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PING Gmax Irons Review Thread

SuperStroke
Well, they do sound pretty bad but at least they're ugly.

I'll reserve judgement for performance but so far, meh.
 
Hmm after seeing them and hearing them in the video I really think I might need to try them. Just dont know about the looks, really need to go find somewhere that has them and see them first hand. But yea that does have a loud sound to them.
 
They sound like Altitudes
 
That is extremely high pitched - and to me, somewhat unfortunate. One of the hallmarks of Ping's GI/SGI irons to me is that they've always felt more "solid" than some of the others. Honestly, I'd get used to it if the performance was there. I'm interested in seeing how the long irons feel at the crazy low swingweights. I'm looking forward to getting some swings in with these as soon as I can.
 
mpeterson said:
That is extremely high pitched - and to me, somewhat unfortunate. One of the hallmarks of Ping's GI/SGI irons to me is that they've always felt more "solid" than some of the others. Honestly, I'd get used to it if the performance was there. I'm interested in seeing how the long irons feel at the crazy low swingweights. I'm looking forward to getting some swings in with these as soon as I can.
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I was certainly surprised. I just happened to pop on my headphones when I got to the range and was hitting balls with music on. Felt normal in hand - far more muted on misses compared to the Hogans I'd been testing. After about 20 balls I turned off the music and was borderline shocked at what I heard. I think my second post in here was saying that one of the things I liked about the Karsten was that compared to other SGI options from the last two years, they actually looked and sounded like irons. Like I said, it's kind of a shame. I do wonder if moving the CTP all the way down to the sole like that works in conjunction with the face changes to produce it. I know some folks won't care, even more so with the target demographic here, but it was a unexpected and unfortunate departure in my eyes.

I'll note again that if others can't hear what we are talking about, pop on some headphones and turn up the volume. It's 100% unmistakeable.
 
Hawk said:
I was certainly surprised. I just happened to pop on my headphones when I got to the range and was hitting balls with music on. Felt normal in hand - far more muted on misses compared to the Hogans I'd been testing. After about 20 balls I turned off the music and was borderline shocked at what I heard. I think my second post in here was saying that one of the things I liked about the Karsten was that compared to other SGI options from the last two years, they actually looked and sounded like irons. Like I said, it's kind of a shame. I do wonder if moving the CTP all the way down to the sole like that works in conjunction with the face changes to produce it. I know some folks won't care, even more so with the target demographic here, but it was a unexpected and unfortunate departure in my eyes.

I'll note again that if others can't hear what we are talking about, pop on some headphones and turn up the volume. It's 100% unmistakeable.
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Its terrible IMO. Oof.
 
So, enough about the sound for now. I chose to just focus on the even irons at the range yesterday since I figured I'd get a good idea of how the set progressed that way. Should note that the video above showed a teed up ball, but that was done only for sound testing to try to take the ground out of the equation for a few shots.

It's very cliche, but they did certainly put the ball way up in the air for me. I think that was even more apparent coming from the Hogans, which tended to sit in that mid'ish range most of the time for me, with the occasional ball getting a little higher. Seeing the height was novel for sure.

Distance I'll have to revisit in the future. As it was, I saw what I'd call 'normal' distance for me. Hard to be definitive on this range though (balls are true junk) and I didn't do any head to head comparisons. That will come with time.

Forgiveness will also be revisited in more detail in the future, but of course they are really forgiving. I hit a lot of shots at one flag in particular and the overwhelming majority were within a pretty small window distance-wise. I don't really know which were good and which were marginal or below average though, so it's hard to be precise (see below).

Unless I made a monumental mistake, I really had no clue where I hit the ball on the face. There were varying levels of sound with different impacts, but I can't say I was able to put the typical sound with the typical miss, if that makes sense? In other words, I wasn't sure which feeling/sound to attribute to a certain miss on the face. I do know that I hit a few balls with headphones on and thought they were well struck, only to see a ball mark well into the heel.

Compared to the very thin sole I'd been working with, there was an obvious and rather distinct difference. Very bouncy feeling and I'm fine with calling it a little clunky. I did however manage to take some divots, which were mostly shallow and more like smacking the ground with a sledgehammer with a fist than cutting it with a knife. That's an extreme version of things, but I dont know how else to characterize it in words.

Again, I took the 4/6/8/PW out for this session. Down to the 6 iron I saw what I'd call positve results. Balls that maintained height, distance, and direction quite well. Overwhelmingly straight to left ball flight. As I got to the 4 iron, I noticed a recurring theme of leaving the face open and hitting lazy shots well off target. Height wasn't very good either. That brings me to the technology piece here, which is that the long irons are swingweighted differently to assist in face closure. Again, the 6 isn't exactly a short iron in my world and does have some of this technology included and I saw performance I was happy with in direction and height, but that stops somewhere below - or at least it stopped there yesterday. Is the 5 iron more like this 4 or the 6? Certainly something I'm curious to find out.
 
That is quite the sole on these clubs. I understand these are GI, but that sole looks like its 2" thick.
 
Something that might be interesting to try when you get bored is to see if you can correlate the pitch of the impact sound with the location of the strike on the face. I'm wondering if that sound changes with proximity to the sweet spot. If the feel is as dead as you say, the sound may be the intended mechanism to report mishits.
 
JohnSinVA said:
Something that might be interesting to try when you get bored is to see if you can correlate the pitch of the impact sound with the location of the strike on the face. I'm wondering if that sound changes with proximity to the sweet spot. If the feel is as dead as you say, the sound may be the intended mechanism to report mishits.
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On my last few balls I was really in sound/impact mode and I felt like the volume got turned down a little on a couple strikes. I'm thinking that might be my answer, but I'll get more into it next time for sure.
 
i watched the video on my laptop with earphones. its a little louder than i heard last night but nothing that sounded to awful. will have to try in person one day
 
The sound at impact can really be heard in the Rick Shiels video review of the Gmax irons. I agree it's a very high pitched sound.

https://youtu.be/Mhr7JWeujLw
 
How many moans did they earn on the Schiels Scale?
 
Sounds like high and straight and possibly long for the Hawkster...nice initial thoughts
 
I'd be curious to know if the pitch changes with a softer ball like a Supersoft or Duo.

Also, is the high pitch the same across the entire set, or more predominant in the higher or lower irons.
 
They sound like my old cobra hybrids or some fairway woods. They must have hot face.
Don't think I would care that , but others might. gb
 
I haven't hit these, but I did own a set of Karstens. Forget the GMAX name for a second. These are Karsten replacements. This means that they are going to be high hitting and super forgiving. I would imagine that the have gotten a little more distance out of them with the COR-eye technology. The Karstens were already fairly accurate. I just don't see these as ground breaking or anything like that. I have actually moved on to Callaway XRs.
 
As a proud G25 player, I'm sorry to see the g series going the shovel route. I loved that Ping created a club that single digit and mid handicappers could play that gave a combination of forgiveness and workability (the G25). The soles on these push them into the super game improvement category. They scream hacker specials to me. Sorry if that sounds like elitist snobbery but I'm sure there's others out there that aren't ready for the I-series and don't want to play something with an inch-wide sole.


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Really? The g20s were huge. These don't look any bigger in the pictures. I assumed they were smaller.
 
daverain1 said:
As a proud G25 player, I'm sorry to see the g series going the shovel route. I loved that Ping created a club that single digit and mid handicappers could play that gave a combination of forgiveness and workability (the G25). The soles on these push them into the super game improvement category. They scream hacker specials to me. Sorry if that sounds like elitist snobbery but I'm sure there's others out there that aren't ready for the I-series and don't want to play something with an inch-wide sole.


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GMax is the K15 / Karsten line replacement. G35's will be out in Feb.
 
I've never liked Ping clubs, but I don't really mind these. See my sig and you'll see why I don't mind the soles on these!
 
daverain1 said:
As a proud G25 player, I'm sorry to see the g series going the shovel route. I loved that Ping created a club that single digit and mid handicappers could play that gave a combination of forgiveness and workability (the G25). The soles on these push them into the super game improvement category. They scream hacker specials to me. Sorry if that sounds like elitist snobbery but I'm sure there's others out there that aren't ready for the I-series and don't want to play something with an inch-wide sole.


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The only thing small on the G25 is the topline. They are huge and ugly too imo.

These aren't 25 replacements though, as mentioned above.
 
erock9174 said:
GMax is the K15 / Karsten line replacement. G35's will be out in Feb.
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Can't speak to the performance, but they don't look as good (to me) as either the K15 or the Karsten. It looks like Ping took one of these and crossed it with a Burner iron. Not quite for me, and sadly I AM the target demographic.
 
ryebread said:
Can't speak to the performance, but they don't look as good (to me) as either the K15 or the Karsten. It looks like Ping took one of these and crossed it with a Burner iron. Not quite for me, and sadly I AM the target demographic.
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I tend to agree.

However, I was quite impressed with how I got along with them on the course. I'll update here eventually.
 
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