TaylorMade Tour Preferred MB Review Thread

Holy crap, the 2.0 is a monster compared to the MB! They look great! Looking forward to reading your reviews Jake!
 
Nices pics Jake! Can't wait to hear your thoughts after your range session tomorrow.
 
This might be the cleanest set of clubs I have seen a some time. Clean lines, great look...How did they play?
 
I'm a little nervous about how I'll be able to do with these, I'm not going to lie. But I feel that'll be similar to the Mizuno irons I had in terms of their forgiveness (or lack of) but going from the 2.0s to these will be quite a difference I know. I'm up to the challenge and can't wait to get out and hit them!
 
I'm a little nervous about how I'll be able to do with these, I'm not going to lie. But I feel that'll be similar to the Mizuno irons I had in terms of their forgiveness (or lack of) but going from the 2.0s to these will be quite a difference I know. I'm up to the challenge and can't wait to get out and hit them!

just think of how good of a ball striker you will be by time the outing comes after using these for a few months. Interested to see if you think they will make you better.
 
This might be the cleanest set of clubs I have seen a some time. Clean lines, great look...How did they play?
I'm hitting them for the first time tomorrow, JRod is hitting his this weekend. Come back to ths thread tomorrow for my thoughts and later in the weekend for JRods.
 
Wow those irons just scream SERIOUS GOLFER lives here. Have to be some of the best looking irons out there.
 
just think of how good of a ball striker you will be by time the outing comes after using these for a few months. Interested to see if you think they will make you better.
Before the 2.0s I always played a players cavity iron and since I've started playing I've actually always been in irons that were slightly above my skill level if that makes sense. The Burner 2.0 irons are the first "game improvement" irons I've ever had. I'm definitely excited for this chance and again thanks goes out to TaylorMade and THP!
 
Sweeeet irons, Jake. Glad to see they made there way to your house!
 
They look great P4B, looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

Are you & Jrod the only two that opted for the MBs?
 
Nice pics Jake! Those MB's look huge next to the 2.0's :)

Seriously good looking sticks my man. Good luck and enjoy the testing.

tapatalk: even available for lefties!
 
JRod, Puttin4bird.....welcome to the BLADE SIDE.

JRod, I use that shaft and grip....like your taste!
 
They look great P4B, looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

Are you & Jrod the only two that opted for the MBs?
As far as I know we are.

Nice pics Jake! Those MB's look huge next to the 2.0's :)

Seriously good looking sticks my man. Good luck and enjoy the testing.

tapatalk: even available for lefties!
Yeah I'm really excited to test my game with these and I really look forward to putting them in play, they are SO NICE!
 
cannt wait, used to have a set of tp mb smoked in bag, but cannot hit 4 or 3 iron well....
 
You guys are all going to give me and JRod a complex, the other Tour Preferred threads are getting all this love meanwhile we're just quietly going about out business. OK, maybe it's since we haven't had a chance to get some actual feedback to you on the most important aspect of them, HOW DO THEY WORK? I just returned from the driving range and I'm going to give you complete rundown.

I was super excited to finally get these to the range where I would be able to stop just swinging and waggling with no ball around. I brought the 7 iron into the office with me this morning while the rest of them waited in the car, just had to show the MB's off to some co-workers and let them all stare at them admirably, sort of like my daughter looks at Justin Bieber when he's on TV. I had 3 hours of real life work to do before I could get away to the range and in that time I barely got a thing done because people were lined up to come check out the sweet new irons. Yeah, to they they look nice is an amazingly huge understatement!

Finally at the range I have to admit I was a little nervous, had I gone soft since moving to the Burner 2.0s last September or would I still be able to get an iron like this to work out for me? I started with something nice and easy, 9 iron and immediately noticed that the ball still really seems to jump off the face with a nice high trajectory that I had come to love about the 2.0s. I'm not exaggerating, I literally noticed that before even how great they feel, but that was a very close 2nd for sure. I probably took 10 or so shots with a 9 iron to sort of get loose and ready to roll and I kept on expecting to feel the sting of a mis-hit but it never really came (more on that later).

From the 9 iron I jumped up to a 7 iron, still needed to get a club with some loft under my belt before I started in on the long irons and just like the 9 iron, the 7 iron had a great trajectory and feel. I was really expecting to struggle with getting the ball to go high like I had really grown to love about the Burner 2.0s and that struggle just wasn't there. Here is where I got my first "oh, yeah that stung a bit" moment when I caught a 7 iron shot about 4 grooves to thin. As a result the ball maybe got 20 feet off the ground and just wouldn't have been much fun on the course. Yeah you can say it was a shank. I was trying to figure out if I had hit that same shot with the 2.0 what would have happened and while I'm sure it wouldn't have been pretty more than likely it would have been online, just about 10 or 15 yards short. So there we go, now I had my little reality check and was reminded that these things will bite you back if you're not careful.

Onto the long irons. I put 4-PW in the bag because that's always what I've used and even with the uber easy to hit 2.0s I still never fully got to the point of carrying a 3 iron. The first long iron I hit was a 5, but before I get into that let me go off track for a second. Now you hear the words "inspired confidence" a lot from iron testers, usually they're describing the feeling they get when they look down at a game improvement or a super game improvement iron and just know they'll be able to hammer the ball with that club. I get it, I know what they're talking about. But today I experienced several instances where the clubs I was hitting inspired confidence. Now I wasn't alternating between the MBs and the Burner 2.0s either, the confidence I'm talking about is at address I'm looking down at this blade iron that is barely any bigger than the golf ball that I'm about to hit and this moment of realization and being proud of myself hit me. I'm good enough to hit this thing. I'm going to pure this shot with this blade and it's going to feel great. That to me inspires confidence as much, if not more, than looking down at an iron that I know was engineered to help me overcome my deficiencies on the course.

OK sorry about my diversion, back to the long irons. So far I've thought, ok things are going well but here is where it gets tough. But surprisingly it didn't get tough, the long irons have that same great feel as the 7 and 9 irons, who would have thought that?! I put some good smooth swings on the 5 iron and while I didn't expect the ball to go high it actually did, sure probably not as high as I had been hitting the 2.0s but still plenty high. I immediately grabbed for the 4 iron to really see what was going on here and again nice smooth swings resulted in a great feeling shot that flew very nicely. After a few shots I started to realize one common misnomer about hitting a blade. You don't HAVE to hit every single shot exactly on this pin point sweet spot that is there, I hit a few shots that felt great and I looked at the brand new club face and noticed that I missed it a groove low or perhaps a little toward the toe. WOW, you mean people can hit these?!?

So after working my way up through the 4,5 and 6 iron I went back down to a PW and started playing around with varying my trajectory and that was a lot of fun. I could easily alter the height of the shot and found that I had no issue with moving the ball left or right. I typically don't try that on the course, mainly because I flat out don't trust myself to do it. But on the range I'm able to play with some varied flights and I found the Tour Preferred MBs a lot of fun in this respect. Sure GI or SGI irons may be easier to hit, but this blade is easier to hit in a different respect, easier to manipulate shots for sure.

I grabbed a couple of videos while I was there mainly to try to see if I could capture the sound of the MBs at impact. I'm hitting in an indoor range so that might have an effect on the sound at impact, but I really liked how it sounds. Nothing loud and crazy, just a nice little sound that you'd expect. Disclaimer- I just noticed the video came out sideways, well I don't know how to flip it so just remember that all I'm trying to do is capture the SOUND so that part works. If you're too hung up on the sideways part if you put your monitor on it's side and press play it works great!

First the 8 iron:


And here's one with 4 iron:


One thing you can also see from the video is just how good that club looks at address (sideways too). They look great and something else that I really really like about the MB is that every iron is the same meaning that you don't have to adjust to a 5 iron with more weight or a bigger sole then move to a 9 iron that is a blade. You get the same great feel and same performance out of each of the irons.

Now since I was indoors and only had 70 yards of ball flight I didn't get to figure out if the yardages were spot on or not but I'll be able to do that in my next session so stay tuned for that. First range session complete and I left feeing great, I had confidence that yes I was going to be able to handle testing these for you and I left there happy with the results I was seeing. I'll be taking these to the outdoor driving range (heated bays) this weekend and next week I'm heading south (weather permitting) for a full round so plenty more to come!!
 
Great stuff P4B!!! Looks like you have a big adjustment to make looking at the 2 different profiles of the 2.0 vs the MB's Good challenge though!
 
Nice write up P4B! I agree with you about the confidence thing. Its a differenct confidence than with a GI iron... more of a "if I put a good swing on this thing, its going to do what I want it to" confidence.
 
Love the write up P4B. Those are beautiful irons you have there!
 
Good info P4B.
 
Great write up P4B!! Videos were a great touch, I'm so glad you guys are putting those together!
 
Thanks guys, I can't stop thinking about them right now. I'm going to hit them outside tomorrow, can't wait!
 
very thorough write-up p4b! I can't wait to hear how you like these things outside. Those videos make these clubs looks fantastic when setting up to the ball(even sideways). I really like the sound it makes at contact too.
 
Excellent write up Jake , can't wait to compare thoughts tomorrow .
 
Ok I just wanted to post some initial thoughts. Before any of the hoopla I would like to take a moment to thank both Taylormade and THP. I have never been fortunate enough to be involved in something like this and I would just like to thank both respective companies for this amazing opportunity. I only hope i can fulfill the responsibilities that come with being selected for something like this. On to the info...

Upon opening the box I immediately recognized the compact shape of the head and was delighted to see the MB's. I love a blade iron. The look of these are simply amazing. The back of the club exposes the tech involved in the clubhead but remains simple like most blade irons. Would you confuse these for a set of Wilson Fg59's or Titleist MB 710's? Absolutely not, but I am of the thinking that while simple is good, technology is better. They pulled the combination off perfectly. My #1 concern with these going in was the weight port in the back, and by reading many of the prerelease reviews I was not alone in my concerns. Let me put the worries to rest, the weight port and screw are both anodized gunmetal in finish, and look beautiful in collaboration with the rest of the finish. At address you can see nothing on the back of the club so there is also no distraction.

I have only had a chance to swing the club outside in the air but the balance feels amazing. The sole of the club just looks like it will glide through the turf...its the perfect amount of muscleback with the perfect amount of sole. Pictures cannot do it justice.

That is all for now....I will be going to the range one way or another this weekend even if I have to drive to the range 1.5 hours away, so I will have much more feedback then.

I would like to take one more moment and thank both THP and Taylormade. They fit my clubs to my exact specs and even fit them with the requested GP multi compounds, logo down, because I am OCD like that. I realize there was a slight delay with all of this but I personally find it refreshing. TM obviously wanted to wait until they had the product right and to their tolerances, unlike many products i have seen where they are shipped on time, even though wrong, just to fufill a delivery date.

If you have any questions at all please feel free to ask away! I will be gone for about 30 min, I gotta run to Dicks and buy some new club gloves!

I'm a little nervous about how I'll be able to do with these, I'm not going to lie. But I feel that'll be similar to the Mizuno irons I had in terms of their forgiveness (or lack of) but going from the 2.0s to these will be quite a difference I know. I'm up to the challenge and can't wait to get out and hit them!

You guys are bringing it with the pre review write ups! I look forward to your range time & then on course feedback.. Have a good time and enjoy these beautiful irons.
 
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