Do game improvement irons go further?

[2004Champ]

A genuine question here.

I have a set of Mizuno MP53 irons which I bought recently.I was out with a chappie in the medal on Saturday and we both had about 160 into the wind to an elevated green.I hit a pretty good 4 iron pin high and when I asked my partner what he hit he showed me his 8 iron.He was about a club short but would comfortably have made it with a 7 iron.

Don't know the exact model of club he had but it was some chunky Nike effort that he said he paid £199 for.

 

[kid2]

Depends on the player swinging the said club i think.

 

[John_Findlay]

I've only tried a set of my mates game improvement Wilson irons once and was hitting them 2 clubs longer. I prefer the new MP53s myself though.

 

[LanDog]

I think usually the cavitys in improvement irons will probably give you a bit more beef but the idea is that more skilled players will presumably not need to gsin more distance as they look to shape the ball.
PS please ignore my irons as I hit the ball as far as possible to leave myself with a nice wedge in usually and the cavitys in my quite presious Di7's allow me to do that

 

[Durango]

I've got a set of macgregor blades and my burner 09s are probably 1 to 2 clubs longer.

 

[Imurg]

GI irons will generally have stronger lofts than a "players" iron such as the MP53/63. As much as 3-4 degrees in some sets - that can make 10 yards difference by itself. My MP58 PW is 47*. The JPX800 PW is 44*.

 

[CrapHacker]

It's not necessaily the GI tag, it's how the clubs are set up.

Dunno about the Nikes, but the Wilson Staff Di9s ( for example ) have the 5I with a loft of 25* and a 6I loft of 28.5*

Benross, have the loft on their 5I at 28*

So if the same person swung the 6I Di9 and the Benross 5I they would go a similar distance.

 

[RGDave]

Hmmm.

GI irons tend to have lower lofts but have heads designed to hit the ball a little higher with low COG and all the rest.

My Callaways are shorter than my Mizunos....in the lower irons 8/9/PW.

Conclusion? Don't know. Depends how you hit the ball.

At a guess, if you gave a mid-iron to a decent ball striker, then I'd err on the side of no.

Comparing two players is always a pointless exercise. Even with "seemingly" identical swing speeds, the effective loft will be impossible to calculate.

My pro hits his 7 iron with the launch of an amateurs 3 or 4 iron. With his swing speed, he'll easily match them for distance.

I still know nothing.

 

[Tiger]

As well as the role of loft here's also forgiveness. You'll get closer to full distance on an off centre strike with a GI iron than you would do with a blade.

 

[Mongoose]

GI irons go further than traditional blades mainly as they have lower lofts for any given iron number. They also often have softer shafts which gives a little more distance (at the expense of dispersion). I hit my GI 7I about 155 carry, I hit a 7I blade about 130.

 

[USER1999]

Not convinced by the loft arguement. There is a lot more to it than just numbers.
The CofG of a GI club is positions low in the head, to promote a higher launch (and make it easier to get in the air). This is then counter acted by decreasing the loft, to achieve the desired flight. It can be aided by higher launching shafts too.
The perimeter weighting means mis hits will go further, but a middled shot is a middled shot.

That said, Luke Donald thinks a JPX Pro will go 20 yards further than his current irons, but doesn't like them.

Who knows? It all gets very complicated, as you can't compare like to like. Maybe a question for the magazine to ask a club designer what the differences are, and what the design intention is.

 

[CrapHacker]

That said, Luke Donald thinks a JPX Pro will go 20 yards further than his current irons, but doesn't like them.

Who knows?

Ahhhhhhh...

Ummmmmmmmmmm...

Luke ???

 

[iku]

You can imagine my face when I dropped my first set of GI irons for blades and found myself shorter with every club...

It took me almost one year to get the distance back and with short irons still I can't match the GI distance.

On the plus side the dispersion improved dramatically and I have much better ball control. And it's not me improving because I still carry some GI iron in the bag.

 

[Oddsocks]

Now this is interesting. I was using TM Supersteel Burners prior to my 09 burners. During lessons with my old pro i kept banging on about new clubs, and he kept saying that my supersteels were one of the best clubs TM made and that i shouldnt move them on, he back this up by taking a Ping G10 6i, My 6i and what ever the cally model was at the time and hit them all within 5 yards of each other.

What is interesting is my older Supersteels had shorter shafts which should effectively make them slightly shorter in distance, weaker lofts also. Now if you believe all the bull**** that TM come out with for the burner range, every club was individually designed for optimal distance, every shaft likewise, these were TM's longest irons to date in 09, yet they are no longer than my supersteels.

I think alot of it is ball-axe!

 

[viscount17]

I've recently changed from MacGregor 565's - GI - PW=45, to Wishon 555C - cavity's - PW=47.
I started out a club/club+half shorter at the bottom end, about the same as before from 8 to 6, then a club shorter at the top. Getting used to the clubs/shafts has regained the length at the top end but the bottom end is still shorter, though not bay as much.