Question

4.42K viewsFebruary 20, 2019

mrtkopa 101 February 20, 2019 0 Comments

Hi. Let me say up front I believe MPF is important and I believe it when you say it is becoming more preferred on the tour. So this is an honest question. When I look at the categories listed on GolfWorks and see Game Improvement as popular with tour pros, I look at WITB and can’t find anyone playing GI irons. The most I see is Conventional in the 500 MPF range. I see a lot still in the Classic range. TaylorMade, Callaway, Titleist, Mizuno, Srixon tour irons don’t make it into Game Improvement MPF ratings. PXG might be the only one, maybe. Can you please point out what company is making GI irons the tour pros are playing and preferring? I’d love to know who is leading this direction.

From what I see, the Maltby TS-1 is groundbreaking. It is the only blade looking iron that has a 700+ MPF and for me is a delight to play. People stop and pull my clubs and look. The PING G700 is the only one I see that is close and people are hating finish on it. I just think the TS-1 is the future of golf and am trying to see what tour sponsoring club makers and players are on the right path.

4 Answers

Answer 1 · 2019-02-21T04:48:35+00:00

Thanks for the comments and the support. The TS-1 and TS-2 irons are really good.

It is fascinating to me, with all the resources the OEM’s have from a design and engineering standpoint, that some of the clubs they produce for most of their tour staff players are usually the least playable of their models with regards to the MPF. You might say, well of course, tour players want blades and those are going to be less playable. The problem(s) with that is that not all tour players want blades (obviously) and more importantly, blades do not have to be less playable. One of the reasons, in my opinion, is that many designers put the category of a “blade” or “players profile” in this box that says the blade has to be short, the hosel has to be long, the sole has to be narrow, etc. Those are characteristics that quite simply should have been moth balled a long time ago. With what we know now, why a person would design a club (or a player play a club) that if you mishit it ever so slightly the performance would suffer significantly, is something I can’t understand. Simple, timeless concepts of design that Ralph Maltby developed years ago and that we still adhere to, still hold true. Blade, cavity back, hollow, whatever the design, the true “Playability” comes down to the mass and dimensional characteristics of the clubhead. I have said this many times before, the ball does not know whether it was struck by a cavity back, a muscle back, a hollow iron, etc. It only knows it was struck with a mass that has a cg whose location is determined by its own mass and dimensional characteristics. If it is done well, the playability goes up. If it is not, it is not as playable. Understand, those guys on all tours are really good and can play anything. That being said, they miss hit shots just like the rest of us. You would think they would want the most stable club possible so when they did mishit it slightly, the results could still be acceptable.

I just finished the preliminary measurements of 25 new models for 2019. Those companies that have “players” models all are still in the Conventional or Classic categories, mainly because of the blade length. Cobra’s King Forged MB and CB are both in the Classic category, Callaway Apex Pro and Apex Pro Forged are both in the Conventional category. The Taylor Made P760 is in the Conventional category. Srixon Z Forged in the Classic category, the Z585 and Z785 in the Conventional category. So, to answer your question, I don’t see anyone of the Major companies with tour representation making players category clubs with Game Improvement are higher playability. I should have all the MPF’s for 2019 clubs posted within the next few weeks

There are models these companies are making that are Game Improvement and higher, but of course they are not characterized as “players” models. So, they do have a level of understanding of what makes clubs more playable. It is a misconception that you cannot design a players club that is also Game Improvement.

You can go to the list by manufacture and find a few clubs with the “Pro” tag to a model that do make the GI or SGI, UGI catagories. However, you would not consider any of these “blades”. I would call them Players cavity backs. Examples are 2018 Callaway Rogue Pro (GI), 2017 Steelhead XR Pro (UGI), Callway Epic Pro (GI), 2018 Titleist T-MB GI, AP3 (GI), 2014 Ping S55 (GI), 2015 Ping I E1 (GI), 2016 TaylorMade M2 Tour (GI). May be more, but that was my quick look list.

Sorry for the long post. Hope I answered your question.

Britt Lindsey

Why wouldn’t one wanna play with a club that’s easier to hit? It’s like tennis players sticking with an old small-headed wooden racket of yesteryear, rather than the big headed composite rackets used in today’s game. Doesn’t make sense.
Thank you Britt. The answer isn’t too long, it was wonderfully informative. What I do notice more and more is that the tour pro iron set starts at a 5 iron. The 4 iron and higher are either hybrids or GI irons. Phil carries an Epic Pro 4 iron, Ricky an F9 Speedback 4 iron, Patton Kizzire carries a Titleist T-MB 4 iron, all GI irons. But why? Why only in that iron? With a 6 iron carrying 190+ on tour, isn’t a 6 iron strike as important and a 4 iron strike?

I remember you writing that an iron strike missing the sweet spot by 1/2 inch will lose 5% in distance. Is that a general rule across all irons regardless of MPF or will a high MPF iron overcome a good bit of that? Is it directional stability high MPF delivers or distance consistency? Thanks again.

Answer 2 · 2019-02-21T18:38:04+00:00

You question is to why they carry higher playability long irons is a valid one, but has an easy answer. Generally the 4 irons yu mentioned are more playable than the remainder of the set. When I was playing way back in the day and Ping came out with EYE and then the EYE 2, all of us that were playing Wilson Staff, or Hogan, or whatever blade irons all removed our long irons and put the Ping 1, 2, and 3 irons in our bags. They were easier to hit. Why? Because they were more playable due to their mass and dimensional characteristics. The 1/2″ mishit of the center of gravity location costing 5% distance holds true for all irons. However, the higher the MPF, generally, the longer the c-dimension and the more centered the cg is, and the more stable the head becomes. It’s not that you can lose the distance miss hitting the center of the face by a half inch (unless the cg is actually in the center of the face), it is measured off where the horizontal cg is. The problem is that many lower playability irons do not have the cg in the center of the face. We all try to hit in the center of the face. If the cg is 1/4″ toward the heel and you miss hit it 1/2″ off the center of the face, you are actually 3/4″ from the cg, so the loss of distance is shorter and the feel is worse. On a higher playability club that has the cg close to or exactly in the center of the face, that 1/2″ off the toe hit will still loose a little distance, but not as much and will feel more stable. So, the Higher MPF clubs should deliver both more stability and more distance consistency, all things considered.

Britt Lindsey

Answer 3 · 2019-03-09T02:16:12+00:00

All great points. But we always have to remember: the OEM’s are in business to mass market and make money while offering a range of products for the full bandwidth of players, from hack to PGA tour player. They want high index players to buy into their game improvement technology and marketing, and want folks to pay a premium for that. To them, game improvement and super game improvement are, in large part, marketing categories. When they market to better players, which is the smaller part of the pie, they tone down the tech and play up the “player’s” aspect of the clubs — forged, the more classic look, narrower sole width, shot shaping capability, feel and feedback, etc. And they charge more for what is really a less complicated club to manufacture, in some instances. OEM marketing is based on promoting new technology so people buy new clubs every few years. For DIYers like those on this board, we look more at the data and want a club that truly fits our game, swing type and body. It is less about hype for us, and more about the facts and data. In addition, why do pros play certain irons, because they have nice endorsement contracts.

Answer 4 · 2019-03-09T08:14:29+00:00

My understanding is that the centre of gravity has to match the swing and the more you can get the club to spin around the hosel the further you can make the ball go. So Dustin Johnson who pivots and loads the club really well actually wants a heel weighted club to spin because it increases his clubhead speed. If you gave him a centre weighted club he would block everything and lose distance. But if you gave the average club golfer Dustin Johnson’s clubs they would hook everything because they can’t pivot or load the club well enough to get it open or shallow enough coming into the ball.