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I saw this as well when I was iron shopping a few years ago. Distance is not everything. As a matter of fact, it can hurt you.. good post.

I had to cave and spend the money for new irons about a year and a half ago. Had played fine with my old clubs for about 20 years, but got tired of the, "Hey, why did you hit a 4 when I hit my 6 ? You're a big guy, you should be able to do better than that !"

You are exactly right, Jessie. And another thing that gets me is when I watch golf with a certain friend of mine, I can not convince him that part( yet even I know it's not the only reason ) that we are watching tour players hit 205 yard 7 irons is because their clubs are bent to a MUCH stronger loft than the 7 irons we use. He thinks that them having just 4-5 mile per hour more swing speed is the reason they are hitting irons 50-60 yards further than we do. Dont let the yardage hype on TV fool you either, guys.

He doesn't realize some of their tee boxes are specially made for them and are elevated, the fairways are made to be cut tighter with firmer ground and the greens are firmer and faster. All of these things promote more distance gained on the ground.

So have any of you who have hung on to your irons heard this one?

"How do you hit your 6-iron so high?"

ANSWER: Because it really is a 6-iron and not a 4-iron stamped as a 6.

I loved that my 1st set of clubs. TA 845's had the number on the bottom of the club and the loft stamped on the corner of the face. It sounds like the current market is ripe for a company to release Irons with the loft listed on the club again.

Shhhhh that means they would let the cat out of the bag.

I knew it was bad, but not that bad..

I play Mizuno's MP-59s and I compared them to the earliest I could find which were the MP-14s from the late 90s. The 3i is the same, but by the time you get to the 9i, the loft is 3* stiffer on my newer MP-59s. Lengths seem to be consistent, but everything is about 2* stiffer on newer irons. Then I looked at TaylorMade's new RSi1 - they seem to be one of the big offenders:

Club : RSi1 - MP14
3i...... 17*/39.5 ...... 23*/38.75
5i...... 23*/38.88 .... 29*/37.75
7i...... 30.5/37 ...... 36*/36.75
9i...... 39/36.5 ...... 45*/36


The new TMAG 7i is roughly a 5i. The TMAG 5i is almost identical to a 3i from ~12 years ago. If you have a non-kit PW like a Cleveland 48* coupled with the TMAG set, you have a 9* gap between 9i and PW.

Callaway's XR Irons seem to be along the same lofts as the TMAGs.


But at least I could say I can hit my 5i ~210yds. :)

only 25-30% of the guys I play with have more distance but 70% of them have fewer strokes at the end of the round.

...and here we were told nobody made a 1-iron anymore.

Yes! I missed that - the RSi1 3i has the exact same loft & (almost) length as my Mizuno MP-29 1iron. I don't hit my MP-29 1i very well at all which is why it sits in the spare bag in my garage.

So this is my question.. I don't care if it says 1i or 3i, can I hit the club? My opinion is that Iron #s have become irrelevant for comparison since mfgs. have been diddling the lofts. If I can hit a TMAG RSi1 3iron as far as I could my MP-29 1i (assuming I could actually hit the ball with that stupid butter knife) and hit it consistently well because of ?new technology? than I don't care if it says 1i, 3i, -1i or BK on the sole - what about you?

I really don't care one bit. I just don't understand why people are so easily fooled by their advertising gimmicks.

Most (if not all) golfers are very competitive, with everything. We know the final score is the important number yet we want to "win" each shot.

We want to be the longest off the tee, closest to the pin, and do it using "less" club than the other guy.

Even if we are not thinking about it, our subconscious is.

This urge is not logical, but it is real. The club makers know it and are glad to give us what we "want".

My clevelands have all the lofts on them

If you say Taylor Made RSI1 are one of the biggest offenders, then my Cleveland Blacks are right behind them.