Bridgestone J15 Dual Pocket Forged Irons

Philly Golf Guy said:

Ok here are some initial thoughts from me. I hit the 5 - PW off mats. Not ideal, but my free time the next couple weeks is limited so I had to go to the closer range. At any rate, I installed a set of Nippon 950 GH's I had. I was fit into these shafts last year and they're lighter than the stock shafts, which I thought would benefit me a little more.

The profile on these is much thinner than the Diablo Forgeds, but is preferable to me. The finish appears to be chrome, which is shiny but also was nice to look at at address. After some practice swings, they felt lighter than the Forgeds, although the shafts are basically the same weight. The head is longer but a tad shorter than the Diablos as well.

I'll just come out and say I have a lot of positive things to say about them. Mind you, we're talking about one range session and I almost think it's cringe worthy when reading or writing reviews and getting the line about seeing more forgiveness, more consistency and more distance, but dammit that's what I saw! The big thing that stuck out to me were forgiveness. They are a lot more forgiving than I was expecting. And the forgiveness goes all the way through the set. What that did for me was I was hitting the 5- 7i as good as I could remember to the point where my 5h and utility iron might be coming out of the bag. I actually had a few hits out on the toe, which is almost unheard of since 99% of my misses are towards the heel. I was encouraged by these toe misses more than anything since I think it's easy for me to adjust. I had a few really bad mis hits with the 5i, but worked on squaring the face and the ball took off. For me, any time I can rely on the 5i as a consistent club, the iron set as a whole is pretty much already a winner. My biggest miss was a slight push, but it surprisingly held its line more than I expected and kept distance. I did not have any low on the face, which has been a big miss for me the last couple years, so that was promising.

In a lot of ways, these reminded me of the Speedblades. A thinner profile with lots of forgiveness that shined in the middle irons. That's a big compliment in my book, as the 6i in the Speedblades goes down as one of my favorite clubs ever. Based on what I saw today from the DPF 6i, it may have competition. But getting that confidence back in an iron set even down to the 4i is something I've been wanting for a while, so it'd be great if the good hits with these continue.

Feel-wise, they were terrific to me. A tad more muted than the Diablos, but I was getting that compression feeling at impact and was seeing a nice high ball flight that was about 10 yards further than I've been hitting the Diablos recently. I was basically getting the distances I see when I'm hitting the ball well. But with these irons, that seemed to be the entire range session.

I'm putting these in the bag immediately. Although I love it, my utility iron is coming out for now and if the 5i keeps it up, my Jetspeed 5h might be out too.

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Philly Golf Guy said:

First round is in the books with these. It took a while to start hitting these like I was at the range, but what impressed me was even the misses were putting in good positions to score. A hit a couple low on the face, which were straight and a tad hot, but put me just off the green on both. I hit a few towards the heel and those stayed on line with just a touch flare to the right, yet with minimal distance loss. And I had a couple on the toe, which were probably the most severe miss, ended up fat with a good amount of distance loss yet straight.

It all came together on the last few holes though, where I finally started relaxing and stopped trying to murder the ball. Those shots gave me all GIR's and the nice high ball flight with that great feeling at impact were there. Most notably, the 6 and 7i were used a lot more than usual and I felt very comfortable with them.

While I'd like to spend more time with these on turf as opposed to mats, I'm really liking what I'm seeing from these irons thus far and feel they could actually help me save some strokes.

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mikedean441 said:

Great feedback chris. I'm hoping to spend some time with these in MB. Like what you had to say about the thins (miss #2) but the toe distance loss is scary.

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theballguy said:

Sorry to be slightly off topic, but I'm playing the J15 Cavity Backs and just wanted to chime in on how impressed I am with the new Bridgestone irons overall. I bought two very slightly used sets off of eBay (the CBs and the DFs) and hit them both on the course and on the range for about a month. At the end, I chose to keep the CBs and then re-sold the other set back on eBay. Regardless of which set of irons you end up with, both the CBs and the DFs were so much better than any irons I've played before. I would recommend everyone demo some Bridgestones if you get the chance. The CBs and DFs felt like butter...and they went a looong way.

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topspark said:

has anyone compared these to the apex or Z545's, or even the ping i25's?

if so, thoughts on comparable forgiveness, distance feel etc...
and what irons do you believe were personally better?

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Jman said:

Very similar in my experience, all three feel great, all three look great, and the ball speed retention is damn good on each set. Personally? The Apex win for me, they're best on the toe side, and frankly I think they just look and feel better, but yiy really can't go wrong imo.

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stevegp said:

When you wrote, "... they're best on the toe side...," can I assume you are referring to misses out toward the toe? My misses are slightly low toward the toe. I am looking for irons that don't lose too much accuracy and distance on these mishits. I am considering primarily the J15DPF and Srixon Z545. The Apex also are still a possibility.

Thanks.

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stevegp said:

Thanks, Jman. I appreciate your response.

I am demoing all three. I will shaft them with either Recoils or Steelfibers.

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OITW said:

Been a while since I've posted in this thread and professed my love affair with these sticks.

So golf is way way easier when you hit the fairway, had my absolute best iron striking round ever/with these in the bag.

I was just grooving, flush on the face contact with these you feel the hole club from the shaft to head work together for glorious results. I was 11/18 fairways and 5 of those approach shots were with these irons from PW - 5I i was utilizing all of my clubs. My average distance to the pin on GIRs was 22 ft (per arccos)

Forgivness is there on thin and heel misses for me and just the comfort at address is wonderful.

Only knock and this is on me but I'm seeing some nicks in the face on these which bums me out but is the price for forged I guess.

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Howzat said:

Thanks for info. Post some pics of the wear when you get a chance.

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greggdrews said:

ouch Alex, I never saw anything like that from either set of my DF, maybe reach out to Bstone about it.

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