golfrewind.com

I made an attempt to calibrate my bag today. I played a par-3 course, with holes ranging from 65 yards to 205 yards. I was the only one on the course so on select holes I hit my full load of golf-balls (6), so I could get a decent average (and I was pretty consistent). I would describe my swing today as imperfect (rusty!) but very playable (I was straight, I didn't lose a single ball, despite hitting more than a few on some holes). For the purpose of calibration, it helped that the greens are tiny. It also helped that all balls hit pretty much stopped dead, whether they hit the green, the backstop behind the hole, or the 'fairway' (which actually was some pretty severe rough). In short, I believe my (carry) measurements to be accurate.

I should probably mention that my bag consists of a putter and 12 irons / wedges, all from the same line. Yep, that's right: Irons, wedges (and a putter) only. (The courses I play are short) Here they are:

Wilson Staff Gooseneck 1I-PW,SW,TW



These are 20 year old clubs that I bought off ebay, after having been turned on to them after buying (or, I should say, receiving for nominal mailing costs) a similar set from a member here. It is quite possible that these have quite a different loft than modern irons with the same number on them. I.e. my 1 iron might be equivalent to your 3 iron. I do not know the loft of these clubs, except for TW ("Tour Wedge") which is labeled 58*.

OK, after all that, here are my current carry distances, many estimated by interpolation or extrapolation, with comments. Given the length of the holes available all clubs were not used!

1i - 215y - estimate based on trend
2i - 200y - accurately measured
3i - 185y - estimated based on trend
4i - 170y - accurately measured
5i - 155y - accurately measured
6i - 140y - estimated based on trend (matches observations on range)
7i - 125y - estimated based on trend
8i - 110y - accurately measured
9i - 95y - accurately measured
pw - 80y - estimated based on trend (matches observations on range)
sw - 65 y - accurately measured
tw - 50y - estimated based on trend (matches observations on range)

These (carry) measurements were just from today, but they do not seem inconsistent with my past results.

I seem to have a 15 yard gap across the entire bag. I think this is not necessarily undesirable, but I know that most golfers hit their short and mid irons (much) longer than me, and from what I have read most golfers typically have 10 yard gaps between their irons, not 15 yard gaps.

So what's up!?? I would appreciate your input on any of the following:

- Is something wrong with my wedge-short iron technique?
- Alternatively, what could be the explanation my maintaining of a 15y gap into the long irons?
- Could the fact that I am playing an 'older' set explain this?
- Should I not bother worrying? After all, what's wrong with a consistent gap across the bag!

Again I appreciate your input, because I have no clue. Except perhaps for that 'high' and 'straight' are the the best words to describe my typical trajectory.

Well, I'm sure how helpful my response is going to be but I would like to respond anyway.

Lately as I am improving my golf I would like to calibrate my own yardage differences across the bag and learn how to manage them.

I will try gripping down a tad on each club and swinging a little smoother on each club to measure how much I can take off each club to make the gaps even smaller. That's what I would do if I where you. If you don't like the gaps do the same thing again, but this time take time to experiment on how to close the gaps.

Gripping down, slower swing and maybe a more narrow stance is options I think of when reducing the amount of energy being transferred to the ball. Then maybe we will both know how many yards we can take of each club and make our approach shots more adjustable as far as length is concerned.

I actually have even larger gaps than you, I just looked in my golf-diary book.

4 iron: 208 yards
5 iron: not sure
6 iron: 170 yards
7 iron: 160 yards
9 iron: 115 yards

So from 4 iron to 6 I have a 38 yard gap, 19 yards per club.
From 7 too 9 I have a 45 yard gap . 22,5 yards per club..

I hope I have not measured these correctly because that looked ugly.

High and straight is a good thing. Out of curiosity, it might be fun to buy a used modern Gap wedge say 52 degrees out of a barrel somewhere or on Ebay and see how it compares with your current yardages.

With a 20 year old set, you probably have more loft on your clubs than modern clubs. So when you are hitting an 8 iron, it is probably closer to the loft of a modern 9 iron. If this is the case, you are longer than you think.

It is possible that your set has a bigger difference in loft between clubs than a typical set. But I don't think a 15 yd difference is unusually large.

1 iron? probably should invest in either a strong hybrid or a fairway wood. 1 irons are pretty impossible to hit unless your a PGA-caliber player.

Not if you know how to hit a golf club. I have a 2 iron in my 25 yr old Wilson Staff set. It's fairly easy to hit, and much more fun than a hybrid.

Hybrids are for science, not for golf.

straightshooter... my forged Wilson Staff iron set is 25 years old... they are exact remakes of the 1965 Wilson staff Fluid Feel forged irons. Each iron is 6 degrees higher (weaker if you prefer) than the modern day iron. So, when I played modern cavity back irons, if I brought out a 7 iron, I now will bring out the 5, or maybe the 6 iron with the Wilson Staffs... depends on the lie and fairway. YMMV

I agree. Lofts are completely different now. Callaway first started this trend and everyone else has followed suit. As to your yardage gaps it could depend on the loft difference between irons. You could take them to a club builder and he could give the loft of each club as well as the loft gap. You may have some irons, given their age, that need adjusting.

I'm impressed you can hit those long irons.

Straightshooter,

Consistency in golf is a good thing; if you are consistently 15 yds between clubs that is better than yardages all over the place. i would try and play with those yardages and see how they work for you. You should consider finding out all that you can about each club so you can make informed choices when it comes time to replace those irons, i.e. loft, lie, length, flex and flex profile of each club.

Good luck

nh43211

I am definitely not a PGA-caliber golfer, nowhere near! I only hit 1i, 2i, 3i off a tee. Not as hard as you may think. Keep in mind that my 1i may have the same loft as your 3i. Also, I essentially only hit one kind of club during my practice sessions, which helps.

The courses I play are short (<= 6,000 yards, with 150y-200y par 3s). A 200y drive is often just about perfect, so I rarely use 1i or 2i, for fear of rolling through the fairway. I would hit them into the wind, in which case I would want the low trajectory: I feel that I would hit a hybrid much too high in that situation.

That said, I do have 35 'other clubs', including 7 woods (3 d, 2 3w, 2 5w), and I will not hesitate to bring them with me on an 'as needed' basis.

That would be a ver-r-r-r-r-y heavy bag!

Agreed... I hit my 2 & 3 irons off the tee much easier than off the deck. Sure is nice when it works, though.

Good point. I have been sitting on an email draft to Wilson asking these questions for a few months now. Time to send it off! If they don't reply, I will have the lofts (etc.) measured at a clubmaker, or devise some way to do it myself. I should probably do that anyways, because they may have been altered (though I don't think so: I have a 2nd set of these (with a different shaft flex) to compare them with, and they set up the same).

straighshooter...

I sent an e-mail to Wilson middle of last year inquiring about my '65 Wilson Staffs. It took a few weeks, but they finally answered... unfortunately they said they no longer can access their historical files for the public. I asked why, but never got a reply.

Good luck with your letter... please let us know what they tell you.

That's why I was in no hurry: It is pretty hard to get info out of companies when there is no money to be made (and I don't blame them)! I think I will find out what their most expensive ball is, and tell them that I play it exclusively. Maybe that will help!

Anything to get them to open their archives. <-- the word I was looking for earlier.