New Blades vs Vintage Blades

Equipment
41

The “Patience Level” of golfers who demand improvements has led to the fall of what most of us at ABS would consider a precious sport.

Golf 25-30 years ago was so different. And we all recognize that. Golf today has turned into a…

“How little do I have to try to play better…”

Guys want to step up on the 1st Tee and basically SNEEZE to produce a shot that travels HIGH…STRAIGHT…LONG.

IMO…The Game was more fun when you shaped shots. What a great game that was. How many guys actually have to shape shots today ??

I play on a 100 year old golf course & we shape shots all day long…AND IT IS GREAT !!

I travel to the desert or Orange County National in Orlando and it is nothing but “Driving Range Golf”. You have 100-yard fairways and greens the size of New Hampshire. Sure…all you need to do is stand there and POP the ball up the air and it will land somewhere safe.

But is that what “GOLF” is all about ???

I watched “Shell’s…” yesterday. It was the Nicklaus-Miller Match at Olympic from 1997. Now…Tiger had turned PRO at this point. This wasn’t that long ago. You know what I saw…

Nicklaus teeing off with a 1-iron…
Drivers that were the size of TODAY"s HYBRID…

It was 13 short years ago that guys used to play there ball for “POSITION”…not just blast drives over FW Bunkers. The MODERN GAME is fun…but it pales to the game we played in the 70’s and 80’s.

With the old equipment it wasn’t like we couldn’t hit GIRs. I played old school blades as a 10 years old ((from the Ladies Tee)) and shot EVEN par. 6000 yard course…OLD EQUIPMENT…10 years old and shot even par.

…and I wasn’t even the best kid out there.

Happy

42

3 Jack,

I am genuinely curious. What evidence proves that the sweetspot on modern blades is larger than traditional classic blades? I was also interested by your view of the positioning of the sweetspot being higher in comparison…again, what evidence supports this view?

43

Aiguille,
I can’t remember how the tour van tech guy showed me this…but…he put my clubs in a vice and did a center of gravity test and showed me that the set of PING G10 I was ‘trying’ to hit had a sweetspot/center of gravity that was up around the 4th line on the face. way up near the middle of the face.
That was all I had to see to trash them straight into the bin and get out my old set of blades the next week… I had no trajectory control of those PING’s and out of any type of rough you could forget hitting them.
I don’t understand the logic of why they were made with that intention but it was certainly counter productive to what I was trying to do with the shots I was trying to hit.
Not trashing PING specifically as I am sure most other sets were set up with a similar idea—why?..I don’t know why?.. I couldn’t for the life of me work out why I couldn’t control them worth a lick, but it was proven to me why right then and there and one of my friends received a set of G10’s that were only used for one week because i had to get them out of my sight :laughing: and fast

1 Like
44

I think you’re missing the point there, Styles. He probably is the best player ever to pick up a golf club, but his swing has become terrible and he makes it so difficult for himself. He can’t hit the driver straight because of his swing/grip and flash effort through impact. He’s completely eliminated his body from his swing by disconnecting his arms and hands from the motor and they work as independent agents- he can hit all the trap half shots he wants with that action, but as soon as he puts the foot down he’s got no chance. It’s a testament to how good he is that he does what he does- I’m by no means bashing Tiger. He should really file a lawsuit against Haney… I’d probably take a go at that bet too :slight_smile:
And btw, imo flatter isn’t always better, and TIger is a prime example of that. The plane he’s trying to swing on doesn’t match his posture and so he essentially has to dive back down to the ball somehow.

45

Great analysis Twomasters, thanks for that.
So often around here there’s an equation between a good action/good ball striking and infallibility under pressure, and I think it’s got some merit for sure. But as we all know there’s so much more to getting it done under the gun than the action. Norman was clearly one of the best drivers of the ball, and I suppose it’s easy to look at his swing during the times when he didn’t get it done, pick it apart, and wonder ‘what went wrong?’ It looks like he did that himself over his career as he got deeper and flatter working with Butch. You could look at that later action and think that that should be a swing that would be more reliable under pressure, but the insides have to change with it. Faldo made that change too and won all his majors- you can only speculate as to whether he would’ve won them without that change. I reckon he would’ve won most of them, but that’s just my opinion.
It seems to me that the conversation with Lag was about a specific question, not a general how good was Norman question(so no, SB944, you’re not missing any joke) That being is he considered an historic top tier ball striker- I see that question being answered in the ultimate moments, and maybe that’s really more of a question of mental strength and intangibles than it is about ‘ball striking’, because clearly he was pure. I know that Norman has this awfully depressing way of looking defeated, and he rarely seems to come back once that face appears. I’m not bashing him, just analyzing his game. He had that face on the first hole in 08 when Harrington beat him in the Open, and I was rooting for Norman more than I’ve rooted for anyone before- and I’m Irish! I think he hit it in a trap short of the green and then didn’t get up and down(my memory is a little hazy on that) But when he missed the par putt it was all over, he just had that look. It was there early in 96 too at the Masters. That’s my assessment of it. For better or worse, these things come into play when assessing his ball striking.

46

Twomasters,

Thank you for that insight which is clearly based on a direct personal experience but if I am not mistaken, 3JACK seems to be saying here that the sweetspot is higher on vintage irons ( as well as smaller). I would like some clarity on this issue as it clearly has a significant bearing on my choice of playing sets.

47

Aiguille,
The COG on modern clubs is lower and further back in order to get the ball to go higher. They have wider soles and the meat of the muscle is deeper down so that’s where they feel the best to be hit- it’s actually hard to find so they don’t actually ever ‘feel really good’ even the good shots.
With the older blades the COG is higher so they hit the ball lower( they have thiner soles and the muscle tends to be further up the back of the club)- therefore the meat of the club is positioned more behind the ball at impact. This puts the sweet spot higher in the face as a result…
They feel better because you actually get a better chance of hitting the sweet spot especially when you come in shallow because the meat of the club arrives at the back of the ball. When you come in shallow with more modern clubs they tend to go quite high by comparison…

48

I’m curious as to where some of this info is coming from as well. Smaller sweetspot? By how much? I thought a lot of this “big SS stuff” had been de-bunked as more marketing crap. Personally I find that when I mis-hit it, I mis-hit it and it’s simply not a good result by my standards. So I miss it 5 yards short right instead of 8 yards short right… whoopee. I CERTAINLY don’t expect a mis-hit with a mb vs cb to be the difference between clearing a hazard or being in the lake, or the difference between a par and an 8 (although I believe that’s what is sold to the golfing population).

Stop the insanity… please.

robbo

49

“With perimeter weighted clubs, considering my shots on a scale from 1 to 10, I know I wouldn’t hit a shot worse than a 6, but because of the club’s resistance to subtle influences I may want to impart, my best shots wouldn’t be better than an 8 or a 9.
With blades, my bad shot might be as bad as a 3, but my best shots would be 10’s, and the difference between 8 and 9’s and a 10 at the top end of the scale is the difference between winning and losing a major championship”

This was a quote by Nick Price–

50

A few points I’d like to make here…

First…

Let’s examine sweetspot. The word itself means there is a spot on the club that when hit, it means “sweet”
We all know when we hit the sweetspot. It’s a beautiful feeling, and usually a great shot.

The sweetspot is something that requires the meeting of two things… us and the club. A well designed club, and a proper swing create sweetspot. Not a glancing blow and so forth.

Why do we need the sweetspot? Because there is a direct link between that sweet spot and our brain. Our brain NEEDS this information if we are going to improve our golf swing. Without this information, we severely limit our ability to improve our golf swing.

Now as far as why I promote students to practice with vintage gear is simply because this will give them the best FEEDBACK to improve their golf swing. I also want the student to become aware of one of the greatest experiences this game has to offer… the feeling and magical sensation of striking a shot FLUSH with a classic style blade and the sound and feel of a well struck persimmon. It is different, and there is a quality to not just the shot itself, but the vibratory effect of the sensation that runs through the body. The game of golf is more than just the score we shoot.

Every round we take something away from the golf course. What do you want to take away? I can’t answer the question for you… however, I can offer some options for you to experience… A lot of this is how the golf swing should or can feel within your body. But another is how good gear can feel in your hands.

If you go out and strike 50 balls with a 450 cc driver, then the next day you do the same with a classic persimmon driver, I can assure that you will learn a lot more about your golf swing with the persimmon session.

My question would be does a 450 cc driver even have a sweetspot? I say this because a true sweetspot is an actual spot… and it is something you can actually feel. Now if that spot becomes more of an “area” then we don’t really have a spot…and if we can’t feel an absolute spot, then we are essential void of a sweetspot.

Swinging a club void of a sweetspot allows the golfer a variety of possible impact strikes without the player knowing what was correct, not correct and everything in between… Therefore improvement becomes extremely difficult.

If you want to really learn to swing a club properly, you need accurate feedback, both positive and negative, and you NEED to be able to distinguish the difference easily, and instantly.

My feeling is that a so called bigger sweetspot is not really all that accurate. I think the sweetspot becomes a diluted experience. If the spot goes from the size of a dime to the size of a silver dollar, then we have a problem for the brain to extrapolate the correct information for us to process.

Now as far as where the sweetspot is on the club. .whether it is lower or higher on the clubface…this is very important.

With the sweetspot lower on the clubface, this allows us to play golf from true low point. This allows us to work the club more from the inside, and from a flatter shallower entry into impact.

If the sweetspot is high on the face, we are forced to come into impact steeper, and take deeper divots and this does not encourage the golf club to work correctly around our body as efficiently as possible.

The old club designers understood this… because the old club designers were often good or very accomplished players themselves who understood the golf swing. The modern club designers are clearly not as in touch with what really needs to be designed into a golf club. (what we are seeing on display in the golf shops)

Finally, it is very important to know what you do… are you hitting or swinging? Are you accelerating the club trying to avoid the big dump divot? or are you dumping and using the ground as a way to send and aid in throwing some vibration up the shaft? Then we also must look at the grind itself? Where is the weight of the club distributed? There is a big difference between say a Hogan Power Thrust with the weight shaved off the toe down low, and say a 72 Button Back Dyna Power with a lot of toe weight? And this of course would effect swingers much more than hitters… I can hit either club well, however, they do FEEL quite different. As a hitter, I am not at the mercy of the golf club because “I” am taking control of the release of the club… not allowing CF to take control of the situation… therefore, I have not only a much greater option for head shape, but also for shaft flex as well… because I am not trying to “time” anything.

anyway… a few things to ponder.

This is an excellent topic.

51

Eye opening post there, Lag, thanks for that. My interpretation was upside down but getting me to the same place place I suppose. I guess the term sweet spot is confusing to me, I can feel it or not feel it as the case may be, but for me I always tie it to where I can find meat of the club. How does the sweet spot get lower as the mass of the club moves higher? Does anyone know how that works?
Cheers…

52

A few direct questions…to issues that are still not clear for me. Lets remember that dinkbat’s original question was about blades.

Do modern blades have a ‘bigger’ sweetspot than classic blades?

Is the centre of gravity on a classic blade high on the face, low on the face or just right?

Same question for the modern blade?

Or does it really depend on type and manufacturer of club…? In which case, there is no one catch all answer?

Ultimately, what are the optimal choices for an aspiring ABS player? Or put another way, what would you use to shoot the best round of your life…?

53

Not so much ‘bigger’ but located lower on the clubface and more towards the center. The location towards the center is a bigger deal because it makes mis-hits…particularly off the toe more forgiving. Some people think the vintage blades have smaller sweetspots, but they really don’t or it’s not nearly as small as people think. Just located in a different spot.

More center high, towards the heel a bit.

More towards the bottom grooves, in between the heel and toe.

I’m sure there are exceptions. But I think vintage is pretty much the same concept all around and modern is the same concept all around. I think Miura’s tournament blades have the sweetspot higher up and towards the heel.

People get too intimdated by blades, particularly the vintage blades. I have had a 16 and a 18 handicapper hit my '63 Hogan IPT’s and find the sweetspot quite regularly. Problem was they lost a lot of distance using those irons and were too afraid to replace their shovels for some blades.

I think you need blades, period…be it vintage or modern. Right now I would go with modern if I needed the best round of my life. Why? Because I can hit modern blades pretty accurately, but more importantly about 10-20 yards further.

HOWEVER, realize that my vintage Hogan’s have old shafts that are -1/2” shorter than modern blades and lofts that are a little too weak. I figure (and hope) that about the time I hit Module 5 my swing will be somewhere near where I want it to be and then I will look at fitting myself with a shaft, figuring the lie angle and tweaking the lofts. I plan on sending my 8-iron to the Iron Factory, getting it re-shafted, re-chromed, re-grooved, etc. I will then see how it comes out (my 8-iron in the set is in the worst condition, so I’m curious to see how it looks once it is re-chromed and re-grooved). If I can get the distance that is somewhat near my Mizuno 8-iron, I will get the entire set re-done.

Why?

Because the Hogan’s feel great and more importantly, I like the trajectory I can achieve with them. I also have some Hogan Apex PC’s that fly pretty well so I may choose to get them re-done as well. But I can only afford to get one set re-done at a time.

3JACK

54

Talking about the sweet spot being closer to the heel in vintage blades - I recall seeing Hogan’s 1 iron that he hit to the 18th at Merion in 1950. It had been stolen but recovered and the announcers for the US amateur when it was played at Merion in the early 2000’s had it on display. I was astounded to see a worn spot about the size of a dime right up against the hosel. If Hogan would have hit it 3/16 of an inch closer to the hosel he would have shanked it! The club had an unbelievably long hosel so you could get a sense of the weight distribution placing the sweet spot over close to the heel. Obviously Hogan didn’t worry much about it.

dinkbat

55

I agree with R3J for the most part. I personally like the heel-ward sweet spot. Why? because it will ultimatley make you do a superb module 2 especially not letting the left foot flare out through impact (even a single bit; it can flare later depending on your flexibility). I have had this personally hitting a lot of toes on my irons and no measure of allignment or set up changes could fix it. If you want to settle for a less tight footwork then a more heel weighted blade is the answer. I bought a set of Macgregor M75s for exactly the same purpose to punish my lousy foot work because the semi diamond shape on those is so near the hosel. The IPTs seem also great for this purpose.
As for the higher COG in the vintage irons it defines another important parameter of the swing - the low point as you have to hit ball first otherwise the ball is not airborn. Add thin soles, less bounce and a sharper leading edge and everything must be in order to hit a good golf shot. Any of the game improvement features will cut that journey short.
I may be more laid back regarding distance but I have set two sets at 50’ PW to 18’ 2 iron in equal increments of 4’ meaning my 7 iron is 38’. We have two 150 yards par 3s in our course and I chose between 8 or 7 for those. Especially if you have a 2 iron in the set, it does not really matter but then again I am relatively new at this and have never had any personal distance to begin with.

56

Dinkbat
Thanks for posting that. I think the Heelward distribution is more important for the long irons than the short ones.

57

I think it depends upon the club. There are some nice newer blades out there I’m sure. Is anything modern superior to blades of the past? I would say not. Do the new ones go farther? Yes, lighter, less loft, longer lighter shafts… but that means NOTHING! Length only means something with the driver, and maybe a fairway wood. Every other shot needs to go a specific distance.

If two players are both 150 yards from the pin… and one player is going to hit a 50 year old 7 iron, and the other is going to hit a modern PW… unless the pin is cut right behind a bunker and you are a bit down wind… I see no advantage. If the clubs are properly set up weight wise and lie angles… what does it matter what the number on the bottom of the club is?
I can take a vintage 7 iron, bend it to a 5 iron loft, dump a long lightweight shaft into it, and hit it past any modern seven iron. Big deal… You have to understand, that the lower shot is the shorter route to the target. The lower trajectory shot doesn’t have to fly as far, and takes less effort from the player.

So a lot of gear depends upon the course. If you are going to play a Nicklaus course where you have to drop the ball in from the clouds all day, and the greens are hard, and there is no run up option, then hitting a set of irons with modern grooves, and longer shafts so you can get the ball up and hit longer with essentially a shorter iron… then that may be desirable. Putting spin on the ball to where you suck the ball back off the green… you do that… not me…
I want the ball rolling towards the cup, never away from it… if I have any choice in the matter.

The most important thing to remember is that irons are for accuracy… not distance…
heavy irons will give you much better distance control and put more feel into your hands, and the ball gets a slightly deeper compression with a heavy head.

Your shafts should be stiff, because stiff encourages you to fire into impact and accelerate the golf club allowing for more consistent strikes, and again better feel. Also, heavier shafts will put more feel into your hands… so that can be an advantage if you don’t think you are feeling the club enough. I prefer heavier clubs for many reasons.

You should set up your irons as flat as you can handle to take advantage of flat lie geometry.

You should also avoid offset irons. Offset encourages OTT, and discourages you from developing a proper release into the golf club.

Strengthening your irons takes bounce off the bottom of the club. So be aware of that. If you have a steeper swing plane, this can be more of a problem…

So really, getting your gear set up for you, your swing, and the type of golf you typically play is most important.

58

Gentlemen,

Thank you for the replies…

3Jack, your answers appear to be exactly opposite to Lag’s.

You started off by claiming that vintage blades had a smaller sweetspot, then you revised your opinion to ‘not much smaller’ but I have yet to see any hard data to support your theory.

Next, you claimed that the sweetspot is located higher on the face, while Lag is adamant that it is lower on the face in classic blades.

Please appreciate that I am simply trying to get to the bottom of this matter for very practical reasons and I would want the forum to be accurately informed.

59

Hey Lag, just as long as I get to hit the 100 balls I’m happy! :smiley: :laughing:

I agree though, I like to hit the persimmon at the range before play because then hitting it with my ‘frying pan’ on the course is sooooo easy!

60

I don’t think so. We’re both for blades. We’re both for flatter lie angles, shorter and heavier shafts, heavier clubs. And both for vintage blades.

Not true. Check out my first post (viewtopic.php?f=41&t=799&sid=5b1f50bdf95011394fc5f6030fc497a7#p9667)

Here’s what I wrote:

Vintage Blades:

  • usually heavier
  • flatter lie angle (usually 1-2* flatter)
  • Sweetspot more up on the face and towards the heel
  • Sharper leading edges
  • Smaller, more compact head size

Nowhere do I say vintage blades have a ‘smaller sweetspot.’

I’m not really sure it is much smaller, that’s why I also mentioned that people are too intimidated by blades as my 63 Hogans IPTs and my 83 Apex PC’s are not all that hard to hit and I had a 16 and an 18 handicapper recently find the sweetspot over and over again with my IPT’s once they got used to them. The sweetspot is certainly in a different location.

I think Lag is talking about the modern drivers if you look at his post. The modern drivers have a sweetspot much higher on the face so golfers can tee it up higher, hit higher up on the face, launch it higher with less spin.

Vintage blades have the sweetspot and COG higher on the face than modern blades. Back from Jan-Feb of 2009 I wanted to get some new irons and I had been out of the game for 8 years. I was interested in some blade style irons but was a little leery about some of the forgiveness since I just came back from the game. I spoke to a Mizuno, Cleveland and a Titleist rep and all of them told me the same exact thing. They moved the sweetspot and the COG lower and more towards the middle to make it easier for the golfer to get the ball airborne and to make the clubs more forgiving.

I tend to trust the reps, since I knew two of them pretty well and it makes sense since the manufacturer’s M.O. these days is to make clubs more forgiving and easier to get the ball up in the air. Furthermore, they all told me that a big reason why modern blades have less loft is because the sweetspot and COG is lower so the ball will launch higher.

I’m pretty sure Lag is talking about the drivers.

I think the difference in ‘sweetspot height’ on clubface of irons is not that dramatic. However the difference in location with the drivers is very dramatic to me. I remember playing with metal woods where you had to hit the ball dead center in the face to catch it flush. If you went just a little higher than center you would hit it really high. Now if you hit it dead center on the face with the titanium drivers, you’ll hit a shot that launches low and then spins a ton.

With the irons, if you catch it right in the middle of the clubface with a vintage iron, you can still hit a really good shot. But the optimal shot is a little more towards the heel. Conversely, if you hit a shot a little more towards the heel but close to the center of the clubface with a modern blade, you can still hit a good shot as well.

What the OEM’s have really done with their drivers and irons is make toe shots much more forgiving. With a vintage iron or a persimmon wood, if you catch one towards the toe, your result will not be as good as it would be with a modern blade iron or a titanium driver.

3JACK