What Happens When an 18 Handicap Gets Fit for Irons?

⛳ Upgrading from 10-year-old irons can dramatically improve both distance and control for mid-handicap golfers.

🧑‍🔬 Iron fittings start by establishing a baseline with your current clubs before testing new models for performance gains.

📏 Wrist-to-floor and hand measurements help determine the ideal club length and grip size for each golfer.

🔄 Club offset affects ball flight direction, with more offset encouraging leftward shots—important for players who tend to miss left.

💪 Heavier, stiffer shafts can benefit golfers with faster swing tempos by improving control and feel.

🚀 Modern hollow-body irons with injected foam act like mini drivers, increasing ball speed even on mishits.

🎯 Descent angle is crucial for holding greens, with 45 degrees or higher being ideal for a 7 iron.

📈 Newer irons consistently deliver higher ball speeds and greater carry distances compared to older models.

🖐 Personal preference in club size and aesthetics plays a key role in a golfer's confidence and performance.

🔍 Comparing multiple iron models helps identify the best fit for both technical numbers and subjective feel.

🏆 The Titleist T350 irons provided the fastest ball speeds and highest peak heights in this fitting session.

🛠 Game improvement irons offer more forgiveness and help maintain ball speed on thin shots.

🌀 Increased backspin and launch angle contribute to better stopping power on the green.

🧩 There are three ways to achieve optimal descent angle: higher ball speed, more spin, or higher launch.

🪙 Upgrading wedges to newer models guarantees more spin and better performance around the green.

🙌 Ultimately, new technology in clubs can help, but 95% of improvement still comes from the golfer's skill.

00:00:00[Music] Hey guys, we're here today with Jeff. Going to go through an iron fitting. Jeff's about an 18 handicapper. So, we're going to go and replace his irons that I think are about 10 years old right now. So, the good news is Jeff, I think pretty much anything on the wall is probably going to be an improvement, but we'll definitely have some better options for you. And as I understand, the first time going through an iron fitting as well. Correct. Got it. Y

00:00:24awesome. So, what we're going to do is we'll start off with your older model here just to basically set a baseline, see how they're doing. But then based off that, we'll try out some different models, see what you like to look at, what feels good when you hit it, and then obviously talk a whole lot about the different numbers that uh we'll see at the bottom of the screen here. And based off your swing will be just some certain ones we're looking for. So, should be a lot of fun. We'll test out

00:00:43some new product and then give me some feedback along the way. All right, sweet. So, basically, Jeeoff, we're going to go through and want to get a couple basic measurements just on uh your wrist to floor. So go ahead and stand up nice and straight, kind of arms relaxed. And all this is doing us is just giving us a general idea of the length of the club. If the club's too long, you might catch them a little bit more towards the heel or like the shaft of the club. If

00:01:02it's too short, you might do the opposite. Based off your height and wrist to floor, you're going to be pretty darn close to standard. Uh then let me see your left palm. Let's go palm up and hand side about seven and a quarter again. So, a rough estimate of about grip size. Uh, we'll go through and when it's all said and done, have you hold some grips of different diameters, different materials, just to see personal preference. No huge performance benefit one way or the

00:01:31other. It's just what you like to hold when you're swinging. Sounds good. This just acts as a little bit of a starting point for us. But, sounds good. We'll go through and test a whole bunch of stuff here momentarily, but tell me tell me about the game. So, I know again shoot somewhere around bogey golf. Uh, about the ball flight though, like with the irons, uh, good shots and bad shots. What do those look like? Better shot get more height to them. Okay. Uh they you would like to get more

00:01:53height or they already go pretty high. They get pretty good height. Like I said though, I've golf like three four times this year, so I'm inconsistent. I would definitely say on a good day, yeah, I'm getting pretty good height on my shot. And the bad ones are then lower than you'd like them to be. Low to the left is common. Okay, gotcha. Uh so tell me about those ones then. They go to the left. Do they start left, curve farther left, start straight, curve left? I think what I

00:02:16kind of do is just roll over to I can it's just left immediate. Yeah, I have a baseball player so I still have some bad habits related to that. There's some good and bad that comes along with it. Usually have plenty of power but direction can be an issue. And then uh here's a good one too. What's the overall goal here today besides obviously just a 10-year tech upgrade. Uh other than consistency cuz that's what everybody wants. Prioritizing uh it's kind of two things. You

00:02:40prioritizing more distance or more direction? Pick one. More direction. Okay. We're gonna try to do both obviously and most of the time we do. But yeah, I would agree. Direction's more important to me. If I can hit it straighter, I'll be happier. Yeah. And how about have you done any kind of research on the models that are out there? We're using some older tailormaids now. They're about 10 years old. Is there any brands or models that you've looked into that you're

00:03:03interested in or models you don't like? Zero. Zero research. Nope. You're I'm in your hands. Oh, good. Well, we'll definitely So, we're going to be looking at some different models then. uh maybe that uh have a little bit less offset. So, let me grab your current club and kind of describe this to you. Uh one feature that they have in clubs is basically offset. So, it's how much this leading edge basically sits back of the front edge or the center axis of the shaft.

00:03:26So, the more this sits back, that's going to give you just a millisecond to basically, you know, close the face down. It encourages that leftward flight. So, clubs that have more offset for you are bad cuz they're going to tend to want to make the ball go more to the left. Okay. Uh, additionally for you, uh, because you don't really hit the ground, it's not a huge point, but, you know, sole width can be something we look at, a wider sole can help you prevent you from digging into the ground

00:03:54too much considering you don't tend to do that regardless. I'm not really over too worried about getting you a club that has any particular sole width. Probably just middle of the road would be just fine. Okay. Uh, and how about these clubs right now? whenever you set them down and yeah, maybe there's just some ignorance to what's even out there, which is totally cool. Is that like bigger or smaller than uh your current model? Bigger or smaller than what you would maybe like

00:04:17to look at or does that just seem it's what you're used to and it is what it is? That is that's what I would say. It's what I used to. So, I'm in your hands to tell me where I might need an adjustment. That particular model is pretty much going to be just like the core game improvement size of almost everyone. So, we can very easily find something that's of similar size or go both directions depending on what we find out. Okay. So, let's do this then. Jeeoff, I'm

00:04:39going to give you your 10-year-old club here to start with. Okay. We're going to hit a couple shots. Just get a little bit of baseline data on the current performance of that. And what would you say current distance on like a fairly well struck shot or, you know, from what distance would you be uh hitting your uh 7 iron these days? 180 or something maybe. Okay. Yeah, it's Yeah, I saw about 165 on the first swing out of the gate. So, that seems about 175 total. Cool. Keep going.

00:05:10And I see how you're tending to line them up a little bit more towards the heel on those ones. That's kind of the miss you described there. Maybe. Yep. Got that one. That didn't feel right. So, let's just talk through the numbers of what we're going to uh really be looking at today. I'm going to start with kind of the end number that I care about the most with an iron and that's going to be our descent angle. So that's the angle that's landing when it comes into the green. So you mentioned

00:05:35sometimes you do have some problem uh holding the green. Mhm. Uh we want to see that number something in the 40s for a club that we're hitting into the green. Ideally 45 46 47 that'd be fantastic with a 7 iron. Right now you're at about 40. Now that's going to be a combination of a couple of things. your ball speed, uh, and then your launch angle and your back speed. Because if we look at you right now, honestly, the numbers aren't too bad as far as like your launch. You're

00:06:01launching these at pretty much 18. That's again for your speed about where it should be. So the angle's leaving uh the face relative to the ground. And then the RPM to backspin, you're averaging about 5200. So slightly on the lower side. I'd rather see it closer to maybe say 6,000. Okay. But you're not way out of range on there. The biggest thing that we need to see out of you to help us get there, a little more spin for sure, but if we get more ball speed, so by center of

00:06:25contact, by newer tech, whatever the case is, the ball will just continue to climb for a longer period of time. So then it's uh apex will be higher and farther down range. Ultimately, that'll help it to land more vertical. Makes sense. Kind of the end goal. So uh if we look at your numbers, so your last shot was definitely a little bit on the low side. 4,400. Yep. on the last uh mistaken looks. And I mean, got plenty of speed. Uh club head speeds at around 87, so just under

00:06:5290. So you're going to be probably not quite an extra stiff, but you can probably get away with like a either a heavier stiff shaft. Uh or depending the manufacturer, they make kind of in between flexes. So, we'll test out some things there as well. Not not that dissimilar to what you have, honestly. We'll test out some different things to help us get more ball speed first and foremost. But then if we get more ball speed with some spin, you know, that's kind of what

00:07:15we're what we're going to be looking for. Okay. And then I would suspect this guy down here, max height, uh getting closer probably like say 30. So that's uh 30 yards, 90 ft in the air is the the peak height of the shot, the apex. Y based off of your speed, you're right on the edge as far as going stiff flex or an extra stiff flex. uh based off of your tempo, just a little shorter back swing, quicker timing throughout. Uh not right or wrong, just is what it is.

00:07:42Generally going to lean towards a little bit on the heavier side. Uh basically just help you to control and have a little better sense of where shaft is throughout. All right, Jeff. So, first one we're going to test out will be uh the one of the newer generations of iron from Tailor Mates, the P790. So, if you try to look at the two, there'll be some similarities. Uh sole width is about the same as yours. They're still using the three slot design on the bottom. Uh

00:08:04that's actually this is a great design for you. Uh whether you know it or not, the slot on the bottom, it helps those thin shots maintain their ball speed. So they still go similar distance. So I'm sure you locked into that one, but good choice on that one. Uh the biggest difference on this will be the overall blade length is a little bit smaller, but the amount of offset is less. So whenever you put it down, it should be of similar size, but just not sitting

00:08:28back as much as yours. Uh we did go with a slightly heavier. Uh we're doing extra stiff on this one just to try it out. See how it feels. Okay. As far as the shaft goes. But as we're going through, give me feedback. Like when you put it down, looks good, looks bad, looks good, feels bad, feels good. Uh when you hit it, um we'll give you all sorts of numbers, but kind of the subjective piece obviously we can't for that. So, sounds good. Other than that, just like before, we'll

00:08:53hit, you know, three, four, uh solid ones ideally. We can always come back and test it again. I just don't want you, you know, doing too many in a row and you're gonna like adjust your swing for it. So, uh, we try to mimic golf as best we can. So, okay, hit a few, take a look at some numbers

00:09:13and then just to recap again, we're trying to see if we can get some faster ball speeds. Uh, see if we can get a little bit uh more spin. So, definitely a little bit longer out of the gate. And that even sound maybe a hair thin, but not terrible. So, ball speed's already up to 116 on that one. compared to I believe we're at about 110 uh with your priors. Kept the launch the same. Is that all good? Uh what's that? Oh, the I just saw that message up there. Oh, no. That was just moving the ball

00:09:40around. But now, let's even just talk about that one real quick. I know it's sample size one, but we saw ball speed jump to 116. So, about 6 mph faster. Ball backspin's about where we were before. Uh and launch angle, but now just with the additional ball speed, now we got the descent angle kind of right where we want. So, it's right at 44. Yep. Uh so yeah, you can see over there as well too. So picked up call. Yeah, the range helps there. Uh like we discussed as well too, we

00:10:08ended up going with a little bit heavier, extra stiff just because of uh how quick your back swing and then transition into the down swing is just trying to give you something with a little more weight to have a little more sense of kind of where the club is in your swing. That makes sense. And again, not right or wrong. A lot of shaft is personal preference, but just kind of starting somewhere. We might test something on the opposite side of the spectrum, too, just to give you a

00:10:28sense of the difference. Yeah. Uh, but another good one there. Again, descent angle at 45, ball speed all the way up to 120. I think those clubs are about the only thing I've ever swung, so I don't really have much to compare it to. Totally get it. Yeah, maybe a little extra dirt on that one. Yeah, that was okay. That's all right, though. And there's the miss we talked about. Yep. Whenever you do catch it a little heavy, that probably brings that shot into play even more because then club

00:10:53catches, toe tends to shut down, send it left. Yeah, that's something I just got. But honestly, even on that one, this is a good example. Even on that one where you hit the ground first, the ball speed was still about 4 mph faster than the other shots you hit with your club. So, gotcha. That's just even on a bad shot. Yeah, it's just tech. The most of the irons you get anymore we'll be testing today, they're hollow. Then they inject them with a foam or some kind of polymer

00:11:14to make them feel solid. But by being hollow, they act like mini drivers. The face flexes more as it gets more ball speed. So, okay, we should It's It's going to be almost harder hard to get something off the wall that's not going to get you more ball speed. It's a good thing. Yeah, that sounded pretty nice. Let's do a quick recap on this one then, Jeff. Just comparing it to what you walked in with. Uh threw out the one that we fatted just like we threw out the one that we kind

00:11:40of hit left with yours. picked up about 7 miles an hour ball speed um with the new P790 compared to your older 10-year-old Tailor Made. Picked up 500 RPM of backspin. That's added bonus on that one. Okay, launching it one degree higher. Again, bonus on that as well, too. But now we picked up overall about 15 yards of carry, call it, but the most important part for us was getting the same angle more vertical. So now, not only are you hitting it not quite a club and a half, but a

00:12:08little more than a club farther, uh, but it's landing at an angle where it'll actually stop on the green, you know, whenever it lands there. So, and really the pattern besides that one you hit left. The pattern was pretty good. Uh, they were all just little shots falling to the right if you prefer the draw. There's some changes we can do in the line to help out with that. But, uh, give me your just feedback as far as the club goes. When you put it down, when

00:12:28you hit it, good, bad, indifferent. Like you said, it's probably really the only thing you'd hit besides yours. So yeah, I mean it kind of felt similar, honestly. But yeah. Yeah, it felt I don't know when you said heavier, I kind it seemed like it felt a little heavier. I kind of like that actually. Okay. You prefer? Yeah. And it makes sense. Like I said, for a player like you with a little quicker back swing, quicker transition from back swing to down swing, generally

00:12:52heavier works better. Uh not always. We can definitely try something out different as well uh in some other models. Okay. Uh let's do this. We're going to try another model that is uh of similar size. Uh, may I ask you one question first? The size and shape in that that seems seems fine. Is it too big? Small. I didn't. I didn't wonder at first. It was a little short, but I think it's all right. Okay. Yeah. Well, we'll do something similar to start with. Um, and then, you

00:13:17know, go from there. So, next I'm up, Jeff. We're going to test a slightly larger model uh in the AI300 from Callaway. Uh, so similar as far as some of the tech goes, a hollow body design, so should help us with some more ball speed uh compared to what you walked in with like the 790. biggest difference between this particular model and the 790 we just tested will be a little bit more offset. So, we might need to be careful with this one. If we do see a sending it too far left, there is an AI

00:13:42200 which is just a slightly smaller version, a little bit less offset, but wanted to kind of stay in a a most uh game improvement iron. I won't call it quite max improvement, but a little more forgiveness than the prior gener for for testing purposes. Like I said, we can adjust it if we need to. Okay. Uh, same shaft we just had in the dynamic gold, just to get a little bit bigger footprint than the P790 from Tailor Made. Okay. And like I said, when you put that down,

00:14:10if it looks like it's too big, uh, if you start seeing you send them left, we can step it down a notch if we need to. Okay. But like before, let's test two or three. We'll take a look at some numbers and then give me your feedback as far as what you think. Okay. Overall, good carry though. Still about 175 on the total carry. Ball speed up there. 115 about the same. So yes, I don't think he quite flushed that one. I don't think it was a total miss by any means. Maybe a little bit off the toe.

00:14:40That's the first time I think we've seen two left in a row. So maybe that little bit of extra offset that we have and that's too much for you. But that was my own fault. No, it's okay. As I said, I don't want you really making changes though. So, uh, as I talked about when we when we were just talking to your original club and ball speed at 120, descent angles at 45. So, numbers are all really good. Uh, the leftward misses. We did have two of them on that. Give me one more swing.

00:15:09So, tell me tell me about that one then when you put it down, when you hit it, uh, looks, feel just just comparing it to the 790. So that one this one feels different than than that one also. Can you add a little more detail? Different. How? Just I mean just honestly just looking at it like you said that one was kind of similar to the club I had before. So this one just feels different. This like one one thing I will say I guess um I don't know. I've always felt I think I've told you before 765.

00:15:40Yep. I've never I've always felt like this like skinnier. I don't know if it's just my own vision, but it's just felt like harder to hit when I've seen it. This one felt like looking at it seemed more like my like nine or eight felt a little more confidence, just a slightly bigger. I don't know if it really mattered. Certainly. You're going to be the one hitting these things. So, at the end of the day, that's like I said, we can look at all the numbers we want, but personal

00:16:03preference wants you to have some level of confidence when you put it down that you like what you look at. You have some confidence you're going to hit it well. If you know you step over this thing and uh start getting a little concerned out of the gate, you know, it's not helping the dogs. Yeah. But I think like the two I hit poorly were just mish hits and it felt the three I hit square felt pretty well. Do this. Hang on to the calaway real quick. I want to I want to give you

00:16:25this uh the AI 200 just to set next to it. So what you Okay, you don't even need to. So this one is the 200 in your left hand. Okay. It is just the slightly smaller version of the 300 that is in your right hand. Okay. It's more comparable to the 790 from Tailor Made that we first tested. Yeah. Okay. Now, how about as far as the just talking aesthetics when you put them down, is there does one jump at you more than the other? Do you like the slightly not a whole lot?

00:16:51Okay. I mean, do you prefer the slightly bigger look of the 300? Like you mentioned, it feels a comfort level there. Maybe I like it a tad bit, but it doesn't doesn't matter a whole lot. Let's do this then. Let me grab these both from you. We might come back and try out the 200s to see what happens. We're going to jump into one more model here from from Titus. And these ones uh just launched. So, I will say this is probably the best looking just aesthetically uh the

00:17:19badging or lack thereof in the back for a game improvement iron. Uh so, this is their T350. Uh similar design as far as hollow body construction like the rest of them. So, it should get some really nice ball speeds. It's not very offset for the size of the club, which would be good for us. So, we do have a again thicker top line, thicker sole, a lot of forgiveness in there to help with the confidence, but does not have the offset that can send the ball left. Uh, so again, every

00:17:44little box we can check to help prevent that miss is a good thing for us. Yep. So, go ahead and set up. Let me just enter that one into the system. That was uh probably best one as far as carried thus far. Uh, so 119 ball speed. Uh again peak height and the descent angle peak height's just at 30 29 descent angle 45. So no problem stopping. You talk about different I guess it is a 10ear difference but yeah it felt way different than the Iron Tech has changed quite a bit in

00:18:11that time frame for sure. Yeah. The good ones are going to go farther. The bad ones are going to go farther as well. Yeah. Good. And this one definitely seems to be launching quite a bit higher than that is visually looking at it and definitely getting the most carry compared to uh the last two we've tested as well. So now that was your fastest ball speed so far at 121. Uh and descent angle is actually getting on the high side now at 47. So it's the tendency when you do close it down

00:18:40though you know ball speed took even a bigger jump there 122. Uh and the good news is even with a shut base to send angles just fine. So, it seems to be really honestly with all the tech change regardless of which way we go. Uh, the send angle's taking care of itself now just from ball speed. Yeah, I see what you're saying kind of. Yeah, like I said, there's not really going to be a wrong decision. Uh, everything's going to be better than what you walked in. It's the good news on ones that go

00:19:05fairly straight and hit well enough. So, I think we're definitely seeing out of the T350 uh the best carry. And this conversation is all uh what makes this really hard to differentiate all these irons. They're all sevens and threes and twos. So, the one on the back spin lower on this one than uh that last one was a little bit lower. The shots that curve to the left will tend to be a little lower. But the good news is we take a look at all of these as long as your

00:19:31descent angle gets there. So, you kind of have three ways you can get your descent angle where we need it. Either ball's going to we need increased ball speed uh which helps it to just peak higher. Mhm. as long as or we can have it spin more that helps the ball climb more so it peaks higher or we can just launch it higher off the face which achieves the same thing. We've kind of three ways to get the descent angle where we want it to be. Uh honestly I don't care how we

00:19:55get there as long as we do. Y um so if we picked up more ball speed with that model as we did that can allow the back spin to be a little on the low side and you're not going to have any problem with it. That last one's a little lower just cuz you did draw it a little bit extra. The ones you faded there are about the same. So, let's just do a quick recap of really where yours was. Uh, 163 carry. We saw ball speed 110 and biggest concern was uh descent angle was only at 40. So, it' be a hard

00:20:21time holding the greens, especially when you do get beyond the seven iron like you mentioned because then that's going to come down and down. So, it makes sense why your 654, you don't really like those. Uh, they'd be hard to hold the green with how I anticipate you would hit those. 790. We saw 177 carry distance, 117 ball speed, descent angle 45. So again, a good option there for sure. Next model about the same in the T uh or excuse me, the AI 300 from Callaway, 179, call it

00:20:50carry distance. So uh comparable to the 790, you know, not quite 20 yards farther than what you walked in with. And we kept that descent angle at 45. Ball speed the same. You almost hit the 790 and the AI300 essentially the same. Yeah. Uh then the last one you're holding there from Titalist, the T350. This is the one that we saw the fastest ball speeds out of. So ball speed average was 120. I think we got a 121 and 122 out of you. Uh carry distance now at 185. So we picked up 7ish more

00:21:21yards over the other two we tested while still maintaining the descent angle at 45. So uh as you mentioned there, spin did come down a little bit. I think that one dropped a hair just because of that last draw. Uh, but honestly not concerned with it because the descent angle is still fine. I think we even had one descent angle there at like 47 or 48. So, I'm not concerned at all with this one that you're going to have any problem holding the greens. All right,

00:21:45guys. We just wrapped up an iron and threw some wedges at the end for Jeff here. Jeff walked in with some basically 10-year-old irons. Uh, and then the wedges as well, too. Uh, they were some older CG12 Cleveland that have definitely seen a few balls. So really no wedge we put in your hand was going to be worse. Everything's going to spin more. Uh let's talk irons first. So we landed on the T350s here from Titus. They had the fastest ball speed. Uh and really then just got the best peak

00:22:12height. So we don't have any worry about stopping it. Uh we picked up I think probably 25 yards over the clubs you walked in with. So no shocker there. Uh we went with some Dynamic Gold X100s in the shaft just cuz like we talked about little faster swing tempo, back swing speed. uh was, you know, you really take the club back quickly, little heavier shaft just to help you a sense where it is. And then we landed on some T3s uh from Mizuno. So, we like the T3s because uh they have the cavity back

00:22:39design. So, when you are hitting these full swing, uh not only is there a level forgiveness there, but then around the green, if you do want to open these up, play with the face angle a little bit, you have that option as well, too. Um and then again, we saw spins in excess of 8,000 uh just on little shots around the green. should be in a good spot with both of these. Jeff, definitely just some new tech going to help you out and like we said before, the other 95% is

00:23:01going to be you, but we're limiting excuses now. So, appreciate you coming in today. Uh should have some new sticks for you uh pretty soon here to finish out the season and then get you into 2026. Thanks, guys. All right. Thanks, Brad.

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