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Practicing with a blade

Perkins Rooster

Perkins Rooster

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Has anyone bought a demo blade to practice with? The logic being that if you work with a club that's hard to hit and gives lots of feedback it should improve ball striking with your regular club (assuming you don't game blades right now).

Just throwing it out there...
 
I only believe in practicing with a club I play with. Just my thoughts, but I like to practice and work with my regular distances, ball flights, balance, weighting and leading edge of the club I will use in play.
 
I have been playing blades since I started playing 50 years ago. Never thought much about bigger club faces, offset clubs, whatever. Started with wood woods and only changed because they quit making them and went to steel and titanium. Never been better than a 8 or 9 handicap and the only true change came with the hybrid clubs and milled faced putters. I guess the concept might work for some people, like the club that "breaks" if you swing path is off or something like that. I get great feedback from my irons if I hit them bad because misses end up out of play or in big trouble. Never really gave muchthought about oversized or midsized clubs.
 
in my opinion it will help........

in other sports the same method of training is used whether it's hitting a smaller target in boxing or smaller balls in football.

i also believe practise swinging with a heavier club(2 clubs) helps give a better feel to your swing and help with a faster clubhead speed.
 
I thinking practicing with a club that inspires confidence will improve your game. If it's a blade so be it however I would definitely myself be working with a club that builds and not destroys my confidence on the golf course.
 
I think if your going to practice, practice with what you're gaming and You'll get better results. If your goal is to become a better ball striker, there are much easier ways to achieve that goal lol. If you do get a practice club though, make sure it has the proper lie angle, and swing weight, you should keep as many similarities as you can so the changes aren't totally upside down. Also, you have to know what the feedback you're getting means, and know how to make the adjustments you need. I would start with a forged cavity back club and transition slowly though.
 
I think a Tour Striker would be in order. I played with a few folks in some tournaments over the summer who use them and this one guy swore by it. I have not personally tried one, but I am tempted.
 
When I bought my last set of irons, Diablo Edge's, I began practicing with them a lot on our nearby driving range/practice tee. Nice facility, but repaired with sand to the point it is a green but very sandy practice tee. Within a week, all the new irons were scarred by the sand contact between the ball and the club face, not to mention the soles of the clubs. The whole set looked like brushed silver within a month. All chrome surfaces were damaged.
Now I have some new R11 irons and definitely need to practice with them. But I don't want to ruin the looks of them to do so. Would it make any sense to tape over the face and sole of the irons with cellophane boxing tape for practice? I don't have a flat open area except this range on which to practice. What have you guys done?
 
I like practicing with what I will be playing on the course. It doesn't make sense to me to practice with a club that I won't be using. You wouldn't practice free throws with a smaller ball would you? Rhythm, tempo, all of that is essential for my swing and it would be thrown off by playing a different club. I like hitting different clubs just to see the differences, but when I'm practicing I want my clubs
 
I think there are very few of us practising as much as we should be, or as much as we need to for something like this to make the slightest difference.
 
DCSerafin said:
I think a Tour Striker would be in order. I played with a few folks in some tournaments over the summer who use them and this one guy swore by it. I have not personally tried one, but I am tempted.
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Agreed. The TS Pro 7i has greatly helped my ball striking.
 
IMO, it can be really beneficial. If you can hit a blade decent, a GI iron is going to seem huge and super easy to hit. Thats not to say that you shouldnt still practice with the clubs that you actually play with so that you know how far you hit each of them and how they will react out of various lies, but practicing with a blade to improve your ballstriking isnt a bad thing.
 
I'm not sure about practicing with a blade. Hitting the center of the center of the club face is hitting the center of the club face. Get impact tape and use your normal irons. I think practicing with what you play with will be better for you.
 
Thanks for all the very interesting responses so far. I wouldn't use the blade on the range exclusively, just as a 'training club' for ball striking. But the tour striker is a great idea too. I agree that I would still need to work with my 'game' clubs as well. The tour striker would be a good option, but the blade (say a 5 or 6 iron) might be more versatile in practicing different shots.
 
Strange, why start your driving lessons with a Ferrari? Surely, you'll cut corners faster than anyone and you'll be the fastest kid in town. But, do you really know where you are heading? If you already have a decent ball strike, then go ahead with the blades. Otherwise stick with the game improvement equipment. ( just talking from my personal experience, made the move to blades way too early).
/pb
 
I like the idea of using blade for practice as long as it's similar to what you will be playing with. To use your basketball analogy... It's not practicing with a smaller ball it's practicing with a smaller rim. In baseball we used to use a stick bat to force us to hit the sweet spot. People do this with putting all the time, they use a smaller cup to force them to be more accurate. I believe the key is the similarity to the practice club and game club.
 
I think you have to really think hard about why you would practice with something you aren't going to use. Are you trying to figure out if its better fo ryour swing? Are you testing something? My first set of clubs were blades and while I did enjoy the look man, after learning to play with these Adams... I think I may have missed the boat on my first set. Tempo and timing are probably the two biggest things for my swing and these Adams A12OS's have been a blessing to that.
 
bassing33 said:
I like the idea of using blade for practice as long as it's similar to what you will be playing with. To use your basketball analogy... It's not practicing with a smaller ball it's practicing with a smaller rim. In baseball we used to use a stick bat to force us to hit the sweet spot. People do this with putting all the time, they use a smaller cup to force them to be more accurate. I believe the key is the similarity to the practice club and game club.
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I agree. Before I got my Tour Striker, I used to hit a couple of blade 5 irons to force myself to consentrate on ball striking. Then I would go back to my GI or SGI irons and really hit the ball very well. I do NOT have the game for blades. I need all the help I can get. But I do believe that between the blades and Tour Striker as practice aids I have become a much better ball striker with my regular irons.
 
Well I just picked up a set of MacGregor Pro m blades to practice with,if they do the job then I'll upgrade to a set of ping S56'S
 
I have a set of ping s59 green dots that I use for practice rounds and at the range. My main clubs are mizuno jpx800 pro (same set up as the pings) and I also practice with these.

Definitely agree with the notion, provided the setup is the same and swingweights aren't too different.

There are 2 camps regarding blades - those who play or aspire to play them, and those who dont see the point in making life harder for yourself. I'm very much in the first camp - would love to have a swing good enough to get reliable results with them.

The pure strike. The smug feeling when a playing partner pulls out a shovel of a 6 iron.

And they will improve your game. Just don't try them in a competitive round!
 
Long Iron Pete said:
I have a set of ping s59 green dots that I use for practice rounds and at the range. My main clubs are mizuno jpx800 pro (same set up as the pings) and I also practice with these.

Definitely agree with the notion, provided the setup is the same and swingweights aren't too different.

There are 2 camps regarding blades - those who play or aspire to play them, and those who dont see the point in making life harder for yourself. I'm very much in the first camp - would love to have a swing good enough to get reliable results with them.

The pure strike. The smug feeling when a playing partner pulls out a shovel of a 6 iron.

And they will improve your game. Just don't try them in a competitive round!
Click to expand...


You know that smug feeling you get seeing someone with a shovel, I get that feeling when I whip someone playing blades with my shovels...:act-up:

I kid of course, but I truly do hate the "smugness" involved in this game....Apparently, you would look down at me for playing forgiving clubs. Who knew?
 
Long Iron Pete said:
I have a set of ping s59 green dots that I use for practice rounds and at the range. My main clubs are mizuno jpx800 pro (same set up as the pings) and I also practice with these.

Definitely agree with the notion, provided the setup is the same and swingweights aren't too different.

There are 2 camps regarding blades - those who play or aspire to play them, and those who dont see the point in making life harder for yourself. I'm very much in the first camp - would love to have a swing good enough to get reliable results with them.

The pure strike. The smug feeling when a playing partner pulls out a shovel of a 6 iron.

And they will improve your game. Just don't try them in a competitive round!
Click to expand...

Wait, when did jpx 800 pros become players irons?

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tapatalk
 
The new TMaG blades are really nice, I have the CBs and I have thought about getting an MB 5 iron to hit, but I agree with JB that only hitting your irons for practice is best.
 
JB said:
You know that smug feeling you get seeing someone with a shovel, I get that feeling when I whip someone playing blades with my shovels...:act-up:

I kid of course, but I truly do hate the "smugness" involved in this game....Apparently, you would look down at me for playing forgiving clubs. Who knew?
Click to expand...

I don't look down on he who wields them, but there are some big ugly clubs out there. A nice feeling, akin to hitting an 8 iron to your partners 3 wood etc.
 
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