What would realistically happen is a 20+ handicap played blades

I’m just a sample of one, but have gone back and forth and have seen no difference in scores. Mis-hits with blades tend to be shorter, but that leads to less mis-hits into trouble areas for me compared to longer (“forgiving”) clubs. I also think it’s easier to square up a smaller iron head. Ping’s Chief Engineer agrees:




Wide/thick soles can also cause turf interaction issues when you start to get your AOA close to ideal for your irons. This can lead to lower club head speed at impact with Gi clubs when compared to thinner profile irons. TXG has done a lot of testing on this and think it’s a big piece missing from the fitting process with many fitters:

 
Would they just have an extra 5 strokes per round? I feel like people say that you have to be under this or that to play blades and you'll be punished off the toe and heel, but what would actually happen?

did anyone play here play blades as a high handicap?
As someone who hovers between 15-20 handicap, I can tell you that little changes. I find blades to be slightly less forgiving but have much more feel than GI irons do. In terms of scores though, very little is different. My bad swings with a blade product bad shots, just as a bad swing with a GI iron does.
 
I have played blades and players CB's before. I personally believe the difference between blades and players CB's is bigger than the difference between players CB's and GI irons. If you want to try small heads then go that route. Blades are really difficult to hit at all if you don't consistently take a nice divot. It just hurts your hands.
 
Not the big difference marketing would have you believe. If everyone had to use blades a lot would slow down, swing under control and establish better contact with all their clubs. The modern sales pitch is swing as hard as possible, get a big shovel head club and hope the ball goes somewhere far. That’s not playing golf.
 
In my case then, my misses were so poor, it didn't matter what I was hitting. I didn't lose extra shots around the green or putt particularly bad, I just had an inconsistency that would lead to blow up holes, keeping the handicap from falling as quick as the progress with my good swings might have suggested.
Are you actually me?
 
I’m just a sample of one, but have gone back and forth and have seen no difference in scores. Mis-hits with blades tend to be shorter, but that leads to less mis-hits into trouble areas for me compared to longer (“forgiving”) clubs. I also think it’s easier to square up a smaller iron head. Ping’s Chief Engineer agrees:




Wide/thick soles can also cause turf interaction issues when you start to get your AOA close to ideal for your irons. This can lead to lower club head speed at impact with Gi clubs when compared to thinner profile irons. TXG has done a lot of testing on this and think it’s a big piece missing from the fitting process with many fitters:


I like that Ping video and agree with parts of it for my game. Regardless of anything else I generally do better with a more compact club. I fight the cg being pulled far from the shaft. I heard another good explanation as to why that is recently too.
 
It would be an interesting experiment for sure. I wouldn't spend the money on a set of clubs I might never use again, but if I had access to a set of blades I'd take them out for a couple rounds just to see what happened (besides sore hands and wrists). :ROFLMAO:
 
I like that Ping video and agree with parts of it for my game. Regardless of anything else I generally do better with a more compact club. I fight the cg being pulled far from the shaft. I heard another good explanation as to why that is recently too.
What was the explanation?

It makes me wonder about 430cc driver heads, or if more weight should be moved toward the heel as club heal to toe length increases.
 
If I could get past the lack of forgiveness and stinging hands I would likely improve 15-20 strokes over the first 12-18 months, start playing mini tours, and win my first major within the next 5 years.
 
What was the explanation?

It makes me wonder about 430cc driver heads, or if more weight should be moved toward the heel as club heal to toe length increases.
I think that is part of the benefit of the Big Bertha B21. Weight toward the heel makes it easier to square up.
 
Depends on the player. Some would adjust and find some success, others would struggle with contact issues.

I agree with this. In no way was I even a halfway decent golfer when I decided to set aside the Sam Snead Blue Ridge clubs and buy my first set of "good" clubs. Whether or not the Haig Ultradyne 2's were good clubs can be left to the historical record. These were bought back in the 1970's. they were muscleback blades that were the tiniest things you could ever hope to see. But you know what? I learned to hit them!

I worked at it. I had spent what I thought was a butt load of money on these things, and they needed to work! I'll say this. If you could put a good swing on the ball, and put the central mass of that blade into the back of it, oh would they go!

I’m just a sample of one, but have gone back and forth and have seen no difference in scores. Mis-hits with blades tend to be shorter, but that leads to less mis-hits into trouble areas for me compared to longer (“forgiving”) clubs. I also think it’s easier to square up a smaller iron head. Ping’s Chief Engineer agrees:




Wide/thick soles can also cause turf interaction issues when you start to get your AOA close to ideal for your irons. This can lead to lower club head speed at impact with Gi clubs when compared to thinner profile irons. TXG has done a lot of testing on this and think it’s a big piece missing from the fitting process with many fitters:



I like this as well, because I've had these very thoughts before! The small blades concentrated their mass behind the center of the club face. You could say that they "forced" or at least "nudged" golfers to learn and make better swings. What do we have now? GI and SGI clubs that have the weight distributed all around the perimeter of the club. Why? To offset the twisting forces from off-center strikes. Kind of sounds like they expect amateur golfers to do just that, hit the ball off center. So why try to improve. I know most here do just that, but are we in the minority? When all the advertising suggests that you can just go buy a better game?!

I'm looking to buy a new set of irons in the near future. This discussion will heavily impact my thinking on the matter.
 
I never noticed a huge scoring difference really. For me, only things that hurt me playing blades was consistent carry numbers. Dispersion was about the same on average.

hands never hurt so not sure where that comes from in a lot of these comments haha.
Always a fun trial though.
 
Very interesting topic. When I use very thick soles I hit more fat shots and see jumpers (shots that go beyond the number) way too often. Using thinner soled cavity backs these things happen less. I don’t know if that makes me want to try blades but the talk here and the videos in it give me reasons to think about it.
 
I started playing blades. They informed me that my game was horrible. Off center shots weren't comfortable. Pure shots while few and far between, were awesome!

Blades will not be in my bag again... with the exception of a wedge or two.
 
Not much should change, people need to chill out with their frantic panic of blades. They are just normal golf clubs.

I have played blades for 18 out of the last 20 years and they have only improved my game. I might buy a set pf players cb this year (zx7 or jpx 21 tour) but its not me running away from blades (keeping my mp20s) but more than im bored and want to try something new in 2021.

I think there is too much drama around how hard to hit Blades are and i just dont see it (although i did learn the game as a kid with an old set of blades) so for me at least they are the standard clubs.
 
Not much should change, people need to chill out with their frantic panic of blades. They are just normal golf clubs.

I have played blades for 18 out of the last 20 years and they have only improved my game. I might buy a set pf players cb this year (zx7 or jpx 21 tour) but its not me running away from blades (keeping my mp20s) but more than im bored and want to try something new in 2021.

I think there is too much drama around how hard to hit Blades are and i just dont see it (although i did learn the game as a kid with an old set of blades) so for me at least they are the standard clubs.
I learned the game with blades too, played them for the first couple years - and I really, really sucked at the time, and I remember all the crappy hits and stinging hands. I bought my first set of clubs (in the mid-'80s) at a garage sale, and didn't know any better.

As a 2 handicap, I imagine you hit the sweet spot most of the time, so forgiveness on off-center hits isn't an issue for you. For golfers who explore a lot more of the clubface during their rounds, the added forgiveness of perimeter-weighted irons helps. Sure, I don't doubt that I could play blades, but it would make the game harder for me and I don't have a desire to intentionally make the game any harder than it already is.
 
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Go ask somebody who is 80 years old. Isn’t that what they used back in the 60’s and 70’s?

Tongue in cheek aside, I think a 20 index playing blades could probably improve by a few strokes per round moving to a well fit set of GI or SGI irons.
 
I could manage a similar score with blades on a good day but on a bad day it would be a wash, I'd manage to thin a lot more shots and lose a ton of distance (would have to grab the less lofted club more often). Although, when I was shooting some of my best golf I was playing AP2s which is one step down from MBs. I think a lot of people could learn to strike the ball more consistently if they challenged themselves with players irons (forced to make changes to really get the ball going at all). I'm not a 20 anymore (really actually have no idea but my short game is still absolute garbage) since I haven't bothered to rebuild a handicap since the focus on reducing it was clouding my ability to get better for months.

I keep my AP2s around to practice with since I can feel absolutely everything I am doing wrong through my hands after impact. I can re-cue my brain once I know what the mis-hit is on that day. Not to say I can't do that with the P770s but there is a little less feel for sure. And I'm an absolute ding dong and will probably have 2 sets of clubs by summer of this year (one set for home base and one set for the Florida condo).
 
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A few decades ago everyone played blades because that is all there was, and folks seem to manage okay. That said the average score for the average golfer who doesn't keep a handicap is around 100, and for those that do around 90, so not a lot has changed over the decades, despite technological advances.

I always thought forgiveness was a bit overrated. Regardless of what type of club you hit, you still have to put a decent swing on it to get good results.
 
If a 20 handicap played blades for an entire season, I could definitively say that the 20 handicapper will no longer be a 20 handicapper. I couldn’t tell you were the i would go, but it wouldn’t stay a 20. It could become a 12-15 or it could become a 25.
 
Like @JB said I think it would depend on the player. I've seen 20+ caps that had pretty good iron games but couldn't keep the ball on the planet off the tee. In that case they would probably be ok. If overall ball striking is a challenge though than there's probably going to be some struggles.

Yes, this was me when I tried Ben Hogan blades back in the late 90's. I struck the ball okay, some days better than others, but missed the forgiveness of a cavity back and went back to my old clubs after one summer of play.
 
stingers in the hands ahaha
 
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