New irons

G'day.

I'm looking at getting new irons this year (and new woods, eventually).

I've pretty much narrowed it down to:

Nike Combo
Nike Slingshot
TaylorMade RAC OS
Callaway X series (14 or 16 most likely)

Are there any recommendations (either from the list, or clubs I should consider)? I'm still a rookie golfer (this will be my second season). At the end of the last season I was hitting the ball fairly straight, and my 7i was good for 150 yards, 9i from 120, and 5i from around 170-175.

I think I'd still like something with a little forgiveness, but I like the idea of a combo set.

The other thing I'm looking for is a nice set of wedges - SW, LW and XLW.

Well for irons i reckon rac os and woods well if you want good and easy to hit get the new big bertha or for a more compact club the titliest 980f! and im not shure about wedges

For wedges, go with a GW, SW and LW. Vokey (Titleist) or Cleveland are the usual weapons of choice.

As for irons, there are good component iron sets as well - Snake Eyes (golfsmith.com) and Dynacraft (golfquip.com in Canada) come to mind first. You could make a nice set of combo irons from these as well.

Here is some info from this month's Golf Digest's Hot List (only top 10) for game improvement irons:

THE LIST Street Score
Price

Ping G2 $750 100
Callaway Big Bertha $600 97.5
Callaway Big Bertha Fusion $1,000 97.2
Nike Slingshot $700 94.6
TaylorMade rac OS $600 92.9
Cobra 3100 I/H $450 91.9
TaylorMade rac LT $600 91.7
Adams Idea/a1 $450 91.2
Callaway Steelhead X-18 $700 91.2
Nike NDS $400 90.4

You may want to pick up the latest copy for a full review of each. There is also a full review of woods, hybrids and wedges for you future buying reference....

__________________
Gord

Quote of the month:
"It's easy to see golf not as a game at all but as some whey-faced, nineteenth-century Presbyterian minister's fever dream of exorcism achieved through ritual and self-mortification." ~Bruce McCall

Low Post:


Mizuno MP30, MX-17, MX-20 are all good bats, if you go value wise a set of second hand T-Zoid Comp CT are really good clubs.

I cant argue with your choice of the Callaway X-14's they are quality and ridiculous value these days.

Avoid Nike unless you are buying the forged blades (which are just copies of tigers old titleists, which were copies of his old mizunos)

Your club distances are pretty good so you can probably go with a decent smaller cavity club. If you fancy Taylor Made go for the RAC LT rather than the OS.

As far as snake eyes goes the stuff is top quality, I have a scratch handicap friend who uses their drivers and says its quality gear. The prices are ok i think you can get a set of thie Python heads for $100 they do True Temper Custom Lite Shafts for about $80 a set and a set of quality Golf Pride Grips for about $40 so thats $220 all in plus about $20 for ferrules and grip tape. If you assemble them yourself or know someone who can then thats $240 for a good set of clubs. If you get your pro to assemble them it could be another $100, I dont know what assembly prices are since I do mines myself.

For wedges you cant go wrong with 52, 56 and 60 degree spacing. Vokeys and Cleveland are as good as each other and they are very very good. (As you can imagine im a big fan of Mizuno wedges). Callaways wedges are overrated and basically sell on their name. Snake eyes do wedges as well but again its components. E-Bay do have snake eyes stuff but not a great amount.

Happy Hunting,

D.

Thanks guys. I currently have a 4 wedge set (48* 52* 56* 61*) but Mr. Pelz advocates a 48, 56, 60, 64 wedge set. Granted, for my distances, I think the old 52-56-60 would work just fine.

Any opinions on TaylorMade RAC Blacks?

I'd love to build my own clubs, yet I find myself without enough knowledge. My fundamental knowledge is good, and there's a ton of advice out there for building clubs.

My problem is that I'm sorta budget minded right now (I know, I'm looking at $700 slingshots, and I say I'm budget minded). I'd love to take the time to buy some components (Can you say SMT Spectrum and an Assassin v2?), but I don't want to spend much cash putting together a ton of clubs because I've screwed up. I realize that the best way to learn is to do, but the funds aren't available for too much learning this year - unless someone shows me that I could build 3 sets of clubs for the price of 1!

I guess my next step is to buy this months' Golf Digest and read up!

I'm more than happy to consider any and all recommendations - especially those for, say, a combo set! (Sorry, I'm in love with the idea of having forgiving long irons - and I'm not afraid of utility clubs - and some workable short irons and wedges. My short game is my best aspect).

Lowpost, heres an idea.....go on ebay or some such site (in the UK we have a site called www.golfbidder.co.uk ) and see if they are selling decent clubs cheap sometimes they sell 5-pw or 4-pw sets for 50-100 bucks less than a full set. Then buy some rescue clubs 20 and 24 degree would be ideal and compliment them with a four wood (16-17°) and a driver this will still give you 3 wedges and a putter to play with. the Hogan rescue clubs get a good name as do the taylor made. Mizuno's Hi-Fli CLK looks good but they are still new so quite pricey. The hogan and Taylor made ones are qquite common now so should be good value.

D.

Very good site that is! but you can also pick up bargins on ebay.co.uk or ebay.com! i have rac lt and there very nice looking clubs! and hit the ball sweet!

it's best not to leave 8* between your PW and SW. Not sure how far you hit each, but most people get 100 - 125 with PW and 70 - 95 with SW - I wouldn't want 30 yards difference in between clubs in the scoring area (~ 100 yards). Also, you would rarely hit the 64* or higher if you already have a 60*

Check out Cleveland TA-5 irons. There still are sets out there. I got a set on EBay coming to my home this week for $250. I did my homework, demo'd a number of brands, didnt want to spend a fortune on my first set and these felt the best to me. Golf stores that sell these have a Cleveland 900 series wedge as part of the deal for $399. I didnt need the wedge so I went to EBay.