Cobra KING Tour Irons with MIM Technology
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- #52
Maybe they will at some point?
These are gorgeous.. I will be trying them out as soon as they hit the demo cart. Cobra has really been killing it the last few years across the board!!
phoffer
Resident ONE Length Guy
I get it for T-Rails, since F-Max didn't have OL variants. The CB/MB are easy to understand too. And it's reasonable why they stopped selling any OL women's sets. But yeah I think that Tour, TECs, and the yearly GI OL would be a perfect lineup
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Would be great, and not surprised if cobra has that in the pipeline
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- #56
Is it though? Here is my reasoning. Every “better player” on the internet pans OL (without trying it) so why make a fairly limited better players club available?
This is what I was thinking. This is often catered to a different segment of the market and my local fitter says he can't get a better player to even consider these. (my fitter actually thinks OL will help many of them). I wonder how much of this is the concept of OL and how much is the irons that it is offered in. I think the new Forged Tec irons are incredible so having OL there is a big statement. If there's a big enough demand in the better player segment I can see Cobra investing in it.
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- #58
True statement right here. I would consider it IF I struggled with long irons. I don't though in fact I hit them very well and when I tried the shorter version of a 4i I hated it. Although Bryson is doing well with the OL he is the ONLY one on tour correct? That leads me to think that maybe OL appeals to a different demographic?
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I'd argue that if the
Wasn't the thread for it but @phoffer hit on it, I think for them not to offer in the SGI/GI lines is a bigger miss than this line.
However I think when they offered it in the Forged Tour line, 3/4 years ago it wasn't a miss. also if they went soft on the forecast and only did 1000 sets of OL they could gauge demand and see if they needed to ramp up production in the factory if the irons are on a 2 year cycle.
Jos and Yags have both said that OL continues to outpace forecasts and if Bryson becomes more dominant with the increase in popularity of fittings and people still resistant to seeing instructors people can continue to chase the "easy" improvement
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I think that is also the misnomer of OL. That they are there to fix the long iron struggles. When in fact by design they are there to help all of them, since only one swing is needed
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But if it's commercially viable, and people want pretty things why not offer it - I'd argue the majority of golfers don't know what they should play and see something on tour and think give me Bryson specs give me Tiger specs give me Rors specs
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- #62
Do you think other tour players have given it some thought or even tried it? There has to be a reason why only Bryson is doing it. If it were the magic pill everyone would flock to it. I think most still see it as a gimmick and see how awkward it looks with the way he does it. But I guess maybe with continued success maybe it will start to become more popular, no clue. I'll admit I didn't give it a full go but I have tried some OL clubs and I just didn't like them compared to the regular version.
Cost? I have no idea. I also know that when @oumagic wanted to start his OL journey he had a heck of a time trying to find a fitter that would fit him into OL.
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- #63
No. They didn’t grow up with them. Same reason 15 years ago at the emergence of great cavity backs they didn’t change right away. Or why hybrids took so long to adopt.
Next generation will though just like all of those things.
I will preface this by saying I have not tried OL irons. Isn't there some sort of adjustment period to changing to one length clubs? I would imagine that there is a learning curve when trying to figure out the distances your shorter irons will now travel since they're 7 iron length. I would argue that it is a harder sell to a "better" player. They'll typically have a repeatable swing and aren't necessarily looking for a wholesale change to their bag setup. I am not saying they aren't out there. I just can't imagine that there is a large number of them. I would assume that Cobra has done some sort of market analysis since they are basically the face of OL clubs now.
If I think about one length, it's not something I would spend $1300 on trying to see if it's feasible for me. I think it's something that a player would have to test on the course across the whole bag to know for sure it's worth switching. I am not saying it's not worth it, nor am I saying OL doesn't work. Just my thoughts on the matter.
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It definitely is a cost aspect from Cobra - I'm just surprised considering the sales volume they do in OL, not to offer it in limited sets - they are fine when stuff sells out generally. As I said, I think not offering it in the better player category gear is more understandable for me than the GI and SGI lines when arguably it would be more beneficial
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No kidding. But I'm telling myself no every 5 minutes. I like sleeping inside my house!
phoffer
Resident ONE Length Guy
I really didn't mean to derail this topic but just a couple thoughts. PGA players are the best 0.001% ball strikers on the planet. They all have such talent that measuring OL (or anything) by what they play seems odd. None of them play SGI but those are fully accepted for amateurs.
@radiman as for distance, distances are same for VL and OL versions of the same club. Trajectory is different, but Cobra has found (via Arccos data) that matching VL and OL clubs have, on average, a 0.4 yard difference in distance. So the only real learning curve in that regard is learning distances, but that's true for any iron set.
As for better amateurs not finding benefit in OL, that's a common thought but I think it's also inaccurate. No matter what level you are, you can make more efficient use of practice time with OL, less time on irons and more on putting/chipping/etc. Ironically as I'm typing this, @Wildcat4life just posted about when we tried it down here for him. He's playing somewhere around 1-2 for those not familiar
@radiman as for distance, distances are same for VL and OL versions of the same club. Trajectory is different, but Cobra has found (via Arccos data) that matching VL and OL clubs have, on average, a 0.4 yard difference in distance. So the only real learning curve in that regard is learning distances, but that's true for any iron set.
As for better amateurs not finding benefit in OL, that's a common thought but I think it's also inaccurate. No matter what level you are, you can make more efficient use of practice time with OL, less time on irons and more on putting/chipping/etc. Ironically as I'm typing this, @Wildcat4life just posted about when we tried it down here for him. He's playing somewhere around 1-2 for those not familiar
I have no insider knowledge, but would like to point out that One Length MiM wedges were not available until well after the MiM wedges were launched. I don't think I am a good enough player to think about gaming these other than in my dreams, but it would not surprise me that an OL set is in the future. These irons look so freaking good. If they feel like the MiM wedges, there are going to be some very happy players out there.
Thanks. Good to know. I wasn't trying to discount the benefit of them as much as point out the fact that they would be less inclined to even try it. Just a harder sell.
But, not to turn this into a discussion on one length irons and more on topic. With MIM, would these irons be expected to wear similarly to a forged club? Or, would it be almost bullet proof like many cast irons?
I think they will wear like a forged club. My MiM wedges feel great, but do wear more than my set wedges as they are softer
Regarding no OL - there has to be SKU fatigue at a retail merchandising level, no? Every OEM has several iron models to cover different needs, and Cobra in a sense is doubling that by offering both VL and OL setups. I can see retailers having room/desire to stock 4 different model irons or even 6 from a given OEM, but maybe not 8. I think it makes sense that Cobra is offering OL in the high-volume bread and butter products, and not worrying about it at a more niche level.
That is a nice looking iron.
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MIM definitely wears like a forged club, at least the wedges have
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