Adams Idea Hybrid Irons Review

[Hawk]

We previewed these a few weeks back and they got some peoples' interest. This is the latest hybrid iron set from Adams, who claims to be number one in this category. Some may remember that THP did a very successful forum testing a couple years ago with one of the Idea's predecessors, the a120S hybrid irons. The makeup of the Idea set is very similar in that there is a mixture of true hybrids, hybrid irons, and cavity back irons. To be precise: 3-5 are hybrids, 6-7 are hollow body hybrid irons, and 8-PW are cavity backs.

Stocks shafts are steel True Temper Dynalite 85g in the irons and hybrid irons and Mitsubishi Bassara Eagle Series in the hybrids.

Some new technology is being offered in this set, namely an expansion of the slot technology that we are seeing in so many of the Adams/Taylormade offerings.

New Cut-Thru Slot™ design in the hybrids makes ball speed and launch higher and adds extra distance on off-center shots.

There's an actual wrap-around slot – never seen before in golf clubs – that expands the sweet spot for up to 44% more speed on off-center shots and 23% more speed on center shots compared to our industry-leading Idea a12OS.

Had a chance to get these on the golf course today. Actually unwrapped them as I needed them, so trial by fire. Neat set that played quite well for me. Look for an update with some early thoughts here soon, but until then enjoy some pictures.

Cavity Backs (8-PW)

Hybrid Irons (6-7)

Hybrids (3-5)

And one more...

 

[War Eagle]

Wow.

In hand, those sure do look quite nice.

 

[Nebgolfer]

I will definitely be following along with this thread. I've got the A3OS set that is just asking to be replaced, and these are high up on the ponder list at this point. I've been a fan of the integrated set, and the wrap around velocity slot would probably do me a whole lot of good since I've got a fair amount of scratches on the toes of my irons.

 

[tequila4kapp]

Another piece of equipment being reviewed??? Holy smokes. Is there a golf version of the Hamburgler and did he go to every OEM, stealing new gear for THP staffers to review?

 

[Smallville]

I love this type of set. Can't wait to hear what you think.

 

[blugold]

I like everything about that set. In hand, they look great.

I really am curious what would happen if I played these. I am very intrigued.

 

[Hawk]

Another piece of equipment being reviewed??? Holy smokes. Is there a golf version of the Hamburgler and did he go to every OEM, stealing new gear for THP staffers to review?

It's that time of year Frank! New equipment is rolling out and we are going to be covering darn near all of it. Busy busy busy.

 

[tpluff]

Wow those certainly are shiny! Lots of slots all over the place.

 

[tequila4kapp]

It's that time of year Frank! New equipment is rolling out and we are going to be covering darn near all of it. Busy busy busy.

It is all good!

 

[AMart]

I can't put my finger on it....but I like the styling a lot. I'm sure the technology is great, but the looks alone I find very appealing.

 

[tequila4kapp]

The top view of the 6/7 looks a bit Altitude-ish to me.

 

[#Cookie]

Wrap around slot for more speed on off center hits? Yes, please!

These are so far up my alley they are in my garage. Hahaha

Clubs like this excite me, looking forward to hearing more and eventually trying out myself.

 

[O'Carroll]

These look good in the in hand pictures. I'd definitely be interested in swinging them.

 

[afwcardinal]

These look great. Can't wait to hear more about them.

 

[Hawk]

The top view of the 6/7 looks a bit Altitude-ish to me.

You know, now that you mention it, the picture does sort of give that impression. However, in person it never really struck me in that way.

Wrap around slot for more speed on off center hits? Yes, please!

These are so far up my alley they are in my garage. Hahaha

Clubs like this excite me, looking forward to hearing more and eventually trying out myself.

I was waiting for you to pop in here. You'd like them Cookie. Very much so I believe.



Working on a write up here. Got too tired to finish last night.

 

[DevRickus]

Didnt like the initial photos of them. The in hand pics are quite different. I like them alot. Like Cookie said above, the forgiveness on off center hits is huge for me because..well I suck. Haha. Cant wait to read the full review.Thanks Hawkster.

 

[Hawk]

Vert intrigued. I hit the a12OS at the golf shop a couple weeks ago and really liked them. But I ended up switching over to the 588 Altitudes, which seem to be somewhat similar to these irons. One thing I noticed from the a12OS test that THP did was that some folks noticed a loss in distance. I love Adams hybrids and how easy they are to hit but they aren't always known for being very long. Will be interesting to see if these irons offer improved forgiveness AND can maintain respectable distance.

Via Tapatalk4

Early on, but I didn't notice any distance loss yesterday. In fact, I'd say they were pretty long for me.

 

[Hawk]

Should start off by saying thatt I've got a crazy thing going on right now, with one review focused on the sleek and sexy players irons (MP-54's) and this one on the Ideas, an ultra forgiving set with light shafts and slots and hollow bodies and a 5 hybrid. For me, it's really a big challenge mentally, because it forces me to put the never ending debate of players vs SGI for my game front and center. It's right there in my face and I can't really avoid it. Of course, that has nothing to do with the review, but I'll probably still be talking about it a bit on the forum as the next few weeks come and go.

As I mentioned earlier, this box unexpectedly came today, a day in which I'd already made plans to go do some testing on the course. I figured I better not waste any time, so I actually grabbed a second bag, dropped the Ideas in it, and headed to the course. Took a few pics on the practice tee and off I went. Played two balls today, one with both sets of irons, from the same tee ball for fair comparison's sake.

Conditions were not really great for golf. 18mph sustained winds with 30mph gusts and temps in the 40's. I figured it would be a good test of the old 'high balls in the wind' issue though. Plus, the sun was out and I was not at work.

Ended up getting 12 holes in and scored a +5 over 12 holes with both balls and hit the same number of greens (5) with both balls. Funny how that works out. Also took a chance to hit a bunch of shots from different spots for testing's sake.

To the irons...

First thing I might as well talk about is looks. For the class of irons they fall in, I think we have a pretty attractive package here. Smooth, rounded lines and a color scheme that matches the 2014 "blue" theme from TM/Adams. Finish is a nice satin. Obviously, we're dealing with a very large iron here, in everything from the sole to the top line to blade length, but there isn't any extreme offset. I'm not super picky at address and had no issues setting up to the ball with any of the three different club types in the set. These will not be for everybody, but I think that those looking for a hybrid iron set will find them among the better looking options out there.

There is what felt like a huge difference in weight coming from the MP54's to the Ideas. They seem both lighter in the head and just lighter all around. The shafts feel more nimble and soft as well, though nothing undesirable if you're a fan of the SpeedBlade type shaft or really any shaft Adams has put in a GI/SGI iron in the last 5+ years.

The graphite shafts in the hybrids has a nice blue/black color scheme and seems like an acceptable offering. Wasn't much that I took away in terms of feelings one way or the other about the shaft today.

I'm struggling a bit to figure out how I'm going to organize all this, but I think the easiest thing for now is to just lump the 6-PW all together and then separate the hybrids out.

Hybrids (3-5)

Surprisingly nice actually. Wasn't ever a huge fan of the larger profile Adams hybrids, but these seemed alright to me today. Matte black crown is nice and the felt pretty good in hand. Nice soundd at impact, very easy to hit in the air off the turf and delivered a pretty high ball for me. Had some issues with moderate pushes to the right, but nothing off the planet. For some reason I just couldn't get them to turn over all that often.

Distance seemed to be very good, but with the wind it wasn't all that easy to judge.

I've played a 5 hybrid before, for just about two years actually, so it's nothing new. However, it's been a long time and I did have some concerns. This is a true hybrid, and as you can see, it's more the mini fairway wood style, with a very large sole. Worries included accuracy compared to irons and performance from the rough.

Regarding accuracy, I mentioned before a tendency to push them more than draw them, but I wasn't ever really far off. For the most part I had a nice push-draw working yesterday that would ride the left side and work into the center. When playing for that with these I was more likely to stay on the right side, though that didn't happen every time.

Hit one ball out of the rough with the 5h as a layup on a par 5, some pretty tall stuff with the ball sitting low. Surprisingly, got a mid-high ball out of it and it left me sitting in the fairway with 50 yards into the green. Absolutely didn't expect that. Hit the MP-54 from the same spot and got a somewhat lower ball that rolled a bit more and left me an almost identical distance.

Distance appeared to be pretty solid. There were times that I got more yardage out of shots into the wind than I would have expected. Can't give you anything concrete here though. To me, they performed as I'd expect.

In terms of forgiveness, nothing specific to mention, but they are big hybrids and I'd expect they offer plenty of help off center. Will give this my attention going forward of course.

Hybrid Irons/Irons

Neat clubs here. They feel so much better than I expected. In fact, they sort of had me all mashed up trying to figure out what feels good and what makes an iron feel good. They don't have that slot sound to them that I get from TM's slotted irons. Really, they were on the softer/muted side and sounded very iron-ish. No 'ting' at impact, which I'll admit is not my favorite sound.

At set up, they are pretty rounded and obviously very girthy on the top line, but as mentioned, not as offset as maybe you'd expect them to be. I thought they gave a nice level of confidence behind the ball. Easy swinging with the light shafts and I felt like I could really get through the ball with them.

Hit my first three GIR and just barely missed what would have been my 4th, 5th, and sixth in a row. That was pretty cool. Most of the shots in that stretch were pretty good and didn't really need to lean on the forgiveness so much. Played a few rotten holes after that, but hung in there. Then finished strong.

I didn't hit them nearly as high as I expected to. Not to say I wasn't putting the ball up in the air nicely with them, but at most they were only moderately higher flying than the MP-54's. In my books that was a good thing. I don't need my ball flight much higher, so I was relieved. Into the wind they did gain height significantly as expected, though they held on pretty well if you ask me. At times I was forced to club up three clubs and they delivered the distance I was looking for. With wind like this and two completely different iron sets to me, I was playing a lot of guessing games, but these were pretty reliable with the club up method.

Balls rolled out a little more than I'd normally expect, but didn't lose any off the green. Greens were super firm and moderately fast though.

Consistently a club further than the 54's in the mid irons, with that gap closing up as it got closer to the scoring irons. A few examples...

-On the first hole I had 130 yards and hit PW's with both sets, with both covering almost the exact same distance. Good contact on both.

-Layup shot on the second hole and hit 7 irons with both sets. Had 10 yards less (lasered) with the ball hit with the Idea iron.

-Approach on the 6th hole from 160 and the Idea 8 iron stopped about 5 yards closer to the hole.

-Approach on the last hole dead into the 30mph wind coming off the river. 7 iron was almost the exact same distance as the MP-54 6 iron. I hit another ball to see if I got the same result and it was within a few feet of the first.

Forgiveness was certainly interesting. I'm sort of leery to try to quantify forgiveness on anectdotal terms, because I think it's easy to not take other factors into consideration, but a couple shots really stood out to me that showed what these had to offer. I think you're going to get a really huge level of forgiveness both off-center, but also thanks to some slide that the wide sole offers on heavy shots.

-Par 3, again playing into the wind. Hit was I thougth was a good shot with the MP-54 6 iron and the ball just up and died on me in the wind. Stopped short of the green by about 5 yards. I clubbed down to the Idea 7 iron, and hit the ball a good 3/4 inch or more towards the toe. The ball stopped about 3 yards ahead of the the MP-54's ball. I wouldn't have believed it if I didn't see it.

-Par 4, third shot from 164 to a back pin (thanks to a little trouble off the tee). I hit an 8 iron here and caught it a little heavy. The sole slid nicely and I ended up pretty much right in the center of the green. I dropped a second ball to see if I could hit a good shot and did, with the result being a ball that got all the way to the back of the green about 10 feet from the pin.

Just a couple examples of things that surprised me.





I know this is long, so I'll leave it at that for now, but it was a fun day. In the end, I hit the same number of greens with both irons, though not always the same greens. I had misses with both as well. Both performed pretty well in the wind, though the fact that the Ideas are a little longer in the mid-irons to begin with did give me a little more wiggle room to club up. I think I could play either one and have fun either way.

 

[Puttin4Bird]

I like the concept of them and think it's great that these are options for people but there is no way I could game these things. Way too bulky for me.

Should be a fun review though, tear it up Hawk!!

 

[ddec]

definitely better in pictures than the artist renditions. Going to read Hawk's initial course testing in a few minutes after a quick meeting.

 

[Hawk]

Should also mention the course I played had pretty tight Bent Grass fairways. Divots were minimal, but there was a little disruption of the grass.

 

[Hawk]

Here's a picture of the last shot I talked about. MP54 in the center and Ideas on the right.

 

[Howzat]

I love the head to head comparison. Were you a bit shocked to score the same with both sets?

 

[Hawk]

I love the head to head comparison. Were you a bit shocked to score the same with both sets?

Sort of yes, sort of no. If that makes sense.

I know going back to other iron sets that my bottom line didn't really change all that much. How I got there was different at times, but never saw huge differences. At the same time, when I hit the first three greens with the Ideas and missed the first three with the MP-54's my mind started racing a bit. However, by the time I left it had all evened out.

 

[Hawk]

Mentioned the 5h from the rough. This is the aftermath. Put a ball down to give some perspective.

Top divot (if you can call it that) is from the MP 54. Directly below you'll see the grass disturbed from the 5h.