Do any PGA pros play hollow body irons?

[0cean]

Do any PGA pros play hollow body irons?

[Drivingrangehero]

I know Jordan Speith played the Titleist T-MB 716 in a long iron or two, but don’t know if any hat play a set, just long irons 

[Valtiel]

In terms of full sets, very few if any. The closest thing is something like Jason Day's on again/off again use of the full set of Taylormade P760s, and even that set isn't fully hollow (solid scoring irons). Mike Weir had a P790 set in the bag for at least a few PGA starts as well

Otherwise you have someone like Brian Harmon who has hollow driving irons as his 3i/4i/5i, and that typically the most you'll see. Scottie Scheffler does the hollow 3/4i thing, Rory has done it several times, plenty of others...

[03trdblack]

Harry Higgs played the TaylorMade P770 for a while but I think he converted to the P7MC 

 

Here's an old witb: https://www.golfwrx.com/662239/harry-higgs-witb-whats-in-the-bag-2021-october/

 

 

Edited March 24 by 03trdblack

[Trippels]

Luke Donald plays a full set of Mizuno 245

 

Think a few LPGA players use full sets of hollow bodies like P770.

 

 

[alexc93]

Yep Luke Donald went full 245’s this season. ^^^

[KevCannon]

Hollow body irons have no doubt improved, but short answer is - no. Like others have said, some guys have a club like that in a driving iron/3-4 iron spot in the bag where distance is wanted. The Pros are such precise ball strikers that is usually not worth entertaining the idea that we should be playing what they are playing. No idea if that’s why u posed the question, but it helped my game a lot when i stopped caring what others were using.

[300_yard_drives]

Difficult to get consistent ball speeds while achieving appropriate AOD and spin to attack tour pin positions

[bogeypro]

Most of them have the swing speed that they don't need the added boost of hollow body.  They were truly created to help us amateurs... 

[T Creer]

If its worth anything, I played hollow body irons for 5 rounds and scored horrible.

Kept getting "jumpers" that would fly 20yrds longer than "normal" shots. Went back to my forged cavity-back irons and shot my normal -2 to +2 scores. 

[gator022]

17 minutes ago, T Creer said:

If its worth anything, I played hollow body irons for 5 rounds and scored horrible.

Kept getting "jumpers" that would fly 20yrds longer than "normal" shots. Went back to my forged cavity-back irons and shot my normal -2 to +2 scores. 

this has been proven not possible. They don’t flex like that. There are some other factors causing the 20 yard differential 

[Kmagnuss]

5 minutes ago, gator022 said:

this has been proven not possible. They don’t flex like that. There are some other factors causing the 20 yard differential 

It happened to me some with a first gen set of p790's... even out of the fairway.  It's like a weird low-spinning shot that not only carries 15 yards further but it rolls out more too.

[boggyman]

36 minutes ago, gator022 said:

this has been proven not possible. They don’t flex like that. There are some other factors causing the 20 yard differential 

One being, actually hitting the center of the face! A nutted, purely struck iron.😳

[Yuck]

I think stronger lofted, lower spin irons are less predictable in terms of both carry and run out.  At lower clubhead speeds, less of an issue.  I think any iron with higher spin / decent angle is more predictable wether it is hollow or not.

[gator022]

1 hour ago, boggyman said:

One being, actually hitting the center of the face! A nutted, purely struck iron.😳

Correct. The physics defy a random 20 yard difference with all factors being the same. It’s pure strike v. not so great.  We’ve all had them too.  Or at least I have. Regardless of iron head construction.

[Valtiel]

1 hour ago, gator022 said:

this has been proven not possible. They don’t flex like that. There are some other factors causing the 20 yard differential 

 

1 hour ago, Kmagnuss said:

It happened to me some with a first gen set of p790's... even out of the fairway.  It's like a weird low-spinning shot that not only carries 15 yards further but it rolls out more too.

Yeah i wouldn't say that it's "proven not possible", more like a specific set of strike circumstances can produce launch conditions that cause some volatility in total distance. Shoutout to @joostin who made an excellent thread on this last year. The relevant takeaway from there is:

 

Quote

One thing that comes to mind is the flyer, and the much discussed/debated "hot spot" of GI irons.  What the diagrams above help to see is where on the face you actually have to hit that particular iron if you want impact to truly be inline with the CG, and it's pretty high up the face vs where the ball would impact the club on hardpan.  This is despite the CAD model having a relatively low CG (.746") that's below the ball's CG.  The force vectors, which are taken normal to the face, don't align with the head CG until that impact moves another .45" up the face.  And in slow mo videos, there's almost no movement of the ball up the face when fully compressed, only when it's decompressing.  If struck inline with the CG, there will be no rotational deflection, so a more efficient strike, and there would be no gear effect.  Tees, fluffy lies, hitting fat on forgiving range mats - those all help getting high strikes that can demonstrate these high smash lower gear spin conditions. 

 

As seen with the T400, the vertical GE can be significant according to the math.  So if you normally strike low (vs CG) on a GI iron, then all of a sudden hit it higher inline with the CG, it would have a higher smash and lower spin.  There's the flyer or hot spot.  Add in some wet grass to reduce friction, and spin drops even more.  Vertical strike variance on the face should have greater GE spin variance as a component of total spin for a GI vs blade, depending on CG location.  There would be more spin consistency when CG is close to the face, due to a lack of GE (by the math T100 would be more consistent spin-wise than even 620MB).  With better players interested in controlling spin, from a GE point of view alone, it's no surprise there's a general preference for shallow cavity or blade irons.

tl;dr - There is a combination of greater spin volatility up and down the face combined with the retention of ball speed from the faster thin face design that can produce a ball that launches with up to one club *less* spin but without the reduction in ball speed you would normally see on a more "traditional" solid iron, and this is what produces the "flyer". It's not that the thin faced irons have some magical trampoline speed increasing characteristics, more that the normal "loss" of speed isn't there in the types of strikes that also spin less, and the same goes for the opposite as well with bigger spin increases in lower strikes. This is where the "they are slow everywhere" comments came from re: traditional irons and why several basic tests conducted by guys like Crossfield show greater front to back dispersion with hollow GI irons over blades. 

[gator022]

14 minutes ago, Valtiel said:

 

Yeah i wouldn't say that it's "proven not possible", more like a specific set of strike circumstances can produce launch conditions that cause some volatility in total distance. Shoutout to @joostin who made an excellent thread on this last year. The relevant takeaway from there is:

 

tl;dr - There is a combination of greater spin volatility up and down the face combined with the retention of ball speed from the faster thin face design that can produce a ball that launches with up to one club *less* spin but without the reduction in ball speed you would normally see on a more "traditional" solid iron, and this is what produces the "flyer". It's not that the thin faced irons have some magical trampoline speed increasing characteristics, more that the normal "loss" of speed isn't there in the types of strikes that also spin less, and the same goes for the opposite as well with bigger spin increases in lower strikes. This is where the "they are slow everywhere" comments came from re: traditional irons and why several basic tests conducted by guys like Crossfield show greater front to back dispersion with hollow GI irons over blades. 

 

glad you remembered who posted this. This is what I meant by not possible. Sorry for the confusion created.

[Ben B]

3 hours ago, gator022 said:

this has been proven not possible. They don’t flex like that. There are some other factors causing the 20 yard differential 

I recently got back into the game almost 9 years off. I played blades from 2000 until 2014 when I took my break. When I got back into the game I picked up a set of Bridgestone J15DFs. They are hollow dual forged irons that look like blades but play more like game improvement irons. Even though I really enjoyed them, I went back to blades for this very reason. I was getting shots going 10-15 yards further than expected from the middle of closely mown fairways, much like a flyer you'd get from a 2nd cut. I started noting when this would happen and it was mainly when I was inbetween clubs and was swinging slower/smooth to take some off. What I think happens is...the way these irons are designed (stronger lofts, grooves, hollow body higher launching) in combination with the modern ball causes the spin to drop with a slower/smoother swing yet the launch it is still fairly high and the ball just carries further...much further.

 

For example, my stock 8 iron is 165. I'd have 160 to a middle pin and I'd take a little off of an 8 yet it would fly the green by quite a bit. This became very frustrating. Now that I'm back to playing non-hollowbody irons it hasn't happened once. 

 

Back to the OP, Luke Donald is the only one I know of but there could be more....there are alot of tour pros out there. 

[Zach.buckler23]

I think Luke Donald does 

[Denny100]

I think the main problem with these types of iron at that level, is the moment the player gets in the rough, their spin levels are going to drop off to such an extent that they would be hitting shots that are borderline impossible to control on tour greens.

 

Any time a situation causes them to drop spin, a left miss, the rough, damp conditions, anything, the misses will be worse.

 

Plus guys that hit their 7 iron 190 yards dont need to hit it even further.

 

"Forgiveness" for them is going to be keeping front to back dispersion to a minimum.

[BCULAW]

Several of the PXG guys were playing 0311Ts and 0311Ps, though many are migrating to the pure blades and CBS.  

[Yuck]

Nelly Korda plays the P770 in the 5 iron only, P7MC’s in the rest.  Brooks Henderson a former Ping I210 player,  tried a P790 P770 Combo but changed to P7MC’s because of dispersion issues.  There are several YouTube influencers playing hollow irons.  A few Pros gamed i59’s at the release, but rarer than Hens teeth now.

 

Bottom line, Pro play a different game than most of us and dispersion / workability trump “hotness” when it comes to irons.

Heck, some shotmakers hit some shots slightly miss hit on purpose to achieve a desired result.

[petep5280]

These dudes are attacking pins from a country mile. They need precision. 

[gvogel]

Are hybrids "hollow body irons?"

[Long Shot]

21 hours ago, gator022 said:

this has been proven not possible. They don’t flex like that. There are some other factors causing the 20 yard differential 

I had a similar experience with a set of Apex 4-5 seasons ago. It wasn't so much of a flex of the face, but more of certain spots in the hollow body irons that if your hit the ball there it comes of with a lot less spin (like half or more), given the right condition this can lead to a 20 yard "flier".   That being said, I have moved into the Mizuno Pro 245's (at least experimenting with for a few rounds) and have not experienced this at all (I switched from ZX7's). 

[Tasals]

6 hours ago, Yuck said:

Nelly Korda plays the P770 in the 5 iron only, P7MC’s in the rest.  Brooks Henderson a former Ping I210 player,  tried a P790 P770 Combo but changed to P7MC’s because of dispersion issues.  There are several YouTube influencers playing hollow irons.  A few Pros gamed i59’s at the release, but rarer than Hens teeth now.

 

Bottom line, Pro play a different game than most of us and dispersion / workability trump “hotness” when it comes to irons.

Heck, some shotmakers hit some shots slightly miss hit on purpose to achieve a desired result.

McIlroy plays a p760 in his 4 iron as well. A lot of players have moved away from full blade long irons.

[MountainKing]

On 3/25/2024 at 1:41 PM, T Creer said:

If its worth anything, I played hollow body irons for 5 rounds and scored horrible.

Kept getting "jumpers" that would fly 20yrds longer than "normal" shots. Went back to my forged cavity-back irons and shot my normal -2 to +2 scores. 

 

Yeah not a chance - no tour player would put any club in their bag that just randomly would fly 20 yards further without warning.   The fact we see plenty of guys carrying hollow body long irons should tell the story. 

[underwater]

On 3/23/2024 at 11:14 PM, 0cean said:

Do any PGA pros play hollow body irons?

 

All the PXG guys went to LIV.

[Valtiel]

2 hours ago, MountainKing said:

 

Yeah not a chance - no tour player would put any club in their bag that just randomly would fly 20 yards further without warning.   The fact we see plenty of guys carrying hollow body long irons should tell the story. 

The fact that pros carry them as long iron replacements actually counters your point, it doesn't prove it. And it's not random, its based on CG and strike location per the content I posted above, and not all hollow body long iron replacements are created equal. This was the main takeaway from @joostin's thread I linked. It's not *just* that it's a hollow body iron, it's also where the CG is in relation to the face front/back as well as where it is vertically. The further back the CG the more spin varies high and low on the face, and you'll notice that most pros that use hollow body long irons are *not* using giant SGI versions with deep CG's, and when they are it's really specific models like the Srixon U85 which has a super low CG as well, so it's easier to get intentional knuckleball flights if you want.

The effect does exist, is potentially beneficial in long irons if/when you want to vary spin with them more, but it largely mitigated in smaller "players" hollow body irons with more forward CG should you want the benefits of speed retention across the face without the spin drawbacks of deeper CG designs. Dropping spin 1,000rpm with a 3-iron can be very useful (wind, squeezing out more total yards, more run etc), but dropping that same 1,000rpm on a scoring club is no bueno and creates distance jumps. 
 

[MountainKing]

10 minutes ago, Valtiel said:

The fact that pros carry them as long iron replacements actually counters your point, it doesn't prove it. And it's not random, its based on CG and strike location per the content I posted above, and not all hollow body long iron replacements are created equal. This was the main takeaway from @joostin's thread I linked. It's not *just* that it's a hollow body iron, it's also where the CG is in relation to the face front/back as well as where it is vertically. The further back the CG the more spin varies high and low on the face, and you'll notice that most pros that use hollow body long irons are *not* using giant SGI versions with deep CG's, and when they are it's really specific models like the Srixon U85 which has a super low CG as well, so it's easier to get intentional knuckleball flights if you want.

The effect does exist, is potentially beneficial in long irons if/when you want to vary spin with them more, but it largely mitigated in smaller "players" hollow body irons with more forward CG should you want the benefits of speed retention across the face without the spin drawbacks of deeper CG designs. Dropping spin 1,000rpm with a 3-iron can be very useful (wind, squeezing out more total yards, more run etc), but dropping that same 1,000rpm on a scoring club is no bueno and creates distance jumps. 
 

 

Yup, it's a ball striking issue,  not a club issue.   I did say "without warning".  What you indicated is intentional.  Once again,  no tour pro is going to have a club in their bag that randomly flies 20 yards longer.