Question About Eye 2 Irons

[CPS]

I think you should also have quality wedges and short irons that are still precise enough for touch shots around the green. I wouldn't want to be facing a delicate pitch or bump and run with a garden spade.

True enough. I can't imagine the S or L models of player's mid-size irons sell too well. If I see someone who has a matching set of irons all the way to a lob, I probably unfairly give them the GR sneer. On the other hand, on crappy goat track conditions with bare lies everywhere... a cavity sole isn't the worst pitching option.

[Mward2002]

Is he the guy who played in the first group as a 1 in the Tour Championship? Apparently the single went out there with the express intention of breaking the record for the fastest 18 in PGA Tour history and got around in something like 1 hour 20 minutes or something. They said his caddie and scorer were pissed because he was running between shots just to get the record and they had to keep up.

Something like that yeah. I think it was the PGA Championship after someone withdrew and he just got bored and wanted to get out of that POS known as Whistling Straits as soon as possible.

[Kiwi Player]

I apreciate the show of solidarity, but to fill you in, here in Oz if Collingwood isn't your first team they are your last team. If you don't love the Pies you hate them. They are in the unique position of being the most loved and most hated team in the AFL. I can assure you that every AFL fan in the country who aren't Collingwood fans were cheering for the Saints.

LOL - I mentioned this to my buddy today and you are right. He HATES the Pies!

[famousdavis]

This sounds like the advice I got from a pro mate of mine. He said you should play with shovels and practice with blades. He theorises that you need to know what you are doing right or wrong when practising on the range, but need something that won't punish you out on the course. I think this good advice, but said shovels actually have to be precise enough to produce good results and some level of workability. It's no good going out with a set of graphite shafted Big Berthas cause they're easy to hit, when all you can hit is straight balloons. I think you should also have quality wedges and short irons that are still precise enough for touch shots around the green. I wouldn't want to be facing a delicate pitch or bump and run with a garden spade.

And FD we all know you were talking precisely about yourself when making the missing the sweetspot comments, we all know from your arse whooping at the hands of Dave that you're a sod laying chopper. Kiwi rolled over a bit quickly on that one. He must be a cricket fan.

Work the ball? NAH, you've admitted on here many times that you completely fall apart in tournaments and can't perform when it's important. How in the hell do you expect us to believe that you can work the ball?

The guy I was talking about hit nothing but a slight draw and that shot produced scores often in the low 70's and sometimes in the 60's. It's rare that anyone has to actually work the ball. Of course the shorter clubs like SW, GW and LW should be smaller due to the actual need for increased feel.

The point is, there will probably be 2 or 3 iron shots during the round where a more forgiving club would have produced just enough yardage to put the ball in play or miss the hazard. This could equate to 3 or 4 shots per round.

NAH, I understand your jealous after seeing how close the match was even with me borrowing a complete set of foreign clubs. You are scared of my prowess and it comes out in the form of critisism. There there little guy.

[Home-slicer]

LOL - I mentioned this to my buddy today and you are right. He HATES the Pies!

I'm not a huge fan either, but I do enjoy pecan and an occasional piece of key lime.

[FreakOfNature]

I guess it depends on what you mean by feel. Some people refer to feel as the ability to know how far off center you hit the ball or if you hit it flush. Others think of feel as in how good it feels (which of course is personal preference). If you are talking off center hits I would agree that a forged blade provides much greater feedback. However, if you are talking about how good a club feels then I think the Ping Eye 2 feels great.

Also, let's be honest here. How often do you hit a forged blade right in the center of the clubface? Since you don't hit it there very often, the resulting feel is probably pretty harsh. When you really mishit it, the result is a sting to the hands...especially with a forged blade. Therefore, forged blades are in general a very harsh feeling club and do not feel good at all except in the rare instance where you hit it in the absolute center of the clubface.

As for me never playing forged blades on the course? Let me retort..I played Mizuno Grads for about 6 months and I played 3 or 4 rounds with Mizuno MP-14s. In my opinion, the MP-14's do not feel soft at all and are much harsher on mishits than the Ping Eye 2.

I do want to try a set of blades so I'm thinking of the Titleist 690 mb irons I saw in Houston. Maybe they could mail them to me.

I'm going to be uncharacteristically serious here for a moment... what I am about to say (in response to the bolded part of your post) is probably going to blow your mind.

I strike the ball right on the sweet spot quite often, meaning more than half the time. Enough to wear quarter sized circles over the sweet spot without much noticeable wear on any other part of the clubface. I was doing that back when I had my TM Supersteels which are quite GI. Why would it suddenly become more difficult to do the same thing with blades just because they are less forgiving? Forgiveness doesn't determine where my clubface impacts the ball.

A mishit so severe as to require perimeter weighting to "assist" me in avoiding a miss might happen once or twice per round. I'm not saying I don't spray it around sometimes - but it's not from missing the sweet spot on the clubface... poor shots more commonly show up because the path was wrong, the face was open/closed, the release was early/late... most of my poor shots are still solid strikes in spite of the fact that they end up nowhere near where I was trying to hit the ball.

Fact of the matter is this - forgiveness doesn't solve my problems or help me score better. Forgiveness doesn't even address my problems. I'm not unique in this respect by a longshot... in fact I'd wager that most of the guys on GR that prefer blades over anything else also hit the sweet spot more often than not. Forgiveness simply doesn't provide the payoff it promises for players of that ilk. Missing a shot is not the same thing as mishitting the shot. That's probably the source of most of the "controversy" right there - misunderstanding the difference between misses and mishits.

Hope that clears a couple things up.



FON

[Not a hacker]

Work the ball? NAH, you've admitted on here many times that you completely fall apart in tournaments and can't perform when it's important. How in the hell do you expect us to believe that you can work the ball?

The guy I was talking about hit nothing but a slight draw and that shot produced scores often in the low 70's and sometimes in the 60's. It's rare that anyone has to actually work the ball. Of course the shorter clubs like SW, GW and LW should be smaller due to the actual need for increased feel.

The point is, there will probably be 2 or 3 iron shots during the round where a more forgiving club would have produced just enough yardage to put the ball in play or miss the hazard. This could equate to 3 or 4 shots per round.

NAH, I understand your jealous after seeing how close the match was even with me borrowing a complete set of foreign clubs. You are scared of my prowess and it comes out in the form of critisism. There there little guy.

Well you'd know all about that FD so I shouldn't realy argue as I don't speak from the same experience of falling apart under presuure as yourself.

And let's get something straight, workability for tour pros is still important (I note your straight hitting friend isn't actually a tour player). When was the last time you saw a major champion with a set of SGI POS shovels? It nearly happened a couple years ago ut Tiger saved the good name of the US Open by whooping that guinea in the playoff (I didn't forget Immelman and his shovels, it's just that I don't rate a POS invitational on a mickey mouse course as a major). I know the concept of working the ball may be foreign to a sod laying chopper, but take my word for it: (good) pros work the ball nearly every shot. I can also work the ball (unlike Ping playing choppers), my high cap is related to other problems, my good shots would be every bit as good as the good shots of anyone else on this board.

[Kiwi Player]

Well you'd know all about that FD so I shouldn't realy argue as I don't speak from the same experience of falling apart under presuure as yourself.

And let's get something straight, workability for tour pros is still important (I note your straight hitting friend isn't actually a tour player). When was the last time you saw a major champion with a set of SGI POS shovels? It nearly happened a couple years ago ut Tiger saved the good name of the US Open by whooping that guinea in the playoff (I didn't forget Immelman and his shovels, it's just that I don't rate a POS invitational on a mickey mouse course as a major). I know the concept of working the ball may be foreign to a sod laying chopper, but take my word for it: (good) pros work the ball nearly every shot. I can also work the ball (unlike Ping playing choppers), my high cap is related to other problems, my good shots would be every bit as good as the good shots of anyone else on this board.

So I take it you are conceding that the R7 TP's that Y.E. Yang used to make Tiger his b.itch on the Sunday of the 2009 PGA just over a year ago are not SGI POS shovels but are in fact a quality, workable, players cavity back that offer the best of both worlds in terms of having the look, feel and workability of a blade but the forgiveness of a cavity back?

I'm not surprised. Only a top notch players cavity back would be up to the task of taking Tiger head on and defeating him for the first time when he is leading after 54 holes of a major and stripping away his previously seemingly impenetrable cloak of invincibility.

The legendary status of the R7 TP's is secure.

[Not a hacker]

So I take it you are conceding that the R7 TP's that Y.E. Yang used to make Tiger his b.itch on the Sunday of the 2009 PGA just over a year ago are not SGI POS shovels but are in fact a quality, workable, players cavity back that offer the best of both worlds in terms of having the look, feel and workability of a blade but the forgiveness of a cavity back?

I'm not surprised. Only a top notch players cavity back would be up to the task of taking Tiger head on and defeating him for the first time when he is leading after 54 holes of a major and stripping away his previously seemingly impenetrable cloak of invincibility.

The legendary status of the R7 TP's is secure.

In all seriousness the R7 TP is a legit player cavity. It was actually their flagship tour iron. I personally didn't rate them compared to GFF and the fact they were quickly replaced vindicated my opinion. But never the less they are a workable players iron.

[Kiwi Player]

In all seriousness the R7 TP is a legit player cavity. It was actually their flagship tour iron. I personally didn't rate them compared to GFF and the fact they were quickly replaced vindicated my opinion. But never the less they are a workable players iron.

They were the flagship tour iron for about two years and were replaced by the R9 TP which is virtually identical except for the black plastic insert in the cavity.

[Not a hacker]

They were the flagship tour iron for about two years and were replaced by the R9 TP which is virtually identical except for the black plastic insert in the cavity.

I think you will find that there was another tour cavity in there somewhere.

[Kiwi Player]

I think you will find that there was another tour cavity in there somewhere.

Yeah the Tour Preferred model which is still in the current TM range. Most of the TM Tour Pros playing the R7 TP switched straight to the R9 TP (Goosen, Yang etc).

Garchoker played the Tour Preferred for a while but even he switched to the R9 TP this year.

[Not a hacker]

Yeah the Tour Preferred model which is still in the current TM range. Most of the TM Tour Pros playing the R7 TP switched straight to the R9 TP (Goosen, Yang etc).

Garchoker played the Tour Preferred for a while but even he switched to the R9 TP this year.

Most of the Aussie TM tour staff were still playing the RAC MB last time I was at a tournament last year.

[famousdavis]

Well you'd know all about that FD so I shouldn't realy argue as I don't speak from the same experience of falling apart under presuure as yourself.

And let's get something straight, workability for tour pros is still important (I note your straight hitting friend isn't actually a tour player). When was the last time you saw a major champion with a set of SGI POS shovels? It nearly happened a couple years ago ut Tiger saved the good name of the US Open by whooping that guinea in the playoff (I didn't forget Immelman and his shovels, it's just that I don't rate a POS invitational on a mickey mouse course as a major). I know the concept of working the ball may be foreign to a sod laying chopper, but take my word for it: (good) pros work the ball nearly every shot. I can also work the ball (unlike Ping playing choppers), my high cap is related to other problems, my good shots would be every bit as good as the good shots of anyone else on this board.

Colin Montgomery played Callaway X-12 irons (not even the pro series) for about 10 years. He's one of the most successful golfers in Europeon history and kicks our ass in the Ryder Cup. Rocco Mediate almost won the US Open With Callaway X-20 irons. Mark Calcavechia, etc. In fact, it's rare to see a tour pro these days that plays a pure blade. Most go with cavity backs.

Freak of Nature makes some good points about hitting the sweet spot most of the time. However, if you do miss the sweetspot just 2 or 3 times in a round the cavity back might give you that extra 5 yards to keep the ball in play. There's also the confidence factor of standing over the ball with a more forgiving club.

I can work the ball just fine with the Pings if I need to. The Titleist 990 is the most workable iron I've ever tried and it's semi-cavity. Oh NAH, I know you love me and that's why you tease. Keep chopping it up out there and maybe one day you'll be good enough to grace the same course as I.

[CPS]

I know the concept of working the ball may be foreign to a sod laying chopper, but take my word for it: (good) pros work the ball nearly every shot.

My understanding is Luke Donald can't really hit (or doesn't trust) a draw. He only hits cuts and adjusts his game accordingly. Not a major winner, but pretty damn good without every single shot shape in his bag.

[famousdavis]

Most of the Aussie TM tour staff were still playing the RAC MB last time I was at a tournament last year.

I saw a set of RAC MB blade irons at Golfgalaxy and they had "something nickel" written on the head. Something meaning I don't remember what the first word was. Is this a rare set?

[Home-slicer]

I saw a set of RAC MB blade irons at Golfgalaxy and they had "something nickel" written on the head. Something meaning I don't remember what the first word was. Is this a rare set?

I think the first word was "Notwortha"

[famousdavis]

I think the first word was "Notwortha"

I'm pretty sure it said "Buffalo"

[SoonerBS]

My understanding is Luke Donald can't really hit (or doesn't trust) a draw. He only hits cuts and adjusts his game accordingly. Not a major winner, but pretty damn good without every single shot shape in his bag.

And, a Mizuno player, I might add . . . .

[famousdavis]

And, a Mizuno player, I might add . . . .

Probably what's holding him back from winning

[Kiwi Player]

Probably what's holding him back from winning

I'm convinced it's wearing a visor that's holding him back.

[Not a hacker]

I'm convinced it's wearing a visor that's holding him back.

Wearing a visor would be holding back more than his golf. He would have trouble getting any endorsements outside gay magazines too.