Forged Irons??

R

RosannaGroove

< 25 Posts
What are the advantages/disadvantages of forged irons? I'm in the market for some new irons and I've looked a set of Titleist 681forged (link below). I'm just not sure about the whole forged thing.

Link

A couple years ago when I played a lot I was about a 10 handicap and my iron play was my strong point. I don't know how much difference that makes.
 
Forged= more "feel" and better for "working the ball" with the club (which I can't do, but you may.

Cavity back=more forgiving, easier to "hit solid"
 
honestly, don't waste your time or money on blades if you're a 10 handicap. look for clubs that minimize your mistakes...blades don't do that. hell when i play a decent bit i play to about a 1 or 2 and there's no way in hell i'd stick blades in my bag.

look into the ping irons, the callaways, etc. why make the game harder than it already is?
 
Thanks for the replies. Sounds like good advice to stick with cavity back. But the forged irons look so cool!
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I think maybe I'm confused. Does forged=blades? The description for these Titleist 704 CB forged irons mentions that they are cavity back, and they look cavity back, but they're still forged.

Link
 
It's not so much forged vs. cavity back, it's forged vs. cast. It has to do with how the club is made. Forged is essentially stamped/pounded/ground into shape from a single block of metal, cast (sometimes called "investment cast") is molten metal poured into a mold.

Manufacturers can be much more flexible and fancy with cast so it's easier to make a more extreme cavity back that way, but you can do forged cavity backs to some degree. For example, Titlest 804 and 704's (as noted), Mizuno MP30's to a small degree and MX-23's to a larger degree, Hogan had some for a while - Apex Edge maybe?, Cobra did a forged version of their SSi, as did others. Golfsmith had a great forged cavity back head called Tour Cavity Forged (which is what I'm using right now) but they discontinued it last year.

What you're looking at with those Titlest 681's are forged BLADES. Blades have no perimeter weighting whatsoever, and that's what gives you the forgiveness. Unless you're really good and/or want to intimidate the other players on the course, I don't know that I'd go that route. There are plenty of forged cavity backs out there.

The other thing about forged clubs, whether they're blades or cavity backs, is that if you hit them on the sweet spot they feel like butter. No matter what people tell you, It's just not the same as hitting the sweet spot on a cast club. It's addictive. In fact, it's the only reason I continue to play this stupid *** game.
 
once you catch one pure with a forged club, ESPECIALLY A BLADE, you can feel a couple little drops of pee run down your leg. It's allsome!

I like my Ping Eye 2's, since I get some forgiveness, but a little better feel than the more massive cast cavity back sticks.
 
Stay away from forged items unless you regularly shoot in the low 80s. Yes, the feel of a perfect shot is wonderful. However, the feeling of a shot just slightly off the toe going about 80 yards is not too cool.
 
even in the low 80s i think it's a waste, but that's just me.

but really you shouldn't worry about the irons as much as your wedge and putter play anyway until you get to about that low 80s range.
 
Well, I was pretty consistently shooting between 78-84 while I was playing regularly. I haven't played regularly for about two years now, but I'm wanting to start hitting the driving range again on a weekly basis and begin playing again. I'm pretty sure I can get down to where I was in a few months. Plus, as I said, my irons have always been my strength. Putting and driving were always my weaknesses. I probably should just try some out.

Thanks for the replies, btw.
 
So let's be clear here ... extensive tests were run with PGA tour professionals. The key difference between how clubs feel is not wether or not they're cast or forged, but rather if they are a blade construction or a cavity back constuction. Cleveland made TA3's in a forged and a cast version - I play the forged, not because they're "forged" but because they're heavier than the cast version. That's it - if I took lead tape and made the cast version heavier, they'd feel just the same.

The tour pros were put through a blind test, where they hit clubs that they didn't know the construction of. They were given forged blades, forged cavity backs, cast blades, and cast cavity backs. Without fail, it wasn't the forging, but the cavity/blades that made the difference.

That said - I'm a legit 8, and I play TA3s. They're a low-cavity cavity back - a "players cavity" if you will. I can't justify blades, because i'm not that good
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. As I mentioned earlier, all I really want in a golf club is heft, so the callaways and pings aren't a good fit for my game. Clevelands, Mizuno's and Hogans are, however, as well as old sets of blades that I screw around with from time to time ('69 staffs, '78 staffs, some Haig Ultras ...).

I love this damn game.
 
Forged does not = blade. There are plenty of forged cavity back clubs out there that are easy to hit. The best ones were the 1999 Hogan Apex Plus. Those babies felt so nice, looked great and were easy to hit. I had a set of those that I wore to grooves completely off them. I wish I had them back.
 
I looked into getting them regrooved. I found a place that would do it, but by the time they strip the chrome, regroove, and rechrome it was cheaper to buy a new set. I bought the Apex 50 blade. They are aweet, but when I am not playing a lot they are pretty tough to hit. I have a back up set of irons that are Taylor Made RAC shovels. I have been playing them more these days. Wish they still made the same Apex plus. The new one they replaced the Apex Plus wth has too thick a top line for me so I didn't like them. The Apex Plus was the most perfect club I have ever seen.
 
I've come across the Ben Hogan Apex FTX irons on ebay and they look pretty nice. The 3-4 irons are cavity back, the 5-7 irons are like muscleback (I think) and the 8-PW are blades. That sounds like something I might be interested in. If there was one thing that bothered me about the X-12s I used to play, it was that the short irons were so big and clunky, no feel.

I'm also looking at the Titleist 690 CB irons. So many choices...
 
I switched from my Ping Zing 2's (about the most forgiving club ever made) to some Cleveland Gunmetal TA-1's (the kind Vijay uses). The Cleveland's were beautiful to look at and when I hit them well it felt great. (I was about a 7 handicap then.)

Problem with the Cleveland's was that the club face was too close to the hozzle (if you know what I mean).
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I've gone back to the Zing 2's.
 
I hit the Ping Eye 3 blades and I am nowhere near a scratch golfer. Granted, they are much more similar to the oversize irons than other makes, but they are forged nonetheless. I am of the opinion that a good way to learn proper mechanics, albeit a more frustrating way to learn, is to play with a more challenging club. I don't prefer to develop bad mechanics and have them corrected by a more forgiving club. It's too cruch-dependent for me and that is not good golf, IMHO.
 
Capn,

If you and others are happy with 95% of what golf has to offer, than great, use any and every club you wish. The nuances of golf are such that one can eke out that last 5% of the game with subtleties, adjustments, mechanics, clubs etc. You are very short-sighted and myopic to ignore what I say in entirety. I challenge any beginner to find a reputable golf pro/instructor that will tell him/her to use the largest sized-clubs he/she can find for the rest of his/her life because it "corrects" his/her slice/hook. They won't because they teach 100% of the game and they teach it correctly, beginning with good mechanics.

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