So I wanted to take time and digest what I experienced on the course with these irons. The two above quoted posts I still stand by. The performance and feel of these irons are impressive. They check the looks department but I’m pausing a bit because some turf interaction I experienced this past weekend is bugging me. Coming from the 921 Forged the soles “cut” through the turf through impact and with these I got a lot of a the club wanting to stop through impact and really found myself having to work moving it through. I did experience some of this on my range session here locally but I chalked it up to “range conditions” and set that thought aside.I had my first range session with the Smoke irons. Transitioning from the Mizuno JPX 921 Forged, there is a lot to live up to from a looks and feel standpoint. Performance wise the 921’s offered plenty of distance and surprisingly decent forgiveness away from center. The 921’s have been in the bag for about 2 yrs now so I’m pretty dialed in with the distances & overall performance.
Today I wanted to see what my distances were through the bag, and more importantly focus on the feel. Here are some thoughts & for those following along, my set up is 5-AW | UST Mamiya Dart 105 F4 1*
Feel/Sound - This would be the area where I would be the most critical. I’ve been used to the Mizuno feel and while I was prepared to give the Smoke a break bc I was hitting range balls, I wasn’t ready for what I was feeling/hearing. Now YMMV but for me the “click” I was expecting to hear from a hollow body design wasn’t there. Especially with firmer range balls that I was hitting. I’m not saying the click wasn’t there, but it was way more muted than I expected. Even hits away from center didn’t give a negative experience to my ears or hands.
Performance- I had flags today at 82/122/156/173/193/228/256
The 82 flag was just warm up/target practice for my wedges. I took the AW and I was covering it easily and able to run a fee lower and check up.
The 122 flag was my AW and PW swings. My old clubs this would be my Pw all day and my GW I could stretch to get there but I rather swing easy. The Smoke AW was covering this number easy and that is basically a 1/2 or full club longer than my old set. The PW was covering that with more carry and with a nice ball flight. I made some mental notes here for sure
The 156/173 flags got the 6i-9i treatment. My 9i or 8i won’t get 150 but there was a little mound between the 122 and 156 flag where these were landing. Again the ball was jumping off the face, feeling pretty soft at impact. If I had to guess the 9i was hitting the 135ish range and rolling out . The 8i on a couple of good swings hit the 156 landing area and that is big for me. I moved onto the 6 and 7 irons and really wanted to see how my dispersion looks. I’m very comfortable with the 7 and with the 6 it becomes a little more of a challenge at times. The 7i was consistently covering the 156 flag and on a couple of swings it flew past it. The 6i was covering the 156 easy and I was routinely seeing the balls covering or landing close to the 173 flag. I think I can get more out of my 6i, but the 7i was just launching the balls and I was shocked how easily they were carrying the 156 flag. Results from the 7i
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The 5i and me have a delicate dance we maneuver. At times it’s the best club for me and sometimes it’s petulant child who won’t go to bed until they get a cookie. This club is rarely a full swing club but when it is I need at least 180 out of it. Today it could be honeymoon but I liked the results. Poor swings were landing at the 173 flag and good swings were carrying that easily and rolling up to the 193 flag. I did tee it up and loved the ball flight I saw with the distance landing where I expected. Overall I had no complaints from the long irons.
Through the bag I’m comfortable saying I was seeing 1/2 to a full club longer than my 921’s. The biggest surprise today was the feel at impact. It was soft and dense and not what I expected a hollow body to produce. I really want to get these out in the course with my gamer golf ball to get a good idea of what my yardages are. I suspect the carry will increase over the range balls so I’m anticipating a new carry distance.
The courses I played in AZ this weekend were pristine and gave me great lies to judge the sole/turf interaction. Now let me say the positive thoughts of feel and performance were there. The only issue I had was that decent to great shots were not as frequent as I wanted or needed. I will be the first to admit I’m a mediocre iron player at best, but the results after round one left me scratching my head a bit. So much that I asked @echico to hit my 7i on the range and give me his thoughts. He provided the similar feedback to what I was experiencing. He felt the club just wanted to stop at impact and you had to work a bit to get it though. Thinking back the good to great shots i hit this weekend, those swings were a result of me “picking” the ball through impact and trying to take minimal divots. I just thought to myself “swing like you’re in a fairway bunker” and the results were there but I know that’s not sustainable long term. I hit an all world fairway bunker shot that @BigMac witnessed and it flew every bit of 180.
I’m not giving up yet and I want to play these irons here at home on courses I know to get more feedback, but I wanted to give an honest assessment, good and bad, based on my experiences so far. I am not sure if these irons are the best fit for me based on how I deliver the club to the ball, but I’m not giving up yet bc the shaft and head combo gives me some amazing results when I catch these at or near center.
