El Bandito
Active member
exactly the same for me. I had never been able to hit 4, but can with the bladez. Allowed me to go 3 hybrid instead of fairway wood and carry 5 wedges. Happy Days!
TaylorMade RocketBladez - Review Thread
exactly the same for me. I had never been able to hit 4, but can with the bladez. Allowed me to go 3 hybrid instead of fairway wood and carry 5 wedges. Happy Days!
Hi Hawk. I purchased the graphite stock stiff bent 2 degrees flat. I am thinking of going to the KBS 90 shafts.Does the club feel heavy with the kbs 90? I put the KBS 90 in my 2.0's and they were on the heavy side. thanks
Yes, I am very happy with them.
It seems like if I jump on the shot, it tends to hook or pull. If I have a nice tempo then it is sweet.I was wondering if a heavier shaft would help. In my r11 graphite irons I could step on it a little and not get the hooks or pulls.
Mav281
Mr Inconsistent
I have the KBS Tour 90 shafts and have been very happy with them from the word go. They definatley add a little something extra to the ball flight which is already lofted with the RBladez, but with the Tour90 shaft you get a piercing high ball flight which lands steeply and stops quickly even wit the likes of the 5 and 6 iron.
I wwould recommend a fitting with these shafts and see if you notice a difference when you are hitting them - they were certainly worth the extra wait for me!
El Bandito
Active member
I went for a driver fitting this week and while there we had a look at my irons. On the advice of the fitter, These are having slightly heavier shafts put in to give more feel. The shafts are also a bit heavier in the butt end, which just feels much more solid for me.
Does heavier shafts typically give u more control?
Hinchyoooo
New member
Beat my personal best again today. Shot an 81 (Par 71, 16 handicap). Hit some solid shot with the Rocketbladez again and I really am getting more and more comfortable with them. I know my swing is improving all the time but the consistency of the clubs is certainly helping me out a lot more.
I still struggle with the 4i and 5i off the deck but that is a shortcoming in my ability rather than the clubs. Once I crack that I look forward to seeing the benefit of these clubs as I couldn't be happier with 6i-PW.
Had a few good examples of catching the ball slightly lower on the face than I would have wanted but the distance loss was not too hurtful and I still ended up in a good position to give myself a chance of par.
Anyone who is in the market for a set of irons should seriously consider giving these a go.
I still struggle with the 4i and 5i off the deck but that is a shortcoming in my ability rather than the clubs. Once I crack that I look forward to seeing the benefit of these clubs as I couldn't be happier with 6i-PW.
Had a few good examples of catching the ball slightly lower on the face than I would have wanted but the distance loss was not too hurtful and I still ended up in a good position to give myself a chance of par.
Anyone who is in the market for a set of irons should seriously consider giving these a go.
Mav281
Mr Inconsistent
Great result fella, it didn't take me long to settle with the RBladez either and I found my confidence in my iron play skyrocket over a very short space of time.
El Bandito
Active member
Not experienced enough to give you a confident answer. During my fitting, the guy watch me hit a few 6 and 7 irons, asked me a few questions and then started me testing shafts, graphite, composite and steel. He said "as you are deep here and here" referring to the fact that I am a Xxl shirt ( nice polite guy!) "a light shaft might not give you the speed that it is designed to". I certainly felt I could 'feel' the club head better as we moved to counter weighted heavier shafts. Certainly with the testers, I was puring some type of Mizuno blade with the FST shaft.
The proof will come next weekend, I am playing in the monthly medal at the weekend followed by a UK THP meet on Monday, Tuesday...so I should get a good feel then.
El Bandito
Active member
Great round Hinch. My miss tends to be off the toe, and you are right, there is not too much loss with these clubs. A benefit far more important than distance in my view. Keep going with the 4&5, I used to carry hybrids for those clubs, and now don't bother.
cmossotti
New member
A couple weeks ago I ordered a set of Rocketbladez 4-AW with KBS tour in R flex. As soon as I was able to hit em a bit i said I would post about what I thought about em. Coming from playing muscle backs for 10 years this set was going to be a huge change for me. Anyways I received my first set and they came in with the wrong shafts. (KBS 90). Very dissapointed, Taylormade took care of it and said they would send a new set out right away. I received the new set about 5 days later, opened the box and found a set of Rocketbladez Tours with KBS tour in R flex. For a moment I was disappointed but couldn't get over how nice this set looks. I knew it wasn't what I wanted but I couldn't take my eyes of these clubs. After a long day of thinking what to do now I came to the conclusion that I would go to the indoor dome range and hit both sets side by side. I bought a roll of masking tape and I was off to the dome.
Im gonna start of by saying that the 8-pw in both sets are nearly identical. The one major difference being the smaller sole in the tours. Other than that face size and shape seem to be identical. My main goal in buying these irons was to attain a higher ball flight and to gain more forgiveness from my older set in the longer irons.
I started off by taping up the non tour 7 iron and taking some swings. Ball flight was very high (as expected with the KBS 90) ,very forgiving. I almost felt like I couldn't miss a shot with this club. I definitely started to believe the 5 times bigger sweet spot that Taylormade had promised. They had a OK feel nothing spectacular. Ive hit these clubs multiple times before so i knew what i was getting into. First time not in a sim tho.
Next I moved on to the tour 7 iron. First thing i noticed with these is how high the ball flight was with this club, barely if any thing lower than the non tour set. Second, how forgiving these heads were. I was in a dome only about 100 yds long, so no idea on distance loss on mishits. When you look down at them they don't necessarily exude confidence. Coming from muscle backs they weren't a problem for me at all, but I don't know if id recommend these to a higher handicapper. Over all tho I thought there would be a lot bigger distance gap in performance between the tours and non tours.
I moved on to the non tour 4 iron next taped it up and hit away. Right off the bat the first thing I noticed was the very loud crack that this club produced at impact. I was hitting balls with a buddy and he was in the stall next to me and turned around and asked WTF was that? I really could not believe the noise this club was producing it was almost unbearable. Again this isn't the first time I hit these clubs but never noticed it like I did now. Trying to get over the noise I hit about 10 more balls. The flight was incredible for a 4 iron exactly the height that I wanted to see from my long irons. Seemed like if the ball dropped on the green it would have stopped on a dime. The forgiving nature of these clubs are phenomenal. I don't want to repeat what others have said so ill leave it at that. The sound was just crazy loud though it was tough to get over.
So now the tour 4 iron. I cant stress to you how much different these two heads are. The non tour head is extremely close to a SGI iron and the tour 4 is similiar to say a AP2. Lets just say before I swung this club I didn't have much high hopes. The 4 iron in my old set wasn't exactly my friend. First couple swings i couldn't believe again how high these heads were launching the balls. Not ballooning but just a overall great ball flight and not much lower than the non tours. As with the seven iron these were just incredible with off center hits. Caught a couple low on the face and the flight of the ball only seemed to suffer a minimal amount. What I really liked about the tour 4 was that loud cracking type sound wasn't there at all, but that was to be expected.
At the end of this testing session I went with the tours and didnt really feel like I was giving up much forgiveness at all. The thing that really sold me on the tours was the lack of that extremely loud cracking sound that the 4,5, and 6 irons were making in the non tour set. I want to stress though that im in no way trying to take the non tour model down. I just felt like this review might help people that are having a problem decide between sets. Both sets are great clubs and Taylormade did a great job with both. I believe what set a person chooses should come down to the longer irons simply because the 8-pw in both sets are nearly identical. The one thing that I wish they did with the tour set was having the AW be the ATV style wedge instead of matching the rest of the irons. Hope this was helpful.
Im gonna start of by saying that the 8-pw in both sets are nearly identical. The one major difference being the smaller sole in the tours. Other than that face size and shape seem to be identical. My main goal in buying these irons was to attain a higher ball flight and to gain more forgiveness from my older set in the longer irons.
I started off by taping up the non tour 7 iron and taking some swings. Ball flight was very high (as expected with the KBS 90) ,very forgiving. I almost felt like I couldn't miss a shot with this club. I definitely started to believe the 5 times bigger sweet spot that Taylormade had promised. They had a OK feel nothing spectacular. Ive hit these clubs multiple times before so i knew what i was getting into. First time not in a sim tho.
Next I moved on to the tour 7 iron. First thing i noticed with these is how high the ball flight was with this club, barely if any thing lower than the non tour set. Second, how forgiving these heads were. I was in a dome only about 100 yds long, so no idea on distance loss on mishits. When you look down at them they don't necessarily exude confidence. Coming from muscle backs they weren't a problem for me at all, but I don't know if id recommend these to a higher handicapper. Over all tho I thought there would be a lot bigger distance gap in performance between the tours and non tours.
I moved on to the non tour 4 iron next taped it up and hit away. Right off the bat the first thing I noticed was the very loud crack that this club produced at impact. I was hitting balls with a buddy and he was in the stall next to me and turned around and asked WTF was that? I really could not believe the noise this club was producing it was almost unbearable. Again this isn't the first time I hit these clubs but never noticed it like I did now. Trying to get over the noise I hit about 10 more balls. The flight was incredible for a 4 iron exactly the height that I wanted to see from my long irons. Seemed like if the ball dropped on the green it would have stopped on a dime. The forgiving nature of these clubs are phenomenal. I don't want to repeat what others have said so ill leave it at that. The sound was just crazy loud though it was tough to get over.
So now the tour 4 iron. I cant stress to you how much different these two heads are. The non tour head is extremely close to a SGI iron and the tour 4 is similiar to say a AP2. Lets just say before I swung this club I didn't have much high hopes. The 4 iron in my old set wasn't exactly my friend. First couple swings i couldn't believe again how high these heads were launching the balls. Not ballooning but just a overall great ball flight and not much lower than the non tours. As with the seven iron these were just incredible with off center hits. Caught a couple low on the face and the flight of the ball only seemed to suffer a minimal amount. What I really liked about the tour 4 was that loud cracking type sound wasn't there at all, but that was to be expected.
At the end of this testing session I went with the tours and didnt really feel like I was giving up much forgiveness at all. The thing that really sold me on the tours was the lack of that extremely loud cracking sound that the 4,5, and 6 irons were making in the non tour set. I want to stress though that im in no way trying to take the non tour model down. I just felt like this review might help people that are having a problem decide between sets. Both sets are great clubs and Taylormade did a great job with both. I believe what set a person chooses should come down to the longer irons simply because the 8-pw in both sets are nearly identical. The one thing that I wish they did with the tour set was having the AW be the ATV style wedge instead of matching the rest of the irons. Hope this was helpful.
cmossotti
New member
Thanks. I was very lucky how all this worked out. Taylormade did me right haha
Erky
New member
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Great write up. I just finished my 4th round since purchasing the tour irons. The 4 iron on the tour irons is freaking awesome. It's my favorite club now.
El Bandito
Active member
Cmossotti, thanks for a great write up! I would guess that the tours might be the ideal 'middle' from the muscle backs to the rbladez. Really interesting thoughts.
That part is something others have experienced, too - the shafts respond well to a nice smooth swing. Sometimes the 80% swing gives you 110% results.
Great write up Cmossotti, really solid comparison for the rest of us. Well done.
cmossotti
New member
Yea I cant wait to take these clubs to the course. The 4 iron i have to agree was amazing I probably hit 150 balls at the range with these clubs prolly 50 was with the 4 iron alone. It was really enjoyable to hit long irons again.
cmossotti
New member
Thanks guys i figured i would take my strange situation that taylormade gave me and run with it