FLASHBACK: Golfsmith XPC3 Nickel Irons

[Nessism]

Bought a set of these just because.  Designed by Tom Wishon, "inspired by" (I assume) Ping, made from soft nickel.  How bad can they be?  

 

Continuing my "Dirt Cheap Irons" theme.  (Please don't ask how many cheap sets one man needs before they are not "cheap" anymore.)

 

 Do any of you hoarders out there have an old Golfsmith catalog?  Would love to see the old catalog page.  Shafts are "Carbon Stick FM" (frequency matched.)  Not sure if those will stay, but maybe.  

 

Either which way, I'll bust them down and give them the spa treatment, most likely in the tumbler.  Likely, bending weak.  Love the old Eye 2 specs; thinking 50 degree PW and 28 degree 5 iron.  

 

Guess I'm just a club(building) ho.  I enjoy that almost as much as playing these days.  

 

 

 

[kwcsports]

I remember those. I used to buy everything from Golfsmith back in the day, even went to Austin and took their club building course back in 86. I'll look for my old catalogs, I think I still have them somewhere. 

[Red4282]

2 hours ago, Nessism said:

Bought a set of these just because.  Designed by Tom Wishon, "inspired by" (I assume) Ping, made from soft nickel.  How bad can they be?  

 

Continuing my "Dirt Cheap Irons" theme.  (Please don't ask how many cheap sets one man needs before they are not "cheap" anymore.)

 

 Do any of you hoarders out there have an old Golfsmith catalog?  Would love to see the old catalog page.  Shafts are "Carbon Stick FM" (frequency matched.)  Not sure if those will stay, but maybe.  

 

Either which way, I'll bust them down and give them the spa treatment, most likely in the tumbler.  Likely, bending weak.  Love the old Eye 2 specs; thinking 50 degree PW and 28 degree 5 iron.  

 

Guess I'm just a club(building) ho.  I enjoy that almost as much as playing these days.  

 

 

 

I will always have a nostalgia with the snake eyes irons, specifically the combo iron heads

[TKS]

I have an A Wedge in this head play it very once in a while.

Think I still have a full set of forged SE MC- 01s.

Good times!

[Cwebb]

Very nice.  I'll be interested to hear how soft and easy to move these are in your loft/lie unit

[ode1]

I just included an XPC 3 AW with a different branded set that I sold on another board.  Very Ping G'ish, nice little grind on the leading edge!  Also sold  some NIP Pro Forged wedges not that long ago, as well as a SE 600xc set.  Still have a few Snake Eyes wedges, a HiCor hybrid, but not much else Golfsmith gear in the stable anymore!

 

What year catalog you looking for?  I do not remember the Nickel version of the 3, but I have kept everything going back to ~2004/5ish!

Edited February 21, 2022 by ode1

[drumdude96]

15 minutes ago, ode said:

I just included an XPC 3 AW with a different branded set that I sold on another board.  Very Ping G'ish, nice little grind on the leading edge!  Also sold  some NIP Pro Forged wedges not that long ago, as well as a SE 600xc set.  Still have a few Snake Eyes wedges, a HiCor hybrid, but not much else Golfsmith gear in the stable anymore!

 

What year catalog you looking for?  I do not remember the Nickel version of the 3, but I have kept everything going back to ~2004/5ish!

I believe those heads came out around 2002 or 2003. I built a full set back then when I first got into club building. I put Dynalite shafts in them and didn't like them, so I sold the set for next to nothing instead of just doing a reshaft. It took a few years for me to discover that Dynamic Gold is the best shaft for me. Those XPC3 heads would have been great with DG S300. You live and learn, I guess.

[Fellaheen51]

@Nessism  BITD had a 100% SE bag.  Thought they made excellent heads, and a real value compared to OEM. The 600 series (Jeff Sheets design) irons were boss.  Still have some assorted SE clubs around.  2000 GS catalog:

 

 

 

 

 

[Nessism]

Thanks for all the great feedback.  And special thanks to @Fellaheen51 for the catalog info!  

 

Like many of you guys, I've built a fair number of Golfsmith sets over the years.  That's how I entered the clubmaking hobby.  I started back when heads were commonly less than $10, a Dynamic/Dynalite/TT Lite was $5, and grips were $2.  Golfsmith started moving upscale with Tom Wishon designing the heads and the purchase of the Snake Eye's brand.  Good times.

 

And speaking of Tom, it looks like these heads have two features he favored: low bounce and a hosel weight port.  Love the weight port since it makes swingweighting with graphite shafts so much easier.  Good stuff.  

[Redpro]

Those old school lofts!

 

What real men use. 

 

grin. 

[Bad9]

2 hours ago, Redpro said:

Those old school lofts!

 

What real men use. 

 

grin. 

 

Not much different than many now. Interesting that the loft squeeze in the lower number irons was underway at that point.

[Dustdevil]

I remember hoping those would come out in LH, but they never did. Still have set of SE TC-01 heads around here somewhere. Not taking anythIng away from Tom, but the 600xc's were ahead of their time. 5 or 6 step forging process before the big companies caught up. My son still has them. Won't give them back. Rolled a MCS-1L for quite a while.

I miss Snake Eyes.

[Billfitz]

At one time my bag was 100% Golfsmith. I don't game them anymore but I've still got a few Snake Eyes irons. I built a full set of them in 2004 and they served me well. I had a 60 Dead Stop wedge with one of those TM knockoff bulge shafts too, I was using that until two years ago.

[Nessism]

Clubs came today.  Good news, the heads have seen very little use.  They setup behind the ball like a low offset Ping Eye 2 or ISI.  The set came with an S and L wedge, and these things make farm shovels look like a Ferrari.  No matter, they will go into play.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 5 by Nessism

[deepred]

Check out the 1* of bounce😳

gotta love that. I assembled a set of

these for a friend. Built several sets of Golfsmith clubs over the years including an XPC driver I hit the crap

out of.

 

[nova6868]

Very cool, I loved the old PING nickel clubs. Always thought they felt great. Also interesting to have 4 degrees of bounce on a gap wedge, I would like to try that just to see what it's like. 

[Nessism]

Low bounce for sure, and a fairly narrow sole.  Not a fan of that. The leading edge has a VERY rounded profile, though, so that will help greatly.  

 

First thing I did was bend them to my favorite specs.  They are VERY soft, and bent easily.  

 

LW - 60*

SW - 55*

PW - 50*

9 - 45*

8 - 40*

7 - 36*

6 - 32*

5 - 28*

4 - 25*

 

The heads are in amazing condition; the only marks on them are on the sole, and those are minor.  I prepared the L wedge for the tumbler by sanding out the scratches and using a 3M deburring wheel.  Took maybe 10 mins or so.  I'm not positive, but think the cavity is painted.  I'll throw some paint stripper in there to see if my guess is correct.  

 

The grips were petrified, as was the grip tape.  There were 3 layers of tape, and it took me WAY too long to get that junk off.  The shafts are very light, so leaning towards a set of Dynalite 100 shafts I've got.  We'll see.  

 

I'll get some photos up in a couple of days, so you guys can share my glory!

 

 

[Tupperwolf]

Love that you are giving these old heads that some would consider junk a loving spa treatment! It's like fully concours restoring a Toyota Tercel (and I'm not kidding when I say I would enjoy seeing that, I'm a long time member of The Car Lounge forum where boring cars in great condition are celebrated)

 

Looking forward to seeing them all cleaned up and assembled!

[Nessism]

I was right about the cavity being painted.  Paint stripper removed it easily.  Now I've got to figure out how to polish the metal before they go in the tumbler.  The tumbler will polish down the sandblasting texture, but I don't want to wait that long...

 

 

 

Edited February 26, 2022 by Nessism

[Nessism]

Heads tumbled, shafted w/TT Dynalite 100, Prosoft's installed, Karma Midsize (a very small midsize) grips.  Swingweight from D1 in the long irons, progressing to D4 in the wedges.  I bashed the look of the wedges earlier, but on further review they look very similar to Eye 2 wedges, so what do I know?  

 

Last part of the projects is going to be to strip out the remaining paint fill and decide what, if any, I'm going to put back.  Should have done this when stripping the cavity but oh well.  

 

Some photos of current state.  The photos don't show the tumbled metal pattern.  Can't get that detail to show well.  The photo does show the killed leading edge though. 

 

 

 

Edited February 28, 2022 by Nessism

[Eeecc]

I think that naked unpainted look is great. The letters having a darker contrast already makes it distinct enough. Definitely very Ping-sque 

[Billfitz]

Agreed, other than repainting the sole inlays I'd leave them as they are.

[ode1]

Look good as is...nice work!

[Nessism]

These heads have black painted face grooves.  Didn't realize that until stripping the cavity.  Anyway, all paint fill will be removed, and the only to be replaced will be the white number and bottom score line.

[mesquite2]

Like that the top of the hosel is rolled, so no ferrules needed.

[Nessism]

First round in confirms that these clubs are SOFT.  I had a friend hit them on a longish par 3 and he even said they were "too soft," ha!

 

I like them!  They hit the ball nice and high, which is something I struggle with.  The wedges play a little more upright than the lie angle suggests, so I'm going to bend them a degree or so flat.  

 

Only problem now is deciding which of my new/old irons to play!  The Eye 2's or these.  Maybe I'll switch every other round or so?  A good problem to have.

 

 

 

  

[AdamMH]

On 2/21/2022 at 7:17 AM, Fellaheen51 said:

@Nessism  BITD had a 100% SE bag.  Thought they made excellent heads, and a real value compared to OEM. The 600 series (Jeff Sheets design) irons were boss.  Still have some assorted SE clubs around.  2000 GS catalog:

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for posting the catalogs, valuable info here... well, for anybody who has the irons I guess 😉
I just picked up a 1-iron head and I'm looking forward to trying it out!

[Nessism]

Played these clubs again today and the more I use them, the more I like them.  I particularly like the shorter clubs.  They hit the ball HIGH, and that's really something coming from me, since I'm a confirmed low ball hitter.  Good fun!  Big shout out to the Karma grips too.  They are $20/13 grips shipped, and feel great.  They are listed as oversize, but it's a very small OS.  Highly recomended.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01CR38ES2/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[EDrown]

If @Fellaheen51 is around, I'd love it if they could check their 2000-era Golfsmith catalog for the bounce specs on Custom Wedge System wedges at 50* (PW), 55* (SW), and 60* (LW).

 

Thanks in advance!

 

Eric

[Jaygolf37]

On 4/24/2022 at 12:59 PM, Nessism said:

Played these clubs again today and the more I use them, the more I like them.  I particularly like the shorter clubs.  They hit the ball HIGH, and that's really something coming from me, since I'm a confirmed low ball hitter.  Good fun!  Big shout out to the Karma grips too.  They are $20/13 grips shipped, and feel great.  They are listed as oversize, but it's a very small OS.  Highly recomended.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01CR38ES2/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Hey Nessism,
Thread resurrection…and it’s been a hot minute since I last posted on WRX. But I find it crazy that I too found some XPC 3 Nickel irons over a year ago.  I too stripped the paint fill and finish (though I used CitriStrip on mine). I too choose the keep them naked and only fill in the bottoms, plus redoing the bottom white groove. I reshafted these with Nippon 950GH shafts in stiff (still my favorite lightweight steel shaft).
And I love everything about them. The dull patina that develops fits in with what I like visually. They are unique…unless I potentially play sometime with Ness…nobody has them around here. They are remarkably soft and consistent irons. I love the narrowest and “killed” leading edge because of my AOA.

Ive ho’d with the best of them…and will still WRX it for sure…but these have been my gamers for over a year and a half.

Its crazy that I saw this thread from Ness…and crazy that we basically did the same thing!