean]

Distance control and dispersion (minus the pull hook and flare push fade someone of my skill level adds to the mix) are by far the highlights of these clubs. Also as you said, and the monitors proved in my shaft testing despite soon rates 1000 more per numbered iron (8000 for a 7 etc), I am as long with mine as I am anything, which doesn't make a lot of sense really..but it is true.

 

I don't know why more clubs are not made small and with with less offset. I was at the superstore yesterday and hit the titliest 716mb, it is a great club but the offset is nuts on it. Like it really hit me yesterday how much offset that club has. The funny thing is, yeah they are small, but cmon, how easy are they to put a swing on? Like it isn't some bs, they are easy to hit and as you said not flushed still is more than playable becuase 70% of the grooved area is going to be manageable path and side spin aside.

 

You are 100% on the memory too. makes changing iron sets hard if you sit on one a while....

[bladehunter]

Distance control and dispersion (minus the pull hook and flare push fade someone of my skill level adds to the mix) are by far the highlights of these clubs. Also as you said, and the monitors proved in my shaft testing despite soon rates 1000 more per numbered iron (8000 for a 7 etc), I am as long with mine as I am anything, which doesn't make a lot of sense really..but it is true.

 

I don't know why more clubs are not made small and with with less offset. I was at the superstore yesterday and hit the titliest 716mb, it is a great club but the offset is nuts on it. Like it really hit me yesterday how much offset that club has. The funny thing is, yeah they are small, but cmon, how easy are they to put a swing on? Like it isn't some bs, they are easy to hit and as you said not flushed still is more than playable becuase 70% of the grooved area is going to be manageable path and side spin aside.

 

You are 100% on the memory too. makes changing iron sets hard if you sit on one a while....

 

 

yep.. the retail 680 and 690 does as well in the short irons... one reason i clinged to my 680 proto set... they are very low offset in the short irons.. but the BB is even less!

[No_Catchy_Nickname]

^^^ That's on the bucket list for sure! Interestingly if you go onto the Legends website they have a full leaderboard for the hole, the highest score: 76

 

Just looking at the leaderboard, and noticed a "Lewis Hamilton" from the Uk tied for 15th with a par (there are lots of pars, but his name appeared early on). Bet it's THE Lewis Hamilton.

Padraig Harrington also appears to have made his par. But Richard Sterne (presumably the SA pro) only made a bogey.

 

I noticed several names appear more than once, which got me wondering if you get multiple chances at it, or just one shot. I recall reading that it was pretty pricey to play, so I'd be a bit upset if I went all the way up there just for one crack at it.

 

Edit: and Steve Redgrave from the UK (surely the five-time Olympic gold medal winner) only managed a bogey, thus proving that golf is harder than rowing!

[No_Catchy_Nickname]

Hah! Sergio Garcia only made bogey...

 

/I'm wasting waaaaayyyy too much time on this

 

Edit: Also KJ Choi and Justin Rose with bogies....

 

//I'll stop now

[NRJyzr]

I don't know why more clubs are not made small and with with less offset.

 

 

It would appear Tour Players actually like a bit of offset in their clubs, just for the visual appearance. This is a generalization, of course.

 

Which could be down to conditioning. For years, so many clubs have had offset, it's what they're used to looking at, so going to a club with no offset is too big a change. Which has the club manufacturers keeping a few millimeters in play. <shrug>

[Sir Slicealot]

If they were...then your boy Miura wouldn't be able to command the sums he does.

[NRJyzr]

This talk of offset has me thinking more seriously about shafting up my 986 Tours. I think I have the 8 iron shafted with a Modus 120X, I should take a topline pic so you guys can see the complete lack of offset.

 

I've never seen any other, so called Zero Offset iron, that compares with the 986 Tours.

 

Not saying they don't exist, I've just not seen them. ;)

 

edited to add: FWIW, I have seen, and hit, the KZG ZO.

[NRJyzr]

And here we go, two pics, one close up on carpet, one a bit more distant on hardwood, Tommy Armour 986 Tour 8 iron:

 

[DeNinny]

so.......you know its going to be a long winded post when it starts with so...... lol

 

 

so i made it out to try to play 9 and of course the rain hit us during hole 4.... but i went par par birdie birdie.... and missed a 5 footer for birdie on 2.... All i can say is these things work out in the wild ! man.... partly because my swing has been progressing since my back injury small steps on top of small steps... it is as connected now as it has been in my life! 1st hole was a ho hum missed green up and down for par... 2nd hole is a hard dogleg left.. 4 iron off tee left me 178 in becuase i didnt draw it around the corner far enough.... hit a choked down 6 iron to 5 ft.... man its like a switch flipped in me..... 3rd hole i was left with 73 yards in and i hit the flag with my lob wedge... dead center and came back 15 feet... drained the putt... 4th hole 3 wood leaves me 165 in uphill.... by then im pumped full of adrenaline...and i hit an 8 iron to 8 feet ...putt dead center... and the bottom fell out...lol so we all jumped on the 1 cart the group had and rode like the wind back inside....the funny thing is im hitting the small blades the same distance i was the leagcy blacks..which are much stronger in loft.... i hit the small blades higher..but farther than the 680... go figure.... same exact shafts..

so it short im not saying the clubs are magic.. they arent.. im just hititng it that good right now... but what i can say is that they are amplifying my good swings to the point that its spilling over into my wedge game and driver/3 wood.... has to be a good thing ! Im pretty well hoooked at this moment !

 

So when I first got mine, and even to this day, one thing is that you can get a lot of very good golf shot out of a non flushed hit....now when I say that I mean a shot that you would think is flushed with most sets. The SS IMO is about a true 1/8-1/4' inside the center of the grooves, and no i am not kidding. If you start finding more shots away from the toe side of center combined with the fact they are just so easy to setup and hit, I think that will do wonders, some of=f my better rounds this summer you could count on one hand the number of flushed shots I had with them, but that ball that is just outside or dead center flys as though it was flushed, just a thwack. Spend a range session hitting cuts flirting with the hosel, that is best way to try to figure them out.

 

 

agree with that ... doesnt seem to be a badspot to hit them... and i think your correct on the sweet spot... ill get into more and more of a groove with them im sure.... just cant get over how much better the distance control is than other irons.... seems like its down to the yard... even with yesterdays wind....really really looking forward to having my swing grooved around these for next summer!

 

The BBs provide true and tangible forgiveness. The muscle thickness to length ratio is higher than nearly any other club which makes it a consistent, virtually unbending/inflexible surface for the ball to consistently compress against. This results in more consistent spin AND distance. Also the shorter head makes for the LEAST amount of torque on the hands so it is EASIER to hold the face square, relatively speaking and all other things equal, compared to a longer head. So the science supports that the shorter and thicker muscle design is "forgiving".

 

And LOL bladehunter is so good he doesn't even realize yet that the BBs are also forgiving out of the rough. (LOL this is where I have a lot of experience.) The smaller head will have LESS drag force on it as it goes through thick grass (or any media).

 

By design, they are a very easy (i.e. forgiving) club to play. Shotmaking is easier with them than ANY other club, blade or CB, that I have ever tried. Relatively speaking, it doesn't seem like I have as many bad ballstriking days with them. That's "forgiveness" in my book.

[Nard_S]

Hey bladehunter, is a wooden dowel a must for you for all blades or are you fine without it? I think they would help with mishit sting or ring, but they also may dull that pure strike bliss a tad too. Also, LOL in the interest of science I really think you should try one BB without the dowel...

 

I was thinking this as well. Just as I thought the graphite shafts did so a little in his initial,thoughts with mcis. I don't believe it will mess with them much though, who knows, it may make them better.

 

My impression from the 681's is that the resonance is deeper, more solid, pure strikes really do not suffer they are just attenuated toward a lower frequency.

 

Any club building I will do will have dowels as a part of it.. I think it is worth the effort.

[Bigmean]

Nr, I am trying to imagine my 8 and I am sure it doesn't look quite that zero, I don't believe it is, but I also don't believe it is far off of that.

 

Didn't hogan use onset irons? Since we are on this?

 

Anyway, it is really easy to draw and hook zero/small offset irons, so I am not sure other than setup aesthetics the big deal

[NRJyzr]

If you have a smaller clubhead, the CG will be closer to the heel. That makes them easier to close in the swing. :)

 

That's really been the big issue with turning over drivers, as they get bigger. The CG is farther from the shaft, making it less easy to close in the swing, with effort being the same.

[DeNinny]

If you have a smaller clubhead, the CG will be closer to the heel. That makes them easier to close in the swing. :)

 

That's really been the big issue with turning over drivers, as they get bigger. The CG is farther from the shaft, making it less easy to close in the swing, with effort being the same.

 

Moving the CG away from the shaft increases the MOI of the head based on rotation about the shaft. Higher MOI = more work by the hands needed to achieve the same amount of face closure (all other things equal).

[Nard_S]

Nr, I am trying to imagine my 8 and I am sure it doesn't look quite that zero, I don't believe it is, but I also don't believe it is far off of that.

 

Didn't hogan use onset irons? Since we are on this?

 

Anyway, it is really easy to draw and hook zero/small offset irons, so I am not sure other than setup aesthetics the big deal

 

Offset is a legit way to raise launch angle and hit it straighter. The down side is they are not as easy to work shots with. Pros may or may not tee up with offset. What is in their bag may look like what is in the glossy magazine page but often times they have custom ground clubs with less offset and higher CG......not unlike traditional clubs.

[DeNinny]

All other things equal, offset does nothing except change the way the clubhead bends in relation to the shaft under the centrifugal force of the swing. All you get is a slightly different face position relative to the shaft. As you swing a club, centrifugal force pulls on the CG of the head radially away from the golfer in the plane of rotation of the CG. Because of the shaft attachment to the head and the plane of rotation based on the shaft position, the CG will get pulled to be more in alignment with the shaft. This will affect the face position relative to the shaft. And so the more offset the CG is from the shaft, the more the face position is pulled and literally moved by centrifugal force.

 

So offset does nothing besides this. You simply have to learn a different type of "squareness" with an offset club (all other things equal).

[TheCompleteHacker]

All other things equal, offset does nothing except change the way the clubhead bends in relation to the shaft under the centrifugal force of the swing. All you get is a slightly different face position relative to the shaft. As you swing a club, centrifugal force pulls on the CG of the head radially away from the golfer in the plane of rotation of the CG. Because of the shaft attachment to the head and the plane of rotation based on the shaft position, the CG will get pulled to be more in alignment with the shaft. This will affect the face position relative to the shaft. And so the more offset the CG is from the shaft, the more the face position is pulled and literally moved by centrifugal force.

 

So offset does nothing besides this. You simply have to learn a different type of "squareness" with an offset club (all other things equal).

 

With all that said... I still can't hit a club with offset. Specifically one with a great deal. My face always ends up open at impact. My 2 iron is the worst with this. I can't wait to replace the BeCu Ping Eye2 with the T Zoid Pro II I picked up. I have two of the BeCu heads if any of you guys are interested. One is a Blue dot and the other is Black dot.

 

All other things equal, offset does nothing except change the way the clubhead bends in relation to the shaft under the centrifugal force of the swing. All you get is a slightly different face position relative to the shaft. As you swing a club, centrifugal force pulls on the CG of the head radially away from the golfer in the plane of rotation of the CG. Because of the shaft attachment to the head and the plane of rotation based on the shaft position, the CG will get pulled to be more in alignment with the shaft. This will affect the face position relative to the shaft. And so the more offset the CG is from the shaft, the more the face position is pulled and literally moved by centrifugal force.

 

So offset does nothing besides this. You simply have to learn a different type of "squareness" with an offset club (all other things equal).

 

With all that said... I still can't hit a club with offset. Specifically one with a great deal. My face always ends up open at impact. My 2 iron is the worst with this. I can't wait to replace the BeCu Ping Eye2 with the T Zoid Pro II I picked up. I have two of the BeCu heads if any of you guys are interested. One is a Blue dot and the other is Black dot.

[DeNinny]

With all that said... I still can't hit a club with offset. Specifically one with a great deal. My face always ends up open at impact. My 2 iron is the worst with this. I can't wait to replace the BeCu Ping Eye2 with the T Zoid Pro II I picked up. I have two of the BeCu heads if any of you guys are interested. One is a Blue dot and the other is Black dot.

 

No argument here on that. It's not that I can't hit an offset club, I just prefer not to. Besides the fact that it just looks FUGLY, it's an unnecessary complication in the design. For me with clubs there has to be a true technical reason for everything in its design. Offset has no true, universal technical benefit, so why bother? And no, the offset club manufacturers' technical "justifications" do not qualify as technical benefits. They are easily refuted. So I look at an offset club and my mind just says "FUGLY" and "why bother?", and that doesn't help me at all.

 

Now having said that, I can see how having enough offset such that the combined CG of the ball and head is inline with the shaft during impact makes sense. Is this better than a perfectly zero offset club without considering the ball's mass and CG? Not to me. It's just different and I can see a technical justification for both designs. But any more offset than this just means the head is going to bend the face angle and shaft MORE in the act of the swing (all other things equal).

[DeNinny]

Where are all the offset baseball bats, tennis rackets, and hockey sticks?

 

Why don't these manufacturers pick up on the offset golf club manufacturer's "technology"?

 

(Sarcasm intended with this post.)

[Sir Slicealot]

What is Fugly an acronym for? Freaking Unbelievably Good Looking Yaknow? Or is there some technical explanation of the increase in proficiency like ohmagosh get this hideous instrument back in the bag! Ping users please deploy head covers or rain covers at all times. Thanks, The world with eyeballs.