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How would old irons compare to new ones in forgiveness?

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Barnum1

Barnum1

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Hi,

currently playing G425 irons, coming from i20. Definitely more forgiveness, and it made me think about my older iron sets.

I used to play Taylor Made Burner Oversize (bubble graphite shafts) from 1996. How would they compare do you think?
And before them I had some little known clubs called "Align". Now we're in the eighties, and they looked very bladey if I remember correctly.

Thanks for any insight!
 
I would think the older irons are definitely less forgiving or long but maybe less so than we may think. Tech on woods have advanced more than irons in the last twenty years.

I can think of a few differences in irons today vs mid nineties when your burner was made:
- lower lofts
- thinner face for greater ball speed and more perimeter weighting for supposedly more forgiveness
- just larger footprint
- if you use graphite shafts in irons I think this may be the biggest innovation gain. Graphite shaft tech has seen great advancements in recent years

I'm no expert but that's basically what I've read elsewhere
 
I've had newer irons but I currently play Ping Eye 2s. My reason for playing them is for the traditional lofts. As far as forgiveness, I don't see much of a difference between the F9 irons and the JPX919 which are what I played over the last couple years. Distance is actually quite similar when you factor in the loft difference. Just my opinion.
 
My old 16 year old Adams set is night and day with my new Cobra irons. Mis-hits go pretty straight instead of fading/slicing. I hit a shot that felt like it should fade about 10-15 yards right with my old irons, yet it went about 5 yards right at the most.
 
The older Callaway irons from the original Big Bertha to the X22's are some of the most forgiving irons ever made
 
There’s a big variance in forgiveness and IMO the forged “players” type irons like my ZX7/5’s are a big improvement over the same category of irons from 20+ years ago. I still play my old Taylormade Tour Preferred(1983) once or twice a year and they are hollow in the 2, 3, 4 irons but are way less forgiving than my Srixon ZX5’s. The original Ping Eye 2’s were damn forgiving and still play very similar to many of today GI irons.
 
I receny purchased (3 months ago?) a set of new Tour Edge (blades) irons. My previous set (13 years old) were TE GeoMax irons. The set before that (20+ years old) were TE Bazooka Ironwoods. All were fitted.

The first two sets had me playing single digit golf.....with monthly swing instructions.

Right now, with a 9 year layoff from golf behind me, I essentially shoot the same scores, and ball flights, with all three sets. The blades are a little longer however.

I have no doubt that newer irons "can" be more forgiving for alot of golfers. How much better than older clubs, I have no idea. Maybe 2-3 strokes? I just dont know.

However, I also think that the golfer also needs to have some resemblance of decent swing mechanics. I don't think forgiving clubs can fix really poor swing mechanics.
 
If you’re going GI or SGI to old clubs forgiveness can be pretty significant. I went from 2017 TM M2’s to 1983 Ben Hogan Radials. They feel amazing, but are about a club shorter. On miss hits is where you see a huge difference in distance and ball flight. Current model game improvement irons keep speed, distance, and spin numbers manageable, as old irons just can’t. That’s not to say old irons aren’t bad, they just don’t have the tech new ones to that can help a golfer out.
 
I'll tell you this fall. Just getting back into it and playing my Ping Zing which I believe is one of the most forgiving clubs ever. Will be doing my first fitting ever this fall so we'll see if anything is better than the ping Zing's for forgiveness. I know pretty much anything will have more spin do to the age of the face on these clubs
 
goalie said:
My Diablo Edge irons are in my garage locker to stay in case I need them again someday.
Click to expand...
To this day, I regret selling my Diable Edge irons. Some of the most consistent irons I ever played.
 
Played my buddies Big Bertha irons twelve or thirteen years ago, as the old man once said I couldn't get it up. :) they must have had some very strong Loft my 8-iron flying at 150 and his 8-iron flying about half the height at 140 with no check
 
Barnum1 said:
Hi,

currently playing G425 irons, coming from i20. Definitely more forgiveness, and it made me think about my older iron sets.

I used to play Taylor Made Burner Oversize (bubble graphite shafts) from 1996. How would they compare do you think?
And before them I had some little known clubs called "Align". Now we're in the eighties, and they looked very bladey if I remember correctly.

Thanks for any insight!
Click to expand...
You will see little to no difference in forgiveness. In some ways, the older clubs are actually likely to be more forgiving because the shafts are slightly shorter.
 
See? All sorts of answers... from YES! to NO! to maybe.:ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:

Don't get me wrong. We're all different and we see things differently and have various experience. My Burner 2.0's were forgiving. Not nearly as much as Big Bertha irons are but they were some of the popular SGI irons in their day.

I like my Mavrik irons much better than those Burner 2.0's. It's not just that they're shiny. It's that they're more forgiving than those 2.0's. You can have my 2.0's. (Not literally) but you're not getting my Mavriks.
 
Badger_Golfer said:
You will see little to no difference in forgiveness. In some ways, the older clubs are actually likely to be more forgiving because the shafts are slightly shorter.
Click to expand...

That's an interesting point. My Hogan Apex Edge (2003) 6 iron is the same length as my Cobra Speedzone 7 iron. The Cobras look more forgiving but I'm not experiencing a forgiveness difference. Maybe if I grinded it out for an hour on a monitor I might see it but in regular play and hitting at the range? Not so sure...
 
I think I have to agree that much difference between old and new! I did notice some on toe hits with the g410 and g425 irons but that is about all, otherwise they feel similar to my old i3 o-size irons!

That said I have a buddy that still games the X-20's that I sold him back then! Yeah I have been hoping for a long time! lol.
 
I've seen minimal difference. I just had a few different 5 irons with me today on the range. Basically zero discernable difference in forgiveness between 50 year old blades, MP59, MP54 and Srixon Z765. I've done this same thing MANY times with lots of different clubs.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk
 
I have an old Ray Lewis 5 iron blade in the loft. I took it down the range once and it was really hard to hit. Felt like a smack round the hands if you didn't middle it.
 
I still have my first set of clubs I bought in 1987, Wilson WS1000’s. Those things are tiny compared to modern tech, and the lofts were so much weaker compared to today’s clubs. I remember looking at the Ping irons back then and thinking they were shovels compared to mine, but some irons today dwarf even those in comparison. Forgiveness has definitely increased.
 
I really don't think any modern-day Club is going to dwarf a Ping Zing ;). And are we really going to start that, I remember in my day my golf club face was so small...
 
My first set of clubs were blades. They were garbage. I still could shoot about 90 with them. This was back when many of you weren't walking on the Earth. I played with balata balls. If you didn't hit center the ball didn't go anywhere. Once I shot 14 on a par 5 because I kept mishitting the ball, not because I lost it in the woods.

When I picked up the game again, I got better clubs. GIs... Cobra BioCells. I got F9s a couple years ago. Not much difference between the BioCells and the F9s except the F9s look better.
 
I guess it begs the question: If the clubs are easier to play. Why don't people play better?
 
Briantime said:
I guess it begs the question: If the clubs are easier to play. Why don't people play better?
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I would not say the clubs are easier to " play" they are just easier to get in the air. People still have the same slice and hook as back in the day, the new clubs just insure that it goes farther than before. So now I think a lot of scoring issues is off the tee and lost balls from longer irons and such that get it off the ground but make the misses in the trees more wild.

That and the courses are getting longer. We have a course around here from 1898 and one from 2008. I can murder the old one. Smaller flat greens and mostly straight flat fairways next to each other so a big block is ok because it is on the other fairway. The 2008 is 7800 yards and lots of uneven lies and teared greens. Clubs have gotten easier, but courses have gotten harder.
 
4hourrule said:
I really don't think any modern-day Club is going to dwarf a Ping Zing ;). And are we really going to start that, I remember in my day my golf club face was so small...
Click to expand...
Yeah, those old Wilson’s I have are peanut heads compared to modern stuff. And I once owned a set of Zings, but the Aeroburners I also owned were substantially larger than the Zings.
 
Briantime said:
I guess it begs the question: If the clubs are easier to play. Why don't people play better?
Click to expand...
The game of golf is still just as hard to play now as it was when it started. People still make the same mistakes both physically and mentally today that they always have. Golf equipment has gotten better in my opinion. By moving the CG lower and back, it allows the player to more “easily“ get the ball in the air. The forgiveness factor in clubs has improved by miles compared to anything mankind has ever played.
 
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