I played blades and would switch off between them and CB’s when I was a junior and college golfer. Typically I stuck with metal woods back then because you could put graphite into the heads easier than persimmon and the persimmon would have problems like cracking or the wrapping getting undone. That being said, I used steel shafts quite often in my drivers, but usually stuck with the metal head. I eventually got a MacGregor steel head driver with graphite that I used to smoke down the fairway constantly and stuck with it for years.
Blades I used? Hogan Redlines, MacGregor Muirfield, Hogan BH Grind, Founders Club 200 series, and Ram FX Tour Grind to name a few. I bought some Mizuno MP-62’s about a year ago. They are a CB that are probably the most blade like CB’s out there. Good club, but I kept remembering how back when I was a junior and college golfer I swung the club my best when blades where in my bag. Eventually reading Lag’s posts and Michael Lavery’s ‘Whole Brain Power’ book made me understand why. That’s usually important for me in golf…not just doing what I’m told to do and taking things at face value, but the ‘why?’
Lavery’s book more or less echoes Lag’s sentiments. The book goes into motor skills and how in today’s society we neglect working our motor skills. For instance, schools do not offer penmanship classes anymore and penmanship is a good way to develop your motor skill. In the end, Lavery’s point about something like penmanship is that it develops one’s motor skills and if we neglect our motor skills, they WILL erode over time.
I like to apply that to the golf swing. I believe that there are 4 critical elements of the swing:
- Controlling the clubface
- Controlling the clubhead path
- Controlling the low point
- The dynamics of your pivot
Obviously, I believe ABS addresses these critical elements. But I also believe that good, vintage blade irons address these 4 critical elements as well. Hitting the ball square takes good control of the face and the path and the smaller heads test the golfer’s ability to control the face and the path on every shot. The thinner soles test the low point. Particularly the clubs with the sharper leading edges. Hit the ball first and then take a divot and you’ll really compress the ball with these vintage irons. If you don’t, you’ll hit a very poor shot. But with the CB’s and their thicker soles, you can get away with not being precise with the low point and that skill of controlling the low point will erode over time.
And blades really force the golfer to pivot as well. With CB’s and their super strong lofts and light shafts, etc. one can hit a long and high iron shot with ease. But with blades you really need to be on point with the path, face and low point and do it with a power pivot action.
I have 2 clubs with very stiff shafts. A Hogan Apex PC 2-iron and a Hogan IPT 5-iron that I had a X100 installed and then tipped it 3”. The thing I love about those clubs is I can hit a shot on the sweetspot and straight at the target. But more often than not they go pretty low and they are a solid shot. But if I really want to flush one and see it rise almost like a rocket, I need to be pivoting and pivoting hard well after impact. Fun to watch when I do it, but doesn’t happen all of the time.
In fact, the first club I swing on the practice range is the Apex PC 2-iron. None of this ‘hit a SW and work your way up.’ I want to warm up quickly and test my swing right away.
I do have a persimmon driver. It’s a very difficult club to hit on the screws, have it go straight and get a good trajectory on it. I can get around the course with it pretty well, but usually on more low-ish type shots.
I will say this about the persimmon, right now I occasionally feel myself ‘hold the flex of the shaft’ in my swing. I’ll feel it about once a round with a particular iron shot. If I’m on the range I’ll feel it a few times. But the club I have done it the most with is my persimmon driver. My modern titanium driver? I’ve only felt myself do that ONCE (which was yesterday) and I hit it about 30 yards further that I usually do and it was dead straight at the target. Just tough to ‘hold the flex’ and ‘swing left’ with the modern driver due to the length and weight of the club.
The problem is that if you’re playing competitive golf, be it a tournament, money match or just trying to lower your handicap, the modern driver offers too much of an advantage off the tee to go with persimmon. But, the blade irons are a different story IMO. And since I want to sharpen my precision when it comes to controlling the low point, face and path as well as improve my pivot, I think ‘gaming’ CB’s over blades is a bad move.
3JACK
RR
