Why can't I hit my new irons to a consistent distance?

[Striker Ace]

Strike inconsistencies you probably went up in handicap and need a SGI club rather than a players club.

[LukeDonaldsTiger]

I made the same observations. As a 19 index, I am NOT a consistent ball striker, but I hit it on the grooves most of the time. If I don’t chunk or top one, or have extreme toe hits, the distance and spin variance I get is very manageable. I play 6 year old cavity backs recommended for single hcp players in 4-6i and 19 year old musclebacks in 7-PW.

One of my regular playing partners, a 14 index, plays P790 irons and struggles with this issue as well. We both think it’s a spin variance thing. The „flyers“ seem to roll out significantly more than the „true distance“ shots. Haven’t figured out the spot(s) on the iron face that yield flyers, yet. It’s very annoying and he‘s thinking about going to a less „techy“ iron. No foam, just cavity.

This is entirely anecdotal, but two people with exactly the opposite kind of equipment in the mid hcp range, so I thought it was relevant. Not trying to stir the „blades vs. GI“ pot.

[Hubb1e]

I had to get home to confirm the old shafts. Taylormade rifle precision s90. I can't find the weight but they feel the same when holding the head. The club is from 2002 so not much information that far back. I did an experiment. I tried juggling the ball on the face of both clubs and I found the old irons seemed to juggle more consistently. No idea if that means anything. I promised my old irons to a friend who can't afford new equipment so I would feel bad if I backed out of that agreement. I'm having fun with this regardless. The engineer in me is loving the scandal that the promised forgiveness is suspect. Then I remember how much these cost me ?

[Nels55]

@Hubb1e, I am curious what ball you are playing? Urethane or surlyn? Is it the same ball that you used to get fitted?

[Hubb1e]

@Nels55 Pro V1x but I'll sometimes also play the standard Pro V1 because I have some laying around. I don't notice a difference between the two. I'm sure there is one. I'm just not good enough to notice. I was fitted with the Pro V1. It wasn't an option during the fitting.

[WristySwing]

You answered your own question. Go back to my original post to you in this thread. I said the reason you are seeing such massive distance dispersion is because you are coming too far from the inside and flipping at it to save it. Your toe miss all but confirms this. Juggling a golf ball on the face and seeing how consistently they bounce is not in any way a measure of how consistent the face is. It is a measure of how good your hand-eye coordination is.

The reason you are hitting these poorly sometimes and fantastic other times with balls ripping through the air is spin. This is a mega easy fix. Bend them 2* weaker loft wise and change golf balls. You could see 1500 RPMs of spin spike in about 30 minutes doing this without you changing a thing about your swing or your shafts/heads.

[xoxo_tw]

I had a similair experience with a set of PRGR super egg irons with superlight shafts, My regular 8 iron is about 120, sometimes I hit it 140, and a little fat could end up not even 90. The light shafts gave me unstable club path thru the swing. I ended up selling the junk and picked up an old set CBs with heavy steel shafts, that took my iron game from being 30% succesful up to being 90% on spot !

[talktoafade]

Let's be honest -- for anyone who's not scratch or better (probably better), quality of strike is the main issue.

However, even at my crappy level (9 hcp), I found many years ago that I had tighter dispersion, esp. in distance, with a blade or other simpler design vs. an iron with helping tech. Had a set of Callaway X-12s a long, long time ago and sometimes the ball would fly 10-20 yards longer than stock distance. Really frustrating when you pure it, have the right club for the right distance, and the ball flies the green. Also found with the SGI and GI clubs that it was very hard to keep the ball from ballooning into the wind.

Have played blades since then: for many years, a set of 1972 Apexes that I found in mint condition for $35 in a bin at a used sporting goods store and, as of about a year ago, a used set of Mizuno MP-68s.

 

 

 

[Pepperturbo]

I have a few friends that hit their irons all sorts of freaky long and silly short distances. IMO it's because their swing is NOT consistent (grooved), and possibly the wrong shafts. I don't typically say the wrong club heads because heads don't affect distances nearly as much as shaft profiles.

[ChipNRun]

Advice from golf pro I once worked with: "Get golf clubs for the swing you have today, not the swing you hope to have next year."

As a 15 HDCP player, it appears you may have gone "a bridge too far" with the player's distance irons. As others have noted, GI irons often give better consistency for so-so shots than player's distance.

Do you have a golf pro who instructs you? If so, get a tune-up lesson and make sure something hasn't crept into your set-up that causing problems with your new irons. He could also advise you if some Gi cavity-backs might be better for your game.

 

[billybaroo]

If you signature is accurate and you are 19hcp, that is the issue, not the clubs. Sorry to break it to you but a 8 iron with 50 yards of front to back dispersion comes down the the swing.

[BiggErn]

If you have a consistent strike you will have consistent results no matter what club you use. Also everyone should take anything Crossfield does with a grain of salt. For every long winded video he does he’ll do 5 more contradicting himself.

[DMartini]

had to Google a TM 360 as it was before my time, could it be the OP is going to need a bit of time to dial in his Apex irons distance wise, the TM's didnt look all that "tech in the head" heavy like the Apex and we have all read the complaints from guys who say they just cant come to grips with Callys Cup Face 360 tech.

agree with what some are saying about swing & shaft issues also, maybe the TM's being low tech hid some of the OP's problems and the Apex being a hot face is showing them up.

[mahonie]

Hit the nail on the head...almost literally. When you realise that MOI applies to the whole club including the shaft and not just the club-head, club selection becomes a whole new ball game.

[maamold]

There was an older magazine article that tested that and found the same thing that Crossfield saw.

[golfarnold]

The clubs you bought, Callaway Apex 19 are the hardest to hit “game improvement“ clubs on the market. Been there, same result. They also likely have less bounce than your 360s, meaning they may be sticking in the grass rather than having enough bounce to go through the grass so you can make good contact. You cannot figure that out having an indoor fitting on a mat, again same thing happened to me soon as I got to the grass, they got stuck often . The fitter should take responsibility for that. They should not be classified as game improvement, they are more of a players club, a mistake by Callaway. Don’t get me wrong I’ve never had anything but a Callaway driver or Fairway Woods and they are the best, but many companies don’t classify their irons correctly. Check the “Bounce stat” of the new irons versus your old ones, and that should prove my point. Good luck. I sold mine immediately and got back about 3/4 on my dollar.

[DrLemon]

Check your swing speed/ shafts and compare to your strikes. My guess you have light and regular flex shafts and inconsistent swing speeds (or progressively getting faster over time). If you hit it solid with an easy swing the ball probably goes a mile. If you mishit it swinging too slow or fast it probably goes random yardages. Swinging really fast with a high flex shaft causes lots of spin and ball doesn’t go anywhere, especially if you’re hitting into any wind.

Second check the loft gapping on your irons. New irons are often strong lofted with inconsistent gaps leaving irregular yardages between clubs. This is just something you’ll have to learn over time. No change in shaft flex will fix this.

[xmanhockey7]

This is extremely odd. I’ve fit plenty of students into Callaway Apex and similar irons. Will their bad shots with a long iron be well short of their good shots? Yeah. That’s pretty normal with any iron set.

[BiggErn]

He claims to hit a 230 yard 3 iron (lol ?) then turn around and hit it 120.

[xmanhockey7]

I mean unless it’s topped, hit pretty thin, or fat that’s definitely odd.

[ronnbee]

how many sets do you buy? at least 10

[WristySwing]

There is a lot of bad advice going on in this thread. @Hubb1e please listen to what I am saying. I have been fitting for nearly 17 years. I have seen literally everything and fit literally everything. The clubs ARE NOT the issue here. You are. A blade is absolutely NOT the right club for you. Tell me, are you good enough to beat any of the top 15 on the LPGA tour? Na Yeon Choi uses Apex Pro irons that have the same cup face technology yours do, yet, unsurprisingly, she has amazing distance control and accuracy with them. A good swing can hit anything from the fattest soled, extreme offset irons like a PING G710 to the most razor thin blade. If you have such extreme variance in your low point at contact, it is not the heads or shafts, it is you. A blade will not make you a better ball striker, that is a myth. All that is going to do is cause you to mishit it even more often because the sweet spot on a blade or small CB is even more precise.
90% of the input you have been provided are by arm chair "fitters" who are basing their entire argument on using blades as a 15 handicap because they do. I can promise you there's probably only about 10 people on this website IN TOTAL who actually need blades, whatever that means. Nobody needs a blade just like nobody needs a Maserati. They are for superior handling for your skilled players/drivers. At a 15, you are not one of these people, yet. I have sold about 2 sets of blades in my entire existence as a fitter. There is nothing a small cavity back iron can't do that a blade can. Are you better than Brooks Koepka? Are you better than Jordan Spieth? Phil Mickelson? Kenny Perry on the Champions Tour uses Super Game Improvement irons in the R7 irons, which have strong lofts and cup faces. Could you beat him head to head?
I suspect you know the answer to all of these is no, so why would you play clubs that a touring pro won't play when they play this sport for money? Go talk to your fitter about your concerns and call up your local golf coach. If needed bend weak and buy a box of Bridgestone balls I recommended for added spin.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcl-PNG_HAs

[mahonie]

I would be really worried if you’ve been fitting for 17 years and seen and done everything but don’t recognise that the the Callaway Apex 19 Forged is a game improvement club and not a blade. Just killed any reputation you may have had just there...

[billybaroo]

Where did he state that the Apex 19 is a blade?

[Valtiel]

I don't think he was implying that his irons were blades since he went on to say "Na Yeon Choi uses Apex Pro irons that have the same cup face technology yours do". I'm pretty sure he was referring to people in this thread stating that GI/Distance irons have worse distance dispersion than blades, suggesting that blades might be a better fit (they aren't obviously).

[tannyhoban]

The 360's have about 2mm more offset and likely less bounce. Published lie angles within 0.5 degrees, so basically a push.

The change visually and strike wise plus the change in feel of shafts has likely crept into your swing.

Callaway doesn't publish bounce, but I'm betting it's influencing the quality of your strikes. In my experience Rifles and Nippons are two very different shafts.

The change in offset can lead to playing tricks with your visualization and concept of where to setup.

You will have to decide whether those changes add up to something or nothing.

The distance difference you post is definitely clubhead at impact. Nothing more. Nothing less.

 

[Pepperturbo]

Need to check your facts... Callaway Apex Pro irons are Game Improvement irons very similar to my old Callaway X-Forged and my 620CB irons; none are blades though they play similarly. I don't qualify as an arm chair fitter either. But since taking up the game, I have had a love affair with blades and haven't played in the US Open. Dang, I am not making the cut yet a measly 2-5 index golfer that currently enjoys new 620MBs, plus an old custom MacGregor 1025M set, and prior Titleist 670MBs. Also, at 40 learned the game with Mizuno MB's. My first round with 620MBs was 75. Stinky, I know but gotta start somewhere. lol.

You are correct about one thing, blades are NOT needed BY ANYONE, NOT even the 10 you allude to;, neither are cars like Porsche GT3, my other love. I like going really fast on the track. IMO how many blades a fitter has sold has no bearing on much anything either, other than maybe a fitters bias. Nobody needs them but many want them. Whether they get them and can play the game using them is a choice and results vary. Have a good day.

[Pepperturbo]

He starts with "A blade is absolutely NOT the right club for you." NO exact statement, INFERS. He goes on to talk about LPGA player that plays Apex Pro, etc.

[Philflop1]

Apex Pro and the Apex are not really game improvement irons. MPF on both those heads are below 500, putting them in the conventional category . That is why they are classified in the Players Distance category.

[jyett21]

Right on the money with the previous answers in strike quality.