I received my irons at the Ultimate Testing on September 14th and my post above (#1063--can't or don't know how to link from my phone) was intended to show the wear (or lack of) after playing 378 holes. For me, the finish is holding up really well. I originally thought the darker part might wear off of show wear early, but I have seen none of that.
Welcome to THP and thanks for the kind words. As many holes as I've played with the SpeedBlades, I haven't spent much time in fairway bunkers. One is burned into my memory from my weekend in Florida at the Gauntlet though. The hole was a par 5, and I pushed my tee shot into the bunker on the right side 270-ish from the green. Normally, from the fairway/rough, I would pull the 7 iron as my 170 club leaving a comfortable approach from 100 yards. Being in the bunker, I grabbed the 6, choked down on the grip, moved the ball back in my stance, and attempted to pick it clean. The ball came out low, like a rocket, and pulled a little left, but came to a stop in the left rough exactly 100 yards from the middle of the green. If I were to grade my swing at this ball on a scale from 1-10, I'd give it a 5--and ended up in perfect birdie position. Wish I had more of an answer for you than that.
I spoke briefly with the fitter (Bob Van Sweeden) about shaft flex, and he is in the camp that if your are in the middle of swinging regular and stiff, he always recommends stiff as he feels it helps greatly with dispersion. I consider myself a tempo guy, not a swing out of my shoes guy and my 6 iron club speed hovers around 90 mph, and I have had no issues with the stiff shaft flex.
I've been in the market for some new irons, and have been hitting lots of them in retailer fitting bays. This weekend I went to test out the Callaway Apex and the Taylormade Speedblade (again). According to the flightscope, I was hitting the Apex 6i and the Speedblade 7i the same distance, both carry and total. More spin, ball speed, and height on the speedblades. This was very encouraging, especially since as a set, the apex and the speedblades are within a half degree in loft. The feel on the speedblades was much, much better IMO. So, I bit the bullet and picked up a set of 4-PW speedblades (steel/stiff) from a local golf shop going out of business. It was a great deal, and I've had my eye on them for a while now. Seemed like fate
I immediately took them to be extended 1" and have Winn Dri-Tac Oversize grips installed with one extra wrap. These grips feel great and seem to lessen the vibration of a mishit. Put the new clubs into play for the first time today and I was really impressed. In fact, I think I had the best feeling iron shot I've ever had today with the 8i on a par 3. It was a full swing on a 160yd hole that put a major grin on my face, even before the ball fell onto the green. Each and every time I hit an iron off the tee, it was the same story. awesome feel, awesome result. As an experiment I drove a few holes I'd normally hit driver or 3W on with the 4i. I was getting 220yds consistently and with the exception of my swing mistakes, every shot was where I wanted it to be. This is a drastic improvement over the irons I've been gaming which are admittedly cheapo set irons... but still, I couldn't be happier with the purchase. Getting them for such a good price was icing on the cake.
