The Saga of My i210s - Finally Comes to an End!

[jholz]

Called customer service yet again yesterday, and they've clearly off-loaded their call center to India or something. One day, long wait times yet clear connection and native American English speakers. Next day, no wait, but reps who are clearly not native speakers and connections that might as well be a string and two cans. 

 

Although I couldn't understand it at the time, apparently I said I wanted my package to go to a local pickup site instead of my home. It's about a mile difference. I honestly don't care as long as I get my clubs.

 

Not sure if this is going to make things more or less difficult, but time will tell. Once again, they've promised a tomorrow delivery. Yeah, and I'm gonna win the Powerball. Ha!

[nostatic]

IME changing delivery location will just delay it further.

[Valtiel]

41 minutes ago, nostatic said:

IME changing delivery location will just delay it further.

 

On 8/26/2021 at 10:55 AM, jholz said:

Tracking number stopped registering today. Called customer service, which is, of course, automated. Type in tracking number. No record. Ask for representative. To get representative, must enter valid tracking number. Went through that three times, then on hold for 48 minutes.

 

Customer rep was nice and all, but mutters something about Virginia? What?...and then, "the best we can do is open a tracking inquiry. They will start with the last known location...blah blah blah."

 

On 8/27/2021 at 7:20 AM, jholz said:

So, the shipping label was messed up. They printed a new one. Now says delivery today, but nothing else has been updated. I don't believe much of what I am hearing. 

All of this hits home for me too. I used to LOVE FedEx when I was doing online sales at a guitar shop, they were always the best option for longer distances/international shipments and I never had a single issue. This was 2015/2016. Fast forward to now and I had the single most convoluted f***** up shipping experience based on 3 different levels of their own admitted incompetence. I posted a thread about it around this time last year, but the cliff notes were:

1) Seller shipped via FedEx to my PO Box, FedEx often (but not always?) refuses to deliver to PO boxes. I call FedEx CS to request a hold at a local hub for me to pick it up (something i've done before). 
2) CS says I can not make the request because it was shipped using the seller's FedEx Business (or similar) account. Contact seller to put in the request, seller does. 
3) Somewhere in this stage of the transit, the label gets damaged/ripped off. Instead of contacting me OR the shipper (something I was later told should have happened), they used their access to the USPS database to attempt to fish out my address. They find and use an OLD address in a different county. 
4) Package is delivered to this old address, but because of the aforementioned FedEx Business Account, I can not make any redelivery/pickup requests without the approval of the account owner. Seller officially goes dark and stops responding. 

Due to other extenuating circumstances (historic wildfires + evacuation), no one is able to be dispatched to check on any of this for weeks, after which they finally start to get the ball rolling on a recovery only after I had gone through about 4 different people at varying levels until I got a Branch/Hub manager who was extremely helpful, but basically said that FedEx screwed this up every step of the way (various failed quality assurance/CS checks). When they finally dispatch someone to my old address, they claim they never received any kind of package and it ended up lost forever. 

Sorry if that is a downer, but mu situation had far more complications than yours so i'd be willing to bet you get them eventually, but I will never trust FedEx again after that experience. 

Edited September 3, 2021 by Valtiel

[Therealpatgiles]

FedEx has recently updated their ground service tracking system. That's why the last 2 weeks have been hell. I had a package hit my local fed ex last Wednesday, I rerouted it to FedEx office last Friday due to signature and me not wanting to take a week or more off to be there to sign for it. It arrived at fed ex office on Wednesday and sat there. I went Thursday and they said it wasn't there, I went back today and spoke with someone else and low and behold it was there. If it's something important I might try to reroute it to a FedEx office and when it says tendered at FedEx office it's there, even though delivery will say pending. 

[TonyDAnnunzio]

Just tell FedEx to hold it at the distribution center and have it ready to pick up...  call UPS and have them go by the distribution center, pick up your package and deliver it to you.  I had to do this years ago with UPS...  the driver kept forgetting to deliver the package...  seriously, that is what UPS customer service rep told me...  he was forgetting to deliver the package...  When I told them to hold the package and I would have DHL, remember them?, come by their distribution center and pick it up the customer service rep guaranteed I would have it the next day...  I guess the driver tied a string around his finger or something because my package arrived the next day...

[SwooshLT]

Any updates?  

[jholz]

The saga finally comes to an end! After a trip to Ohio (WTF?!) the finally arrived at my local distribution center and after three calls to customer service I got the OK to drive our there and pick them up. Nothing like a 45 minute drive to a former superfund site in the middle of nowhere to start a Saturday morning out right. But, the clubs were there, nothing damaged, and exactly what I ordered. Halleluiah!

 

 

 

So, I immediately took them out to the range, and then played 18 with them on Sunday.

 

The thing that sucks is that in all the time it took them to get here, I was reading WRX posts about the i210s, and I was really worried about the MPF rating and VCOG issues that these irons have. I'm a sweeper, and had I known about this before ordering them, I probably would have gone with the Srixon ZX5's

 

So I went out to hit these things with some misgivings. First swing was horrible. Spin rates off the chart and ballooning like crazy. Had to be two full club lengths shorter than my previous irons. The shafts are way too light and soft. I think I should have ordered them with at least a PX 6.5 or X100.

 

So - off to the BST they go!...

 

Nah, I'm totally kidding. These things are great. Everything that I was hoping they would be and more. Shot a 75 first round out, and it was the first time in a long time that irons weren't the weakest part of my game. 

 

They hit the ball comparable distances to my previous irons - which is great. Very little adjustment needed. Beyond that, they do really mask sloppy ballstriking (which I am constantly challenged by). 

 

Long and short - I'm so glad the saga has come to an end and couldn't be happier with my i210's. Thanks all for following the saga and keep your eyes out for an updated WITB thread coming soon! 

 

[SwooshLT]

57 minutes ago, jholz said:

The saga finally comes to an end! After a trip to Ohio (WTF?!) the finally arrived at my local distribution center and after three calls to customer service I got the OK to drive our there and pick them up. Nothing like a 45 minute drive to a former superfund site in the middle of nowhere to start a Saturday morning out right. But, the clubs were there, nothing damaged, and exactly what I ordered. Halleluiah!

 

 

 

So, I immediately took them out to the range, and then played 18 with them on Sunday.

 

The thing that sucks is that in all the time it took them to get here, I was reading WRX posts about the i210s, and I was really worried about the MPF rating and VCOG issues that these irons have. I'm a sweeper, and had I known about this before ordering them, I probably would have gone with the Srixon ZX5's

 

So I went out to hit these things with some misgivings. First swing was horrible. Spin rates off the chart and ballooning like crazy. Had to be two full club lengths shorter than my previous irons. The shafts are way too light and soft. I think I should have ordered them with at least a PX 6.5 or X100.

 

So - off to the BST they go!...

 

Nah, I'm totally kidding. These things are great. Everything that I was hoping they would be and more. Shot a 75 first round out, and it was the first time in a long time that irons weren't the weakest part of my game. 

 

They hit the ball comparable distances to my previous irons - which is great. Very little adjustment needed. Beyond that, they do really mask sloppy ballstriking (which I am constantly challenged by). 

 

Long and short - I'm so glad the saga has come to an end and couldn't be happier with my i210's. Thanks all for following the saga and keep your eyes out for an updated WITB thread coming soon! 

 

 

 

Welcome to CLUBi210 and congrats on finally getting them.......these irons are such a unicorn 🦄  

 

Plenty of forgiveness in a tidy yet non-intimidating package!  

[TonyDAnnunzio]

"They hit the ball comparable distances to my previous irons - which is great. Very little adjustment needed. Beyond that, they do really mask sloppy ballstriking (which I am constantly challenged by)."  that is an understatement when speaking about i210's...

 

The other day I was out on the course messing around...  I had a 150 yard shot to an elevated green and could barely see the top of the flagstick.  I hit an easy 8 iron and pushed it to the right and knew I just missed the green...  I dropped another ball and hit it off the toe.  It didn't feel very good but it was right at the stick and I figured it would probably be on the front edge the green...  I dropped another ball and caught it slightly in the heel and again it went right at the stick and I thought that one would surely be short as well...  so I dropped another ball and pured it all over the stick.  When I got up to the green my first shot was in fact about a yard off the green but the other three that I dropped were all within 5 feet of the stick... I thought to myself "these damn things should be illegal...  there is just no way those two mishits should have turned out anywhere near that good".

 

What I have found with the i210 is the yardages are EXTREMELY consistent and they are remarkably forgiving.  

[braincramp52]

Sounds like FedEx needs to spend more money in house rather than sponsoring golf tournaments.

[jholz]

18 hours ago, SwooshLT said:

 

 

Welcome to CLUBi210 and congrats on finally getting them.......these irons are such a unicorn 🦄  

 

Plenty of forgiveness in a tidy yet non-intimidating package!  

 

14 hours ago, TonyDAnnunzio said:

"They hit the ball comparable distances to my previous irons - which is great. Very little adjustment needed. Beyond that, they do really mask sloppy ballstriking (which I am constantly challenged by)."  that is an understatement when speaking about i210's...

 

The other day I was out on the course messing around...  I had a 150 yard shot to an elevated green and could barely see the top of the flagstick.  I hit an easy 8 iron and pushed it to the right and knew I just missed the green...  I dropped another ball and hit it off the toe.  It didn't feel very good but it was right at the stick and I figured it would probably be on the front edge the green...  I dropped another ball and caught it slightly in the heel and again it went right at the stick and I thought that one would surely be short as well...  so I dropped another ball and pured it all over the stick.  When I got up to the green my first shot was in fact about a yard off the green but the other three that I dropped were all within 5 feet of the stick... I thought to myself "these damn things should be illegal...  there is just no way those two mishits should have turned out anywhere near that good".

 

What I have found with the i210 is the yardages are EXTREMELY consistent and they are remarkably forgiving.  

 

Yes, this is exactly what I have found. At address, they are a lot more compact than I was expecting and have a thinner topline than my previous Cleveland CG7 Tours. The blending from the hosel and rounded over topline are a thing of beauty. I was expecting more of a GI profile, but they are very much a "players" profile at address. 

 

I was also very impressed with the soles. That traditional "chunky toe" of Ping irons always soured me, TBH, but it isn't as pronounced in the i210s and the sole grind does a lot to mellow it out. In other words, the soles don't look "funky" to me the way many Ping irons do.

 

As far as performance is concerned, there is absolutely nothing to complain about. It's a total cliche, I know, but my worst shot with them ended up just a couple yards short of pin high in the fringe. With my previous irons, I am pretty sure I would have been 20 yards short and a hell of a lot further off line.

 

Overall, I shot a decent score on a not very good ball striking day. I hit two decent drives. My chipping was highly suspect. But putting and iron play kept me in the game. I can't remember the last time I said that about my irons.

 

So yes, very forgiving and very consistent indeed!

[SwooshLT]

On 9/7/2021 at 1:42 PM, jholz said:

 

 

Yes, this is exactly what I have found. At address, they are a lot more compact than I was expecting and have a thinner topline than my previous Cleveland CG7 Tours. The blending from the hosel and rounded over topline are a thing of beauty. I was expecting more of a GI profile, but they are very much a "players" profile at address. 

 

I was also very impressed with the soles. That traditional "chunky toe" of Ping irons always soured me, TBH, but it isn't as pronounced in the i210s and the sole grind does a lot to mellow it out. In other words, the soles don't look "funky" to me the way many Ping irons do.

 

As far as performance is concerned, there is absolutely nothing to complain about. It's a total cliche, I know, but my worst shot with them ended up just a couple yards short of pin high in the fringe. With my previous irons, I am pretty sure I would have been 20 yards short and a hell of a lot further off line.

 

Overall, I shot a decent score on a not very good ball striking day. I hit two decent drives. My chipping was highly suspect. But putting and iron play kept me in the game. I can't remember the last time I said that about my irons.

 

So yes, very forgiving and very consistent indeed!

 

Got anymore rounds with these bad boys? 

[Valtiel]

On 9/6/2021 at 3:05 PM, jholz said:

I was reading WRX posts about the i210s, and I was really worried about the MPF rating and VCOG issues that these irons have. I'm a sweeper, and had I known about this before ordering them, I probably would have gone with the Srixon ZX5's

 

 

On 9/6/2021 at 7:42 PM, TonyDAnnunzio said:

What I have found with the i210 is the yardages are EXTREMELY consistent and they are remarkably forgiving.  

 

On 9/7/2021 at 10:42 AM, jholz said:

As far as performance is concerned, there is absolutely nothing to complain about. It's a total cliche, I know, but my worst shot with them ended up just a couple yards short of pin high in the fringe. With my previous irons, I am pretty sure I would have been 20 yards short and a hell of a lot further off line.

 

Glad to see this got a happy ending!

Regarding the Maltby stuff, that is an area I take issue with how they weigh things. IMO their measurement system values CG a *little* too much (although I still think its an important factor), but then values C-dimension WAY too much and MOI WAY too little. The i210 is an MOI king and that supersedes most of the other "shortcomings" on paper according to them. The amount of love the club gets totally belies its low MPF rating and IMO exposes one of the main flaws in their methodology. I mostly ignore the MPF ratings for this reason, and it's great they've worked out so well!

Edited September 18, 2021 by Valtiel

[TooSteepForMizunos]

🥰love my i210’s🥰

[jholz]

On 9/17/2021 at 8:33 PM, SwooshLT said:

 

Got anymore rounds with these bad boys? 

 

Yeah, I've got 4 rounds and probably 5 range sessions. No complaints whatsoever. It's not like they've completely transformed my game or anything, but I'd say they've really helped remove the worst of my iron shots from the bag. I can no longer say that irons are the weakest part of my game - I just have to admit that every phase of my game is equally weak (or strong depending on one's attitude). 

 

I'm really enjoying the Modus shafts. Very stable, but also very easy to swing. Particularly late in rounds, I can tell a difference in the quality of my strikes. Even though I was playing a light shaft previously (DG SL's) the Modus just doesn't take as much effort to put a good swing on the ball.

 

At my home course, I've got them dialed in well, but I'm still having a bit of trouble away from home. This weekend I played a course that I had not visited for a couple of years, and was coming up 5 yards short of every green I hit in to. It took me until about #16 before I finally clued in and began pulling the longer club.

 

But that's the way both golf and new irons can go. I obviously need more play and experience with them. So, I will be forced to play and practice more. The horror!

 

 

[jholz]

On 9/17/2021 at 10:06 PM, Valtiel said:

 

 

Glad to see this got a happy ending!

Regarding the Maltby stuff, that is an area I take issue with how they weigh things. IMO their measurement system values CG a *little* too much (although I still think its an important factor), but then values C-dimension WAY too much and MOI WAY too little. The i210 is an MOI king and that supersedes most of the other "shortcomings" on paper according to them. The amount of love the club gets totally belies its low MPF rating and IMO exposes one of the main flaws in their methodology. I mostly ignore the MPF ratings for this reason, and it's great they've worked out so well!

 

Yeah man, the MPF stuff was just a lighthearted jab at WRX culture and my own golf psychosis. Of course, the moment you order a new set of irons, you read something on here that suggests they suck. I read that stuff, and even though I know that it's largely nonsense, the evil little man in the back of my mind says, "what if they are right?"

 

Sometimes I have to actively force myself to stop reading.

[Valtiel]

6 hours ago, jholz said:

 

Yeah man, the MPF stuff was just a lighthearted jab at WRX culture and my own golf psychosis. Of course, the moment you order a new set of irons, you read something on here that suggests they suck. I read that stuff, and even though I know that it's largely nonsense, the evil little man in the back of my mind says, "what if they are right?"

 

Sometimes I have to actively force myself to stop reading.

Hey, fair jab though hah. 

I've been buying/selling a lot recently and everything USPS has been fine with only minor hiccups, but of COURSE the one FedEx package has already immediately gotten messed up. The initial delivery date was quickly delayed by 2 days, followed by the tracking information going completely silent for what has now been a full week. It is supposed to be delivered today, but i'm a little suspicious given that i'm on the west coast and the last place it checked in was a corn maze somewhere in Winston-Salem. 😅

[jholz]

4 minutes ago, Valtiel said:

Hey, fair jab though hah. 

I've been buying/selling a lot recently and everything USPS has been fine with only minor hiccups, but of COURSE the one FedEx package has already immediately gotten messed up. The initial delivery date was quickly delayed by 2 days, followed by the tracking information going completely silent for what has now been a full week. It is supposed to be delivered today, but i'm a little suspicious given that i'm on the west coast and the last place it checked in was a corn maze somewhere in Winston-Salem. 😅

 

OMG, it is so frustrating. I'm not sure if it is better that they are theoretically across the country or 50 miles away, like in my case. I say "theoretically'" of course, because I have little faith that Fedex actually knows where any package is at any given time. My package's journey defied the laws of time and space.

 

Ultimately, I think I would prefer it if their tracking page would just say: "Your package is out there somewhere. We assume it's in a Fedex facility or vehicle (although we make no guarantees), and it will likely be delivered sometime...but manage your expectations."

[Valtiel]

18 minutes ago, jholz said:

 

OMG, it is so frustrating. I'm not sure if it is better that they are theoretically across the country or 50 miles away, like in my case. I say "theoretically'" of course, because I have little faith that Fedex actually knows where any package is at any given time. My package's journey defied the laws of time and space.

 

Ultimately, I think I would prefer it if their tracking page would just say: "Your package is out there somewhere. We assume it's in a Fedex facility or vehicle (although we make no guarantees), and it will likely be delivered sometime...but manage your expectations."

I live in a small town so i've chatted with the two dudes that work at the local post office and they pretty universally have an "lol good luck" approach to anything related to FedEx. I've had everything from small volume FedEX couriers drive all the way up the dirt road to hand things directly to me to similarly physics defying incompetence. A TSi3 driver is in limbo here, so we'll see what happens. 😅

[jholz]

8 minutes ago, Valtiel said:

I live in a small town so i've chatted with the two dudes that work at the local post office and they pretty universally have an "lol good luck" approach to anything related to FedEx. I've had everything from small volume FedEX couriers drive all the way up the dirt road to hand things directly to me to similarly physics defying incompetence. A TSi3 driver is in limbo here, so we'll see what happens. 😅

 

Man, best of luck to you. I'd be itching to get that club as well.

 

Have you tried Fedex customer service? It won't help find your package. I mean, I get the sense they are trained to provide the same answer as your buddies at the post office, but it is mildly creepy how much they know about you.

 

A lot of 1st World angst involved when some guy in Mumbai (or wherever) is trying to sympathize with you about another weekend without your clubs.

[Valtiel]

17 minutes ago, jholz said:

 

Man, best of luck to you. I'd be itching to get that club as well.

 

Have you tried Fedex customer service? It won't help find your package. I mean, I get the sense they are trained to provide the same answer as your buddies at the post office, but it is mildly creepy how much they know about you.

 

A lot of 1st World angst involved when some guy in Mumbai (or wherever) is trying to sympathize with you about another weekend without your clubs.

Oh yeah for sure, in this case though we haven't actually passed any of the dates yet (estimated delivery etc), i'm more just predicting the s*** show that is likely to happen and I won't start down the customer service rabbit hole until it is very clear that nothing is happening. The driver could still show up today for all I know!

[HugoBear]

It’s weird.

I so want to love my 210’s but I just hit my i25’s better.

I’m getting close to selling my 210’s.

[Valtiel]

On 9/21/2021 at 2:05 PM, jholz said:

 

Man, best of luck to you. I'd be itching to get that club as well.

 

Have you tried Fedex customer service? It won't help find your package. I mean, I get the sense they are trained to provide the same answer as your buddies at the post office, but it is mildly creepy how much they know about you.

 

A lot of 1st World angst involved when some guy in Mumbai (or wherever) is trying to sympathize with you about another weekend without your clubs.

9 days without a tracking update and i've started contacting customer support. The bad news is that the hub where the package stopped has been in the news since last year:

https://www.wfmynews2.com/article/news/local/fedex-packages-delivery-coronavirus-kernersville-transport/83-92b6a277-1737-44f0-9cfd-c8025c535af0

https://myfox8.com/news/fedex-making-changes-after-complaints-about-kernersville-hub/

 

[Valtiel]

Well, just a call from FedEx (at least that was quick) stating that the package is lost (TSi3 driver). Now I have to work with the seller to go through the claims process. This is all centered around a shipping hub that has been receiving a ton of attention for incompetence for well over a year now.