Irons question: How far is too far?

[eric61]

I’m not looking for personal advice — just a theoretical question here:

 

Assuming you can get enough height and spin to stop them reasonably well on a green, how far is too far to hit a 7 iron? In other words: Is there a distance where you’d just find it too hard to build a bag around it?

 

I recently was at a demo event where several manufacturers were represented. I hit some of everything, including the stronger-lofted game improvement irons. The Wilson Dynapower 7 iron was carrying 200ish yards — coming down at like 46 degrees, but with really low spin (like low 4000s). The Srixon ZX4 Mk II 7 iron was also super easy to hit, carrying consistently about 190. It was low-spin too, but getting into the low 5000s at least and coming down at a similar angle.
 

I’m not really slow, but I don’t have a ton of speed, either. My current 7 iron goes mid-high 160s. I’m not looking to buy new irons — but even if I was, I was sort of trying to think through how I’d even build a bag around irons that went that far.

 

I wondered what you all thought: When you’re being fit, demoing clubs, whatever, what’s the distance for irons at which you just say that that’s too far? Or does that point not exist for you — maybe you’d be totally happy to add an extra wedge and drop a long club or whatever?

 

Again, asking in theoretical terms rather than looking for personal advice. Just was curious what folks here thought!

[starrman77]

To me, a 155 to 160 yard 7 iron would be perfect.

[NZ315]

I prefer 170-175 for mine 7 iron

[Klubster]

 

When is a 7 iron no longer a 7 iron?  Distance makes no difference as long as you can cover the range and gaps.

[njmack]

If I could game a 200yd 7i at the same playing length as my current 7i, and still get the ball up high enough to see the same angle of descent and stopping power? Sure, why not?

 

150 and in would ultimately be wedge territory, and for my game, that's far more about feel and being comfortable with a handful of different yardages for each wedge in order to get up and in.

 

What would be weirder in this scenario is if I were playing a 4i that could chase down my 4 wood... 

[RogerinNewZealand]

1 hour ago, starrman77 said:

To me, a 155 to 160 yard 7 iron would be perfect.

When the "7" numbered club goes 200....then you need 4? more clubs for shorter distances than the er...likely 38 degree Pw

43. 48. 53. 58

DynaStop Ultra 5 Wedges...yes all 5🤭

[srsbeans]

36 minutes ago, njmack said:

If I could game a 200yd 7i at the same playing length as my current 7i, and still get the ball up high enough to see the same angle of descent and stopping power? Sure, why not?

 

150 and in would ultimately be wedge territory, and for my game, that's far more about feel and being comfortable with a handful of different yardages for each wedge in order to get up and in.

 

What would be weirder in this scenario is if I were playing a 4i that could chase down my 4 wood... 

Hitting 7 200 is fine but that doesn't magically make your driver go any further, nor your LW. You still have a shortest club and a longest club and need reasonable gapping in between. Gaining three clubs with your irons may be a pyrrhic victory if it just means that many more wedges going in. 

[me05501]

When I started playing 30+ years ago my favorite iron to practice with was a 7i. These days it’s an 8i, which likely has the same length and loft as the 7i from back then. These days a 6i is a long iron IMO. 

[Sean124]

185-190 yards is perfect for me with a 34* 7 iron. 

[MtlJeff]

This is classic WRX

[eric61]

23 minutes ago, srsbeans said:

Hitting 7 200 is fine but that doesn't magically make your driver go any further, nor your LW. You still have a shortest club and a longest club and need reasonable gapping in between. Gaining three clubs with your irons may be a pyrrhic victory if it just means that many more wedges going in. 

Right, and this is really the point of my question. You might gain three clubs with your irons, but does that ruin gapping on the short end? It’s easy to imagine adding a fifth wedge — like a super-strong set PW, then going 46, 50, 54, 58 or whatever. But I’m not sure even that is enough to make the short end work out.

[njmack]

13 minutes ago, srsbeans said:

Hitting 7 200 is fine but that doesn't magically make your driver go any further, nor your LW. You still have a shortest club and a longest club and need reasonable gapping in between. Gaining three clubs with your irons may be a pyrrhic victory if it just means that many more wedges going in. 

Personally, I don't have a problem at all with adding wedges, or managing partial wedge yardages--whether it's a GW, UW, ZW, whatever, it's still just a number/loft that produces a yardage.

 

This is just how I think of it:  if I'm bumping longer, harder to control clubs out of my bag (5w, 3h, whatever) in place of an extra scoring club that lengthens whatever my "scoring zone" yardages are, so be it. Realistically, those longer, specialty clubs are pretty niche as it is: I may only hit them 3-4 times a round at most.

[st1800e]

Only when you should’ve hit an 8. 

[drn92]

3 hours ago, eric61 said:

I’m not looking for personal advice — just a theoretical question here:

 

Assuming you can get enough height and spin to stop them reasonably well on a green, how far is too far to hit a 7 iron? In other words: Is there a distance where you’d just find it too hard to build a bag around it?

 

I recently was at a demo event where several manufacturers were represented. I hit some of everything, including the stronger-lofted game improvement irons. The Wilson Dynapower 7 iron was carrying 200ish yards — coming down at like 46 degrees, but with really low spin (like low 4000s). The Srixon ZX4 Mk II 7 iron was also super easy to hit, carrying consistently about 190. It was low-spin too, but getting into the low 5000s at least and coming down at a similar angle.
 

I’m not really slow, but I don’t have a ton of speed, either. My current 7 iron goes mid-high 160s. I’m not looking to buy new irons — but even if I was, I was sort of trying to think through how I’d even build a bag around irons that went that far.

 

I wondered what you all thought: When you’re being fit, demoing clubs, whatever, what’s the distance for irons at which you just say that that’s too far? Or does that point not exist for you — maybe you’d be totally happy to add an extra wedge and drop a long club or whatever?

 

Again, asking in theoretical terms rather than looking for personal advice. Just was curious what folks here thought!

I keep thinking about the PXG 0211 irons, but the 6 iron has the same specs as my old 4 iron. In building a bag around these clubs I’d probably end up with 12 by not buying the 4 or 5. 
 

drn92

[mrshinsa]

If you're hitting 200yds with a 7-iron, what club would you hit for 185, 170, 155, 140, 125, and 110 ? 

[ChipNRun]

My ideal situation: base bag off of 45* or 46* PW. Then, I could go 50-54-58, or 52-56-60 with specialty wedges.

 

As for 7i... 160 yds. would do it. With 12* gaps in numbered irons, this would give me 200 yards with a jack-shaft 4i.

 

Big thing for 7i on up: need to be able to stop ball within a couple of yards of landing. Stop is a combo of three things: spin rate, descent angle, and golf ball.

 

For me, I need a fairly steep descent angle, so I'm probably going more with GI rather than PD.

 

Case in point was in Callaway iron families. About five years ago, I did a side-by-side with X20 Tours and Rogue X irons. On 7i, the X20T shots (total distance) ranged from 140 to 150 yards... the Rogue X ranged from 140 to 160. RX had much less crisp yardstick than older X20T irons.

 

Rogue X was supposed to be GI, but many said it flew more like a Players Distance: more clearout, but less crisp yardsticks.

[lefthack]

1 hour ago, mrshinsa said:

If you're hitting 200yds with a 7-iron, what club would you hit for 185, 170, 155, 140, 125, and 110 ? 

 

8, 9, pw, aw, gw, sw, lw.

 

It's a classic 5 wedge setup. 🤣

[realmfg]

4 hours ago, njmack said:

whatever, it's still just a number/loft that produces a yardage.

Exactly!  I hate when people complain about loft jacked irons and extra wedges, etc... If you take the club numbers away and have lofts listed, it's a normal set of irons.  People would go nuts over the epic forged when they came out.  Callaway literally just took a stock length and loft from one of their lines and replaced it by 1 club (9i was just labeled a P).  Now this is super common, but no one seems to get it.  At the end of the day it mostly comes down to loft and you can adjust by a few degrees from manufacturer standard.

Edited March 19, 2023 by realmfg

[lefthack]

I've always thought it was more about the gaps and knowing your yardage, not what club got you there. As long as you don't have huge gaps in your bag and you can hit those yards, knock yourself out.

[JAMH03]

@eric61 I think in terms of how do you cover the gaps?

[NZ315]

No way a 7iron should be going 200yards. Completely unnecessary on both high and low ends of the bag. Where would you go on either side. 6iron - 5wood?? Add a bunch of wedges on the low end to gap you out?? If you hit the 7 iron 200yards you got the wrong jacked up club. As mentioned before take away the number iron and replace it with loft. 
Short answer is that this iron set is not for you. 

[LeoLeo99]

I tend to swing hard enough to hit a 7 iron 150 yds.  And the other irons commensurate yardages.  I'm weird, I know.  

[BagofToast]

Wouldn't want to hit 7i over 190.

[bobfoster]

Good grief, I don't even understand the question. (I mean, what does "build a bag" around a 7i even mean?) The number on the bottom of the club is meaningless. Degrees of loft is all that matters so far as the clubface goes. And that varies widely for any given club - depending on the manufacturer (and even different models within the same OEM - e.g., the Mizzy Pro 225 has a 30* 7i, the JPX HM is 28.5 - a full half a club difference). And ball flight/spin is way more about swing path, swing speed, and the characteristics of the ball you are using than the "7" on the bottom of the club. 

Don't mean to be a geeky WRXer, but there literally isn't an answer to the OP's question. 🤣

 

 

[eric61]

11 minutes ago, bobfoster said:

Good grief, I don't even understand the question. (I mean, what does "build a bag" around a 7i even mean?) The number on the bottom of the club is meaningless. Degrees of loft is all that matters so far as the clubface goes. And that varies widely for any given club - depending on the manufacturer (and even different models within the same OEM - e.g., the Mizzy Pro 225 has a 30* 7i, the JPX HM is 28.5 - a full half a club difference). And ball flight/spin is way more about swing path, swing speed, and the characteristics of the ball you are using than the "7" on the bottom of the club. 

Don't mean to be a geeky WRXer, but there literally isn't an answer to the OP's question. 🤣

 

 

To address this point: There’s a thread about the Mizuno JPX 923s around here where someone with Hot Metals or HMPs described having huge gaps on the short end. If your 7 iron is absurdly strong, then yes, you can bend clubs, but the stock gaps can become 5-5.5 degrees or even more. You might be able to fix that problem bending, mixing different models, adding wedges, etc. But that’s generally what I meant.

[puresurfr]

I would love to hit a 7i over 210 yards but I think that is the max distance and only if the bag fully translates to the top meaning 12-15 yard gaps and I carry my 2i 280 as well.  Thats more than enough distance to play good golf on any track.  

 

Now if you talking how far is absolutely too far ???  Well ill say a 1000 yard 7i is too much.  its too tough to feather a lob wedge for a 600 yard par5 into the wind

Edited March 19, 2023 by puresurfr

[eric61]

27 minutes ago, NZ315 said:

No way a 7iron should be going 200yards. Completely unnecessary on both high and low ends of the bag. Where would you go on either side. 6iron - 5wood?? Add a bunch of wedges on the low end to gap you out?? If you hit the 7 iron 200yards you got the wrong jacked up club. As mentioned before take away the number iron and replace it with loft. 
Short answer is that this iron set is not for you. 

Right, this is exactly the point, and why I wouldn’t want this and wasn’t looking for personal advice. What’s the point at which you say, no, that’s too far? 185? 170?

[Joepa324]

160, on a frozen rope.

[RogerinNewZealand]

3 hours ago, lefthack said:

 

8, 9, pw, aw, gw, sw, lw.

 

It's a classic 5 wedge setup. 🤣

I covered this 3 hours ago with the gapgapgap,gapgap, gap, and extragap, whew! No gaps left in That Bag!

[mantan]

3 hours ago, eric61 said:

To address this point: There’s a thread about the Mizuno JPX 923s around here where someone with Hot Metals or HMPs described having huge gaps on the short end. If your 7 iron is absurdly strong, then yes, you can bend clubs, but the stock gaps can become 5-5.5 degrees or even more. You might be able to fix that problem bending, mixing different models, adding wedges, etc. But that’s generally what I meant.

 

You're right about the HM/HMPs.  They essentially have less clubs at the lower end of the bag. If you went with the full set you have 4 clubs between 42.5* and 60*.  Compare that to a set that has 5 clubs in that space.  (42* 9, 46* PW, 50* gap, 54* sand, 58* lob)

 

You're asking somebody to be versatile in the short end of the bag to cover 15* gaps.  That's giving up a lot to be able to say you nuke your 7-iron.  

 

I had the hot metals for a short bit and hated the gapping on the short end.  My 923 PW (42.5*) was a 140-145 club.  My gap (48*) wedge was 120-125.  Anything inside of 150 is my 'go zone'.  I'd rather have 10-12 yard gaps there. Outside of par 3's, I'm not looking at 170-190 yard approach shots nearly as much as things at the lower end of the bag.