In January The Hackers Paradise attended the PGA Show and while there we had the chance to see for the first time a new set of clubs from Cleveland Golf. This set was the Cleveland Bloom for ladies. At first glance a couple of things jumped out at me. The line was very visually striking and it appeared as though Cleveland thought of just about everything when putting this set together. It has seemed in recent years that the ladies club market had been more focused on looks and less on performance and as much as I love the colors of these clubs I was more interested in how they would hold up on the course. As we mentioned in our review of the Srixon Z Star Review, we felt a little bad because we did not even give our Cleveland contact a chance to sit down before we were calling asking when we could review this line. Being the trooper he is, he was able to loan us a set of these clubs for a few weeks to try out and demo.
Some info on the Bloom line from Cleveland.
The Cleveland Golf Bloom line is a comprehensive performance line which is designed specifically for women
and features the most advanced game-improvement technology available. Each club in the Bloom line features a
lightweight and high MOI design that improves distance and forgiveness. The new line also marks the first time that
Cleveland Golf has ever introduced a complete line of matching clubs, bags, accessories and apparel made by
Cleveland Classics.
Here is what is included in the 13 piece set.
HiBORE Bloom Driver
HiBORE Bloom Fairway
HiBORE Bloom Hybrid
HIBORE Bloom Irons
BLOOM Niblick
BLOOM CG14 Wedge
BLOOM VP 509 Putter
Since the show I had been looking forward to trying these out and the first time I got a chance I took them out to the range. My initial thoughts were pretty straight forward. The Bloom line is not just nice looking, they play as good as they look. I will get into more details about each club shortly, but overall, the forgiveness is what sets these apart in my eyes. Off center hits had very little distance loss and still traveled as straight as when struck dead center. This held true from the driver all the way to the wedge. I am not going to lie having these clubs in my bag definitely gave me a confidence boost, these babies are so nice looking.
Rather than review this set alone I decided to take it up to the women’s golf clinic on Saturday morning and get opinions from all types of players. Each golfer warmed up and took instruction with their normal set of clubs for a while and then switched over to the Bloom line. Everybody seemed to enjoy the set quite a bit, here are some of the more common things we heard from the golfers during the testing.
1. More distance and control from these irons versus anything we have tried.
2. The Niblick is the greatest club ever. (and I concur)
3. I was not used to solid contact, but with these even mishits felt solid.
4. The fairway wood would be my go to club.
5. The driver is a little too loud for me.
The Niblick, how I love thee. I did not really know what to think when I opened the box and saw this little club. Was it an iron? A hybrid? A chipper? A wedge? Well, no and yes. It is really all of these rolled into one. From Cleveland:
Cleveland Golf’s revolutionary Bloom Niblick is shorter and more controllable hybrid club that incorporates classic concept with modern design. The new Niblick combines the best features of a wedge, putter, iron and hybrid to create the ultimate hybrid scoring club. Specifically designed to improve scoring, the Niblick enables players to hit four different types of shots, including chips, pitches, approach shots and recoveries. The Niblick features Gelback technology, which is a lightweight, visco-elastic, vibration-damping material that is placed directly behind the hitting area of the clubface. Gelback is vibration-tuned to remove unwanted vibration on mis- hits, while still allowing the player necessary feedback from the clubhead for a soft yet responsive feel. The Niblick also features Cleveland Golf’s patented Zip Grooves. This technology creates larger groove volume which helps channel more debris compared to traditional grooves, thus leading to improved contact with the ball. This breakthrough technology features consistent milling of each groove to maximum conforming dimensions, which leads to optimum spin on each and every shot.
If you have ever struggled with chipping or pitching around the green, then this club is a MUST BUY. Sure ego got in the way of a few of the better players trying it, but once they actually put it in their hands, everybody was sold. Even JB went out and got the men’s version because the club just works. Pitching around the green was as simple as making a putting stroke. However with the grooves that they used on this, you can really get the ball to a one hop and stop with a chip. It gave me much more control around the greens and in the scoring area. But what surprised me and the other ladies that tried it, was just how good it felt on full shots as well. More and more of the women at the clinic came around and by the end, everybody was praising this club.
With the exception of the Niblick, the best part of this set for me and all of our testers were the hybrid/irons. Starting with the 4 iron which is pretty much a standard hybrid as far as looks go and continuing through to the PW. The irons are a blend of hybrid and iron so they are a little bit heavier than your normal iron but not so much that it is bothersome. The weight didn’t deter me at all but at the look at setup was a little strange at first. The club head was much thicker than I am used to and at first I found it almost distracting but within about 4 swings that all went away. How could I let a little something like a thick head get in the way of the straight and far balls I was hitting? I was adding what seemed like 10 yards to every iron I hit and even the mishits were perfectly straight. Instead of my instructor going “hmmm” to where my ball was going he was saying “wow!” The rest of the ladies had the exact same thoughts and results.
The set also came with a putter and SW. Putters to me are very personal and finding one can be a tough challenge. This putter looked good at setup and rolled the ball quite well. I also liked that it had a sort of training aid built into it. If you have the club set properly you could not see the green center if you could you needed to adjust your positioning. Many of the ladies at the clinic prefer blade style putters and this one did not really work for them. The SW is out of Cleveland’s CG14 line and was great. It is 56* and works out of the sand perfect. The deep zip grooves were great around the greens and made the ball hold quite nicely. Because of the Niblick, I found myself only using this club out of the sand.
We briefly mentioned the driver and fairway woods earlier but I wanted to add a little more. We were sent the 3 and 5 woods in this set and they were liked by just about everybody. The ball comes off the face nicely and really gets up in the air quickly. Both clubs are extremely forgiving and I found when I missed out on the toe of the club, the flight pattern was still straight. The driver was different for me and some of the women at the clinic. The sound is extremely loud at impact. So much so that most of the women had an issue with it. Many of the golfers told me that the one thing they do not want to do is bring attention to themselves on the golf course. This driver brings attention. We did, however, have one lady who absolutely loved the sound, in fact she said “the louder the better.” She said the louder sound made her feel like she was hitting it better, it was sort of a confidence boost for her.
In the first picture I put up you can see how striking the set is. I want to add one thing about the headcovers. They are great. The little EZ Grab feature that they have is something that should be mandatory for every company out there. The Bloom headcovers are one of the first I have seen that I did not want to switch out ASAP, plus look at those colors they are amazing!
Overall, I thought the Cleveland Bloom set delivered everything that we had hoped for. Just like with my clothing reviews I am always looking for something that both looks good and performs well and this Bloom set definitely did that. After a few weeks with these clubs I really did not want to give them back, they looked so nice in my bag. I highly recommend giving these clubs at try at your local golf shop, especially the Niblick. The Bloom clubs are sold individually or as a set. You can learn more about the Cleveland Bloom set at Cleveland Golf.
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