As a follow up to my previous post I found this link that provides details about the famous 1 iron: usgamuseum.com/about_museum/ … newsid=114
The article jibes with my recollection. Hard to imagine that I held the club and too bad that I did not measure it but who Knew???
Should imagine American Golf was a good business back in those days at the height of classic persimmon and the huge demand from Japan.
I found some old pallets of second hand clubs in a scrap yard a while back that had been shipped out from Japan. Lots of older Macgregors and Hogan’s but not complete sets. A few nice persimmons, some in decay such as a rotted M85. It was like Christmas come early hunting through thousands of clubs for old wedges, putters etc - great fun ! Found a split sole 10 iron that Lag uses among many others.
Lag, thanks for the images and analysis, any additional info would be really interesting. I want to believe the clubs were flatter and if convinced, will certainly make the adjustments for further study. Hopefully this discussion is helpful to other readers too.
My current thoughts are that Mr Hogan’s irons would be in a horizontal lie at setup with the high hands, then be able to return the same horizontal lie at impact due to de-lofting and his relative hands / body positioning through the hitting area.
From the player’s eye view this is a flatter entry and the club is layed off from the top as it returns inside - but from the rear square to ball camera view, the actual shaft ‘angle’ matches the setup and this could be of relevance. The hands are slightly lower but seam to maintain the original set-up angle.
If other players are less controlled in this area then perhaps it partly explains Mr Hogan’s superior consistency. It could also mean that his lie angles were not super flat but standard for the day (flat by modern standards). just a theory.
Lord Byron’s swing would be another good study to see if the shaft angles match up in this way since he was renowned for hitting consistantly straight shots with an obvious lowering of the body through the hitting area. Not easy to find still camera footage of these swings from the desired angles though…perhaps the ABS vault contains some gems !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfSonOaJtv0
Here’s the equivalent video on Byron Nelson from what looks to be down the ball / target line view. If you’re quick on the draw with the pause button, it looks like the shaft angles match at set-up vs impact.
I’ve been using a 1950 green pyratone shafted MacGregor Tommy Armour Silver Scot 2 iron for the initial Hogan Module video instruction shoot. Hogan would have been playing something very similar to this at the time. He was on the MacGregor staff and there are lots of pics of him using similar irons.
