Why would us Amateurs play with anything that doesn't maximize forgiveness?

[DG_1234]

It's hard for me to imagine getting enough benefit from the "feel" or visuals or "workability" of a less forgiving iron to offset a couple extra putts instead of chips/pitches/bunker shots per round. I am just soooooo much better putting from 40 feet in the fringe than I am chipping from 20 yards in the rough.

My point has nothing to do with feel or workability. My point is that some players make consistently better quality contact when swinging a relatively small iron head. In other words, the larger the head the more challenging it may be to square at impact and make solid-square ball contact.

 

[Et Tu Brute?]

My point has nothing to do with feel or workability. My point is that some players make consistently better quality contact when swinging a relatively small iron head. In other words, the larger the head the more challenging it may be to square at impact and make solid-square ball contact.

In other words, they are completely determined before they even try that they "can't" hit a club that's "too big". That's a mental thing, not an equipment thing.

 

[blugold]

Because they look better in the bag. And that matters.

 

[DG_1234]

In other words, they are completely determined before they even try that they "can't" hit a club that's "too big". That's a mental thing, not an equipment thing.

Not a "mental thing". I believe it may be physics. For example, we can probably all agree that an iron head design 3 times the size of anything on the market today would likely be counter productive towards striking consistently good shots.

 

[JB]

Not a "mental thing". I believe it may be physics. For example, we can probably all agree that an iron head design 3 times the size of anything on the market today would likely be counter productive towards striking consistently good shots.

Weird that it happened in drivers. I believe you said it was one of the most important developments in golf club creation.
Squaring the driver is not harder to do with the larger head and nobody is clamoring to go back to before 250cc existed.

 

[rallo]

You don't necessarily have to choose (unless we are talking about extremes here)... lots of forgiveness packed into sexy small-mid irons these days.

That said, for me, wide-sole can be a mental block, but I'm starting to get over it... CBX iron woods and cbx wedges are both treating me just fine despite wider-than average soles

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

 

[DG_1234]

Weird that it happened in drivers. I believe you said it was one of the most important developments in golf club creation.
Squaring the driver is not harder to do with the larger head and nobody is clamoring to go back to before 250cc existed.

For drivers, I don't know which size is the optimal balance between forgiveness and ease of use. Maybe it is 350CC, maybe it is 400CC, maybe it is 450CC ?
I think we can all agree that an 800CC driver would be too large of a head to effectively swing, and as such well past the point of diminishing returns.
For iron heads, if we can agree that it is possible for them to become too large, be that 20%, 50% l, 200% larger than today's irons , or whatever the number,there is a point when a club head size may be too large.