How to properly gap Mizuno 243s with existing wedge set

[rocketman_]

After playing minimally when I was younger (2-3 times a year) I started getting more serious into golf about 6-7 years ago.  After a couple years of playing and practicing more consistently with a hand-me-down set of Taylormade Rocketballz (standard, not tour) and went to a local shop looking to get fit for my first new set 4 years ago.  I ended up walking out with a set of Callaway Mavriks.  I was launching everything further but was also pretty naiive at the time to realize the lofts were jacked.  Truth be told I needed the forgiveness as my swing was still pretty raw.  Since then I've had lessons to improve my mechanics, practiced smarter, really improved by ball-striking and picked up a fair bit of speed; my cruising driver CHS has gone from ~100mph to ~113mph in that time.  

In part due to vanity of wanting something that looked more player-ish, and in part due to wanting something more workable to knockdown or shape more (if needed), I headed to my local shop to test.  Clubs I tested were: ZX7, P7MC, T150, 243, and Apex Pro.  I went in really wanting to hit the ZX7 and T150 well as lot of reviews have seemed to bias me towards them, but the data ended up showing that the 243 and P7MC were best performing.  After more time with both and optimizing shafts, the 243 stood out as best suited for me, both the pure strikes and mishits.  I'm close but have not pulled the trigger as I'm trying to optimize gapping with a wedge set I bought lightly used last fall; Cleveland RTX zipcore in 52-56-60.  Side note as it may be useful later, I previously had a dog's breakfast of wedges, all different makes/models in 50-56-60, so I'm still adjusting a bit to the 52. 

My concern is that on the 243 the 9i is 40deg and PW is 44deg which feels like a big gap to the 52.  There is a GW of 48deg as an option but I wonder if its really necessary as I want to fill in an extra club elsewhere in the set (likely 7w or hybrid) without giving up the 4i.  I've never felt an issue in the gapping in my Mavriks which go 41deg in the PW and 46deg in the AW so I think changes in this area would work and probably more ideal than going 241 in 8i and down to prevent a gap there.  In order to best manage the gap I've got 3 ideas in mind, and was hoping for some input as maybe some are not advisable, or maybe there are others I'm not thinking of:
1. Have the 243 PW bent 2deg weak 

2. Go with the 241 PW which is already 46deg (Note: I see combo sets are more and more popular, but wonder if this would be less advisable if a 241 PW is notably harder to hit than the 243 PW)

3. Bend the 52deg 2deg stronger 

Edited Saturday at 03:56 PM by rocketman_

[rowersk]

3. is what i would choose..

 

243s 4-PW irons play just great and consistently soft across the set, and the PW is very easy to hit. I added 50-54-58 wedges and dont feel any lack of distance in the 6 loft gap. tried 241 in 9 and 7 iron and was way much effort to hit right, a real thin blade feel which was over my current skill set.

[Sean124]

I’d probably bend the PW to 45 and go 50-55-60

[Ghostdunc27]

I would consider giving up the 4 iron. 

[Ghostdunc27]

I’m very close to buying this same set. For me the bag will look like:

 

Driver

3 wood

3 iron (Mizuno 245) or 18* hybrid

5-GW in 243

52* 56* 60*
Putter

[rocketman_]

3 hours ago, rowersk said:

3. is what i would choose..

 

243s 4-PW irons play just great and consistently soft across the set, and the PW is very easy to hit. I added 50-54-58 wedges and dont feel any lack of distance in the 6 loft gap. tried 241 in 9 and 7 iron and was way much effort to hit right, a real thin blade feel which was over my current skill set.

Probably a wise idea to stick to the full set of 243s - they felt great and swapping in another club just for loft sake may end up hurting if I have one club in the set with notably different feel. While I shouldn't be too forward thinking, I suppose mixed sets may hurt resale value a bit too? Don't have experience with that.
 

1 hour ago, Sean124 said:

I’d probably bend the PW to 45 and go 50-55-60

Not a bad idea.  I'll be honest, I have not experience in bending clubs and until I looked it up I always assumed that bending a club would cost more than it actually does.  So maybe this is the way.  
 

48 minutes ago, Ghostdunc27 said:

I’m very close to buying this same set. For me the bag will look like:

 

Driver

3 wood

3 iron (Mizuno 245) or 18* hybrid

5-GW in 243

52* 56* 60*
Putter

I probably wouldn't be looking to make another big purchase this year so I'm hesitant to give up the 4i and have a noticeable gap at that end of the bag.  I guess you could argue I'm doing it on the other end but I feel a lot better being creative with half and three-quarter shot wedges as opposed to manufacturing knockdown shots with a 3w.  Still weighing the options and appreciate the input.  I'm comfortable with the 4i, long irons are generally a strength for me relative to handicap.  I think I'd want to give it some time to see my tendencies with the new set once getting accustomed to it.  For example, if I find the 4i is lower trajectory than needed I'd probably opt for a hybrid or 7w, but if I have no problem hitting towering shots than I may look to a 2i

Edited Saturday at 09:33 PM by rocketman_

[animalgolfs]

I just ended with 8-pw then specialty 48 52  CBX4

[rowersk]

17 minutes ago, rocketman_ said:

I suppose mixed sets may hurt resale value a bit too? Don't have experience with that.

you would not even have a mixed set as such, just some experimental single iron combo 😉 

[gticlay]

Wait, are you sure the 243 is 44*? The 223 is 46* (and at least 2* too strong). I’m thinking of bending my 223 to 48*, 9i 1.5* weak, 8i 1*… 

[noodle3872]

2 hours ago, gticlay said:

Wait, are you sure the 243 is 44*? The 223 is 46* (and at least 2* too strong). I’m thinking of bending my 223 to 48*, 9i 1.5* weak, 8i 1*… 

PW is 44° in 243. 

[noodle3872]

@rocketman_. Check out my WITB below. I’m comfortable hitting partial swing shots so 6° between my 48° GW and 54° SW is not a big deal. Also, my 60° is not a full swing club 95% of the time.

[sociojeje]

2 hours ago, gticlay said:

Wait, are you sure the 243 is 44*? The 223 is 46* (and at least 2* too strong). I’m thinking of bending my 223 to 48*, 9i 1.5* weak, 8i 1*… 

Mizuno's loft game is getting a bit crazy. 

[Ghostdunc27]

5 hours ago, rocketman_ said:

I probably wouldn't be looking to make another big purchase this year so I'm hesitant to give up the 4i and have a noticeable gap at that end of the bag.  I guess you could argue I'm doing it on the other end but I feel a lot better being creative with half and three-quarter shot wedges as opposed to manufacturing knockdown shots with a 3w.  Still weighing the options and appreciate the input.  I'm comfortable with the 4i, long irons are generally a strength for me relative to handicap.  I think I'd want to give it some time to see my tendencies with the new set once getting accustomed to it.  For example, if I find the 4i is lower trajectory than needed I'd probably opt for a hybrid or 7w, but if I have no problem hitting towering shots than I may look to a 2i

Everyone’s situation is different. I’ve only hit the 7i (basically a 6i with strong lofts) so far, and it was carrying 200. So assuming the 5i is 225 ish, I’m not too worried about big gaps at that range.  It’s very rare I have those distances. On the other hand I’ll be using the PW-GW-52-56-60 on almost every hole. 

[1puttTUT]

To me it's crazy anyone is still using a 52/56/50 setup.

 

I understand having weaker lofted irons, but I went to a 54/58 fifteen years ago and have had zero drawbacks from it. When in doubt I'd bend my set gap a little strong in the past.

[Ghostdunc27]

33 minutes ago, 1puttTUT said:

To me it's crazy anyone is still using a 52/56/50 setup.

 

I understand having weaker lofted irons, but I went to a 54/58 fifteen years ago and have had zero drawbacks from it. When in doubt I'd bend my set gap a little strong in the past.

I assume you mean 52/56/60? Why is it crazy to you?  Plenty of tour players on that set up. I went to 54-60 for years but going back now. Just don’t need as many clubs at the top of the bag, especially since I live in CO. 

[1puttTUT]

5 minutes ago, Ghostdunc27 said:

I assume you mean 52/56/60? Why is it crazy to you?  Plenty of tour players on that set up. I went to 54-60 for years but going back now. Just don’t need as many clubs at the top of the bag, especially since I live in CO. 

 

Yeah sorry I meant 60. I feel like a 58 can do everything a 60 can. I play a 12° bounce 58 and use it exclusively from greenside bunkers, while still having no trouble hitting high lofted pitches from most turf conditions. 

 

If you only use two non-set wedges I can see making the larger gaps work (54/60 or 55/60).

 

It's just wild to me that it's so hard to find 54/58 in lefty still. That should be the default lofts at this point with where iron lofts are going. 

[Ghostdunc27]

28 minutes ago, 1puttTUT said:

 

Yeah sorry I meant 60. I feel like a 58 can do everything a 60 can. I play a 12° bounce 58 and use it exclusively from greenside bunkers, while still having no trouble hitting high lofted pitches from most turf conditions. 

 

If you only use two non-set wedges I can see making the larger gaps work (54/60 or 55/60).

 

It's just wild to me that it's so hard to find 54/58 in lefty still. That should be the default lofts at this point with where iron lofts are going. 

I’ve never actually tried a 58, maybe I should. My 60 has just been so good to me for 25 years. And I like a low bounce high loft option. 

[rocketman_]

Looking at the 223, the 243 is identical in lofts from 4i-8i.  In the 9i they went from 41 in the 9 (223) to 40 (243), and 36 in the PW (223) to 44 (243).  I'm thinking of having the 9i and PW in the 243s bent to match the 223, which would then help the gap to my 52. If noticeable I could always bend that to 51. The added benefit is that my Mavrik PW is 41 and AW is 46, so I'm already accustomed to this loft gapping setup as baseline.

As noted before, I don't have any experience in having clubs bent. From what I understand the offset will decrease and bounce increases. Not sure the bounce will make much difference with this club and I have a relatively steep swing, but happy to be educated here on how I should expect turf interaction to change as a result.

Edited yesterday at 02:17 PM by rocketman_

[speedeuphoria]

48/53/58 is what I would do

 

Or just drop the 60deg and add 48

Edited yesterday at 02:47 PM by speedeuphoria

[Ghostdunc27]

2 hours ago, rocketman_ said:

Looking at the 223, the 243 is identical in lofts from 4i-8i.  In the 9i they went from 41 in the 9 (223) to 40 (243), and 36 in the PW (223) to 44 (243).  I'm thinking of having the 9i and PW in the 243s bent to match the 223, which would then help the gap to my 52. If noticeable I could always bend that to 51. The added benefit is that my Mavrik PW is 41 and AW is 46, so I'm already accustomed to this loft gapping setup as baseline.

As noted before, I don't have any experience in having clubs bent. From what I understand the offset will decrease and bounce increases. Not sure the bounce will make much difference with this club and I have a relatively steep swing, but happy to be educated here on how I should expect turf interaction to change as a result.

Even though I don’t like the trend of strong lofts, I would rather have the 243 loft set up than the 223. Would not want 5 degree gaps in my scoring clubs. 

[bogeypro]

I have t100s and play 52/58 wedges.  I been the pw 2 degrees week to 46 (to give consistent 6 degree gaps).  I also had the 9 strengthened 1 degree.  Now, I'm pretty even gapping from 58 up to 8 iron. 

[Sean124]

11 hours ago, Ghostdunc27 said:

Even though I don’t like the trend of strong lofts, I would rather have the 243 loft set up than the 223. Would not want 5 degree gaps in my scoring clubs. 

5° gaps are fine in scoring clubs. It’s like 3 extra yards of carry vs. 4° gaps in clubs you should rarely be hitting full anyway. 

[Ghostdunc27]

3 hours ago, Sean124 said:

5° gaps are fine in scoring clubs. It’s like 3 extra yards of carry vs. 4° gaps in clubs you should rarely be hitting full anyway. 

Yup. Would much rather have 12 yard gaps than 15 yard gaps in the clubs I use on just about every par 4.  

 

You get to set up your bag however you like, and so do I. 

[billyspan]

On 6/29/2024 at 8:54 AM, rocketman_ said:

After playing minimally when I was younger (2-3 times a year) I started getting more serious into golf about 6-7 years ago.  After a couple years of playing and practicing more consistently with a hand-me-down set of Taylormade Rocketballz (standard, not tour) and went to a local shop looking to get fit for my first new set 4 years ago.  I ended up walking out with a set of Callaway Mavriks.  I was launching everything further but was also pretty naiive at the time to realize the lofts were jacked.  Truth be told I needed the forgiveness as my swing was still pretty raw.  Since then I've had lessons to improve my mechanics, practiced smarter, really improved by ball-striking and picked up a fair bit of speed; my cruising driver CHS has gone from ~100mph to ~113mph in that time.  

In part due to vanity of wanting something that looked more player-ish, and in part due to wanting something more workable to knockdown or shape more (if needed), I headed to my local shop to test.  Clubs I tested were: ZX7, P7MC, T150, 243, and Apex Pro.  I went in really wanting to hit the ZX7 and T150 well as lot of reviews have seemed to bias me towards them, but the data ended up showing that the 243 and P7MC were best performing.  After more time with both and optimizing shafts, the 243 stood out as best suited for me, both the pure strikes and mishits.  I'm close but have not pulled the trigger as I'm trying to optimize gapping with a wedge set I bought lightly used last fall; Cleveland RTX zipcore in 52-56-60.  Side note as it may be useful later, I previously had a dog's breakfast of wedges, all different makes/models in 50-56-60, so I'm still adjusting a bit to the 52. 

My concern is that on the 243 the 9i is 40deg and PW is 44deg which feels like a big gap to the 52.  There is a GW of 48deg as an option but I wonder if its really necessary as I want to fill in an extra club elsewhere in the set (likely 7w or hybrid) without giving up the 4i.  I've never felt an issue in the gapping in my Mavriks which go 41deg in the PW and 46deg in the AW so I think changes in this area would work and probably more ideal than going 241 in 8i and down to prevent a gap there.  In order to best manage the gap I've got 3 ideas in mind, and was hoping for some input as maybe some are not advisable, or maybe there are others I'm not thinking of:
1. Have the 243 PW bent 2deg weak 

2. Go with the 241 PW which is already 46deg (Note: I see combo sets are more and more popular, but wonder if this would be less advisable if a 241 PW is notably harder to hit than the 243 PW)

3. Bend the 52deg 2deg stronger 

Go with the set gap wedge.  I did this a few years ago (Callaway Apex MB).  Probably my favorite club in the bag.  It is really just an old school PW.  I find it much easier for full and 3/4 shots than my old Cleveland 588 or Vokey "specialty" wedges.