7500 rpm of backspin with my 7 iron

yumanike · April 10, 2012

Swing or equipment?

At the PGA Tour Superstore they have a 99$ package where you can hit whenever you want on the simulator. Needless to say, I jumped on it. I went in a few days ago to try and groove my swing, so I was just hitting my 7 iron. The numbers it spit out were a little surprising to me so I wanted to present them here to get your thoughts. Here are the rough averages.
Total Distance: ~170 yds
Carry Distance: ~168 yds
Swing Speed: (wasn't working)
Ball Speed:~116mph-120mph
Launch angle;~19-24*
Backspin: ~7000-8000 rpm.

I have Callaway X-16 Pro Series with Rifle 6.0 shafts. Does that backspin seem a tad high for a 7 iron? What should it be? If it is too high, is that a swing thing or an equipment thing? Most people who I play golf with think I should hit my irons farther than I do based upon the yardages I get out of the woods. I'm a (very) high ball hitter and I would like to bring it down, but I thought Rifle 6.0s were shafts with a pretty high kick point. Any help is appreciated. Thank you.

NRJyzr · April 10, 2012

[quote name='yumanike' timestamp='1334082956' post='4694200']
At the PGA Tour Superstore they have a 99$ package where you can hit whenever you want on the simulator. Needless to say, I jumped on it. I went in a few days ago to try and groove my swing, so I was just hitting my 7 iron. The numbers it spit out were a little surprising to me so I wanted to present them here to get your thoughts. Here are the rough averages.
Total Distance: ~170 yds
Carry Distance: ~168 yds
Swing Speed: (wasn't working)
Ball Speed:~116mph-120mph
Launch angle;~19-24*
Backspin: ~7000-8000 rpm.

I have Callaway X-16 Pro Series with Rifle 6.0 shafts. Does that backspin seem a tad high for a 7 iron? What should it be? If it is too high, is that a swing thing or an equipment thing? Most people who I play golf with think I should hit my irons farther than I do based upon the yardages I get out of the woods. I'm a (very) high ball hitter and I would like to bring it down, but I thought Rifle 6.0s were shafts with a pretty high kick point. Any help is appreciated. Thank you.
[/quote]

That looks similar to what I experienced when testing Eye2+. The problem was, my current MS-11 6 iron with DGX was the high spin culprit, I got 1500rpm less with the Eye2+ 6 iron.

I wouldn't call 6.0 Rifle a high bend shaft. It is compared to Rifle 5.0, but not compared to DG, Project X, or the C Taper.

DG could be a place to start, but it might be worth thinking about making the jump direct to C Taper.

dchoi87 · April 10, 2012

It's always the swing but that doesn't mean it's not the equipment if that makes any sense. For your swing, you could probably get a better trajectory by switching shafts. I don't think 7000-8000 is way too high for a 7 iron especially if you play on courses with firm greens and not a lot of wind. If not, you could probably gain a few yards and be better in the wind by switching shafts. If spin reduction is the goal, I'd look at the PX or C-tapers before the DG though. The DG will launch lower than the PX but spin more in my experience. The C-taper is basically launch between the DG and PX with the lowest spin out of the three.

Titleist_242 · April 10, 2012

[quote name='yumanike' timestamp='1334082956' post='4694200']
At the PGA Tour Superstore they have a 99$ package where you can hit whenever you want on the simulator. Needless to say, I jumped on it. I went in a few days ago to try and groove my swing, so I was just hitting my 7 iron. The numbers it spit out were a little surprising to me so I wanted to present them here to get your thoughts. Here are the rough averages.
Total Distance: ~170 yds
Carry Distance: ~168 yds
Swing Speed: (wasn't working)
Ball Speed:~116mph-120mph
Launch angle;~19-24*
Backspin: ~7000-8000 rpm.

I have Callaway X-16 Pro Series with Rifle 6.0 shafts. Does that backspin seem a tad high for a 7 iron? What should it be? If it is too high, is that a swing thing or an equipment thing? Most people who I play golf with think I should hit my irons farther than I do based upon the yardages I get out of the woods. I'm a (very) high ball hitter and I would like to bring it down, but I thought Rifle 6.0s were shafts with a pretty high kick point. Any help is appreciated. Thank you.
[/quote]

i think 170 yards for a 7iron is plenty.

as long as your irons are accurate don't worry too much about spin or distance,

CosmosMpower · April 10, 2012

Seems fine to me, I always thought 6i =6,000 and 7i= 7,000 rpm

Love2Slice · April 10, 2012

You might try something like x100 or px 6.5

Dizz · April 10, 2012

Average TrackMan stats on the PGA Tour show them hitting 7 iron with 120 ball speed, 16.3 launch and 7097 backspin which carries 172 yards. I would guess you could use a slightly stiffer shaft but you probably don't have much forward shaft lean. Spin is on target but your launch angle is a bit higher than theirs, all in all the numbers aren't [i]that[/i] bad provided the launch is closer to 19-20 and not 24.

J5isalive · April 10, 2012

I find the simulators at my PGA store are quite a bit off.... distance wise. Spin rate and ball speed and launch angle are about all that can be semi-trusted. I wouldnt rely too heavily on the numbers the simulators are pumping out.

At the PGA Store i hit a 6 iron 200-210 yards. In reality i hit a 6 iron about 170-175.

yumanike · April 12, 2012

Thanks for the input everybody! I found an old article in one of my golf magazines where they were fitting people for a 6 iron and they said the ideal spin was around 4900 rpms for both of the players (I think one guy was swing the 6 iron around 80mph and the other guy was at 95mph). I figured my 7 iron spin was way too high, but now it looks like that might not be the case. I have the highest ball flight anybody I've every played with has seen (e.g. I can hold a green from 220yds with an 18* hybrid), so that also got me thinking. I'll have to demo some of the other shafts and see how much, if any, my spin changes.

mgranato · April 12, 2012

Please do yourself a favor and don't make equipment changes based on the sims at the PGA superstore. They are all over the place for accuracy. 7500-6500 is a pretty good window for a 7 iron (based on the conditions you play in). Hitting from a mat with suspect balls and a suspect simulator is enough to get some odd numbers.

4900 for a 6 iron is NOT a good number, especially with 95 mph CH speed. No wonder people get so ill fitted so often. Consider the purpose of your scoring irons... to come into the greens on a steep enough angle and with enough spin to bounce and stop. Being able to stop a hybrid on the green is a good thing, not a cause for concern.