RIP - The 1-iron ?

[Robert Mercer Deruntz]

The demise of the 1 iron is soley related to the change in the golf ball.  Having tested for new clubs at Taylor Made a few weeks ago, the spin rate had the most significant effect upon ball flight.  The modern ball will not carry well off the deck for a 1 iron unless the player is delivering @ 120 mph clubhead speed.  Players with that speed can carry a 2 iron @ 250 yards.  The hybrids are weighted to give the ball plenty of carry in order to overcome a lacking of spin.  Players now find the hybids to offer quite a few interesting shot options--chipping, deep rough gouging, 80 yard sand shots, ect.  By the way, not many tour pros are paid to use hybrids--most contracts are for 11 or 12 clubs and specify use of Driver, maybe 1 fairway wood, maybe putter, and maybe wedges (Cleveland).

[George Pazin]

would Hogan have used a long putter is they wre available back then?

how the hell would any of us know?  Anybody here pal around with Hogan enough to know?  Didn't think so...

If I had to speculate, I'd say "hell yes he would have, and in a New York minute.  Hogan was about doing anything in pursuit of perfection.  Emphasis on "anything."

Dave -- I agree with you on the penny but disagree re frequent flier miles

I wonder if Hogan ever tried Snead's side saddle approach?

I read an interview with someone - Dan Jenkins, Sam Snead, Tommy Bolt, some contemporary of Hogan's - and he recounted a practice round later in Hogan's career where Hogan putted cross handed and holed everything in site. When he suggested Hogan putt that way in a tournament, Hogan responded with an emphatic no way, so I doubt he'd have used the long putter.

I personally have no problem with it. It's odd to me that people make such a big deal out of it.

I like Sean's idea (actually, many have suggested similar) of limiting the number of clubs to 10. I personally carry anywhere from 6-14, depending on the whim. Last time I played I got caught without my normal set, so I had a mixed bag - some old, some new, one practice club - it amounted to a driver, 3 wood, one old 5 iron, one new 6, three 7's (old, new, practice), a PW and putter.

[PThomas]

I don't understand why anyone - esp someone whose livelihood it its--wouldn't do whatever is within the rules to score better..cross-handed, side saddle, long putter, whatever!

[Mike_Clayton]

Robert
You are exactly right.

25 years ago we were doing all we could to keep the ball down - 1 irons,straight faced drivers and strong 3 woods.
Now we are doing everything we can to get it in the air - Hybrid irons,Rescues.
I don't know so much about America but in Australia and Britain where there is considerably more wind to deal with,the change to the big ball from the 1.62 inch ball in the late 70's was tough because it was an American ball not designed for high wind.
The Pro- Traj. Titlesit was tough so most used the Low- Traj.
Then the DDH can out and lots of guys switched to that because it was so much better in the wind.

Now it's a joke.
The Pro V1 is way better than the small ball ever was in the wind.

[Dan Kelly]

My putter for about the first half of my tournament career was pretty interesting too. It was Tommy Armour's Tommy Armour putter. Today it's in the club display case of my golf club.

Friend of mine loves golf, knows nothing about it, plays just that way.

About 10 years ago, or whenever it was that the Tommy Armour 845S were the big new thing, he kept seeing Tommy Armour clubs everywhere. Didn't understand why.

Someone suggested he might like them.

He said: "Why in the hell should I buy Tommy Armours? Guy's not doin' a damn  thing out there on tour."

[Robert Mercer Deruntz]

Shivas,  You may somehow be hitting your 1 iron further today.  But this is an absolute anomaly.  The major manufactures have spent considerable sums testing equipment.  The result is golf balls that spin significantly less than the Titleist Tour Pro era of balls, increased bottom weighted long irons, and drivers with higher launches.  Also, even though you are "killing" your 1 iron, is the carry distance longer than your 2 iron?  Carry distance is the real key number when measuring length.  Among my friends who tend to do quite well playing golf for a living, not one has even a strengthened 2 iron.  They are now carrying hybrids, though not necessarily using them every tournament.

[A.G._Crockett]

Robert, all I can tell you is what I see.  EVERYthing goes farther, including the 1 iron.  I'm not saying it's better than the hybrids or anything like that.  What I am saying is that the 1 iron goes farther than the 2 iron.  The 1 iron is a Mizuno grad from about 10 years ago.  The 2 iron is a Callaway X-14 pro series.  That Grad has an X 100 and the Callaway has whatever the Rifle X flex is. The 1 iron is a rocket.  So is the 2.  But the 1 iron is longer.  Why does that surprise you?  

Is it possible that the loft on the Mizuno is equal to or higher than that of the Callaway, or that kick points on the shafts are such that your launch angle on the Mizuno is higher than the norm for a one-iron?  One of those possibilites would explain why you don't hit any of your other one-irons, as well as reconcile the launch angle stuff that we have come to appreciate with driver lofts getting higher.  Just a thought...

[Doug Siebert]

Why does it seem strange that a 1 iron carries further than a 2 iron?  Don't you carry your 4i further than your 5i?  Yes, there's a point of diminishing returns, but it isn't reached with a 1 iron for someone with fairly high clubhead speed.  Remember back in the day when George Burns (the pro golfer, not the comedian) carried a 0 iron?

As a card carrying 1 iron lover for many years, I still use mine all the time, though since the Pro V1 quite rarely off the fairway unless I have some room to sneak up on the green along the ground.  With a Tour Balata I used to hit the damn thing high enough off the ground to fly over mature trees.  Now I have to hit it pretty damn near perfectly to get it 50 feet in the air, and more often seem to get it more like 30 feet up.

So the thing is, it doesn't carry as far as a 2i off the ground for me anymore, but it sure does off a tee.  I did change the way I hit my 1 iron off the tee when I switched to the Pro V1.  I used to tee it like I'll tee any other iron, maybe 1/16" off the ground.  Now I'll tee it about 1/4" to 1/3" up, and hit it like a driver with a slightly ascending blow, and it gets way up there to tree defying heights and way out there when I'm really hitting it.  And put me on a really tight course and I might be using it 10 or 12 times in a round.

Funny thing is, now when I'm hitting into the wind I'll hit a driver on a tight hole because the Pro V1 is affected less by the wind off the driver than the 1 iron, and there's plenty more margin for distance robbing mishits on the driver.  Talk about a major change in strategy due to the new ball!

Yeah, I should probably look into hybrids, but my irons are circa 1989 and I don't even carry a fairway wood because I can't find a 3W I like so it might take me a few more years to join the modern age

[James Bennett]

A G Crockett

you should be in politics.  Great answer.  They are both right.

[TEPaul]

The reason I carried a 1 iron for years and hit it off tees a lot is for some reason I knew I could never hit it right. I don't know why that was but I never hit it right but I sure could hit a driver right. It was a great option off a tee for that reason alone.  

[ForkaB]

An update....

I dusted off the knife in an important situation on Saturday (210 yards away from the 18th in the light rough, into the wind and needing to get a 4 for a score) and nutted it, even though it could have gone anywhere, as 1-irons are wont to do.  It was a good feeling.

That being said, I threw away enough other shots earlier on by not having a "rescue" club that I think the knife will soon be put out to pasture, along with the persimmons, the hickories, the "anti-shank" iron and the club my Mom once gave me for Xmas that you could twist the hosel of to alter the loft.....

[Sean_A]

So Rich The Nutter

Did you win the hole?

Ciao

Sean

[ForkaB]

Sean

I like "Rich the Nutter" better than "Brains."  Keep it up.

Vis a vis your question, I won--vis a vis the course relative to my expectations and abilities.  It was an open medal competition

[TEPaul]

" It was an open medal competition "

So, does that mean you could actually post your score for handicap purposes?

[ForkaB]

Yes, Tom, it was and I did, and in the end there was no change as I played exactly to my handicap, but my 4 on 18 did allow me to break 80 from the back tees at Dornoch which is one of the persistent goals in this nasty, brute and shortish life which I have.......

[TEPaul]

"....did allow me to break 80 from the back tees at Dornoch which is one of the persistent goals in this nasty, brute and shortish life which I have....... "

Stuff it Rich----I'd appreciate it if you'd leave the doomish histrionics on here to me!

[George Pazin]

George P:

Are you seriously going to use a quick aside of a story to conclude that Hogan wouldn't have used the long putter?  Some guy said that one time Hogan played a practice round cross handed, therefore ... what??

The answer, of course, is nothing.

Remember, this was a man who proposed that the game shouldn't even INCLUDE putting as we know it!!  Gimme a break.  If there is any indicator of his mindset, that's it.

He'd have jumped on the long putter faster than I'd take 2 a side from Huck!  

I haven't found the interview yet, but my recollection is that the specific reason Hogan eschewed cross handed putting was that he did not want to suffer the embarassment attached to such a desperate measure. Furthermore, after his passing, his wife recounted in a different interview that a large part of his problem with putting was that he was blind in one eye. She begged him to let people know and he refused, because he was a proud man determined to succeed on his own terms.

These two things lead me to conclude that if the long putter were available in his time, he would not have used it. However, I will concede that if the long putter lacked the stigma then that it seems to possess - in other words, if it had been commonplace for a few decades and used by others regularly in competition - then perhaps he may have used it. As things stand, I still don't think he would've used it.

And Mike Clayton's last response has inspired me to start a new thread....

[Tags:]

Tags: