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One Length Irons Thread: Join the Revolution

SuperStroke
Without going to One Length irons, I couldnt imagine gaming a 4i. Now, it's a solid ponder. For me, it just makes it easier to hit a long iron when keeping the same swing as a mid iron and allowing the loft to do it's thing. The fact that I can actually elevate a long iron and rely on solid distance just make having a long iron shot exciting.
 
Ferris s said:
Does anyone make a one length Hybrid iron like a Wilson launch pad Type
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You could also build your own version of it using the Aerojet 4i. In my OL set, I have a slightly overlength 4i as a driving iron that replaced a Mizuno Fli-Hi. It helps to have a bit more length to generate enough speed to elevate the 4i. Otherwise, I would go with the Aerojet 4 Hybrid in that spot, or a standard OL Aerojet 4i.

Notably, the Aerojet line promotes great launch. So I think any of the foregoing would be a great option.
 
BigDill said:
Notably, the Aerojet line promotes great launch.
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I take the promises of golf manufacturers as seriously as those from politicians 😜
 
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BigDill said:
You could also build your own version of it using the Aerojet 4i. In my OL set, I have a slightly overlength 4i as a driving iron that replaced a Mizuno Fli-Hi. It helps to have a bit more length to generate enough speed to elevate the 4i. Otherwise, I would go with the Aerojet 4 Hybrid in that spot, or a standard OL Aerojet 4i.

Notably, the Aerojet line promotes great launch. So I think any of the foregoing would be a great option.
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And THIS is why I went the AJ OL 4i. I bet it's a rocket launcher.
 
volvofan said:
I take the promises of golf manufacturers as seriously as those from politicians 😜
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I was talking from my own, grassroots campaign 😂
 
This is a great thread! I am on my fourth set of single length irons, and this time I seem to have found something that is really good.

First set was back in 2015, the Sterlings. Mid and short irons were great but I didn´t get along with the long irons. Played them on and off for around two years. Went back to VL. In 2020, I had a set of EQ1-NX built. Tried a shorter length this time because "shorter is easier to hit". Big miss. The 36.75 length felt to short and although the heads are good designs and the Rapid Tapers are great shafts, the combination for me was a disaster.

Fast forward to the summer of 2023. I bought a set of Aerojets from Cobra. I like the KBS Tour lite shaft and the heads are great. Long and forgiving. Spin a little on the low side but ok. In sum, another disaster. Clubs were to short even with the 37.25 length. The felt flat. And I still can not understand the idea behind those little tweaks. I mean, why have different lie angles on a set of OL irons? It does not make sense to me. I get that the idea is shaft droop but really, how much is there in a 5 iron that swings around 80 mph? We are not taking driver here. I understand that the Aerojets are popular and they deserve to be. But they don´t fit me at all.

During all the past 8 years I have played VL irons parallell to OL. The best set of the VL bunch is a MOI matched set of TM P770 irons. Then I found 1 iron golf. Ordered a set of Blackstones. Eureka! First of all, coming from all the latest clubs from Mizuno, TM, Callaway, Cobra, PXG and so on, the Blackstone is old school tech. It´s a cast head with an undercut cavity. Thats it. Nothing fancy, nothing modern about it. COG is low and that makes the irons easy to hit. Thats about it. Fitting is only for length. As you can imagine, I was not convinced about the "same optimal lie angle for all and same optimal grip for all etc." and you only need to fit for length based on your WTF measurement. But for me it really seams to work. My irons are built to 38.5. Finally a club that feels good, is long enough and let me swing in perfect balance. Heads are a bit lighter that Wishon (and Cobra?) which is good when building to longer lengths. Shaft is a regular weight blank. Maybe TT, FST or Apollo, I don´t know. But it feels fantastic. Great stability and feel is good with no unwanted vibrations. Total weight is a bit higher than I normally use and swing weight is around what I like at D6. All irons are the same except for loft. I have always liked, all my 35 years of playing, to setup with the ball in the middle of my stance. Now it finally makes sense.

In sum, my point is not to say that 1 iron golf is better than either Wishon nor Cobra. They are not. Cobra for one is definitely more high tech than 1 iron. My point is that fitting is really crucial when going to OL. Why? Because you are hitting that exact club over and over again. My first round with these clubs was indoors using Trackman. 6200 yard course. Settings were easy with slower greens and no wind. Putting on auto fixed. I had 8 birdies, 8 pars and 2 bogeys. Shot a 66 on that par 72 course. All iron and wedge shots felt good, setup was comfortable and balanced and I only had to put the same swing on every shot. (Except woods). I have high expectations going into the 2024 season.
 
@DD740 I couldn’t agree more. I have gamed single length irons since they were first released and haven’t looked back. I went from a 12-13 handicap to a 3. If it weren’t for the damn driver, I would be scratch. . .hopefully that can get fixed this coming year.

Anyway, after gaming Cobra for the past several seasons (played F7, F8, F9, Forged Tec 2020 and Forged Tec 2022), I decided to switch to the Edel SLS01 irons toward the end of the golf season. I was making the switch not because I had a problem with Cobra. I loved the Cobra irons. I had gone through and customized them for me. But, I realize that as I get older, it was getting harder to get the same performance out of the extra stiff/heavy shafts (KBS 130 XS). I wanted to make the change to graphite shafts that were a little softer.

I made the switch from Cobra to Edel and bought a couple sets of the SLS01’s with Graphite shafts. Loved them. However, I fell in love with the appearance of the new Edel SMS Pro irons. In my opinion, they are easily the best looking irons on the market. I embarked on a mission to build my own single length clubs with their newest irons (even though they advised against it).

I couldn’t be happier with the results. Because Edel has the movable weights, I was able to go through and get everything setup. Now I will be gaming the SMS Pro irons (custom built for me w/ Paterson Kinetixx One shafts) and will keep one of the SLS01 sets as my backup.

Here are the initial numbers from my SMS Pro single length irons. The club data is not accurate because I didn’t use stickers for this session (please ignore club data). I was only hitting 3-4 shots with each club. With my new launch monitor I won’t need stickers any more so all sessions will have both club and ball data. In the coming month, I will go through make a few more adjustments and get the launch angle, spin rate, descent angles exactly where I want them.


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drrussellhogue said:
@DD740 I couldn’t agree more. I have gamed single length irons since they were first released and haven’t looked back. I went from a 12-13 handicap to a 3. If it weren’t for the damn driver, I would be scratch. . .hopefully that can get fixed this coming year.

Anyway, after gaming Cobra for the past several seasons (played F7, F8, F9, Forged Tec 2020 and Forged Tec 2022), I decided to switch to the Edel SLS01 irons toward the end of the golf season. I was making the switch not because I had a problem with Cobra. I loved the Cobra irons. I had gone through and customized them for me. But, I realize that as I get older, it was getting harder to get the same performance out of the extra stiff/heavy shafts (KBS 130 XS). I wanted to make the change to graphite shafts that were a little softer.

I made the switch from Cobra to Edel and bought a couple sets of the SLS01’s with Graphite shafts. Loved them. However, I fell in love with the appearance of the new Edel SMS Pro irons. In my opinion, they are easily the best looking irons on the market. I embarked on a mission to build my own single length clubs with their newest irons (even though they advised against it).

I couldn’t be happier with the results. Because Edel has the movable weights, I was able to go through and get everything setup. Now I will be gaming the SMS Pro irons (custom built for me w/ Paterson Kinetixx One shafts) and will keep one of the SLS01 sets as my backup.

Here are the initial numbers from my SMS Pro single length irons. The club data is not accurate because I didn’t use stickers for this session (please ignore club data). I was only hitting 3-4 shots with each club. With my new launch monitor I won’t need stickers any more so all sessions will have both club and ball data. In the coming month, I will go through make a few more adjustments and get the launch angle, spin rate, descent angles exactly where I want them.


View attachment 9232740View attachment 9232741View attachment 9232742
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It's cool you got the SMS to work in a OL setup. With what I'm seeing with the different Kinetixx Single Length trajectories, I'd like to see a model in the OL marketplace that has a center weight that can be moved vertically on the face. Perhaps that causes other design issues, but I think being able to dial in trajectory on individual irons is a positive feature for OL setups
 
willplaysgolf said:
It's cool you got the SMS to work in a OL setup. With what I'm seeing with the different Kinetixx Single Length trajectories, I'd like to see a model in the OL marketplace that has a center weight that can be moved vertically on the face. Perhaps that causes other design issues, but I think being able to dial in trajectory on individual irons is a positive feature for OL setups
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I think that getting the right shaft would adjust trajectories. Not sure that’s needed for a head design. In my setup I experimented with moving a heavier weight around in the face. If I needed vertical adjustments, I would just use led tape on the back of the club. However, I have found in my own testing, the important thing is to make sure that each club hits a specific spin window as that will correlate to the flight pattern.

To make the weighting work correctly, I did end up using some tungsten powder under the weights to get things exactly where I wanted. By using the weight ports I was able to do the math and make head weight very close to the same throughout. However, with the Paderson shafts I found that the overall weight of the club was far more important than the swing weight to make the clubs feel correct.

My irons are 492g from 4-9i and 514g from PW-LW. It was a coin toss with the PW, did I want to make it the same weight as irons or same weight as wedges?

I am super excited for next golf season. I did a write-up on another forum about the play-by-play for designing and building the single length clubs. I should probably do the same here.
 
Seriously pondering the new dark speed cobras. Can you gents tell me about what you saw moving to OL and any lessons learned?
 
outlawx said:
Seriously pondering the new dark speed cobras. Can you gents tell me about what you saw moving to OL and any lessons learned?
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I moved to OL irons in 2018, and havent gone back.

For me, it improved my iron play all the way around, from short irons to long irons.

For my shorter irons and wedges, I found that I hit the ball much higher with a significantly better launch. I went from mid-high launching shots, to high launching shots, and saw an increase in distance and spin.

The longer irons are where the OL really shine for me, though. I had always struggled with a 4/5/6i and eventually gave them up. With the OL irons in the short irons, 4/5/6i are now a strength of my game. Same swing as a short iron, but let the loft do the work. The longer length shafts in the long irons always caused me fits, but now keeping the same swing through the set really allows me to take a lot of thought out of my swing, and let the lofts do the magic.

Currently gaming the Aerojet OL irons, and if the Darkspeed irons are improvements over them, my head may explode.
 
I keep coming back to this thread. I need to just find a set and give them a go. Hitting a club a few times in the store doesn’t give me a chance to really get used to them. Plus every time I’ve asked to hit OL in the PGASS, the sales person discourages the idea.
 
Tee/Ski said:
I keep coming back to this thread. I need to just find a set and give them a go. Hitting a club a few times in the store doesn’t give me a chance to really get used to them. Plus every time I’ve asked to hit OL in the PGASS, the sales person discourages the idea.
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Unfortunately this happened to me. Still curious though. If the work I plan to put into my game doesn't translate to better iron play this year I am going to dive in.
 
Tee/Ski said:
I keep coming back to this thread. I need to just find a set and give them a go. Hitting a club a few times in the store doesn’t give me a chance to really get used to them. Plus every time I’ve asked to hit OL in the PGASS, the sales person discourages the idea.
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Pro tip #1, dont listen to a sales person. Their job is to sell.
 
New DarkSpeeds look good. I miss my OL! To me, there’s a simplicity to them that wants to make the game somewhat easier.
 
Tee/Ski said:
I keep coming back to this thread. I need to just find a set and give them a go. Hitting a club a few times in the store doesn’t give me a chance to really get used to them. Plus every time I’ve asked to hit OL in the PGASS, the sales person discourages the idea.
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If you want to do it you have to jump right in. Most sales people tend to shy away from what they don't know.
 
Scooby45 said:
Unfortunately this happened to me. Still curious though. If the work I plan to put into my game doesn't translate to better iron play this year I am going to dive in.
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Good idea, I’m also getting lessons but if those don’t carryover to the course I should do the same.
 
Tee/Ski said:
Good idea, I’m also getting lessons but if those don’t carryover to the course I should do the same.
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I can bring you my set of Aerojet OL on Saturday. You can try them for however long you want.
 
War Eagle said:
For my shorter irons and wedges, I found that I hit the ball much higher with a significantly better launch. I went from mid-high launching shots, to high launching shots, and saw an increase in distance and spin.
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I demo'd a set of Cobra OL a few years ago, and I found this as well. Shots hit with 8i and above were some of the best I've ever hit. I was laughing at their launch.

6i-4i were not as good for me though, and all went very low with the same distance. Those results kept me from moving to OL. That said - I'm betting a few more years of research and tech would probably give me a much better result with those clubs.
 
I really love the concept of OL. However the couple of times that I have tried them I have had issues with the short irons.
 
smgoldstein said:
I really love the concept of OL. However the couple of times that I have tried them I have had issues with the short irons.
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So did I, until I tried the Aerojets. Now I don’t have any gapping issues as all, and have been really accurate with my distance numbers. FWIW, I’m playing standard length specialty wedges.
 
I'm sure they were well under way in terms with production, but I'm very surprised that Cobra released one length this season.
 
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