Cavity vs. Blade Testing

[RolandofGilead]

1 hour ago, Fairway14 said:

 

Not just you and your playing partners. Tour players have reached their status mostly because they all are able to consistently get the ball up and down when they miss a green. Nobody has great ball striking rounds every time they play, so every player does miss greens. On the poor ball striking days a Tour player is able to get the missed greens up and down to shoot 70 or  71. A pretender Tour player does not have the consistently great short game so on his poor ball striking days he shoots 73 or 74.

Strokes gained statistics have shown this to not be the case. If the goal is shooting lower scores, superior tee shots and approach shots are at least as important as short game and putting, and likely more so.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/progolfnow.com/2019/08/28/strokes-gained-2019-iron-will/amp/

 

 These are averages, but everyone is different. Spieth gets more out of a strong short game while Rahm makes his money from elite ball striking:

 

Tee / Approach / Around Green / Putting (from PGA Tour site)

 

Spieth = -.01 / 0.59 / 0.43 / 0.44 = 1.45 total

Rahm = 0.85 / 0.76 / 0.22 / 0.20 = 2.03 total

Edited July 20, 2021 by RolandofGilead

[RolandofGilead]

On 7/18/2021 at 2:44 PM, BSTRONG1313 said:

I don’t post on here very much but I finished some testing a few days ago of my current Z745 irons and Z945 muscleback irons that I recently bought used. I’m a 4 handicap with high swing speed but I’m definitely not what you call a ball striker so I’ve never tried blades. Recently, I’ve been curious and wanted to do my own testing to see what the actual forgiveness losses are from a players cavity to a blade.

 

It’s not a perfect test because the irons have slightly different shafts and grips and there really wasn’t any way for me to make sure there were exactly the same strikes but it was good enough for me and I thought the data was interesting enough to share. Take what you want from it. I hit about 50 balls with each 7 iron, alternating every 5-6 shots, on GCHawk into number 5 at Spyglass Hill. I looked at a lot of data but I really only cared about carry distances and ball speed to measure forgiveness on reasonably decent shots. I took out any shots that I felt were awful swings and anything that registered as being 13mm outside of the middle in any direction. So this is not a test of sever mis-hits but of ok to good shots. There were still plenty of misses for both models. 

 

If you are not a data person feel free to just skip to the end to find my conclusions.

 

As an FYI, I have a background in statistics and analytics so I approached this as I would any other project and tried to even out or at least recognize different variables so it be a

I’ll get down into the data and my conclusions below but here were some semi-anecdotal findings:

-Thin shots were almost a wash between the two irons. As long as I didn’t blade it, thin shots generally ended up ok for both models.

- As expected, toe and fat shots were generally punished more in the blades. For example, I hit two shots that felt similar a few minutes apart and both measured about 7mm high and 8mm in the toe. The 945 shot finished about 25 yards short of average and I would have lost the ball on that hole. The 745 made it to the front right fairway and finished about 15 yards short of average. That was the biggest discrepancy I saw.

- The MB spun about 500 RPM more and the std. deviations were about the same.

- I wasn’t trying or testing for this but I didn’t notice any difference in being able to shape the ball or anything like that.

 

Now down to the data

For context: the pin was at 201 yards but I wasn’t really trying to hit the pin just take normal shots at the middle of the green.

 

	Ball Speed
	Z745	Z945
AVG	131.0	129.2
Std Dev.	3.3	3.7

 

 

	Carry Distance
	Z745	Z945
AVG	202.4	198.2
Std Dev.	6.3	6.6

 

You can see that the 745 had a smaller standard deviation for both ball speed and carry distance. This was driven by the blade having several shot were the ball speed dropped to under 123 MPH and wound up finishing about 15 yards short of average. The 745 only had 2 shots finish 12 yards or more under the average.

The blade had 4 shots 10 yards over the avg carry and the Z745 only had 3. So not really statistically significant.

However, the difference in standard deviation is just 0.4 in ball speed and 0.3 in carry distance. Looking at my 8 worst shots with each model, the blade was only about 3.5 yards worse compared to the average than with the cavity. So I wouldn't say that is huge punishment but when playing an actual hole, I had a handful more shots finish in the front bunker with the blade than with the cavity so 3 yards can make a difference. 

 

Here is where I think things get interesting. 

 

 

Taking you back to high school statistics, these charts show the whole range of shots and the blue box shows the shots that were in the 25% - 75% range. So, I would say the best 50% of my shots are in those blue boxes. And you can see that the Z945 box is about 2 yards smaller. So, my best shots were actually better with the blades than with the cavities.

The number of shots within + or – 5 yards of average with the Z745 was 54% and with the Z945 it was 66%. So out of 50 shots, I hit 6 more balls within 5 yards of my average than with the Z745!

 

After all of that, I think I can say that in this case, my worst shots were just slightly worse with the MB and my best shots were slightly better. You could definitely argue I was more consistent with the blade. I’ve decided I’m going to play them from 7-PW and see how it goes. I’ll update if I have any conclusions one way or the other.

Awesome study! I note that you did not mention directional accuracy or proximity. Any comments about those?

Edited July 20, 2021 by RolandofGilead

[driveandputtmachine]

I did something similar with the 765 and Z Forged blades a few years back.  I played MP-14 blades part of my time in college and when my handicap really got low again I was wondering if I could get back into blades.

 

Now I say this saying that EVERYONE IS DIFFERENT, and just because it was this way for me, doesn't mean it will be for you.  I went looking for the data I collected in 4 rounds and then 4 different practice sessions, but could not find it, so this is from memory.   I had a PW, 8 Iron, and 6 iron in each, with very close head weights, same loft, and same shafts.  Granted the CPM was 1 or 2 different, but pretty much they were the same.

 

1. PW - I found little to no difference in distance or dispersion with the PW.  Yardages with the trackman, were very close allowing for slight strike variances.  Carry distance was almost the same.  Clubs performed this way on the course as well.  No discernable difference anywhere.

 

2. 8 Iron - Here the difference was almost negligible.  The dispersion (left and right) was almost the same.  Dispersion (short and long), the CB had a max difference of 5 yards.  The blade had a max difference of 6.5 yards.  Spin and launch were close, spin was a tad higher with the blade (about 120RPM), decent angle was within a degree of each other.  I hit 10 shots with each club approaching the green all four rounds.  I averaged 3.0 shots to hole out with the CB and 3.1 with the blade.  All in all I figured my small sample size, I could play either club. I do not remember my average distance from the hole, but the CB was better, and actually had slightly better good shots and better bad shots, but again, small sample size.

 

3. 6 Iron - Here the difference started to rear it's ugly little head.  Dispersion (right and left) was still pretty close and non game changing.  Dispersion (short and long) was some issues.  The CB had a difference of 6 yards, and the blade had a difference of 10 yards.  On well struck shots the blade still spun a tad more and launch and decent were still very close.   On the course with approach shots I averaged 3.2 to hole out with the CB and 3.6 with the blade.  I do not remember average distance from the hole, but with the CB was better overall and the blades good shots were a bit better.  The bad shots were just a whole lot worse.  I averaged almost half a shot worse every time I hit the blade 6 iron.  I am not sure where the 7 would rank, but the 5 and 4 would have been as bad or worse.  I ended up in a split set.  565 4 iron, 5 iron. 765 in the 6,7,8 and z forged in the 9 and PW.

 

Now this is for me and MY SWING.  You and your swing may hit the center more often than I do.  What I also noticed with the trackman and it seemed to play out on the course was that with the same swing (path, face angle, attack angle) they produce almost exactly the same amount of sidespin.  I also noticed testing the 565 the same thing.  The 565 was more forgiving on off center than the 7 or z forged, but didn't make slices or hooks less pronounced, if you call a 2 yard difference between the z forged and 565 huge and say you can work a blade better and notice this then you should be on tour.

 

I guess I could have practiced more and gotten my swing more repeatable.  I played two or three times a week and practiced once or twice a week depending upon weather, so not sure how much more I could do, and why would I?  I was playing good golf, hitting the ball well, having a good time.  I am not trying for national am events, and mainly playing at my club.

[NRJyzr]

10 minutes ago, driveandputtmachine said:

I did something similar with the 765 and Z Forged blades a few years back.  I played MP-14 blades part of my time in college and when my handicap really got low again I was wondering if I could get back into blades.

 

Now I say this saying that EVERYONE IS DIFFERENT, and just because it was this way for me, doesn't mean it will be for you.  I went looking for the data I collected in 4 rounds and then 4 different practice sessions, but could not find it, so this is from memory.   I had a PW, 8 Iron, and 6 iron in each, with very close head weights, same loft, and same shafts.  Granted the CPM was 1 or 2 different, but pretty much they were the same.

 

1. PW - I found little to no difference in distance or dispersion with the PW.  Yardages with the trackman, were very close allowing for slight strike variances.  Carry distance was almost the same.  Clubs performed this way on the course as well.  No discernable difference anywhere.

 

2. 8 Iron - Here the difference was almost negligible.  The dispersion (left and right) was almost the same.  Dispersion (short and long), the CB had a max difference of 5 yards.  The blade had a max difference of 6.5 yards.  Spin and launch were close, spin was a tad higher with the blade (about 120RPM), decent angle was within a degree of each other.  I hit 10 shots with each club approaching the green all four rounds.  I averaged 3.0 shots to hole out with the CB and 3.1 with the blade.  All in all I figured my small sample size, I could play either club. I do not remember my average distance from the hole, but the CB was better, and actually had slightly better good shots and better bad shots, but again, small sample size.

 

3. 6 Iron - Here the difference started to rear it's ugly little head.  Dispersion (right and left) was still pretty close and non game changing.  Dispersion (short and long) was some issues.  The CB had a difference of 6 yards, and the blade had a difference of 10 yards.  On well struck shots the blade still spun a tad more and launch and decent were still very close.   On the course with approach shots I averaged 3.2 to hole out with the CB and 3.6 with the blade.  I do not remember average distance from the hole, but with the CB was better overall and the blades good shots were a bit better.  The bad shots were just a whole lot worse.  I averaged almost half a shot worse every time I hit the blade 6 iron.  I am not sure where the 7 would rank, but the 5 and 4 would have been as bad or worse.  I ended up in a split set.  565 4 iron, 5 iron. 765 in the 6,7,8 and z forged in the 9 and PW.

 

Now this is for me and MY SWING.  You and your swing may hit the center more often than I do.  What I also noticed with the trackman and it seemed to play out on the course was that with the same swing (path, face angle, attack angle) they produce almost exactly the same amount of sidespin.  I also noticed testing the 565 the same thing.  The 565 was more forgiving on off center than the 7 or z forged, but didn't make slices or hooks less pronounced, if you call a 2 yard difference between the z forged and 565 huge and say you can work a blade better and notice this then you should be on tour.

 

I guess I could have practiced more and gotten my swing more repeatable.  I played two or three times a week and practiced once or twice a week depending upon weather, so not sure how much more I could do, and why would I?  I was playing good golf, hitting the ball well, having a good time.  I am not trying for national am events, and mainly playing at my club.

 

What you're describing coincides with something Tom Wishon has posted about several times.  That being, there's essentially no benefit to perimeter weighting, starting with the 8 iron and moving down through the set.  

 

[driveandputtmachine]

10 minutes ago, NRJyzr said:

 

What you're describing coincides with something Tom Wishon has posted about several times.  That being, there's essentially no benefit to perimeter weighting, starting with the 8 iron and moving down through the set.  

 

Well considering Tom Wishon knew more about club making 20 years ago and how it benefits strikes and swings than I will ever know in my entire life, my time doing this test makes even more sense now.  

 

I was really hoping the first reply would've been, play the blades those bad shots and higher scores will make you work harder at getting better and make you a better player in the long run.  

[BSTRONG1313]

11 hours ago, RolandofGilead said:

Awesome study! I note that you did not mention directional accuracy or proximity. Any comments about those?

I didn't include accuracy or dispersion for a couple of reasons: 1) my iron swing is pretty awful right now so it was perfect for a forgiveness test, not so much for an accuracy test. 2) I didn't think it was a fair fight since the club components (shaft, grips, lie angle) are a little different. 3) I was playing a hole so the data would have been dramatized, for example, if I hit the ball straight but just caught the front bunker it would appear to be a much worse shot than if I hit a big fade right that caught the green and rolled down left. 

 

For what it's worth, both heads were pretty similar in how many misses finished right and left of the target line. 

 

 

[Pepperturbo]

5 hours ago, NRJyzr said:

there's essentially no benefit to perimeter weighting, starting with the 8 iron and moving down through the set.  

I inclined to agree with that conclusion, having had 620 CBs next to 620 MBs during a round hitting two balls.  Titleist 620 CB 35' 7 iron is workable both ways, but perimeter weighting prevents it from allowing the user to fine-tune a draw or fade like with 620 MB 35' 7 iron. 

 

This is my way of testing the difference.  I used 8i's on a little Par 3, 148yds, felt pretty much like the same club, except perception was MB needed a bit more purposeful smack.  Last weekend on a 155yd Par 3 with a pond running alongside the tee box to up front of the green.  Pin was in the front right.  Using CB I hit a nice baby draw straight down right side, turned it over and finished past pin 7'; using MB 35' 7 iron able to more accurately tune the baby draw shot, down the right side turning it over less, got to within 4'.  Difference was using CB, DASH ball hit bounced, checked and dribbled to 7', as opposed to MB DASH ball, hit and stuck, damn near in its ball mark.  I missed both birdie putts, go figure. 😛

 

[phizzy30]

Awesome post.  A good striker will notice marginal differences between CB and MB on solid strikes.  Even slightly thin shots are a wash like you stated.  MBs are def more punishing on mis hits off the toe so nothing new there.  Thanks for putting up actual hard data though. 

[NRJyzr]

1 hour ago, Pepperturbo said:

I missed both birdie putts, go figure

 

The golf gods can be capricious....

😐

[hammergolf]

This was very eye opening to me…

 

 

[SoCalTitleist]

Amazing that old Top Flite performed very well .

[hammergolf]

12 hours ago, SoCalTitleist said:

Amazing that old Top Flite performed very well .

Yeah, the only thing I questioned was the amount of good strikes he used for the top flite iron was 3 times as many as the mavrik iron. Hard to believe he could hit the blade in the center more times than the mavrik.

[Ri_Redneck]

Just love these Blade/Cavity pi55ing matches! Personally, having played non/very low offset irons for as many years as I have... My ball contact goes to crap when I try to hit an offset GI/SGI club. Takes weeks before I can get comfortable with it and then I'm screwed up playing my regular clubs. After The Open, I was checking out the P7MC cause it's a good looking players cavity with little offset. I looked up the MOI and realized it was virtually identical to the MP5s that I play. So what would I have to gain by spending $1850 ($1200 on new irons, $500 on new graphite shafts and $150 on grips)? Not nearly enough to justify the cost. Maltby did a great job measuring all the head specs on a TON of old and new irons when doing the MPF thing. I find it a great resource to compare specs measured using the same devices and same techniques. I think everyone would do well to check it out when entering these discussions!

 

BTW, my MP15s and MP25 have a much higher MOI than the P7MC, so if I want some forgiveness, I'll just use them! They're already paid for.

 

BT

Edited July 21, 2021 by Ri_Redneck

[chipa]

On 7/19/2021 at 6:41 PM, TigerInTheWoods said:

Also have ADHD. Symptom wise maybe a bit different. I'm just saying, so many higher HCs on here claim to use blades because "they make them focus". Everyone should play what they want to play, but it's generally an ego thing - "I have blades in the bag". I've been there. They look good. Launch monitor doesn't lie though. Just about every single player no matter what speed starts to get helped at the long end of the bag with a CB of sorts. 

 

Smaller clubs help me play better based on my lowest hc (8) when I played Cleveland TA3's with an MPF of 394. I believe it has to do with the less offset helps my hook and smaller head convinces me to swing my irons at 80%. In fact it could probably be justified to propose that many higher hc's could hit blades better than their GI irons if they swung at 80%, in other words they try to hit their 7 iron only 150 instead of 180.

Edited July 25, 2021 by chipa

[Fairway14]

1 minute ago, chipa said:

. In fact I could probably be justified that many higher hc's could hit blades better than their GI irons if they swung at 80%, in other words try to hit their 7 iron only 150 instead of 180.

Definitely true !

[chipa]

On 7/21/2021 at 11:07 AM, hammergolf said:

Yeah, the only thing I questioned was the amount of good strikes he used for the top flite iron was 3 times as many as the mavrik iron. Hard to believe he could hit the blade in the center more times than the mavrik.

 

I'm a mid hc and I too hit smaller blades/cb's better because I swing easier as the smaller head requires more discipline to hit well. I am basing this observation on my hc which was the lowest when I played irons with an MPF of 394.

[FormerBigDaddy]

On 7/20/2021 at 9:47 PM, hammergolf said:

This was very eye opening to me…

 

 

That video is crazy but makes sense. The first thing that I thought of was the discussions over the p790. How some people love them and others noted that sometimes they had huge flyer strikes out of nowhere. One thing that I can say about my p7tw is they are incredibly consistent and I have been shocked from the beginning on just how little distance I lose on mishits. 

[chipa]

I was browsing over the MPF ratings and have been surprised at the variability of MPF ratings for solid blades, some are in the 100's and others are at 400, which is where one generally sees small players cb's, so some apparently are going to be easier to hit than others. The highest MPF rating I've seen for a blade was the MP-14 at 457. It was very popular in the 90's and I believe TW played them. BTW, 457 is higher than my DCI cb's.

[Fairway14]

On 7/19/2021 at 8:31 PM, RolandofGilead said:

Strokes gained statistics have shown this to not be the case. If the goal is shooting lower scores, superior tee shots and approach shots are at least as important as short game and putting, and likely more so.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/progolfnow.com/2019/08/28/strokes-gained-2019-iron-will/amp/

 

 These are averages, but everyone is different. Spieth gets more out of a strong short game while Rahm makes his money from elite ball striking:

 

Tee / Approach / Around Green / Putting (from PGA Tour site)

 

Spieth = -.01 / 0.59 / 0.43 / 0.44 = 1.45 total

Rahm = 0.85 / 0.76 / 0.22 / 0.20 = 2.03 total

 

For current Tour pros, maybe.  Again, more than any other factor sensational green side chipping-pitching-putting is why , on a poor ball striking day, a Tour pro is able to shoot 71.  When the poseurs and pretenders have a poor ball striking day they shoot 73 , 74 etc...

For the Tour pro game, where every player in the field has a sensational short game , it may make sense to focus on extra tee box distance or striking approach shots closer to the hole.

For the amateur game, including players trying to break 80, 90, or 100, improving short game, making more up and downs, is the best sense way to lower scores.

[RolandofGilead]

2 hours ago, Fairway14 said:

 

For current Tour pros, maybe.  Again, more than any other factor sensational green side chipping-pitching-putting is why , on a poor ball striking day, a Tour pro is able to shoot 71.  When the poseurs and pretenders have a poor ball striking day they shoot 73 , 74 etc...

For the Tour pro game, where every player in the field has a sensational short game , it may make sense to focus on extra tee box distance or striking approach shots closer to the hole.

For the amateur game, including players trying to break 80, 90, or 100, improving short game, making more up and downs, is the best sense way to lower scores.

Agree to disagree.

[chipa]

2 hours ago, Fairway14 said:

 

For current Tour pros, maybe.  Again, more than any other factor sensational green side chipping-pitching-putting is why , on a poor ball striking day, a Tour pro is able to shoot 71.  When the poseurs and pretenders have a poor ball striking day they shoot 73 , 74 etc...

For the Tour pro game, where every player in the field has a sensational short game , it may make sense to focus on extra tee box distance or striking approach shots closer to the hole.

For the amateur game, including players trying to break 80, 90, or 100, improving short game, making more up and downs, is the best sense way to lower scores.

 

A focus on the short game will help anyone lower their hc prob. 5-15 strokes depending on how bad their technique is. However, this is also subject to how unrepeatable their swing is because on really bad days the score can elevate 20-30 strokes easily. I am teaching a friend play golf as well as my daughters and my focus at this point is the swing to get them to the point that they can get off the tee sufficiently well, which at that point we will start working on their short game.

[betarhoalphadelta]

2 hours ago, Fairway14 said:

 

For the amateur game, including players trying to break 80, 90, or 100, improving short game, making more up and downs, is the best sense way to lower scores.

 

Disagree. While you strawman SG analysis into the idea that "distance is king", what it said was that most higher caps lose the most strokes in "long game" rather than short game or putting relative to scratch. "Long game" means everything >100y from the hole. 

 

The answer to that isn't to chase distance, it's to build a more repeatable swing and ensure better ballstriking, thus becoming a more reliable player with full swings.

 

I'm a perfect example:

 

 

From 200 in, I'm slightly better than a bogey golfer. As we start getting farther from the hole, I get much closer to being a double bogey golfer. (Note: sample size is small on the par 5s as 70% of my rounds are on a par-60 3670y course with no par 5s).

 

The only way that can be possible is if I'm losing more strokes in the long game than the medium to short game. It's not like my short game gets worse on longer holes. But longer holes just give me more opportunities to hit poor shots in the long game. 

 

My game is typical of Broadie's analysis... Long game is a bigger hindrance to high cap scoring than short game, and improving the long game (consistency and ballstriking, not necessarily distance) is the fastest way to reduce scores.

[Fairway14]

25 minutes ago, betarhoalphadelta said:

 

Disagree. While you strawman SG analysis into the idea that "distance is king", what it said was that most higher caps lose the most strokes in "long game" rather than short game or putting relative to scratch. "Long game" means everything >100y from the hole. 

 

The answer to that isn't to chase distance, it's to build a more repeatable swing and ensure better ballstriking, thus becoming a more reliable player with full swings.

 

I'm a perfect example:

 

 

From 200 in, I'm slightly better than a bogey golfer. As we start getting farther from the hole, I get much closer to being a double bogey golfer. (Note: sample size is small on the par 5s as 70% of my rounds are on a par-60 3670y course with no par 5s).

 

The only way that can be possible is if I'm losing more strokes in the long game than the medium to short game. It's not like my short game gets worse on longer holes. But longer holes just give me more opportunities to hit poor shots in the long game. 

 

My game is typical of Broadie's analysis... Long game is a bigger hindrance to high cap scoring than short game, and improving the long game (consistency and ballstriking, not necessarily distance) is the fastest way to reduce scores.

 

I don't know what "strawman" means. I do know that most commentary about Broadie's  findings imply that the traditional guidance of improved short game-putting being the best sense strategy for lowering scores is false.

To your point, it is obvious that improved swing technique and more consistent ball striking is a good thing for any player.

But the reality is that very few players have the discipline to learn and practice the technique that will produce better ball striking. This is why improving short game is the most sensible strategy for lowering scores.

For your own game, if you don't have the desire or time to improve swing technique, I expect that having in the bag only the clubs you can hit consistently straight will help improve your scoring. For example, if a 7-iron is the longest club that you can consistently hit reasonably solid and straight, then have that as the longest club within your bag. When you reach the skill level of hitting every fairway with a 7-iron it is then time to add a 6-iron to the bag. If one can hit most every fairway with a 6-iron it is time to move on to put a 5-iron or hybrid within the bag etc...

Learning proper swing technique is relatively simple, but practicing same to be proficient takes hundreds of hours of practice, Most amateurs don't want to put in the hours at the driving range, they would rather get out on the course (s) and play rounds of golf. Choosing less club from the tee boxes is a way faulty swing amateurs can better keep their ball in position to avoid high scores. This is why traditional golf instruction advocates that amateurs play less club from the tee boxes.

[betarhoalphadelta]

6 minutes ago, Fairway14 said:

 

To your point, it is obvious that improved swing technique and more consistent ball striking is a good thing for any player.

But the reality is that very few players have the discipline to learn and practice the technique that will produce better ball striking. This is why improving short game is the most sensible strategy for lowering scores.

 

 

If they don't have the discipline to improve their long game, what makes you think they'll have the discipline to improve their short game? 

[Fairway14]

12 minutes ago, betarhoalphadelta said:

 

If they don't have the discipline to improve their long game, what makes you think they'll have the discipline to improve their short game? 

 

I don't believe amateurs have the discipline to learn short game technique or practice same. But , the putting stroke is only a few inches long and the chipping stroke no more than a few feet long, so these short strokes are relatively easy to learn/practice and should be top priority.

[bladehunter]

On 7/18/2021 at 4:44 PM, BSTRONG1313 said:

I don’t post on here very much but I finished some testing a few days ago of my current Z745 irons and Z945 muscleback irons that I recently bought used. I’m a 4 handicap with high swing speed but I’m definitely not what you call a ball striker so I’ve never tried blades. Recently, I’ve been curious and wanted to do my own testing to see what the actual forgiveness losses are from a players cavity to a blade.

 

It’s not a perfect test because the irons have slightly different shafts and grips and there really wasn’t any way for me to make sure there were exactly the same strikes but it was good enough for me and I thought the data was interesting enough to share. Take what you want from it. I hit about 50 balls with each 7 iron, alternating every 5-6 shots, on GCHawk into number 5 at Spyglass Hill. I looked at a lot of data but I really only cared about carry distances and ball speed to measure forgiveness on reasonably decent shots. I took out any shots that I felt were awful swings and anything that registered as being 13mm outside of the middle in any direction. So this is not a test of sever mis-hits but of ok to good shots. There were still plenty of misses for both models. 

 

If you are not a data person feel free to just skip to the end to find my conclusions.

 

As an FYI, I have a background in statistics and analytics so I approached this as I would any other project and tried to even out or at least recognize different variables so it be a

I’ll get down into the data and my conclusions below but here were some semi-anecdotal findings:

-Thin shots were almost a wash between the two irons. As long as I didn’t blade it, thin shots generally ended up ok for both models.

- As expected, toe and fat shots were generally punished more in the blades. For example, I hit two shots that felt similar a few minutes apart and both measured about 7mm high and 8mm in the toe. The 945 shot finished about 25 yards short of average and I would have lost the ball on that hole. The 745 made it to the front right fairway and finished about 15 yards short of average. That was the biggest discrepancy I saw.

- The MB spun about 500 RPM more and the std. deviations were about the same.

- I wasn’t trying or testing for this but I didn’t notice any difference in being able to shape the ball or anything like that.

 

Now down to the data

For context: the pin was at 201 yards but I wasn’t really trying to hit the pin just take normal shots at the middle of the green.

 

	Ball Speed
	Z745	Z945
AVG	131.0	129.2
Std Dev.	3.3	3.7

 

 

	Carry Distance
	Z745	Z945
AVG	202.4	198.2
Std Dev.	6.3	6.6

 

You can see that the 745 had a smaller standard deviation for both ball speed and carry distance. This was driven by the blade having several shot were the ball speed dropped to under 123 MPH and wound up finishing about 15 yards short of average. The 745 only had 2 shots finish 12 yards or more under the average.

The blade had 4 shots 10 yards over the avg carry and the Z745 only had 3. So not really statistically significant.

However, the difference in standard deviation is just 0.4 in ball speed and 0.3 in carry distance. Looking at my 8 worst shots with each model, the blade was only about 3.5 yards worse compared to the average than with the cavity. So I wouldn't say that is huge punishment but when playing an actual hole, I had a handful more shots finish in the front bunker with the blade than with the cavity so 3 yards can make a difference. 

 

Here is where I think things get interesting. 

 

 

Taking you back to high school statistics, these charts show the whole range of shots and the blue box shows the shots that were in the 25% - 75% range. So, I would say the best 50% of my shots are in those blue boxes. And you can see that the Z945 box is about 2 yards smaller. So, my best shots were actually better with the blades than with the cavities.

The number of shots within + or – 5 yards of average with the Z745 was 54% and with the Z945 it was 66%. So out of 50 shots, I hit 6 more balls within 5 yards of my average than with the Z745!

 

After all of that, I think I can say that in this case, my worst shots were just slightly worse with the MB and my best shots were slightly better. You could definitely argue I was more consistent with the blade. I’ve decided I’m going to play them from 7-PW and see how it goes. I’ll update if I have any conclusions one way or the other.

I wonder. Do you have the best ballspeed specs with both ?   I ask because just like the misses always  show a bigger drop off with the blade. I personally have always see the highest ballspeed with a blade as well.  Just wondered what you saw?  

[bladehunter]

On 8/3/2021 at 9:39 AM, chipa said:

I was browsing over the MPF ratings and have been surprised at the variability of MPF ratings for solid blades, some are in the 100's and others are at 400, which is where one generally sees small players cb's, so some apparently are going to be easier to hit than others. The highest MPF rating I've seen for a blade was the MP-14 at 457. It was very popular in the 90's and I believe TW played them. BTW, 457 is higher than my DCI cb's.

Yep. The old “ a blade is a blade “ adage is patently false.  Their are just as many variations in sole design and weighting as other types. And they all play differently 

[darkman8]

Man, how has this question NOT been asked…how the hell were you able to hit 100 balls into 1 green at a top course like Spyglass Hill? Lol

[bladehunter]

On 7/19/2021 at 11:31 PM, RolandofGilead said:

Strokes gained statistics have shown this to not be the case. If the goal is shooting lower scores, superior tee shots and approach shots are at least as important as short game and putting, and likely more so.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/progolfnow.com/2019/08/28/strokes-gained-2019-iron-will/amp/

 

 These are averages, but everyone is different. Spieth gets more out of a strong short game while Rahm makes his money from elite ball striking:

 

Tee / Approach / Around Green / Putting (from PGA Tour site)

 

Spieth = -.01 / 0.59 / 0.43 / 0.44 = 1.45 total

Rahm = 0.85 / 0.76 / 0.22 / 0.20 = 2.03 total

Latest study shows putting and approach to be most important.  
 

 

https://www.golfwrx.com/657874/the-most-important-strokes-gained-statistics-to-win-on-the-pga-tour/?utm_source=Front&utm_medium=Blogroll_Home&utm_campaign=GolfWRX_OnSite&utm_content=unused

[BSTRONG1313]

2 hours ago, bladehunter said:

I wonder. Do you have the best ballspeed specs with both ?   I ask because just like the misses always  show a bigger drop off with the blade. I personally have always see the highest ballspeed with a blade as well.  Just wondered what you saw?  

Ball speed was highest with the cavity back but it was a degree stronger. I think the heads are similar enough to each other that ball speed would have been very similar at the same loft.