New irons or shafts?

nev adams · October 21, 2021

Looking to get fit after my lesson package ends in a few months. I'll be looking at the whole bag. Right now I play JPX 900 forged irons and they are fine, although I bought them off ebay so I have no idea if the shafts work well for me or not. I'm a 9 now and will be down closer to a 6 next season so when it comes to new irons, my options are limited as I am a lefty and there's only a few I like the looks of. Minus the pure blade of tour type iron which probably isn't what I need.

Would I really gain anything from a new set of irons that are similar to what I have now? I kinda figured I would probably be just as well off just putting new shafts in the 900's.

ChipNRun · October 21, 2021

Post lessons, do a diagnostic fitting (see how they perform) with your JPX 900s. See what the launch numbers tell you. If you got fitted for new clubs, you would do this to get baseline figures anyway.

Sounds like you're going for a full bag fitting. Take notes and see how things shake out.

If you are in single digits with irons bought off eBay, chances are they are close to what you need. And, be aware that loft and head design of the club are the main determinants of ball flight. Shafts are used to fine-tune the club.*

After the diagnostic, you can try out other clubs. In half my iron fittings, the clubsmith told me just to keep what I had.

As for reshafting, sometimes yes and sometimes no. If you are going with a "new and improved" shaft, the shafts plus reshaft labor and new grips) may cost two-thirds as much as a new set of irons. Sometimes the OEMs will give you an effective discount on the shafts if they come stock with a new iron model. Also, you run the risk that the new shafts don't balance well with the old heads. Again, if you can get a demo JPX 900 iron to use as a test club with different shafts, this can help you avoid the bad balance result.

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* A few years back, I started having trouble with my Callaway X20 Tours. Main reason: I had 115-gram PX 5.0 rifle flighted shafts. As I turned 60, I was starting to have trouble getting through the ball consistently. I had a demo X20T 6i that matched my set, and used it to try out different iron shafts head-to-head with my set 6i. I got best results with NS Pro 8950GH (~97 grams), and had the clubs reshafted with 8950s. This was an established shaft, and only cost {$24 x 8} to buy the shafts. This extended the playability of the set for me five more years. Again, going 18 grams lighter was quite a shift, probably more than fine-tuning.

Edited October 21, 2021 by ChipNRun

nev adams · October 21, 2021

Full bag is correct, everything now is just whatever I thought might work at the time. I'll take good notes and see what the results are. I will also look for a lefty JPX fitting iron, that would be sweet to find! Eager to see what I find out with this adventure.

Shrek74 · October 23, 2021

Make sure you’re full bag fitting is done on multiple days. If you try to do it all in 2 hours, you’ll be exhausted and multiple clubs won’t get fit properly due to swings getting bad due to sad exhaustion. Insist from you fitting company to give you at least 2 different appointments.

I did some number crunching on reshafting my current irons verses buying new. It was going to cost me $30 per shaft plus $32 per club for labor and grip. With tax, that’s $470 just to reshaft 7 clubs in hopes it fixes my issues. I can get new clubs for about 50% more with the proper shafts. So to me, reshafting made no sense. Granted my irons aren’t my favorite right now, but could be due to shafts I despise.

Trying to find a demo version of you current clubs to try new shafts is a great idea. Assuming you can find one. You may also find that after your lessons you may want new clubs to take advantage of the new and improved swing and contact.

I’m starting new lessons as well and decided to wait for new clubs until I’m further along with my improved swing. Kind of a reward for waiting and putting in the work.

mmakowski · October 24, 2021

Shafts are way more important than the heads IMO

AlohaGolf99 · October 24, 2021

Just did a shaft fitting last week. Saw consistent gains in ball speed and dispersion. Better spin numbers(for me granted) as well. Used my 7 iron but also another 7 iron from a different OEM with the same results. Irons were bought stock and the shafts, vice heads, were the problem for me. Best of luck!

nev adams · October 24, 2021

15 hours ago, Shrek74 said:

Make sure you’re full bag fitting is done on multiple days. If you try to do it all in 2 hours, you’ll be exhausted and multiple clubs won’t get fit properly due to swings getting bad due to sad exhaustion. Insist from you fitting company to give you at least 2 different appointments.

I did some number crunching on reshafting my current irons verses buying new. It was going to cost me $30 per shaft plus $32 per club for labor and grip. With tax, that’s $470 just to reshaft 7 clubs in hopes it fixes my issues. I can get new clubs for about 50% more with the proper shafts. So to me, reshafting made no sense. Granted my irons aren’t my favorite right now, but could be due to shafts I despise.

Trying to find a demo version of you current clubs to try new shafts is a great idea. Assuming you can find one. You may also find that after your lessons you may want new clubs to take advantage of the new and improved swing and contact.

I’m starting new lessons as well and decided to wait for new clubs until I’m further along with my improved swing. Kind of a reward for waiting and putting in the work.

My package says 3 club fitting appointments are available, I'll have to inquire about what that means. I wondered about getting tired after a few hours of hitting balls, totally makes sense. I probably won't be done my lessons until close to spring so we will see if new clubs come in for the season.

Buying this lesson package was the best money spent on golf, I'm learning so much and I can look back and review each lesson. I started a post here to show some of the things I'm learning as I go and maybe other guys can relate it to their game. it's called "Quest for lower scores with a 10 pack of lessons"