Golf Thread

glitch · 20 Sep 2013 at 17:22

Saint said:
I've heard the G25 are not much different to the G20. Golfgeardirect have the G20's at £379 and are doing £50 off all irons this week, which would be a pretty amazing deal!

Obviously it's down to feel, but which one's would you pick and why?

Custom-fitted G20's without a doubt, but then again I am heavily biased as that's my current club of choice.

And there's a world of difference between the G20 and G25 irons (it's the G15 > G20 move that was mainly cosmetic) and you may well find that you get on with the latter more than the former, but you'll need to hit them to find out.

One thing I will say is the CFS shafts in the G20/G25 irons are a bit strange. There's very little difference in real world terms between the Regular and the Stiff, at least until you get to the longer irons.

If you go Ping, get custom-fitted and try to make sure you get to hit longer irons than just the 7 they usually use in their fitting carts.

glitch · 20 Sep 2013 at 17:23

Saint said:
I've heard the G25 are not much different to the G20. Golfgeardirect have the G20's at £379 and are doing £50 off all irons this week, which would be a pretty amazing deal!

You won't get that off Ping irons other than the Black Dot sets - and even then they might try and wriggle out of it.

Furyus · 20 Sep 2013 at 17:46

Saint said:
Thinking about some new Irons, I'm an 18 handicap. Considerations are:

- Mizuno JPX 825
- Ping G20
- Ping G25
- Titleist AP1

I've heard the G25 are not much different to the G20. Golfgeardirect have the G20's at £379 and are doing £50 off all irons this week, which would be a pretty amazing deal!

Obviously it's down to feel, but which one's would you pick and why?

playing off a 18. Would you not rather try save abit of money and go for the taylormade burners? Im off a 18 and find them amazing!!

Just words for thought

coupe69 · 21 Sep 2013 at 11:09

Saint said:
Thinking about some new Irons, I'm an 18 handicap. Considerations are:

- Mizuno JPX 825
- Ping G20
- Ping G25
- Titleist AP1

I've heard the G25 are not much different to the G20. Golfgeardirect have the G20's at £379 and are doing £50 off all irons this week, which would be a pretty amazing deal!

Obviously it's down to feel, but which one's would you pick and why?

I'd go for the Mizzys all day long and twice on Sunday providing you can get the JPX 825 pros and not the standard 825s (forged v's not forged)

Mizuno are arguably the best iron manufacturer around, unless of course you've got 1k+ to spend on some Miuras!

Furyus said:
playing off a 18. Would you not rather try save abit of money and go for the taylormade burners? Im off a 18 and find them amazing!!

Just words for thought

Whilst Taylormade make reasonable woods I'm not convinced with their irons. Besides why would you want cast irons over some lovely buttery feeling forged ones?

Furyus · 21 Sep 2013 at 15:20

Those mizuno jpx 825 are sexual!! But wow for the price! When I hit 12 and lower handicap I'll splash out on some of those!

Sukh · 21 Sep 2013 at 19:53

Mizuno Pros (forged) will be the best of the bunch.

Hand forged in Japan against cast cheap stuff knocked up in China - no contest.

booyaka · 22 Sep 2013 at 11:48

Well not to bad for my 3rd round of the year. 35 points in a stableford (9 over) playing off a handicap of 8 from last year.

It was our clubs annual day out, stableford in the morning and then a texas scramble in the afternoon which we won somehow, despite the amount of drink at lunchtime and consumed on the course!

Also got nearest the hole in the morning!

Good day out at Renfrew, lost 3 pro v's over the day, came home with 10 brand new ones for nearest the pin and winning the scramble!

Hit the ball great off of the tee in the morning, putted well but after such a long time off, it's amazing how the short game goes to pot!!!

Furyus · 23 Sep 2013 at 09:18

So with winter on our door step, time to invest in some waterproofs. Any recommendations?

Thanks

kefkef · 23 Sep 2013 at 11:44

I've been happy with the Sunice one's that have done me for the last 5yrs, think I will invest in some new kit this year, and to be honest I cant be too bothered looking around too much so will probably just go for Galvin Greens. Got a GG windproof top in a sale a few weeks ago and it's a nice piece of quality gear.

Moved from my Taylormade r11 stock stiff shaft set at 9.5 degrees to a new Ping G25 Tour Stiff 10.5 degree. Has made a massive difference to my driving, spent an afternoon down the local range with the TrackMan monitor and my mate who teaches there (its good to have access to that for nowt!

). Tried loads of different drivers and whittled it down to the Ping or a Callaway. The Ping gave loads better stats on the monitor and to the naked eye.

Despite the increase in loft to 10.5, my launch angle stayed roughly the same, but the backspin changed massively due to the shaft change, down from 5000rpm to just over 2000. Gave me a much better ball flight with some good roll out afterwards, compared to the balloon effect I was getting and the drop/stop. Miles better into the wind also, playing with my old driver into the wind I was getting some seriously short drives of less than 200yds, the new driver seems to penetrate better due to the better spin stats and shot shape. Not bad for £200 either, another benefit of mates discount!

Might invest in the matching 3 wood too!

Saint · 25 Sep 2013 at 15:22

Furyus said:
playing off a 18. Would you not rather try save abit of money and go for the taylormade burners? Im off a 18 and find them amazing!!

Just words for thought

Not really a fan of their irons mate. Got a putter from TM, but well documented that the mizuno, ping and titleist irons are better - their looks are more appealing also.

coupe69 said:
I'd go for the Mizzys all day long and twice on Sunday providing you can get the JPX 825 pros and not the standard 825s (forged v's not forged)

Mizuno are arguably the best iron manufacturer around, unless of course you've got 1k+ to spend on some Miuras!

I'm leaning more towards the Mizuno now, due to the fact they have very positive reviews and offer more potential for a lower handicapper (something to grow into without having to change in a few years). The looks of them can't be beaten either!

Sukh said:
Mizuno Pros (forged) will be the best of the bunch.
Hand forged in Japan against cast cheap stuff knocked up in China - no contest.

Don't have good enough ball striking / low handicap to warrant the use of any of the forged irons unfortunately. Maybe one day though

Saint · 25 Sep 2013 at 15:24

glitch said:
Custom-fitted G20's without a doubt, but then again I am heavily biased as that's my current club of choice.

And there's a world of difference between the G20 and G25 irons (it's the G15 > G20 move that was mainly cosmetic) and you may well find that you get on with the latter more than the former, but you'll need to hit them to find out.

One thing I will say is the CFS shafts in the G20/G25 irons are a bit strange. There's very little difference in real world terms between the Regular and the Stiff, at least until you get to the longer irons.

If you go Ping, get custom-fitted and try to make sure you get to hit longer irons than just the 7 they usually use in their fitting carts.

Missed your quote for the above post! Thanks for the advice mate, will take that into account.

I believe my local American Golf have a ping fitting, but will need to check.

Sukh · 27 Sep 2013 at 22:30

Saint said:
Don't have good enough ball striking / low handicap to warrant the use of any of the forged irons unfortunately. Maybe one day though

Forged describes the process by which a club is made, nothing to do with forgiveness of a club.

Irons basically come in 4 forms:

Blades - have to have very consistent striking to play and be able to generate your own "lift". No perimeter weighting for off centre forgiveness, no cavity, thin top line, no offset.
e.g. Mizuno MP4

Gamer irons - Slightly more perimeter weighting, still have thin top line of blades but will have a cavity from about 6 iron upwards.
e.g. Mizuno MP54

Game improvement irons - cavity on all but short irons, perimeter weighting to help off centre shots, more offset to allow for delayed squaring.
e.g. Mizuno JPX 825 / 825 Pro

Super game improvement - massive heads to help you not miss the ball, lots of cavity to get weight down low so you get launch, lots of perimeter weighting and offset all to help you play.
e.g. Mizuno JPZ 825 HD/ EZ Forged

All irons above can be cast or forged - referring to the process by which the iron is made and not the amount of forgiveness baked in.

SpeedFreak · 28 Sep 2013 at 22:28

I play with JPX 800 pros which are great clubs.

glitch · 29 Sep 2013 at 14:28

Hmm, I'm not sure my body is entirely cut out for golf - six years ago I bruised a disc and now I've torn an intercostal muscle during practice at the range.

Anyone want to buy some nearly-new Ping clubs?! In particular the sodding G25 driver that caused the injury!

Lonewolf · 29 Sep 2013 at 15:48

Not sure whether you can sell golf gear on here TBH. Although I'm sure someone would be interested should they be priced right.

Furyus · 30 Sep 2013 at 10:19

could probably stick it on gum tree would sell pretty quick

Saint · 30 Sep 2013 at 14:30

Sukh said:
Forged describes the process by which a club is made, nothing to do with forgiveness of a club.

Irons basically come in 4 forms:

Blades - have to have very consistent striking to play and be able to generate your own "lift". No perimeter weighting for off centre forgiveness, no cavity, thin top line, no offset.
e.g. Mizuno MP4

Gamer irons - Slightly more perimeter weighting, still have thin top line of blades but will have a cavity from about 6 iron upwards.
e.g. Mizuno MP54

Game improvement irons - cavity on all but short irons, perimeter weighting to help off centre shots, more offset to allow for delayed squaring.
e.g. Mizuno JPX 825 / 825 Pro

Super game improvement - massive heads to help you not miss the ball, lots of cavity to get weight down low so you get launch, lots of perimeter weighting and offset all to help you play.
e.g. Mizuno JPZ 825 HD/ EZ Forged

All irons above can be cast or forged - referring to the process by which the iron is made and not the amount of forgiveness baked in.

Thanks for the post, I think I was getting confused between forged and blades by the looks of it.

Based on your descriptions above, I'd probably like something like either the Gamer or Game Improvement Irons. I need something with good feedback and probably some slightly forgiving irons maybe?

At the moment my Titleist 822OS irons give barely any feedback when I'm striking off centre and I feel this i something I would like from my new Irons, to help me to improve my swing.

Should I stick to the original list or branch out to some less forgiving irons, such as the Titleist AP2's, which I can grow into?

Sukh · 30 Sep 2013 at 19:31

It all depends on how well you strike your irons now. I don't think handicap is a good yard stick on irons, but if you regularly miss the middle of the face - I would go GI clubs. 825 Pros are very good clubs and will take you down into single figures.

There is a further element which is shaft choice:
- You need to consider tempo/ swing speed/ release timing for flex (still/ reg)
- Consider weight of the shaft
- Consider how high you launch the ball as different shafts launch different heights.

Without seeing your swing, pure guess time on the average standard of people at ranges, a good middle of the road shout is 825Pro/ JPX EZ and a nice high launching shaft. Dynalite Gold XP et al in Reglar flex.

Saint · 1 Oct 2013 at 10:20

Sukh said:
It all depends on how well you strike your irons now. I don't think handicap is a good yard stick on irons, but if you regularly miss the middle of the face - I would go GI clubs. 825 Pros are very good clubs and will take you down into single figures.

There is a further element which is shaft choice:
- You need to consider tempo/ swing speed/ release timing for flex (still/ reg)
- Consider weight of the shaft
- Consider how high you launch the ball as different shafts launch different heights.

Without seeing your swing, pure guess time on the average standard of people at ranges, a good middle of the road shout is 825Pro/ JPX EZ and a nice high launching shaft. Dynalite Gold XP et al in Reglar flex.

It's difficult for me to say whether I'm consistently hitting the middle, as my clubs have very little feedback, however my shot accuracy has improved a lot this year so I'd say that I probably do hit centre quite often. I know I hit the centre 90% of the time with my wedges as you can physically see that on the Vokey wedges and also the prints on my driver show a central imprint on the face 90% of the time.

Do you know what the real difference is between the Pro and Non-Pro version of the JPX?

With regards to the shaft choice:
- My tempo is good and my swing speed is in the low 90's I believe, so probably expecting the fitter to say look at a regular shaft? When I went for a driver fitting, they said you shouldn't really look at stiff flex unless swing speed was >100mph.
- Ball flight used to be very high, but I had a problematic steep swing, but now it's medium I would say. The lie angle of the club determines this doesn't it?

I guess I'll find this all out when I get fitted, but it's good to get some background knowledge before I go

glitch · 1 Oct 2013 at 11:42

Furyus said:
could probably stick it on gum tree would sell pretty quick

You'd think so, wouldn't you?

Alas, it's been a steady stream of 'can I send you a cheque and you post them out' and 'would you take 50% of the price and meet me 100 miles away' rather than anyone actually interested.

Strange, as I've sold clubs on Gumtree before without much problem. Maybe it's just silly season.