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My Long Term Review Of Nike VR Pro Combo Irons

SuperStroke
theslflash689

theslflash689

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So these came in yesterday. This thread will be my long term review of the clubs. First of all they came in the wrong flex, R300 instead of S300, but it's fine because I was probably going to install KBS Tour Stiffs anyway.

Day 1:
- Took them out to the range yesterday. I opened the 8 iron blade, 5 iron cavity, and the 3 iron pocket cavity.

- Looks: The 3 iron, unlike what some say, fits very well into this set. Unlike some other progressive/combo sets, Nike did a very good job of hiding the big pocket in the back of the iron. You see a little of it at address, but unless you are real picky, you won't really notice. Also, the topline is not thick, it looks like a players iron. The 5 iron looks similar to the VR splits from a year ago, but sexier. haha. It might be the chrome, or extra grooves, whatever it was, it worked for me. The 8 iron had to be the best looking blade I have ever seen. If I had the game I would love to play a whole set of blades because they look that good. The blades however have a thin topline compared to the rest of the set, but still inspires confidence. I felt very confident standing over this set.

- Feel: Buttery soft. The sound was a bit of a click, but not a cast click. It was a nice sound. 8 iron is solid at impact, and when you miss, you know. So that is definitely one thing to consider, is that the blades ARE blades, and they will have the forgiveness of blades. You could feel the little bit of help in the CB of the 5 iron, and the 3 iron has a hot face, but it still feels like a forged club. Kind of a mix between GI iron with a hot face, but you still get a solid forged feel. The other thing is when you miss, the ball goes, but you still know where you missed. I loved this about the club.

- Flight/Distance: Since the shafts were wrong, the flight was quite high. I also got a couple balloons when going after it, but again, flex is too soft. The one thing that I know was consistent in all my demos is that the 8 iron blade stays down. The 5 iron gets the help you expect from the CB, but not too high. The 3 iron is penetrating, but not too low. The one thing that I cannot praise enough about these clubs is that the 3 iron is as easy to hit as the rest of the set. Everything flows together in this set, and it's got me wanting to put a 3 iron back in the bag!!! Something I haven't had since I was a junior. For distance, I was about half a club longer than my Mizuno t-zoids with these. My 5 iron is usually around 175 and I was easily getting to 185 with these. More to come when I get the shafts I actually want in them. I can't wait to see a change in distances, hopefully it's for the better, and I don't lose anything.

- Workability: these perform like a players club should, but at the same time you do notice the progressiveness in this set. All the clubs are real easy to hit high or low, left to right, from 8 to 3 iron. The difference is that the 8 iron's distance control was superb. As you get into the longer irons they seem, for me at least, to behave a little more like GI irons. The 3 iron is hot, and you will feel it. The CB irons, the 5 in this case, was pretty good at consistent distances when I hit it pure. All landing around the 180 yard green.

Alright, more to come when I install the KBS shafts on Monday (if the ebay seller doesn't get back to me). Also going to try to play a full round tomorrow or next Wednesday maybe. Stay tuned!
 
Where did you get them from that they sent the wrong shafts? For the kind of money, you should get what you pay for, not what they ship.
I got to try these out at the outing last year, and instantly fell in love!! Those had Project X 6.0, AMAZING!!!

Thanks for the review. subscribed for future input.
 
I got the clubs from eBay. It was over half off retail. I figure once I got it that it wouldn't be that by of a deal since I wanted to put the kbs tours in there anyway.
 
Great write up. I've demoed these clubs a few times and love them. I've used to have the S300 in my old irons which are pretty similar to the VR's. Have you gotten the KBS shafts yet?
 
Yep. And since the eBay seller hasn't responded to me I'm just going to unwrap the rest of the set and put kbs in there today.
 
Hope it works out for you, those are great clubs, I know a couple of guys playing them and they love em.
 
im looking at the vr pro cavity irons!!!
 
What do you mean by "The sound was a bit of a click, but not a cast click" and "the 3 iron has a hot face, but it still feels like a forged club" ?
 
Hawk said:
What do you mean by "The sound was a bit of a click, but not a cast click" and "the 3 iron has a hot face, but it still feels like a forged club" ?
Click to expand...

The sound was a little different than the rest of the set. It had a higher pitch to it. Could be my bad ears though, haha, people say my hearing isn't my greatest strength. Basically with feel, the 3 iron feels like a hot face, similar to a club like the r9 where the ball really just goes, and by forged feel I mean that it has a soft forged feel and also mis hits are easy to tell off the face. Basically you know when you hit the sweetspot. As some say, there's no real other feeling like hitting a forged iron flush in the middle.
 
Hawk said:
What do you mean by "The sound was a bit of a click, but not a cast click" and "the 3 iron has a hot face, but it still feels like a forged club" ?
Click to expand...

I dont know what a cast click sounds like either. Click is a click is a click. Different clubs have different audible tones regardless of whether they were made by casting or forging.
 
True JB. I honestly don't know. I heard a sound that was slightly different from the rest of the set, but again my hearing isn't the best. I am taking them out again to hit today, so maybe I'll hear something different.
 
Went out to hit a small bucket today after work. Again, the 5 iron is real easy to get up in the air, as is the 3 iron. I am sure now, when you hit the pocket cavities on the screws, it produces a little higher pitched sound than the rest of the set. But honestly, unless you're really listening for it, it's not that noticeable. Hopefully you'd be concentrating on your golf shot rather than the sound the club makes :D. And the flight paired with how easy it is to hit the ball really outweigh sound that the club could make.
 
Ebayer got my order right and sent me the S300's and even refunded my original 20 dollar shipping! Went out to hit with the s300's this time. Dispersion was tighter and ball flight was brought down a tad. I just wanted the s300's for the sake of having them, even though I will be changing to KBS on monday.
First full round tomorrow with an update again.
 
First full round today! Shot a terrible 92 but I did hit plenty of greens (not quite GIR because of some tree tag i played today). I had about 10 or 11 shots from outside 150 yards. Each shot flew straight and was easy to get up in the air. One shot was 185 yards on a long par 4. I took out my 4 iron without hesitation and took a nice smooth swing. Ball started out at a mid flight and boom! landed on the front of the green and released to just below the pin. Another was a 6 iron from 160 with the wind. I swung and hit the ball off the toe... and again, landed on the left side of the green. The flight was a bit low with the s300's today, but still higher than my old Mizuno t-zoids.
One more thing, about these new x3x grooves. I had 2 shots from about 160-165 in the rough. I used the 6 iron cb and the ball held the green very well, which was surprising for me since it was out of the rough. It did release about 6 or 7 feet, but I think part of that could be me not producing enough height or spin on my shot (hence the switch soon to KBS Tours). Overall a very good experience. A few more rounds and range sessions will help, but so far it looks like these babies have found a home in my bag!
 
Just caught up on the thread, sounds like you have the irons for you. Let us know how the KBS shafts work out.
 
Second round today with the S300 shafts in the clubs. Definitely hit them low, but the grooves on these things really like to bite. I had one shot from 140 out in the sand, took my 9 iron out, and the ball actually had backspin! I was amazed. My distances are around the same as my old mizunos, but I think part of that could be that the shafts are a little heavy for me and I'm not getting great height on the ball outside of the short irons. The change to KBS tomorrow should make a difference, but won't be able to get them out until next week.
 
I will be looking forward to your thoughts once you pair these with the KBS'. These may have been my favorite irons at demo day and knowing that the KBS' are ideal shafts for me, I can't wait to follow along with this thread.

Do you have the stock grips? They were awful in Florida.

tapatalk: even available for lefties!
 
TC said:
I will be looking forward to your thoughts once you pair these with the KBS'. These may have been my favorite irons at demo day and knowing that the KBS' are ideal shafts for me, I can't wait to follow along with this thread.

Do you have the stock grips? They were awful in Florida.

tapatalk: even available for lefties!
Click to expand...

Yeah. The stock nike GP grips are on there. They actually aren't too bad once you break em in. I would love to have some lamkins or decade grips on there, but these do the job. The KBS tours will have tour velvets on them. Check back soon for updates!
 
Went in to see my clubmaker today. He plugged the KBS Tour Stiffs into my 6 iron head. Although KBS says the shaft is 6.0, but it flexes I think a little higher at I think 6.3 is what some said... THESE FREQUENCIED OUT AT 6.9!!! WAY TOO STIFF FOR ME. Even softstepped they would be around 6.5. He said I'm around a 5.5 or a little higher. So I told him I wanted something that actually fit me. He took a True Temper Tour Concept shaft and put it in. Frequencied out closer to 5.7 I believe. Free of charge he told me to demo it and see how I like it. I'm definitely happy I went to check with him again. I guess these KBS must be more like a Stiff + then. Anyway, the KBS are either going back up on sale, and it's now between keeping the S300's or getting the Tour Concept's that he has.
 
Glad to hear you finally pulled the trigger on some new irons flash!!

I take it you didn't get much of a chance to hit the 6 with the tour concept in?
 
Canadan said:
Glad to hear you finally pulled the trigger on some new irons flash!!

I take it you didn't get much of a chance to hit the 6 with the tour concept in?
Click to expand...

Not yet. But I will tomorrow. Took a couple practice swings with it so far and they seem really easy to swing but still maintain that dynamic gold weight. Feel is weighty like dynamic gold but smooth like kbs. We'll see how it goes. Had the 6 iron softstepped once and brougt to a d2 swingweight. I'll update tomorrow.
 
let us know how the work, i really like the look of these
 
Tried the tour concepts today. Definitely a higher ball flight than DG's. I was about 10 yards further with my 6 iron, so 170 instead of 160. However I did feel that when I got after one or had a steeper angle of attack, the ball seemed to want to go right. Not a push, but a fade. Although it could just be me not being used to the lighter feel of the club. Maybe my lag isn't held as long as with the DG. Another range session tomorrow.

I would think that these shafts, which are fitted for my swing, would be a great combo with the VR Pro Combos, but I have to see if they really work for me. Anyone else have these issues with the Tour Concepts?
 
Ok, time to update the review. I just had True Temper Tour Concept s3 shafts installed, this time not softstepped, just straight in. Feel was smoother than Dynamic Gold, swingspeed and launch angle were higher. I was about half a club to a club longer in every iron. Spin rates were up as well. The pro combos are now officially my permanent set for a while. Went out to play on Thursday, and I hit 7 out of my first 9 greens in regulation. The back 9 was not so nice to me (driver issues). Pretty much if I put myself in the fairway, or at least away from trees, these irons are money! I had a 165 yard approach, took out a 6 iron, nice piercing trajectory, yet the ball landed soft and I stuck it to 2 feet away from the cup. The feedback and workability of these irons are amazing! At the same time I feel that there is a more than adequate amount of forgiveness in these sticks for a mid to low handicapper. Again, high handicapper's beware, the short iron blades are true blades, and as such will have the forgiveness of true blades.

Short irons shoot accurate darts, mid irons give you consistency and forgiveness on mis hits, but still provide feedback, and the long irons really throw the ball up there, giving you longer distances with easy swings, and the ball flight of the longer irons really make sure you don't hit the green and bounce over. Combined with the Tour Concept shafts, I feel that this could be the most versatile and best combo set ever made. (note: for those that don't know, tour concepts are flighted, so aside from the extra height and forgiveness of the long irons, the shafts for the longer irons help the ball up even more, and the shorter shafts keep the ball down, preventing ballooning.)
 
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