Do any PGA pros play hollow body irons?

[Valtiel]

18 minutes ago, MountainKing said:

 

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.

But the point is they do, e.g. the long irons we're talking about. If a high strike on a deep CG hot faced iron dumps 1,000+ spin then that is great for the pro that wants it, but bad for the average golfer that doesn't or isn't expecting it. A behavior that traditional solid irons don't exhibit as much, or at all if they have more forward CG. This all comes back to the reason you virtually don't see this type of iron on tour anywhere in the scoring club range, because the last thing you would want is an accidental high strike dumping spin and flying the green. 

Edited March 26 by Valtiel

[Lftygolfnut]

not currently on pga tour but didn’t Pat Perez play 0311p irons?

 

 

Edited March 26 by Lftygolfnut

[Pepperturbo]

On 3/24/2024 at 2:36 AM, Drivingrangehero said:

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 

I think Speith and a few other Titleist guys used 718 T-MB long irons, same as the one I have been playing since 2017, and just retired.  I believe other Titleist guys are now using T200 2i, 3i or 4i, for driving / utility irons.  I am sure some guys play some form of hollow-body irons.  

Edited March 26 by Pepperturbo

[msd71]

Hitting a hollow body iron is like jumping on a trampoline.  If you hit the middle you really go, but miss the center and you'll lose a lot of height (and get deflected in the direction towards the center a bit as well).   This is the cause of the "jumpers" people experience with the hollow body tech - the dead center is hotter relative to the rest of the face than other irons. 

 

The pros have plenty of speed, so they would rather hit the "slow everywhere" blade or solid body cavity back.  And someone like Luke Donald who might benefit from a little extra distance has the precision to hit the center almost all the time, so he probably can get away with hitting the 245 to earn his living - but it's still a surprising choice imho.

 

Edit for clarity

Edited March 27 by msd71

[Chrischo555]

bryson has experimented with some hollowbodies... though technically speaking he isn't a PGA Tour player lol

 

[MountainKing]

3 hours ago, Valtiel said:

But the point is they do, e.g. the long irons we're talking about. If a high strike on a deep CG hot faced iron dumps 1,000+ spin then that is great for the pro that wants it, but bad for the average golfer that doesn't or isn't expecting it. A behavior that traditional solid irons don't exhibit as much, or at all if they have more forward CG. This all comes back to the reason you virtually don't see this type of iron on tour anywhere in the scoring club range, because the last thing you would want is an accidental high strike dumping spin and flying the green. 

 

The label here is key.  Players distance irons, is generally what they're called.  That label indicates some level of ballstriking is needed.  

[MountainKing]

1 hour ago, Chrischo555 said:

bryson has experimented with some hollowbodies... though technically speaking he isn't a PGA Tour player lol

 

 

At this point it should probably be guys who make a living playing golf.  

[Tugu]

On 3/24/2024 at 1:14 PM, 0cean said:

Do any PGA pros play hollow body irons?

I recall that Cameron Smith won early in his career with T-MB on more than one occasion.

Edited March 27 by Tugu

[mat562]

Didn't Malnati have a bagful of Titleist T-MBs at one time?

[Dill Pickleson]

Hollow bodies were designed for the true weekend warriors like you and me, pros just wouldn't be able to take full advantage of them.

[Pleasedwith3putts]

I've used a set of the original P790s for years and am baffled by all the talk of 20 yard jumpers. You can get a flyer with any club given the right circumstances, I've had absolutely zero problems with distance control on full shots.

 

What is a lot harder is chipping or playing part shots with them. The ball does come off pretty fast which makes the feel shots more tricky. Worth stating that again the clubhead is reacting consistently, it's just harder playing finesse shots when it comes off faster so for instance dropping the hollow wedge in favour of something more blade like adds precision.

 

 

[bvanlieu]

34 minutes ago, Pleasedwith3putts said:

I've used a set of the original P790s for years and am baffled by all the talk of 20 yard jumpers. You can get a flyer with any club given the right circumstances, I've had absolutely zero problems with distance control on full shots.

 

What is a lot harder is chipping or playing part shots with them. The ball does come off pretty fast which makes the feel shots more tricky. Worth stating that again the clubhead is reacting consistently, it's just harder playing finesse shots when it comes off faster so for instance dropping the hollow wedge in favour of something more blade like adds precision.

 

 

 

Well now you've gone and done it...beware of the Flyer Mafia putting a hit out on you.

 

Regarding chipping, I think this is more feels not actual results. The  ball speed of the chip is not any different (we are talking low ball speeds here), its the *sound* that makes older players who have played with a blade or softer clubs be less confident.

 

The click sounds HOT...but it rolls out just fine. Like a proper 'Ho, I can (and have) compared the feels and roll out of my P790/760/CB1008 at the same time on the short game area and the actual performance if I am honest with my *strike* is indistinguishable. The feels of the CB or the P760 are better (even the hollow 760s are a different steel and softer then the 790).

 

t

[johnnylongballz72]

Our club hosted our state’s amateur championship last season. I walked around out of curiosity looking in as many bags as I could to see what the guys were playing. Even at this level I didn’t see a single full set of hollow body irons. Only combo sets.

[Go_Blue!]

12 hours ago, Pepperturbo said:

I think Speith and a few other Titleist guys used 718 T-MB long irons, same as the one I have been playing since 2017, and just retired.  I believe other Titleist guys are now using T200 2i, 3i or 4i, for driving / utility irons.  I am sure some guys play some form of hollow-body irons.  

Yeah there are a lot of guys with T200 builds in their long irons. Pretty sure there is an article about Zalatoris and his T350.

 

 

Edited March 27 by Go_Blue!

[joostin]

14 hours 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. 
 

👍

A few posts down in that gear effect thread was this one (LINK) where I was comparing irons vs hybrids based on MPF data, and had some thoughts about driving irons.  It crossed my mind what you wrote above about purposefully hitting high on the face to get gear effect spin reduction (similar to Howard's DIY driver happy strike location) - if CG is behind the face.  I didn't mention it but thanks for pointing out.  Those with great strike control like Scotty Scheffler, with his U85s, could make that happen.

 

As far as the flyer-like shots and consistency of distance with hollow body or any iron we have some info, thanks to MPF data, like in the gear effect thread, but we definitely have unknowns because of lack of other critical data.  To determine what an iron is capable of in this context, by design (hollow vs CB vs blade, thin VFT faces...), as far as strike location vs spin and ball speed retention, we'd have to know:

 

- CG location <- Like in that thread we can figure this out from MPF data.  However we only have 1 sample of a club that's usually a 6 iron.  We'd want to see all the clubs.  Measuring physically we'd always have manufacturing tolerances and human measurement error, but the CAD models of the clubs would show the benchmark CGs by design.  One thought from the analysis was to take gear effect spin out of the picture.  That can only happen when the CG is directly on the face.  We can find this in MPF numbers when BVCOG = AVCOG like with the Titleist 718 TMB below.  Again it's just a 6 iron.  Shapes and CGs will vary throughout the set.  It would be nice to have this data on the long irons to compare vs others.

 

- MOI <- But not the MOI that MPF measures about the vertical axis (below).  It would have to be about the horizontal toe to heel axis.  So we'd want them to also measure the iron head standing up on its toe on the MOI machine.  Measuring on both axes would be like how companies are adding these MOIs on drivers to get the 10k number nowadays. 

 

 

- CT or COR mapping <- Indicate how much ball speed retention can be seen with strikes all over the face.  This would be critical for all the debates about hot spots, "dead all over", etc., and it's something we definitely cannot get from MPF data.  Cool Clubs' robot testing is the closest we have.  This is a big unknown with thin faced irons or really any club - like a smash factor map on a clubface.  It's something that we'd want to be determined by controlled CT or COR testing, or by computer simulation.  We'd want something like this:

 

Only then can we have a full picture to truly be able to compare iron vs iron or any club to any other club, scientifically controlled, short of people testing filled with all the human factors.  Without all the data we just have everyone's testing, along with everyone's feels, good/poor fits, honeymoon periods with clubs, etc.  It's why we can only really test for ourselves and find things that work for ourselves.  If we had all this data we'd be better informed, but we'd still have to test and find things for ourselves.  Golfwrx ho'ing, speculating, bragging, and anecdotes will still exist 😂, just better informed with less myths!

 

TLDR: With hollow body irons vs non-hollow irons, we know some things, but we don't know some things, so we all just have to test for ourselves.

Edited March 27 by joostin

[Valtiel]

6 hours ago, joostin said:

 

It crossed my mind what you wrote above about purposefully hitting high on the face to get gear effect spin reduction (similar to Howard's DIY driver happy strike location) - if CG is behind the face.  I didn't mention it but thanks for pointing out.  Those with great strike control like Scotty Scheffler, with his U85s, could make that happen.

 

- CG location <- Like in that thread we can figure this out from MPF data.  However we only have 1 sample of a club that's usually a 6 iron.  We'd want to see all the clubs.  Measuring physically we'd always have manufacturing tolerances and human measurement error, but the CAD models of the clubs would show the benchmark CGs by design.  One thought from the analysis was to take gear effect spin out of the picture.  That can only happen when the CG is directly on the face.  We can find this in MPF numbers when BVCOG = AVCOG like with the Titleist 718 TMB below.  Again it's just a 6 iron.  Shapes and CGs will vary throughout the set.  It would be nice to have this data on the long irons to compare vs others.

 

Cheers for the follow up, revisiting this as been really interesting. The two bits I left in the quote above are specifically what i'm interested in. 

First the Scottie thing....i'm always curious when someone plays outlier clubs like that, especially since from a hollow driving iron standpoint they couldn't be further from the set irons he plays (TW Blades), both visually and technically. I just bumped a 2018 WITB thread from him and it looks like he bagged a G400 hybrid prior to the Srixon U85, so it's safe to speculate what he wants in that slot. Based on his otherworldly ball striking ability it stands to reason that he could be taking advantage of the fact that on paper the U85 is more volatile in terms of spin, but since the CG is so low that volatility would be pretty squarely on the "spin reduction" side of things. As a club that needs to do a lot of things for him it makes sense that he could exploit this for versatility. 

The other bit was related to VCOG, just wanted to make sure I understood this relationship you pointed out here correctly. The "Basic VCOG" is just a measurements from the ground to where the balance point on the face is, but the Actual VCOG takes into account the RCOG and indicates where the center of gravity actually exists in 3D space. I believe this is what MG$ referred to as the "neutral axis"? Then as you said when Basic and Actual VCOG are the same, like pictured above with the T-MB, that means this point intersects right on the face, and therefore is "gear effect neutral" so to speak. What would be the main reasons to ever *not* want to design your irons like this? When we look at the blades that Tiger has played over the years for example:


 





With the exception of the 2009 VR blade, this is otherwise a very linear progression from a deep RCOG with a lot of gear effect potential to a much more forward RCOG currently with that potential flipped. Could this have been an evolution in response to the ball changing over the years? Strike for strike that MP-14 is cutting spin compared to the P-7TW which would actually raise it. I also wonder about the feel difference as i'd imagine a more "GE neutral" clubhead would feel different compared to one where GE is imparted on basically any strike due to the mismatch between the point on the face the ball is struck and the actual CG location. 

[Chopper Dave]

18 hours ago, Tugu said:

I recall that Cameron Smith won early in his career with T-MB on more than one occasion.

yeah he had a full set of t-mb, can’t remember if 716 or 718

[joostin]

5 hours ago, Valtiel said:

Based on his otherworldly ball striking ability it stands to reason that he could be taking advantage of the fact that on paper the U85 is more volatile in terms of spin, but since the CG is so low that volatility would be pretty squarely on the "spin reduction" side of things. As a club that needs to do a lot of things for him it makes sense that he could exploit this for versatility

It's possible he's taking advantage of some spin versatility with strike.  I'm guessing though it may just be more a matter of the basics like launch, overall spin, better mishits, look, etc. vs his previous hybrid.  Like the rest of us look for, just with way better execution lol.  But yeah it wouldn't be hard to believe he could be one to say "I'll hit this one 2 grooves high to take a little spin off".

 

5 hours ago, Valtiel said:

The "Basic VCOG" is just a measurements from the ground to where the balance point on the face is, but the Actual VCOG takes into account the RCOG and indicates where the center of gravity actually exists in 3D space. I believe this is what MG$ referred to as the "neutral axis"?

Yeah the Basic VCOG is just where it's balanced on the face, then based on where they balance on the sole for RCOG they can figure out Actual VCOG in 3D space from trig.  The neutral axis is just an axis passing through the geometric center of the face, perpendicular to the face.  It's not connected to the CG, however its relevance is because people normally aim to hit the center of the face (driver).  If we happen to hit that center, then where the CG is in relation to the neutral axis will dictate gear effect because of the moment arm from the CG to the NA - giving a bias as you know.

 

6 hours ago, Valtiel said:

Then as you said when Basic and Actual VCOG are the same, like pictured above with the T-MB, that means this point intersects right on the face, and therefore is "gear effect neutral" so to speak. What would be the main reasons to ever *not* want to design your irons like this?

Exactly.  To me it makes sense to design the CG to be on the face for zero gear effect, esp. for scoring and mid irons.  It's probably just not a driving factor for many designers and clubs, because no one seems to be concerned much if at all with gearing with irons.  The only thing we ever hear with forgiving irons is "low and deep" CG.  However Ping does seems to be inline with this gear neutral thinking the most just looking at BVCOG and AVCOG numbers across their models.

 

6 hours ago, Valtiel said:

With the exception of the 2009 VR blade, this is otherwise a very linear progression from a deep RCOG with a lot of gear effect potential to a much more forward RCOG currently with that potential flipped. Could this have been an evolution in response to the ball changing over the years?

I ran the MPF numbers to find how far the CG is from the face, which isn't the same as RCOG (distance of the CG behind the shaft axis), as distance from face is what's needed for looking at gear spin:

 

P7TW's CG is in from of the face not behind like the others.  It's possible the clubs evolved over time in response to the changes in balls.  It's a good thought.  I just think it's hard to draw conclusions from the data because we just have single club data, not club sets.  Not even sure if some of the clubs were 5 irons looking at the lofts and a 12 gram weight spread, so not sure if apples to apples.  So in short, who knows lol.

 

Btw, sorry OP, we've gotten very technical to a simple question about hollow body irons 😄

[Whodamon1]

On 3/26/2024 at 6:31 PM, Pepperturbo said:

I think Speith and a few other Titleist guys used 718 T-MB long irons, same as the one I have been playing since 2017, and just retired.  I believe other Titleist guys are now using T200 2i, 3i or 4i, for driving / utility irons.  I am sure some guys play some form of hollow-body irons.  

Thongchai Jaidee played a full set of the 716 T-MB for a while

[msd71]

On 3/26/2024 at 7:36 PM, msd71 said:

Hitting a hollow body iron is like jumping on a trampoline.  If you hit the middle you really go, but miss the center and you'll lose a lot of height (and get deflected in the direction towards the center a bit as well).   This is the cause of the "jumpers" people experience with the hollow body tech - the dead center is hotter relative to the rest of the face than other irons. 

 

The pros have plenty of speed, so they would rather hit the "slow everywhere" blade or solid body cavity back.  And someone like Luke Donald who might benefit from a little extra distance has the precision to hit the center almost all the time, so he probably can get away with hitting the 245 to earn his living - but it's still a surprising choice imho.

 

Edit for clarity

 

The only response I got from this is a laugh emoji - I'm curious as to what is wrong with what I wrote?   I'm interested because I've only gotten "jumpers" from two iron sets I've owned (out of dozens) - the original P790 and the Mizuno 223, both of which happen to have hollow/slot tech.  And no other sets I've owned have had this. 

 

Specifically, why is the trampoline analogy faulty (if it is)? 

[bogeyk]

On 3/27/2024 at 3:36 AM, mat562 said:

Didn't Malnati have a bagful of Titleist T-MBs at one time?

You may be thinking of another quirky guy in Ben Crane.  https://www.golfwrx.com/428214/ben-crane-witb-2017/

[RacineBoxer]

Hollow bodied irons aren't really designed for high SS players (say 110 driver plus). It's almost like asking why someone who's smaller/older/weaker with a 80 mph driver SS isn't a good fit for MB's with 130 gram stiff shafts. That's why you don't see them on the PGA tour. Their primary objective (hit it higher and farther) isn't something a PGA player really wants. Also, as your swing speed goes up your yardage gapping goes up. GI/PD irons often have 5 degrees of loft between clubs to give moderate SS golfers more distance between clubs. Again- something PGA players don't want or need. 

 

I can get behind the logic that there is SOME difference in fliers and spin retention based on COG differences. That makes perfect sense but what humors me is that some things you read it's almost like the person believes iron #1 has 0 fliers and iron #2 frequently hits 20 yard fliers over the green. In my experience with GI/PD irons problematic fliers are rare. Like for me... almost never. I'm not sure I'd even say one per year. This is with irons like G400, G425 and i525. The way I look at it is that there are fliers for all sets of irons and maybe a T100/P7MC would handle it better (say 7 yard flier) than a i525 (12 yard flier) but it's not zero vs 20, its "a little more" or "a few yards more" than a players CB. 

 

Hollow bodied or GI irons are easily played down to scratch or even plus handicap. 

 

Other clubs that fall into a similar discussion would be hybrids (how many PGA players are playing 5-6-7 hybrids) and GI/cavity back wedges like the Cleveland CBX.

[petep5280]

14 hours ago, msd71 said:

 

The only response I got from this is a laugh emoji - I'm curious as to what is wrong with what I wrote?   I'm interested because I've only gotten "jumpers" from two iron sets I've owned (out of dozens) - the original P790 and the Mizuno 223, both of which happen to have hollow/slot tech.  And no other sets I've owned have had this. 

 

Specifically, why is the trampoline analogy faulty (if it is)? 

 

I'm pretty sure forgings lose more speed away from the center than hollow irons. 

 

 

[Mike_C]

On 3/25/2024 at 2:06 PM, 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.

I saw it happen too with 1st gen P790s.  A buddy had a set, hit several out of this world long midirons shots.  I distinctly remember him on a par three off a tee, 5 iron from about 190 which should be his normal distance. He made a solid strike, good height, right at the hole to a back pin and no real wind, he literally flew right over the pin by 20+ yards and into some trees behind the green......It was jaw dropping.....  He is much more of a sweeper than me, all I could think is he launched it high and his shallow AoA produced basically a knuckle ball with the P790 head....

[Mike_C]

dp

Edited March 29 by Mike_C

[mat562]

15 hours ago, bogeyk said:

You may be thinking of another quirky guy in Ben Crane.  https://www.golfwrx.com/428214/ben-crane-witb-2017/

 

He may have had a set too. I think there were several, but only Malnati came to mind. My memory's on the wane...

 

[MD-958]

Angela Stanford is playing Ping i525 4-Pw on the LPGA Tour.

[KeepCalmandCarry]

I know she was already mentioned earlier, but here’s a winning WITB for Brooke Henderson from last year, with P790s 5-Pw: https://www.golfwrx.com/703465/brooke-hendersons-winning-witb-2023-hilton-grand-vacations-tournament-of-champions/

[NRJyzr]

21 hours ago, msd71 said:

 

The only response I got from this is a laugh emoji - I'm curious as to what is wrong with what I wrote?   I'm interested because I've only gotten "jumpers" from two iron sets I've owned (out of dozens) - the original P790 and the Mizuno 223, both of which happen to have hollow/slot tech.  And no other sets I've owned have had this. 

 

Specifically, why is the trampoline analogy faulty (if it is)? 

 

The jumpers that are talked about aren't related to ball speed (the trampoline you referenced).  It's a spin related issue.  See the posts from Valtiel and Joostin in this thread, where it's explained best.

 

[joostin]

18 hours ago, NRJyzr said:

 

The jumpers that are talked about aren't related to ball speed (the trampoline you referenced).  It's a spin related issue.  See the posts from Valtiel and Joostin in this thread, where it's explained best.

 

True, we were mainly discussing gear spin.  However, the same clubhead twisting that causes gear spin (from circled friction force below) also results in a loss of strike efficiency / ball speed (left most arrow).

 

As far as the "trampoline effect", I don't want to dive into it much, but here's a link to Tutelman's site below (note: I like to default to him because he's the GOAT of golf engineering analysis lol), where he looked at it upon having older forum discussions with Tom Wishon.  He's basically analyzing the manipulation of COR via variable face thickness, comparing to a "dead all over" rigid body, and how this can make up for losses from clubhead deflection.  Basically he thinks it's a good design.  However...

 

https://www.tutelman.com/golf/clubs/flexFaceIrons.php

 

Of course COR will drop off the farther off-center you strike, especially a really off strike on a thin faced clubhead.  However VFT and face flexing design features (like slots and AI face contouring) will expand the relatively high COR area.  That can help retain ball speed on off-center strikes.  How far off-center?  Well that depends on the design, and you don't want to strike too far off where you practically get no help.  This is why I never discount design features like these as merely marketing fluff.  They are there for a reason, and to a more amplified degree on drivers.  Now if your strike lives on the low side of the high COR area, then suddenly you strike dead center inline with the CG, in the highest COR spot, combine that with a lack of gear spin, lack of clubhead deflection, and you have the recipe for the flyer.

 

That's the reason I was saying above that having a CT or COR map on a clubface is one of the critical things involved in truly knowing what a clubhead design is capable of - one that we don't have data for.  It's like being able to know the spring constant, k, of any point on a clubface in the potential energy equation PE = 1/2kx², for face deflection x.  We really can't know without computer simulation or controlled physical testing.

 

In short, it's really all of the above at play:  Strike location vs CG location, MOI, and COR (at point of strike), resulting in differences in strike efficiency and spin.  Same thing as on a driver, but to a lesser degree on an iron.