Callaway now make 'blades'.........

Hi Guys,

Just had this e-mail through with the first pictures of the new Callaway Blades.

Attached Images

NEW-NEWSLETTER-TEMPLATE1_08[1].jpeg (14.0 KB, 18 views)

Sex on a stick!

Here's some more piccies:

NEW GOLF EQUIPMENT: Callaway Golf unveils their first-ever set of blades! - Latest Golf News and Events - Today's Golfer

You know what makes me laugh........??

You get all this cavity back this and that, forgivness, power, CGI sweetspot etc etc etc

The best players in the world all use a simple lump of steel.


Ian.

Makes you wonder how much of it is a load of made up bo!!ocks to keep the enthused amateur searching for something that doesn't exist, and keep their pockets topped up.

Increased sweetspot? I think not! The sweetspot is a dimple in the clubhead like a pinhead isn't it?! It can't ever be made larger or smaller! And yet we blindly go on!

I have two simple boxes to tick: Does it look nice, does it play nice?

I must say I like the X forged set Callaway brought out. I have always gone with Callaway as my first proper set was X14's and now I'm on X Tours.

These look very slinky though.

When I win the lottery I'll get myself a set.

__________________
Luke: I don't believe it!
Yoda: That is why you fail.

I love callaway drivers but have always hated callaway irons as they look ugly. They probably perfromed really well but I didn't even want to try them as I knew I could never get used to the way they looked.

These new blades look great though and I'd love to have a go with them.

Ian I agree with you in relation to the marketing hype - first we are told that the golf world is moving towards even the pros using more cavity backed clubs and then all of a sudden callaway launch these blades.

Ernie & Lefty currently use the X forged irons which have cavity backs but I can bet they will soon be switching to these new blades - if they don't consumers are simply not going to buy them.

We shouldn't really be surprised about all this. Golf companies (as with all other companies) are in existence with the sole objective of making money. They constantly have to come up products/ideas to to extract money out of the pockets of consumers. More often than not these new products/ideas are not necessarily furthering the game of golf technically. We should be wise to all the hype.

Having said all that - where can I get a set from.

Lads, you've done well to cut through the marketing hype.

Yes, the sweetspot is the size of a pinhead. This is the reason why Ben Hogan mentioned that he would maybe hit 4 perfect shots per round - he found the sweetspot and the ball did what he wanted it to do.

However, increased forgiveness is a real thing - a 'playable difference' if you will. The OEM marketing machine has labelled it a 'bigger sweet spot' - a technically incorrect moniker - but the idea is right.

Imagine hitting a boxing body bag. Hit it in the middle, and the body bag moves straight back - and will move back as far as it can based on the power in the punch. Now, if you hit it towards one side, the bag doesn't go as far back, and squirts off to the weak side. In my analogy, your fist represents the sweet spot - making solid contact, then missing either heel or toe.

To carry on, let's let you hold a piece of lumber in your hand. Now when you hit the middle, the bag still goes straight back. Perhaps a hairs width not quite as far, as your 'punching power' has been diluted from the lumber. But now when you hit the side of the bag, the lumber helps push, too - and the bag goes less sideways and more back. This is the same phenomenon between a muscle back (the new Callaway design) and a cavity back; the difference between a concentrated mass and one more diffuse.

IMO, the top design right now is truly the Wishon 560MC. A forged head, cavity back design with low offset and a medium topline. Plenty of forgiveness for missing the pinhead (forgiveness simply being a term that refers to how little distance is lost when missing the pinhead) and no offset (I prefer a lower ballflight).

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True Length Technology Fitter - www.truelengthtechnology.com
It's live! - www.ShipShapeClubs.com
PCS Class 'A' Clubfitter

A new highlight: Golfing the home course on Christmas Day.

I say it too often: If it's golf club shaped, you can play with it.

For the record, I'm a club doctor, not a swing doctor.

hi
Ping were the first maker to make a cavity back club and as Tom Wishon said, "all cavity back clubs are clones of the original pings."
by that he meant all other club makers making cavity clubs copied the heal-toe weight to help stop the ball spinning with off hits and the cavity to as lowpost said help increase forgiveness.
Ian is incorrect in saying all top player in the world use as he puts it, " a simple lump of steel" or blades. most player use muscle backs or some form of cavity and yes about 50% use blades.
the technology used in cavity back clubs is amazing now and the research some makers are putting into making there clubs easer to play with is unbelievable. i know that lowpost will have seen this in the club head he can now use to build a set from scratch and i know the wishon have put a lot of new things into making there clubs more playable.
unfortunately you cant do the same for blades as the club head is pressed and hammered by huge machines and the same tweeking you can do with cavity's is not possible with blades due to how both clubs are made.
whats best, cavity or blades.
the one that works for you.
cheers
bill

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yukk! i think they look mingin'

Bill, what 'same thing' can't you do between blades and cavs?

Both designs can be forged. Both designs can be cast. Both designs can be made of the softest carbon steel or the hardest 17-4 stainless.

The days of blade vs cav from a manufacturing design are over. The Wishon 560MC's are forged cavity backs - the cavity is CNC milled out (hence the MC "milled cavity") so I've got the best forged cavity back in the world. Wishon has done the testing - in his lineup, the 560's are the 2nd most forgiving iron (with his variable face thickness 770CFE being the most forgiving. (For the record, Wishon had the variable face thickness irons out long before ANY OEM).

At this point I'd safely say that anything you can do with blades you can do with cavs, except for one thing - the razor-thin topline of the old school blades. Making those defeats the purpose of having a cavity, so you might as well make blades. LOL

And I think the Cally blade is horrible. If I'm going to play blades, I'll play the SMT 303 MB (image attached).

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303.jpg (32.7 KB, 11 views)

__________________
True Length Technology Fitter - www.truelengthtechnology.com
It's live! - www.ShipShapeClubs.com
PCS Class 'A' Clubfitter

A new highlight: Golfing the home course on Christmas Day.

I say it too often: If it's golf club shaped, you can play with it.

For the record, I'm a club doctor, not a swing doctor.

Hi Bill,

It maybe more than 50% soon, how many on the Callaway books will swop to blades 'AGAIN' this I think is the start of coverting everyone back to 'user friendly' blades.

I stand by my note, the top players in the world use a simple lump...........!!


For the record I think they are Ugly......

Thanks

Ian.

hi lowpost
what i meant was in designing a cavity backed and it being cast and it is easer for them to set up complected designs that you could never do in a forged club without it involving huge man hours to make just one head.
most blade users would rather have forged heads and there harder to make than cast.
i don't think one type is better than than other but i know with ping you can tune the club to what you want, the newer pings you can change the weight in the toe and the insert in the cavity can be adjusted for vibration and the swingweight can be changed. both are adjustably by a ping club fitter at there main base but not by the local ping fitters as it needs specialists equipment to set the club up to your requirements, i am sure you will know more about that than i can even imagine.
even the ping S58 that most ping pros use is a cavity back club with an adjustable insert but made to look like a blade head.
do you find it harder with the amount of new heads availably to you, in making up a set as you now have so much choice in what diffrent head can do in the way of being much more forgiving than say 10 years ago when you only had a few head you could pick from in making up a new set
cheers
bill

__________________
ping zing2 metal driver
ping zing2 metal 3 wood
ping eye2 1 iron
ping zing2 3/9 irons
ping ist 47% wedge
ping zing2 52% s/wedge
ping mb 56% wedge
ping c10 G2I broom handled putter
top flight "T" golf balls
white ping bag

hi lowpost
one other think i would like to ask you.
if ping heads were available to you in making a scratch set but you also had access to the different weighs in the toe and the diffrent inserts for the back and the diffrent swing weights, do you think you would try and make a set and see what you could come up with or would you rather stick to the makers you use just now. just wondered?
thanks
bill

I'll have a set of these please - only around £1400.

Ian - since you don't like the Callaways you probably think these are ugly as well.

I gotcha now - and fully agree that it's easier to machine a complicated cast than it is to try and forge the same design.



Enter the wonderful (and oftentimes wonderfully confusing) world of clubmaking.

Personally, I like the barrel top of the PING's - (ie no ferrule required) Junior lines I build are also built that way - barrel topped, often because standard ferrules would be gigantic and require a ton of turning.

There are currently designs like you mention - with adjustable heel and toe weights - the GS 'Twin Tune' line and the Maltby KE4. IIRC, Wishon will not bother with an adjustable weight technology (save the hosel weight port) as his robot testing leads him to believe that you need to use massive amounts of weight to get a result (while this is true in the lab, I argue against it on the platform of proprioception - I've got a decent theory there, too, if you want to hear it).

But to you question, I'd love to retrofit a set of PING's. In fact, I've got a set of Nike Pro Combo's (2nd gen with the ugly medallion in the cavity) that I'm going to retrofit to TLT and MOI (I simply can't carry the inventory to freq them, too).

As you say, there are at this point quite literally thousands of choices. Like you with PING, I've chosen my preferred designers (Wishon and SMT) and stick by them by and large. This isn't to say I'm with them exclusively, but they're what I look to. I like to use the SMT stuff for folks that want a more classic look but also want some forgiveness (their 303's are mint - plus spin milled faces. Ever suck one back on a green with a 4 iron?! ) but the Wishon designs are the easiest for a clubmaker to work with (plus they all look good).

__________________
True Length Technology Fitter - www.truelengthtechnology.com
It's live! - www.ShipShapeClubs.com
PCS Class 'A' Clubfitter

A new highlight: Golfing the home course on Christmas Day.

I say it too often: If it's golf club shaped, you can play with it.

For the record, I'm a club doctor, not a swing doctor.

hi lowpost
i agree that smt make great heads, had a pair of wedges they put so much backspin on a ball it made me look good, only bad thing was they scuffed the balls a lot and i swapped them after 6 months for a ping 56% tour wedge and an ISI 47% wedge. not as much backspin now and don't scuff the balls.
it was more that the pings made up all my clubs pings than that there was anything i did not like about the smt durometer wedges.
there the only smt head i have ever seen and look great and i know why you think so much of that make.
thanks again for you advice.
cheers
bill

__________________
ping zing2 metal driver
ping zing2 metal 3 wood
ping eye2 1 iron
ping zing2 3/9 irons
ping ist 47% wedge
ping zing2 52% s/wedge
ping mb 56% wedge
ping c10 G2I broom handled putter
top flight "T" golf balls
white ping bag