"What am I doing with this putter... Yeah I'm already going to take that back, cannot blame the putter for that." This video had me rolling! You do an excellent job at providing comedic relief, yet not being too hard on yourself or overly negative. Very relatable round of golf to watch where you have highs and lows. Keep up the good work!
Bro.... I started on blades on am still playing with them. It's very much a love hate relationship. The "pure" is so pure, and everything else is just.... a wreck hahaha. You might be my new favorite channel
I started playing again in 2020 after 27 years of pause. With my Hogan Apex Redlines from 1988. I have to say, my 2020 Srixon 785:s feel as good as those and look much nicer because of virtually zero offset. My old stiff shafts would be something like "senior flex" nowadays 😂
I started a year ago with some old-ish set of game improvement TM M2, and they were all right, I was hitting it far, but then they started to break on me as the shafts were a bit rusty, I had these till HCP about 28 (now 18). I randomly bought a set of Mizuno MP-20s, not knowing really what a blade was, and I instantly realised how badly I was hitting those M2s and it was just the forgiveness that got me anywhere... Anyway I never looked back, it is a steep learning curve I guess, but in golf I'm eager to learn. And obviously we did not pick golf because it's easy, right? :D
100%, the feedback from missing the middle with a blade is better for your ball striking in the long run, and when you do hit it from the middle the ball flights are amazing.
Yes, a 20 handicap can play only with blades. I played with Mizuno blades for the first 30 years I played golf, with Tour shafts. Definitely not fit for my game, but that's what I had to play with. This year, on my 50th birthday, I bought myself a set of Callaway Ai Smoke High Launch irons. Played them about 6 times and still trying to figure them out. I hit the blades straighter.
I just found your channel and have to say….your personality is infectious!! ❤ Your energy makes me wanna go play a round right now! Keep being yourself and keep on filming on! 🤘🤘
It’s absolute cobblers about high hcp can’t use blades. Started as 28 hcp with Wilson staff fg51s back in 90’s.. now off +3 .. so never harm hobby player as me. Put time in, get some sound technique, and rest takes care itself. Stop using oversize shovels because advised so.
I second this. I learnt to play with set of Spalding blades in the 80’s as kid, then onto Wilson, Mizuno and Titleist. A wise old pro told me back then that if i could play with the Spalding I could play with anything. I was about technique not power. I still can’t pick a bulky headed club up and feel right over the ball.
I started over 30 handicap then decided to get a set of taylormade p730s, 6 months later started from scratch im now a 12..and improving, and there isnt a driving range where im at im a autodidact you tube golfer lol.
The handicap thing is a generalisation. If you're a 28hcp with very good ball-striking then blades will be no problem. However if your ball-striking is inconsistent - which probably encompasses a lot of high handicappers - you will struggle for a while
I started playing in 1983 at age 31 with a set of Browning Premier irons which today would be called “Player’s” or advanced amateur clubs. The PING Eye had been marketed for twenty years at that point a PING Eye 2 had just been released but cost about $1200 or 3x more than I paid for my set which had steel shafted, small stainless steel 5W, 3W and Driver. PING revolutionized the design not only putters but irons. The different between blades and what came to be called “game improvement” irons with more “foregiveness” by around 1995 was based on Karsten Solheim realizing that the old Bullseye puttering and blade irons he started playing with in the late 1950s in his 30s had too much “toe bias” which caused them to twist face open in the backswing and closed in the downswing. He realizes by moving the mass to the heel and sole of the club it’s “moment of interia” or tendency to want to twist in the hands could be “tuned” to keep the club square to the swing arc. Moving the mass from the middle - the muscle mass in MB clubs - also reduced deflection when balls where not hit exactly on the point of balance - the sweet spot- making it “bigger” and “more forgiving” of miss-hit shots. The “big lie” in golf marketing was calling the ‘more forgiving of misses’ higher MOI designs “game improvement”. They did nothing to improve a golfer’s swing because they masked poor technique. What they did was keep more shots hit with bad swings in the shorter grass improving scores but not technique. A golfer needed to see their the PGA instructor at their club to sort that out because the clubs were no longer giving them the feedback of bad shots needed to: 1) understand they had fundamental swing flaws, and; 2) self-improve by trying different things read in golf books. I went down that rabbit hole in the mid-90s. I hadn’t played for several years by then and the grips on my original Brownings were hard as rocks so to test out the “new tech” I bought a cheap set of Nicklaus brand fiber shafted “game improvement” clubs at Costco. They were more forgiving of miss hit shots but provided less feedback via missed that my old irons which told me it the hands when I hit off center. When I was forced into retirement from the Foreign Service in 2007 at age 55 after 25 years, I decided to make my new “job” improving my golf game my new job and to do it cheaply I went to work at Broad Run Golf in Bristow, VA in the pro shop then as starter/marshal working for min. wage but getting unlimited free range balls and rounds on its challenging Rick Jacobsen designed Par 35 nine-hole layout on what had been the site of a Civil War battle. I decided to go “Old School” by using Hogan’s Five Lessons book for instruction and a set of circa 1979 Wilson Reflex irons I had found at a thrift store and re-gripped which had tiny heads but were historically noteworthy as being the first thin face “slot” designs. They had a sweet spot which was only about 1/4” in diameter but man when you managed to hit it the shots were ‘butter’ 😊 In the space of four years practicing on the range and playing 18” holes every day, mostly solo practice rounds working on technique not score, I was shooting in the low 40s for nine holes and had birdied all nine at least once, but never all on the same round until one day the sun, moon and planets aligned and I finally shot a par 35 nine-hole round which was the goal I’d set for myself starting out. The things in retrospect which were most important to my self-awareness and self-improvement were: 1) being able to play every day; 2) Hogan’s book, in particular finally learning to gip the club properly and the swing drill he suggested, and 3) the fact the clubs I was using were so unforgiving of weak or poorly aimed shots. The drill Hogan suggested was to only hit 1/4 shots from backswing extension and wrist cock to finish extension until being able hit them accurately on the sweet spot of the face of a 7 iron and then and only then progressing to 1/2, 3/4 and Full swing shots, stopping that progression and reverting back to the 1/4 swing shots to analyze what was causing the problems as swing arc increased. For the first few weeks I used nothing but my 7i both at the range and playing entire nine-hole rounds tee to green with it. That brilliantly eliminated all the variable of constant changing clubs but something few it seems are willing or able to do. I wound up playing for over ten years with a set of circa 1980s 3i - LW PING EYE2 I found in pristine condition at a thrift store for $60, then three years ago to circa 2009 PING S57 for better ‘feel” and this spring shaped 20yard draw for a bounce and roll-in Eagle with them. I’ve now switched to a set of circa 2000 Mizuno T-Zoid SG I found on Nextdoor for $120.
This is the typical 20+ handicapper I see at my club as well (at least when the player isn't +60 age). Very decent iron player, plenty of distance, but short game and putting lacking severely :P I'm 8.2 35 years old and you hit it as far as me. Work on your short game, gate drill and speed control with putter and if you can hit your driver in play most of the time (it's hard I know) you'd drop very quickly :D For short game, I'd highly recommend Dan Grieve. Helped me SO much.
I'm around the same handicap as you & have used blades for 5 years. I switched to cavity backs at one point but the distances were all over the place and there really was no difference in 'forgiveness'. I love blades because i know exactly what they're going to do & how far they will go, even on mis-hits. Imo, it's a total myth that you need to be a low handicapper to play blades, but you do need the right shafts & to have reasonably good ball striking.
Started golfing a year ago with a free set I got from and old coworker, it was a set of ol ping S89 blades. And now I kinda upgraded to a basically free set of tittleist MB712 blades and I still out hit my friends with newer sets in the bags such as pxg and tm p790’s. All I could say is thanks to my first set I really had to work on my mechanics to hit the balls with my blades but don’t shy away from them.
I honestly think that modern blades get a bad rap. They can be more forgiving than people give them credit for. I'm around a 20 handicap, and I actually use this exact set of MP-18 mb irons, 4-P. They are lovely clubs, and I find that you lose a little distance with off-center hits, but it's not horrible. Older blades are a bit less forgiving. Nice vid, man! Thanks for sharing the fun!
When I've started with my last golf coach, he asked me what I was expecting about golf; and I've answered "being good enough to play blades"... And he asked why I was not playing them at that moment, and my answer was my high handicap (It was 33 or 34, I don't remember exactly), they're hard to hit and yadda yadda yadda... A month later, he messages me that someone offered him a set of Tommy Armour V25 heads, and telling me that he'll talk with a fellow clubmaker to get some nice light shafts to build them... The price was literally dirt cheap and I love them: They helped me to shave my handicap up to 23.4. Are they tough to hit compared to cavity backs? YES; but they're not THAT hard! The problem is how we handle the frustration over a bad shot, and what we blame for it... The last thing we do is to accept our faults, practice a bit more consciously, and move on. This applies for a lot of things in golf, being a tough sport, lots of people cannot handle much frustration: when it's not the equipment, are the swing mechanics, when not the rules, and after that the turf conditions. Take a deep breathe and accept that golf is a game of mistakes, and wins who fails less and small.
Buddy. The shot tracers on this round were laser beams. The sound of those clubs was solid. I would have a hard time giving them back too. I also blame the motorcycle man putter. Lol That thing just looks funny over the ball.
Maltby TS4 blades are actually super game improvement forgiving, you should give those a look. I'm a15 hcp give or take, and I use them for 9-PW, and then CB TE+ 4-8i.
I am a 20 handicap, and I went for a full fitting at the PGA pro shop. only two irons were picked for me out of 8. I had to choose from Taylormade P770 or Titleist t150. I went with the T150. I have played them for one month and the knocked 5 stokes off my score.
Blades are great. It prioritizes ball striking and forces the golfer to focus on the quality of strike instead of swinging as hard as they can… give any golfer that regularly plays a set of blades for a year, at the end of that year, they will have become better ball strikers.
MP-18 throwback. I still play MP-18 and Mp-20's. MP-18's classics. Where many newbies fail is to get the proper swing weight on irons. Given you are playing the throwback MP-18's chances are you bought them used... and so the Swing Weight is likely to have been altered. Used clubs should always have the swing weight verified and adjusted. You never know what the person before you did to the clubs.
I have a new set of new P790s with 70g stiff recoil shafts, I also picked up a cheap set of Mizuno mp32 with S300's (130g), I'm a little sad because the blades are more consistent, and I can't tell people I hit my 5 iron 225 yards. Here in the states hitting distance/baseball is a pure ego thing. I think blades are the way to go, they revile your swing and force you to focus.
Blade irons are awesome for practice. I always practice with mp 221 blades though i play mp 223 etc while on course. They give instant feedback during practice, hit low on face stay down slight longer. Hit on toe side and club twisted, keep it closer to body. Etc. helps improve faster, though needs a growth mindset and determination as many shots go bad and you need to not give up. Gland to see you trying them.
I prefer a smaller blade length iron/ thin top line. I believe it makes you a better ball striker. Had xforged, ap2, apex pros. Now swinging Srixon zx7
Of course they can. Once upon a time every golfer had to play blades. Blades are ironically game improvement irons i.e. you have to hit the middle with them.
Well done Dennis! Another great round. Your swing with irons and approaches have improved a tonne! Next step is putting and trying to hit something a bit longer from the tee (I can't recall if you've had a 3 hybrid before?)!
@BogeyGolfUK I'm glad you love them! When I started golfing I couldn't take the look of a beginners club, it was just so big at address. I bought the callaway x tours, the same irons Phil used back in the day. I thoroughly believe they also help you get better faster just cuz you gotta hit the middle lol. My son recently got into golf. Dad gave him a cheap set of t-made r7 irons and they've been a good starter. He recently hit my forged clubs and was like.... hold up wait a minute, why do those feel so good?? 😂 Now he wants the srixon zx 7 irons or the callaway mbs for Christmas 😂😂. More people should play forged clubs. Especially now with all the players distance clubs they have available now.
There's not a lot wrong with your iron game and that's a lovely swing - I can imagine your handicap tumbling in the coming year or so! Especially as your judgement improves and you invest more time into your short game.
What are the iron you are playing? Because Mizuno 245 looks like blade but are not blade if you mis hit a blade you might be 20 yards short but a 245 will not penalize you as much. The 241 are the real blades. Have a nice day
I mean... You *can*, depends on how much you care about hitting a low score reliably :P (says the HCP 30 who only has blades). I personally have so much fun utilizing the feedback, practicing and utilizing shaped shots that are bound to increase my score. I at least tell myself that I have more fun doing that then looking at a low score.
@@BogeyGolfUK I feel you. All of us amateurs spend far too much time hitting buckets of balls with driver and far too little time practicing on the putting green. That is truly where youll make up the most strokes.
I thought that was a pretty good 9 holes mate, sure, putting was a bit off but no silly shots, more concentration and playing sensible layups instead of going for the green every time. Of course I do none of those things which is why I'm a 22 hcap 😂
That one 4 iron of the t-box is what your swing should be. The rest of the time? Your trailing arm is whacky. Fix that and you'll be much more consistent.
@@BogeyGolfUK absolutely you were fine with them. Compressing them well. They’re muscle backs these days not like a traditional blade from the 80s & 90s. I game mizuno 241 blades, anyone can game them mate.
