TaylorMade RocketBladez - Review Thread

THP staffers Puttin4Bird, Jman and Hawk were asked to review the new RocketBladez irons. TaylorMade asked that we provide our specs, including shaft and grip for this. That will ensure we are testing them in a set up that fits us, just as we'll recommend those interested in them take the time to do the same. We'll be spending lots of time with them, provide input while we test them, and answering any questions you all may have.

Plenty of pictures out there on the forum already, but I do have a few new ones to put up here. I had a chance to put them to a pretty stout test already yesterday and I'll have some thoughts here in a bit.

As far as looks go, you can call me pleasantly surprised. The cavity and badge are probably the best I've seen from TaylorMade when it comes to their distance line of irons. I'd say they are pretty close in size to something like the Burner 2.0.

Set I'll be testing is 4-AW with KBS Tour 90 S and Lamkin Performance Plus grips.














AW is very similar to the ATV wedge

Nice pics Hawk! I can't wait to read up on these! Each time I look at them I like them more and more.

Nice pictures Hawk. I also received a 4-AW set and just loaded them into my bag for a round at a new to me course. Hope they're ready for it. My set came stock stiff shafts with the stock grips.

For some reason your pics now have me interested. Cant wait to read your thoughts!

Interested to see what you find, Hawk. Nice pictures.

Kmac said:

Nice pictures Hawk. I also received a 4-AW set and just loaded them into my bag for a round at a new to me course. Hope they're ready for it. My set came stock stiff shafts with the stock grips.

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I think you'll like them. Working on a write-up now, but I was pretty impressed yesterday.

Nice way to kick off this review thread with great pics! Looking forward to seeing your thoughts on these sharp looking irons.

Hawk said:

I think you'll like them. Working on a write-up now, but I was pretty impressed yesterday.

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This is always a good thing.

I think the pictures Hawk put up are more then adequate so I tried grabbing some comparison pictures of the 8 iron vs 8 iron with my i20's. With one token cavity picture thrown in. There is a pretty big difference in shaft length.






These are with the butt ends lined up to show length difference.

I am liking the shaft choice, Hawk!

Not a whole lot bigger than those i20's from what I'm seeing. I don't think the offset is ridiculous either.

Here are the 588's next to the RocketBladez.

Hawk said:

Not a whole lot bigger than those i20's from what I'm seeing. I don't think the offset is ridiculous either.

Here are the 588's next to the RocketBladez.

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wow. Big difference in size though - to the CB's and much bigger top line. But you're right about the offset.

Dislike the longer shaft length

I was surprised, side by side they really arent a whole lot bigger, maybe a little bit. And the offset is under control too another thing I like. They do make those 588's look small though.

Kmac said:

I was surprised, side by side they really arent a whole lot bigger, maybe a little bit. And the offset is under control too another thing I like. They do make those 588's look small though.

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For me what keeps throwing off this comparison is the name- blade. I keep thinking that it is a smaller head. This obviously doesn't have to be the case, but I keep thinking it however so in my head I expect them to be small and compact.

Looking forward to all of your thoughts. These irons look pretty good, and I know you guys will put them through their paces.

As mentioned, I was able to put the RocketBladez in action right away yesterday. Played 18 holes at TPC Deere Run and hit about 40 balls before that. Wind was pretty stout - about 25mph sustained and some pretty nasty gusts. Made distance a little tough to sort out, but I learned some things.

Distance

I'll start with this, because I know it's always something that is at the front of peoples' minds. I did hit each iron on the range prior to playing and then bagged a 5-PW set up for my round yesterday. I'll mess around with my set-up over time to see exactly which one works best for me.

I’m going to try to be a little conservative here since it was a first outing. Range time had me feeling like these irons had some more distance than my other irons, but nothing really shocked me at the time. I did hit a few shots with the longer irons that were pretty impressive, but for the most part, there wasn't anything unexpected.

Fast forward to the first hole and I’m 150 yards from a front pin with a 20-something wind coming at me. I grab the 7 iron, mostly as a guess. Hit a draw against the wind that carries 15 yards past the pin, hops and stops five feet past it’s pitch mark. I really didn’t know what to think about that at all to be honest. I don’t really hit 7 irons that far and I definitely don’t hit them that far into wind. Didn't really have any other explosively long shots like that the rest of the round, but I did have a pretty consistent situations where I was comfortable pulling these for yardages 5-10 yards longer than I normally would. Part of me thinks that's also related to forgiveness, but I'll speak on that a little bit later.

Ball flight on well struck shots was high and kept with my typical shot shape. In other words, the ball went the direction I expected it too. Typical shot shape was a pretty reliable draw with a couple push misses. For me, these irons definitely put the ball higher in the air than my old irons on both center shots and misses. One thing I noticed and really appreciate is that they didn't balloon the ball at all, even in the face of 25+ mph winds. While I saw some distance loss, the ball flight wasn't straight up in the air.

Feel

The feel! I have to say that they remind me very much of a set that I absolutely loved - the Adams Redlines. There is this almost artificial level of softness to them, both in sound and sensation that reaches the hands. I equate it to an insert vs a steel putter if that makes sense. Center shots were really muted and mis-hit out on the toe didn't hurt my hands. Typically, my warm up consists of a dozen thin toe shots that normally are quite uncomfortable on my hands. The vibration was definitely dampened to the point that only the absolute thinnest shots were close to being unpleasant. There was a little bit of loss of sensation in terms of figuring out where I missed on the clubface, but it wasn't impossible to tell.

I'm sitting here thinking about how nice these were on well struck shots right now. Makes me want to pack up my bag and get back out there.

Forgiveness

I foreshadow this by saying my normal miss is a toe shot low on the face. With my gamer irons, I see some distance loss, a lower ball flight, and my normal shot-shape with that miss.

My second approach shot of the day was 140 yards into the same 25 mph wind, so I grab the 8 iron as guess, toe the ball pretty badly and I’m on the green with a 20-ish foot putt to the right of the flag. Ball flight was a high draw that came back almost to center. That was a top three shot of the day for me, and it was really a pretty big miss in terms of contact.

The shot I took in the picture below was another example of the forgiveness I saw. The wind was howling at us from the direction you see the river and greenside bunkers. Pin was right up front. Again, toed my shot and was left with a high draw that was right in line with the pin, about 6 feet below the green. I grabbed the 8 iron for this shot and it still made it to the 140 yard range.



As mentioned, for the most part I was able to play these about 10 yards longer than I would normally play an iron shot. Some of that was distance related and some of that was forgiveness related. In other words, I typically play in expectation of my distance on mis-hits, but the RocketBladez mis-hits were longer than with my gamer set of irons. Simple enough I guess.

Shots low on the face were probably the most forgiving. I had shot to a flag that I got pretty low on the face and put to 8 feet below the flag. It wasn't the prettiest shot, but it held my expected shot shape and made it where I wanted it to go. In all honesty, I don't even want to say the yardage, because it was a little ridiculous that I got a 7 iron there with a mis-hit like that. It was longer than I would have expected.

Miscellaneous Thoughts

They were quite easy to hit from a variety of lies. Balls out of medium rough were pretty easy to get out, but I did have some trouble with the really deep stuff. I'm also a shallow swinger, so that's a shot I struggle with anyway.

This shot in particular couldn't have have turned out much better. Hard to see it in this picture, but the face of that bunker was high enough that I was concerned about getting the ball over it. Turns out there was nothing at all to worry about there. Left myself a pretty easy lay up distance on a par 5.

Kmac said:

I was surprised, side by side they really arent a whole lot bigger, maybe a little bit. And the offset is under control too another thing I like. They do make those 588's look small though.

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Wicked Cool Bearded Man said:

For me what keeps throwing off this comparison is the name- blade. I keep thinking that it is a smaller head. This obviously doesn't have to be the case, but I keep thinking it however so in my head I expect them to be small and compact.

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The size difference does look pretty big compared to the 588's. I'll say right now that I didn't think about it once while hitting them though. I like the look of the smaller heads, but I'm not tied to them at all.

Nice first review, Hawk. These have my interest piqued. Anxious to hear more.

These look better than expected.

man i like these. really interested to see how they turn out i still love my R11s i'm really interested to see how they compare to them. i hope they took another step forward with these especially with dispersion and consistent distances.

I have plans in the coming week to get some data regarding distance. Also, I'll get some impact tape to see if I can get some numbers when it comes to forgiveness on off center shots.

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Great start Hawk! The name does throw me off a bit as they seem to be very much a GI club.

Very cool. Can't wait to hear all your thoughts. Those wedges look very similar to the ATVs.

Howzat said:

Great start Hawk! The name does throw me off a bit as they seem to be very much a GI club.

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In all honesty, I'm not a fan of the name at all. However, I had similar feelings about the amp driver. Didn't stop me from liking the club.

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