OTR OEM Iron Spec's (long)

[RJTee]

Started spring training for me and potential clubs for 2008. Working with the Tommy Armour Silver Scot forged blades with Rifle Flighted 6.0's I ended the season with last fall and in a near opposite direction, I'm trying some MacGregor M685 forged cavity backs with relatively soft Rifle Lite Flighted 4.5 shafts. The TA's and Mac's have a few similarities; both are forged with minimal offset, and both use Rifle shafts but that is about it.

I will do some reviews on them when I actually can do some playing comparisons later, but I found some food for thought after discovering a few measurements and initial range testing with the M685. All my irons are bent for lie to 3* flat so I had this done right away on the M685 and then tried them out. I notice some irons I was making good contact and others I was all over the club face. So when I got home I started measuring swing weights. The swing weights varied from C8 on the longer irons to D4 on the short irons. Whether this is by design I don't know, however, I decided to measure the TA's to see where they were at, and they measured out between C8-9 to D2 thru out the set. I think the TA's were (model discontinued) supposed to be D2. Therefore, right off the rack OEM clubs at least as far as swing weight goes, are not on spec. No news to club makers, eh Lyle?

With that in mind I started swing weight measuring my old Arnold Palmer Standard blades and started comparing with the TA's and Mac's. I was looking for the common factor (at least in swing weight) in all three sets that I had the best results with. Interestingly the best results and my favorite irons out of all three sets were clubs swing weighted between C9 and D1. My AP 3 iron was a D0 along with the #8, in the TA's the #8, #7 were C-9, in Mac's the #7, #5, #4 were D0; these were all clubs that I get center contact and the best ball flight with.

As an experiment I did as Lyle suggested in another thread and added weight (quarters taped together and then taped to the grip end of the club) to the Mac's to get the swing weight of the clubs that measured at D4 to D0-D1 range. Presto chango center of face ball contact and straight ball flight. I know that swingweight works in relation to other parts of the club and is not something I should feel given my skill level (I couldn't feel much except better ball contact), however, it appeared to make a difference (now feel free to tell me I'm way off base here).

So know, I'm thinking (always a dangerous thing), that I should have all my irons that I am going to play blueprinted for CPM, swingweight, etc. I plan on doing the TLT on my old AP's (after rechroming and regrooving) which I would hope will be included with the build and will probably take the Mac's, and TA's in to bring them to spec. Worth it?

As always your thoughts and comments are welcome.

 

[Release]

It's interesting that you are going from a flighted 6.0 to a lite 4.5!
Please let us know what do you think after you have a chance to play a few rounds in it.
I had tried my wife's irons on the driving range and when I played caddy for her on the course, and the senior shaft she has in the iron ( essentially the same as the woman's flex but slightly longer ) felt OK and I hit them longer than my own irons.
As far as the OEM having problem meeting the quality control on spec. we all know it could be all over the place because the guys ( and gals ) whom assembled the clubs are not golfers and have minimum knowledge and training. I know Ben Hogan and Ping used to have the few that meets or come close to meeting the spec. on the label.

 

[LyleG]

As an experiment I did as Lyle suggested in another thread and added weight (quarters taped together and then taped to the grip end of the club) to the Mac's to get the swing weight of the clubs that measured at D4 to D0-D1 range. Presto chango center of face ball contact and straight ball flight. I know that swingweight works in relation to other parts of the club and is not something I should feel given my skill level (I couldn't feel much except better ball contact), however, it appeared to make a difference (now feel free to tell me I'm way off base here).

When I suggest adding weight to the butt it is for the purpose of counter balancing the club (back weighting) not for getting a certain swing weight. Adding weight to the butt to change swing weight has no effect on head feel, you only fool the scale. Build the club to the swing weight you want, then back weight it and dont check it again for swing weight as the new number is not important anymore.
Back weighting can definitely help with center face contact and your release of the golf club though. You seem to have found this out already though.

IMO there is no point in worry about CPM's on an existing set as changing this is nearly impossible without getting new shafts. Also if the heads use taper tip shafts you are again at the mercy of factory tolerance with the new shafts as the tapers are butt trim only. Your other option is to have the hosels reamed to accept .370 parallel shafts then you can frequency match a new set of shafts easily.

 

[RJTee]

It's interesting that you are going from a flighted 6.0 to a lite 4.5!

There was a couple reasons for that; the closeout on these clubs offered 5.5 or 4.5 Rifles and I've been wanting to try the Rifle in at least one whole flex softer, and it wasn't indicated that these were "lite" shafts, but this works as I am interested in spending some time investigating lighter weight steel shafts.

IMO there is no point in worry about CPM's on an existing set as changing this is nearly impossible without getting new shafts. Also if the heads use taper tip shafts you are again at the mercy of factory tolerance with the new shafts as the tapers are butt trim only. Your other option is to have the hosels reamed to accept .370 parallel shafts then you can frequency match a new set of shafts easily.

Thanks for the clarification on the backweighting, Lyle, and I will do the cpm as suggested to my old AP's that I am going to restore with new shafts.