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TaylorMade Tour Preferred MB Review Thread

SuperStroke
I forgot the most important part....I owe a great big THANK YOU to all my fellow THPers, especally those testing the MC and MB irons for helping me on my quest for new clubs. Your thoughts and answers to my questions made a tough decision so much easier! So thanks again!!
 
INgolfer said:
Alright, after going back and forth for over a month I finally nailed down my new set...I just ordered a set of MBs! I was going back and forth on whether to get a full set of MC or MB, or even a combo set. I found a great deal on some MBs so I decided to go ahead and get the full set 4-PW. If I struggle with the longer irons I will probably order a 4 and 5 in the MC next year, but I am a pretty good ball striker so I think I will be okay. I have played the Nike Split Cavity for almost two years and those dont have much forgiveness so it has taught me to become a good ball striker. Anyhow, I'm super pumped now! Clubs probably won't be here til Tuesday or Wednesday so now I have to anxiously wait for several days. I will definitely post some pics, vids, and thoughts on these as soon as I get them!
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Awesome man, congrats on your purchase I have no doubt you will love these things.

I think you'll be suprised with the long irons, I actually find them relatively easy to hit for what they are. As I've said a million times in this thread they are so easy to swing it just makes it that much better. Keep us updated bro!
 
Ordered my MBs today. (with some extras)

5 iron to PW - KBS90 stiff - GP multi compound red - 1* up
52* & 58* TP wedges - KBS wedge flex - GP multi compound red - 1* up
Rescue R11 #4 - stiff
R11 driver 9* stock Blur stiff
2-ball long putter 48"

Looking at 3 weeks for delivery.... :(
 
ozgolfnut said:
Ordered my MBs today. (with some extras)

5 iron to PW - KBS90 stiff - GP multi compound red - 1* up
52* & 58* TP wedges - KBS wedge flex - GP multi compound red - 1* up
Rescue R11 #4 - stiff
R11 driver 9* stock Blur stiff
2-ball long putter 48"

Looking at 3 weeks for delivery.... :(
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Welcome to :thp: . This is an awesome haul. Post some pics when you get them
 
ozgolfnut said:
Ordered my MBs today. (with some extras)

5 iron to PW - KBS90 stiff - GP multi compound red - 1* up
52* & 58* TP wedges - KBS wedge flex - GP multi compound red - 1* up
Rescue R11 #4 - stiff
R11 driver 9* stock Blur stiff
2-ball long putter 48"

Looking at 3 weeks for delivery.... :(
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thats a nice sized order! Were you a long putter before, or one of the many jumping on the bandwagon?
 
The MBs are probably my preference at this point, although I've got a lot more comparing to do. I appreciate all the info you guys have provided!
 
Irons got shipped out today! Should have them wednesday because they are coming from California, but I upgraded my shipping to 3-day so thats when I should have them. I was eyeing the R11 irons at the store today and keep wondering if I should have gone with them, but the dumb people at the golf store are jerks and don't let anyone try anything except on demo days. Anyhow, when I have hit the MBs before I LOVED them, and normally I am a very good ball striker. Ober the last couple of months I have been struggling with a push, still striking the ball well around the center, but I keep trying to adjust my swing in order to hit it straight which is causing a few more mishits with my VR Split Cavities. I played a 9-hole round today and only had 2 pushes. For the most part I am still striking the ball really well, and part of the reason I decided to go with these is because they create so much confidence when you stand over them, and I remember switching from full cavities to my split cavities 2 years ago I started striking the ball even better because I knew I needed to. Maybe I am just letting it get in my head too much, which is probably why I have been inconsistent this year anyway, but this is my first set of blades so I've got a lot of excitement and nervousness going on. I figure the worst thing that could happen is if I don't hit the longer iron's well (thats my main concern, shorter irons are not a problem for me) then I can just buy a 4-6 in the MC irons. I am definitely going to give them some time though, I'm not going to give up on them if I have a bad round or two with them, I know there will still be a learning curve. One thing I was really excited about with my round today was that I changed up my grip ever-so-slightly and my hook seemed to go away with my long irons, so my confidence is already up a little after today. Looking forward to getting them next week! Wish me luck!!
 
Congrats! I know you have been eying these for a while.
 
These irons are my fav as u can see. Coupled with the kbs tours, things of joy. I love the feel and feedback. I just love the ball flight. I know when I hit it good because those things I just mentioned. I think I will be hard pressed to fin something I like more! Does the ten yards i lost in my last set matter, no. I know what I am goin to get on a consistent basis I terms if distance. Just so consistent...
 
I am not too worried about distance loss coming from the Nike VR Split Cavity. Unlike other mid-cavity forged irons, the split cavities do not have much cavity at all. If you compare it to some other forged cavity-back irons you will see that other irons have more weight in the back so that would help with distance. Since I don't have a lot of cavity weight in the back already anyway I am really hoping I don't have much distance loss, otherwise I might end up with too much of a gap between my 4i and 3 hybrid. Anyhow, you better believe there is going to a lot of pics, vids, and feedback on Wednesday and throughout the rest of the week after that! Gotta get these things dialed in before vacation in Florida next month in case I play with some THPers so I don't embarass myself, lol.
 
I've actually seen a significant distance gain with these compared to other blades. I am hitting these atleast a club further than my old Nike VR TW Blades.
 
Been tracking my order, going to be here on Wednesday, unfortunately I have work all day on Wednesday, so I don't know if I will get a round in with them that day, which may not be a bad thing. It will probably be better to get them to the range a couple times. Depending what time UPS delivers Wednesday I can hopefully go hit them on my lunch break because I am having them sent to my work. Thursday there is a chance of rain, but Friday and Saturday are supposed to be nice so I should get a couple 9-hole rounds in with them. I have spent a decent amount of time on this thread over the last month as I have been trying to decide what clubs to get, and one post that I did not notice before was one of JRods (on page 18) when he said that these were easier to hit than his Nike VR Split Cavities, which are what I play now. I had read some reviews before that the Split Cavities play a lot like blades, and I love them and hit them well, so this is good news to me and is easing some of my worries about being able to hit these well. I have hit them before at a demo day and hit them well, but how many times have we all hit something great on a range only to buy it and have it disappoint us? So this is really good news to me, and I hope I hit them just as well as my split cavities and that there won't be too much of a learning curve to these because I intend to take them on my vacation next month and if I play with some THPers I don't want to embarrass myself.
 
I'm in love with these clubs, Just simply gorgeous. Always been scared to try blades due to the size and look of them.

How are you guys adapting to the change from your old irons to the blades? Too hard?
Do you feel confident or nervous having such small and thin clubs behind the ball?
Are you being properly punished for mis-hits?
Curious how they feel when you've struck them well?
Have they improved your game, lowered your HCP?
Do you enjoy playing with them?

I'm not able to try these out at all so I've got a lot of questions for you :p
 
ScotGolf said:
I'm in love with these clubs, Just simply gorgeous. Always been scared to try blades due to the size and look of them.

How are you guys adapting to the change from your old irons to the blades? Too hard?
Do you feel confident or nervous having such small and thin clubs behind the ball?
Are you being properly punished for mis-hits?
Curious how they feel when you've struck them well?
Have they improved your game, lowered your HCP?
Do you enjoy playing with them?

I'm not able to try these out at all so I've got a lot of questions for you :p
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Read through the entire thread and you will have TONS of answers to each your questions from our testers who have done an awesome job with their feedback
 
My fellow THPers...I just got back from hitting two large buckets at the range, and I am now afraid I have made a HUGE mistake. I can't believe I could have been so stupid! No it is not what you are thinking...I am not regretting ordering the MBs, the HUGE mistake I made was that I took the demo 6i of the MB out that they had in the clubhouse, and I loved it so much that now the anticipation is killing me even more for my clubs to get here! If I would have had my cell phone with me I would have gone ahead and taken some comparison photos with my split cavities so you could see exactly what I am comparing to, but that will have to wait til Wednesday. But let me go ahead and give you a little taste of what I experienced during my time with the MBs today. I probably only hit 50 shots with it because I wanted to make sure I hit other clubs other than the 6i, so I hit my own split cavities as well. Anyhow, here is what I have gathered so far:

Look: These irons are absolutely GORGEOUS! I have seen them in person before but every time you see these babies they just look nicer and nicer. The chrome is in all the right places on this club, and the nut on the back just adds some flare to the club. This is definitely a modern looking blade. The first thing I did when I got the 6i on the range was I set it side by side with my Nike Split Cavity. The Nike has an ever-so-slightly thicker topline. That is what I always liked about my Nike's though was that even though they are a mid-cavity iron, they have a thinner topline than a lot of other mid-cavity irons so they gave me confidence standing over them because they were so pretty. Well, standing over the MB inspired confidence in me as well. I still had a little bit of doubt lingering in my head that I should have gone with MCs for my 4-7i. But once I put the 6i down behind my ball I wasn't nervous any more...the lines from the top looked so familiar, it wasn't like I was going from a larger head to a tiny head. If you have seen other blades before these are about the same size, so I don't want to make it sound like they are larger like a mid-cavity, I am offering more of a compliment to Nike for making such a nice looking split cavity as well, just as they have with the pro combos. Anyhow, right now I don't know if I know of a more beautiful looking blade out there. Many blades are plain and boring, and these have some flare to them.

Feel/Sound: I started by warming up with my Split Cavities. I didn't want to start right out trying to hit a 6i without warming up, because then I would probably sh*nk one and lose all my confidence. I seemed to be hitting my Nike's just OK today, not great. Ball contact was pretty good, but I was pushing a few which has been my miss lately. I hit a couple fat, which is what I do when I tend to try and focus on keeping the club outside on my backswing...anyhow, I put the splits down and picked up the TMaG MB...first swing=love at first flight. Let me backtrack just a tiny bit...if you have not hit one of Nike's forged offerings from 2010 or 2011, they have some serious sticks out there now. I LOVE the way my Splits feel, which is what drew me to them in the first place. Going from the Splits on the range to the MBs was like night and day, the MBs just felt even better! You barely even feel the ball coming off the face. It was so soft and the sound made a nice little "click," and off it went into the sunset. I thought to myself "OK, wow, that was great, now lets see if I can somehow do that again..." Now I won't say swing was perfect, but I put a lot of good swings on that 6i, which is where I sometimes tend to have problems from the 6i and longer. If I can hit the 6i well then I have confidence I will be able to hit the 4-5i well. But the weight of this club just seemed to make it so easy to make good contact, I could feel exactly where the clubhead was at all times in my swing. I was hitting it better than my split cavities. I did have a few fat shots, but I know it was because I tried swinging hard on a couple, but even with those few fat shots I was hitting let fat ones than I did with my Split Cavities today. On top of liking how these felt even better than the Nike's, I thought they even sounded better. They do have very similar sounds, but the click on the MB sounded just a little better and just made me so proud to hear it most of the times I hit the club. I did have about 3 shots that I caught near the toe and it definitely let me know! I got a little sting, which is something that didn't really happen with the Split Cavities. Misses are definitely felt, as far as how the ball flies on a miss, I will cover that next in the performance category.

Performance: Some people I play with think I hit it a long way, but compared to how some THPers on here hit it I am starting to think that I could definitely improve if I learn to hit down on the ball and compress the ball better. I tend to take a very little divot, although I don't tend to hit behind the ball much, I just don't hit down on it enough to compress it fully and get full distance. My 6i usually goes 165-170 with my Split Cavity. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have been a little nervous about losing distance with the MBs because I don't feel I hit it a long way anyway. With my shots today with the MB, I was hitting them 175 extremely consistently. I swear I even had a couple go 180. Definitely some pinpoint distance control with these babies. As I mentioned a moment ago, I did catch a couple near the toe and even caught a couple thin. For my first time hitting this club over and over I was actually very happy with how little I caught it thin or fat. After my first 15-20 hits the rest were all pretty good contact. Anyhow, my misses near the toe really stung and only went about yards, but I just put really poor swings on those. The ones that I caught thin actually just flew very low, only got maybe 25 feet off the ground, but they flew straight and went about 150ish. Honestly this is almost exactly how my misses are with my current Split Cavities. I honestly did not expect to even get the 150 yards out of the MB when I caught it thin, but when I saw it go that far I was still very pleased. That is about how far a thinned shot with my Splits will go, so I expected even less from the MBs, but that did not happen. I can live with an occasional miss like that as long as there is no water there, lol. OK, so on to the performance of the club when it is struck well. First let me tell you what I expected based on how my Split Cavities perform. I was expecting a penetrating, middle trajectory flight. That is mostly what I get with my Splits and I expected something slightly lower with the MBs. My Splits have the S300 shaft, which is what I ordered on my MBs and what was on this demo club. I had considered getting some KBS Shafts on my MBs because I was worried the flight may end up being a little too low which would cost me distance...well let me tell y'all...I hit the ball and I actually got the ball up in the air very nicely, quite a bit higher than I expected, but not too high. As a matter of fact, the first time I hit it I thought I hit it wrong because it got so high, and I expected it to come down short of 160...well it easily went 175, and from then on I kept hitting them and I kept getting a nice high ball flight, which I think is what I can attribute the extra 5 yards or so that I am getting with the club. As a matter of fact there was even a little breeze today and the ball still penetrated very nicely, and I won't be surprised if I can even add another 5 yards to my distance on a calm day. As far as exactly how it flew, I think someone else explained it best, I believe it was Hawk telling us how JRod's ball flight was. He said the ball would just fly nice and high quite a ways, and then it would just seem to drop, so it could even hold a nice firm green. I completely agree with that assessment of the ball flight, that seemed to be exactly what I was getting. A nice high ball flight that just came right down right where I wanted it. Another problem I have tended to have with my 3-6i is a hook. At the most with the MB I had about a 5-10 yard draw, but the breeze was blowing very slightly into me and more right to left than anything, so a little of that could have just been the wind. Again, going back to the weight of the clubhead and how it feels, it just seemed to easy to square the clubface up. One thing I did not work on today was trying to work the ball, because I just wanted to make sure I could hit the dang thing! Once I get my set on Wednesday I will be able to offer my feedback on how easy or hard it is for me to work the ball. One thing I am really excited to try is to hit some nice low, high spinning shots with some short irons like my 9 or pw. Because of the weighting on my Split Cavities I just have a hard time hitting low shots with the short irons in that set.

Overall: I had hit the MB 8i and 9i before at a demo day and loved them, but was not sold on them because I just thought I wouldn't be able to hit anything longer than the 8 in that set. I ended up going with a full set of MBs rather than a combo set because I just felt it would make me focus more on my ball striking, and I got a great deal on them. I think working with the Split Cavities has really prepared me for a club like this. While there is less forgiveness and more stinging on the missed shots, the performance and feel is soooo much better. I feel so confident standing over this club knowing I can hit it! I cannot say enough about how much I have loved the performance of my Nike's but this club tops it. I thought I would have to get used to a lower, boring flight and have to adjust to that and possibly less distance, and boy was I wrong! The higher ball flight just makes me go "awe, nice!" and then to see it fly even further and fall softly is even better. All my fears of hitting a complete set of these is gone. While I know things may not be all pretty right away and there will be a little adjustment, I am fully confident I will be able to hit these clubs and hit them well after a little time in the bag. For those of you that I might get to play with during my Florida vacation next month, watch out because these puppies will be in the bag and I'm not afraid to go flag hunting!

Thanks again to all my THP friends who helped me with my decision to get these clubs, if it weren't for your great testing feedback and thoughts I never would have even thought I could hit these at all, and I probably would have even avoided them at my local demo day. Now I am going to own one of the best iron sets I have ever played. I will still reserve judgement to say they are absolutely the best until I have had them in my bag for a little bit, but they very well could be.
 
Great stuff, IN.

I watched Jrod just hit these amazingly today. It's fun to watch him hit these well. Even saw him workability a low hook 5 feet off the green going for a par 5 in two.
 
Nice! I had a shot in my round today out on the course where I needed to keep it low, to stay under some trees, but I just cannot keep the splits that low and I knew it before I hit it. I am really excited to get out and work on working these things. I think that learning how to work these things properly will take my game to the next level.
 
Nice to see the MB love, they are AWESOME!!! I can't wait till you see how consistent these clubs are In terms of distance. Sensational! I didn't think I could hit these being a mid capper. I have taken strokes off for sure. Iron play has only been a factor once. Other than that, these are pin pounders. I get all twitchy thinking about walking greens with these. The ball mark and drop stops are great
 
Awesome write up and glad to hear it IN, these are amazing sticks and won't be going anywhere for a long time.
 
Thanks JRod, next summer I will have to bring them to Deere Run and take you on!
 
Sooooo....look what just came!

Hmm what could this be?
2011-09-21_14-11-38_566.jpg


Stock grips on them so far, gonna order some Black Widow grips to put on these babies
2011-09-21_14-12-59_193.jpg


So beautiful
2011-09-21_14-13-32_733.jpg


Even more beautiful sitting in the bag
2011-09-21_15-03-40_396.jpg


More photos to come later, these were taken on my cell at work because thats where I had them delivered to. Haven't gotten out today to hit them. Should get plenty of range time over the next few days so I will definitely post more pics and thoughts.
 
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