Real life impacts of misfit irons

[me05501]

When it comes to building and setting up clubs I suppose I fall into the category of knowing just enough to be dangerous. In other words I'm more willing to experiment than my knowledge base will support. 

 

Sometime last year I built up a blended set of Srixon irons on MMT 125 stiff shafts soft-stepped one time. I did a great job gluing them up, turning down the ferrules and getting all the grips aligned. They look fantastic and I've played them for about 15-16 months. 

 

I hit this set quite well most of the time though recently I noticed my Trackman path number was severely in-to-out...like 11-14* from the inside. No matter what adaptations I tried every full swing was at least 10* from the inside. This confounded me because my path numbers with woods and wedges were in good ranges. 

 

Eventually I got the wandering eye and ended up ordering in a different set of irons. When I was comparing them to my current set I realized the new irons were an inch shorter. I was angry for a minute thinking the seller hadn't disclosed that the new set was under standard but when I measured them I found them to be bang on spec. 

 

This obviously meant that I'd been playing my old irons significantly over length this entire time. Oof!

 

It was time for new grips anyway so I trimmed my old irons by 3/4" to get to standard Srixon spec. Since then I've noticed my path numbers are much improved as is my center-face contact. The swing weights feel better as well. 

 

My next step is going to be having the lofts and lies checked and adjusted to make sure they're correct. 

Again, I've played a ton of rounds with these clubs and my scores have generally been good. My guess is that after the epoxy dried I got excited to add the grips and get them out on the grass, neglecting the fact that I had soft-stepped and would need to butt trim them first. 

 

All better now. 🙂

[Sparty4202]

You should always need to butt cut shafts to their playing length. No  iron shaft is built by the manufacturer to be plug in and play, they are all manufactured with extra length because clubs have different bore to ground lengths and not all hosels have the same depth. I’m really surprised you couldn’t notice the extra length after you built them.

Edited July 23 by Sparty4202

[me05501]

6 hours ago, Sparty4202 said:

You should always need to butt cut shafts to their playing length. No  iron shaft is built by the manufacturer to be plug in and play, they are all manufactured with extra length because clubs have different bore to ground lengths and not all hosels have the same depth. I’m really surprised you couldn’t notice the extra length after you built them.

Can’t disagree. 

[chisag]

7 hours ago, me05501 said:

My guess is that after the epoxy dried I got excited to add the grips and get them out on the grass, neglecting the fact that I had soft-stepped and would need to butt trim them first. 

 

 

... Those of us that started doing all our own work made similar mistakes. It's crazy how being too cocky will always bite you sooner or later. Now I always measure twice and then once more before cutting or applying epoxy. It is overkill most of the time but every now and then I catch a mistake. 

[me05501]

The first set of clubs I ever played were built

by my dad, another overconfident tinkerer. 
 

He cut all the shafts from the tip end instead of the butt end. Not only did the shafts play like rebar…the kick points were all over the place.

 

It’s a miracle I kept playing long enough to get something better!