1978-9 Spalding Top Flite Pro Forged irons

[The Aspidistra in the Hall]

Thanks for posting BR. Gave me chance to take a walk down memory lane seeing posts from some of the old 'faces'. Where did the time go?

[Shallowface]

On 5/3/2024 at 10:09 PM, bullrambler said:

I still have the Spalding Top Flite Pro forged irons and took them out in the light of day and played a round with them (with the old grips). So when I got home I changed the grips for new ones. I usually use a mid size grip so I lost about 3 swing weight points one them. There now sitting at about C 8.5 and this is a bit light. I was looking at the sole and they appear like they have a negative bounce sole on them. Kinda like some of the older Hogan irons. So I'm going to do a little bend and see if I can improve the bounce on the soles. Then I'll take these irons out again and see how they perform. I'll probably do 1 degree and try them out; and if needed bend them 1 more degree. I may add a bit of lead tape to get a bit more swing weight on them. I'll report back after I go through these changes. As mentioned before these are "Registered" irons so that means that they were built to a specification at the time of assembly. I don't want to change them too much - But some changes may be necessary to get the improvement out of them.

I played some of my best golf with these from 1979-82.  Bought them from Edwin Watts mail order.  $199 for 2-PW. $109 for 4 laminated woods. The persimmon were the same price and why I made the choice I did is lost on me at this point.  $29 each for the 1 iron and Sand Wedge.

 

The sole on these as I recall is a bit wider than on most blades but I do agree they have a negative bounce.  As with the Hogans they tended to want to sit open at address and I think that was the reason for that design as it seemed most good players of that day played with the clubface open at address to some degree.  Back then the courses I played were watered only by occasional rain and spilled beer so I didn't notice the sole so much.

 

I sold them in 1982 and whined about it for years after.  Some time later I acquired a used set of them.  By that time the local courses had changed into lush green sponges where the only drop for casual water would have been in the parking lot.  They didn't agree with me at all and I sold those too and never looked back.  But I still believe they were a beautiful and well made club and an excellent tool in the right hands.

 

A comment about swingweight and oversized grips.  I would proceed with caution regarding adding weight to the clubhead to satisfy the swingweight scale, as the clubs may start to feel really heavy at some point.  I recall Ralph Maltby writing about making a 5 iron that weighed several pounds but had a D2 swingweight to prove there was more to balance in a golf club than that reading on a scale.  I think it's a completely different situation if one were to cut an inch or two off a modern long driver without doing something to add some weight back to the head.  I see a lot of those experiments traded in at Play It Again Sports because it didn't work.        

Edited May 8 by Shallowface

[cold_war_era_golfer]

5 hours ago, Shallowface said:

I played some of my best golf with these from 1979-82.  Bought them from Edwin Watts mail order.  $199 for 2-PW. $109 for 4 laminated woods. The persimmon were the same price and why I made the choice I did is lost on me at this point.  $29 each for the 1 iron and Sand Wedge.

 

The sole on these as I recall is a bit wider than on most blades but I do agree they have a negative bounce.  As with the Hogans they tended to want to sit open at address and I think that was the reason for that design as it seemed most good players of that day played with the clubface open at address to some degree.  Back then the courses I played were watered only by occasional rain and spilled beer so I didn't notice the sole so much.

 

I sold them in 1982 and whined about it for years after.  Some time later I acquired a used set of them.  By that time the local courses had changed into lush green sponges where the only drop for casual water would have been in the parking lot.  They didn't agree with me at all and I sold those too and never looked back.  But I still believe they were a beautiful and well made club and an excellent tool in the right hands.

 

A comment about swingweight and oversized grips.  I would proceed with caution regarding adding weight to the clubhead to satisfy the swingweight scale, as the clubs may start to feel really heavy at some point.  I recall Ralph Maltby writing about making a 5 iron that weighed several pounds but had a D2 swingweight to prove there was more to balance in a golf club than that reading on a scale.  I think it's a completely different situation if one were to cut an inch or two off a modern long driver without doing something to add some weight back to the head.  I see a lot of those experiments traded in at Play It Again Sports because it didn't work.        

Love the catalog pages!  Do you have any from the 60s?  I have Spalding 1965-69 and looking for the earlier 60s ones.

[Shallowface]

17 hours ago, cold_war_era_golfer said:

Love the catalog pages!  Do you have any from the 60s?  I have Spalding 1965-69 and looking for the earlier 60s ones.

Unfortunately I don't.

 

It's too bad Jim Kaplan didn't do one of his "Kaplan books"' on Spalding.  Perhaps he didn't have access to the catalogs.

 

One thing I have never been able to find is a spec sheet on the Spalding "half woods."  The only thing I have is on the 3 1/2 offered in the Elite and Executive sets pictured above.  I always figured that the 3 1/2, for example, was a 3 wood shaft with 4 wood loft, but based on the specs above that doesn't exactly seem to be the case.

 

I've put extensions in a number of 4 and 5 woods over the years trying to use that concept.  The best one I did was with a Ping Eye2 5 wood that was about C7 at its standard length and with a one inch extension was still only D3.  That thing was money for both distance and ease of use.   

[bullrambler]

Awesome catalogue photos. And I was happy to read that I wasn't alone in seeing the negative bounce on these irons. Even though the iron set didn't need to be tweaked I still bent them 2* weak to see if I could get a level sole or more bounce. As a result of the bend - nothing that is very noticeable. I recently pulled some muscles on my neck and shoulder trying to lift and move a garden tractor so no golf for a few days.