MacGregor VIP Split Sole

[dukeman]

What was the purpose of the split sole on some VIP models?

 

Any ideas?

[Shallowface]

MacGregor claimed that on "hard turf," this sole designed minimized bounce, which of course seems obvious given the design.

They also claimed on "soft turf or high grass," the thin front sole would cut through the grass without digging in, while the second sole or trailing edge controlled the depth of divot.

I've never gotten to hit any of these, but I tend to take deep divots so I don't think these would be for me.

I took up the game in the early 1970s when this style was on the market, and the public golf courses I grew up on back then had unwatered fairways. As Lee Trevino once said, "it looks like the carnival just left town!" This design would probably have worked fine under those conditions, which weren't all that uncommon back then

Today, I'm still playing public courses, but they are now best described as fuzzy green mush. So many of the wonderful classic blades discussed here would be unplayable for me under these conditions due to their flat sharp soles. I don't necessarily look for wide soles, but I like to see a lot of front to back camber. As far as the older clubs go, not many had this feature, probably because it was more labor intensive to produce. I think some of the older H&B Citation models were better than most when it came to camber, and there was a Hogan model called the "Round Sole" that might have been good for this, but I've never actually seen any in person. Some of the Wilson Staff models had a wider sole than average, but still fairly flat soles with sharp leading edges. I'm looking forward to seeing a set of their new FG62s, which are supposed to have slightly wider soles than the current FG59s.

I don't think that softer golf courses are an improvement, and the older I get the more I feel that way!