Is forgiveness for humans and not golf irons?

[Swinglowandslow]

Just a thought to while away these rainy days.

I am a 20 Cap, but used to be 11. I’m also old
But recently I dug out some old blades, with which I’ve been having some fun.
I’ve never consistently been a proper iron striker, more of a ‘picker’, but recently I’ve got better at ‘divot after’ shots, which when done with these blades is a delight.
I have been using fairway woods rather than long irons and so I have been contemplating getting some new 7 -PW irons, high in forgiveness etc.

But, thinking about” forgiveness” in irons I wonder if it is as good a thing as they say, or not.
How many golfers hit an iron other than to land the ball on the green? Maybe to lay up occasionally. Certainly most seniors hit irons only into greens; to go further down the fairway (on par 5s or long 4s) ,they use woods.

How many of the greens on your course are guarded by places you don’t want to be?…..water, bunkers, mini hills etc. .Most of them, I think.
So, miss the green with your iron , you are better off missing shorter ( still fairway, next shot a chip?) than missing ‘almost there’……water bunker etc., No?

‘Almost there’, isn’t that where your 80% or 90% forgiveness shot puts you

I suppose the question is…
Do forgiveness clubs mean you get further and straighter if you strike the ball other than properly?;
Or, forgiveness clubs allow your swing to hit the ball properly more than blades do?

I tend to think the former, so what are your thoughts?

 

[Neilds]

Forgiveness, to me, means that mishits go straighter and/or further than with less forgiving clubs.

 

[Lord Tyrion]

Forgiveness, to me, means that mishits go straighter and/or further than with less forgiving clubs.

^^^^^^^^^
Wot he said

I have a forgiving set of clubs and they certainly do this. I'd also argue they have more sweet spots so you have more chance of hitting a nice one. Many years ago my BiL gave me a set of Mizuno blades that he couldn't get away with. Holy smoke, you needed a microscope to find the sweet spot on those . Every so often you would hit it and it was lovely. The other 20 times, yikes, absolute game killer. I was happy to hand those back

 

[Tashyboy]

A PP has a new driver, I have played with him twice the last two weeks and have seen him hit 28 drives. Of those probably one has a good ball flight, it was probably the only shot that looked nice. The rest of them have been low and rammel. But and this is a massive but. The run he has been getting has been unbelievable, I have been smoking my drives and he been at the side of me or in front. I actually said, “ it’s not how good your good shots are, but how good your bad shots are”. He is getting massive forgiveness.
At the moment he is happy ish and said he will take that in the summer. But the pots are massively further forward and in the summer he will be at his wits end. On a positive he has a couple of months to get it right. For £500 plus quid I would expect better. He also bought a three wood for £149 from a bargain bin. He don’t like them, but he is smoking it, again it is quite forgiving.
For me age is a massive issue and although a lot of discussion may well centre around the clubs and heads etc. I don’t think that shafts should be forgotten either.
One other thing about the guy who has the new driver. (Q4 I think it is) he has a slow swing speed yet the loft is 9 degrees, surely that cannot be right, yet he has been fitted.

 

[timd77]

Definitely the former. You can strike a forgiving iron low on the face or out of the toe and it’ll still go a decent percentage of the distance and relatively online. Hit a blade the same and you’re vibrating like a tuning fork and hitting your next shot from further and wider!

 

[RichA]

I’m a bang average mid-handicap player.
I have used forgiving game improvement irons. They definitely scuttle the ball further and straighter on bad shots.
But I much prefer using more traditional bladey irons. The bad ones are worse but I feel that I hit more good shots with them. And you know when you’ve hit a good one because it ends up where you were aiming. That rarely happened with the GI irons; distance seemed a bit random.
You could always try blades for the short game and GI for the mid-irons as a compromise.

 

[Imurg]

Forgiveness is retention of ball speed..
When you hit the middle of the club you get X amount of ball speed...new or old club, it makes little difference
Modern irons are designed with variable thickness faces, weighting and other tech so that when you hit the ball an inch from the middle you get a si ilar ball speed to a centre strike and the ball reacts in a similar way with regard to speed, flight, spin and distance..
This is the only real difference in drivers for the last 15 years or so. From the middle the ball speed is governed
So, hit almost any driver from the middle and your results will be similar.
Its from off centre hits that all lrogress in driver performance has developed..again its how well the club retains ball speed from poor strikes
irons are similar but to a lower level...this is why I'm hitting my Apex 19 Pros as far as the current versions of most brand's similar iron.
Put a sloppy swing on the most forgiving club in the world and it'll still go nowhere right...ask Fragger.

 

[Orikoru]

I've always said that I'll always use the most forgiving clubs. I'm not the best ball-striker in the world and I don't want to make the game harder. But in the last gap test I did, was probably the first time I've really noticed these random 'longer' strikes people talk about with the GI irons - i.e. a 7 iron that randomly goes 170 when the average is 158 or so. So it's given me food for thought. I still don't think I'm good enough to use anything but the most forgiving irons - but whenever my next iron fitting is (a few years yet), it might be worth me trying to find a sort of middle-ground.

Even tour pros are moving away from blades though and happy to accept some level of forgiveness. Even Rory has moved to a cavity back. The days of people using pure blades are clearly numbered.

 

[IanM]

...and greater margin for error. Hit a blade far or thin and the outcome is quite different from the outcome with a biiig cavity back!

 

[garyinderry]

Players distance clubs is what you are really after.

Compact size, look good and still offer help without the severly jacked lofts of pure distance irons.


Honestly the drop off on distance on bladed clubs is serious. Miss hit and you are at least a club out on carry.

 

[D-S]

On the subject of forgiveness, I saw this come up on YT the other day.
Makes you think why many more golfers don’t carry more lofted hybrids.

 

[Neilds]

On the subject of forgiveness, I saw this come up on YT the other day.
Makes you think why many more golfers don’t carry more lofted hybrids.

Because we are all vain and think we are actually better than what we are.

High lofted hybrids/woods are for women and seniors

 

[Orikoru]

On the subject of forgiveness, I saw this come up on YT the other day.
Makes you think why many more golfers don’t carry more lofted hybrids.

I did for a couple of years have a 6 hybrid as I couldn't strike my 6 iron particularly great. It did a job I guess but was completely useless in the slightest bit of wind. Too high and spinny a flight. Learning to hit 6 iron was very beneficial as it penetrates the wind much better.

 

[nickjdavis]

On the subject of forgiveness, I saw this come up on YT the other day.
Makes you think why many more golfers don’t carry more lofted hybrids.

Indeed....I'm just a short step away from replacing my 6iron with an appropriate hybrid and I'll likely end up with a bag of Driver, 3,5,7 and 9 woods, 6 hybrid, 7,8,9, PW,AW in the irons and a pair of dedicated 52 and 56 degree wedges. If I feel the need for a loftier wedge or maybe a driving style iron to suit specific courses or conditions, I'll loft up the three wood and drop the 5 wood (or maybe just buy a 4 wood to have in reserve ).

 

[Springveldt]

On the subject of forgiveness, I saw this come up on YT the other day.
Makes you think why many more golfers don’t carry more lofted hybrids.

I'm up to a 5 hybrid and would have no issue getting a 6 or 7 hybrid if they helped.

 

[Swinglowandslow]

Thanks for the replies fellas.Very interesting views.
I agree you can hit further with a forgiving club than a blade if it isn’t a good strike, but that was the point I was trying to make. If your green approach is 120 yds and your bad strike, intending to fly 120, flys 80% as far then you are liable to be in a bunker, water etc. More trouble than if a blade strike is bad and goes 50%.
Posts 5,7 and 10 agree that a bad strike doesn’t produce the required distance.

I agree it’s different re drivers. They weren’t in my thinking.

 

[D-S]

Thanks for the replies fellas.Very interesting views.
I agree you can hit further with a forgiving club than a blade if it isn’t a good strike, but that was the point I was trying to make. If your green approach is 120 yds and your bad strike, intending to fly 120, flys 80% as far then you are liable to be in a bunker, water etc. More trouble than if a blade strike is bad and goes 50%.
Posts 5,7 and 10 agree that a bad strike doesn’t produce the required distance.

I agree it’s different re drivers. They weren’t in my thinking.

I think it’s more like pin is in middle of green, poor strike with forgiving club - ball comes up 10-15 yards short and is on the front edge, still putting: same shot poor strike with blade - ball is 20 -25 yards short, now off the green now maybe putting through fringe or chipping (worst case in bunker/ water/ rough).

 

[harpo_72]

I have dropped back to my set of mp20 blades from 7-PW , 5-6 are HMB ( lofts weakened to blend).
I dropped my G430s not because of front to back dispersion ( I think these are quite controlled) but even in retro lofts the gapping was shifting from 10-13-17 yards which is hard to cope with. Yes you can brag about distance, but actually it’s about being consistent.
The blades do when hit poorly drop off on distance, so I have been really working on my strike. The other day I was a bit toe side of centre and it dropped 8-10yards but I was playing to the back 3rd with an expectation of back spin or stop dead .. net result was an 18-20 ft putt .. so if you account for it they are not as harmful.
Ideally I would like a cavity back, realistic lofts giving 10yard gaps. I think the Mizuno M13 and possibly the Wilson CB meet this requirement- any other suggestions welcome.
Hollow body irons are a bit random if you find the centre though. So they have been dropped from my shopping list

 

[Voyager EMH]

My first set of perimeter weighted irons were Ram Laser Fx forged in 1992. I had been playing with blades for over 20 years by then. Never thought of them as "blades" back then.
I have never experienced this "stinging fingers" thing that people talk about.
The only "forgiveness" thing I notice is that a poorly struck blade will be short of the greenside bunker, left or right, and a more forgiving iron will put me in the bunker.
I've been playing some games with cavities and some with blades for a few years now.

My new Ping i530 irons look like blades, but they are not truly so, I believe. Neither one thing nor the other - and I'm quite happy with them.

You know, you can play and enjoy the game with cavity back or blades.
Thinking that you won't be quite as bad as you actually are if you stick with the cavity backs - does make some sense - if your mind works that way.

When the Ping Eye2 irons came in the 1980s, I thought they looked ugly. I still think so, but I enjoy playing with the the ones I bought a few years ago.

Swing and roundabouts - sets of irons are what they are. You might find a bladed set that suits you and you might find a cavity back set that suits you. My experience.

 

[Mel Smooth]

Got the lad some Srixon ZX7's a few weeks back - stiff shafts. I have to say, they feel lovely - lovely balance between shaft and head weight. I hit his 5 iron up our 7th last week and it was like butter. They aren't a blade in the traditional sense but are quite small to the eye.