Check lofts, not the number on the bottom of the club

[ARL67]

..... most golfers have compressed yardages as they get into their lower lofted irons. Ie: the distance gap between, say their 4/5/6 irons will be tighter than between their 9/8/7. Often this is simply because they cannot elevate the ball enough with these longer and lower lofted clubs. IMO, these are the clubs where gapping based on yardage not loft is most warranted.

Further to that, the higher lofted clubs typically had 4* separation, then switch to 3* separation for say 6-5-4-3 , which only contributes to distance compression unless one has higher SS and pure strikes.

I had often thought of removing the 6i from my set, bending my 7 stronger and my 5 weaker.

We are now also seeing 5* gapping in the higher lofted clubs, especially in the Super Game Improvement Class.


Even Mizuno's soon to be shipping MP-225 Players Distance irons have quite the range of loft gapping.

[Ignatius Reilly]

I think we want consistent distance gaps, not loft gaps don't we?

Distance is affected by club length and the sine of the angle not the angle itself (among other things, like weight and design). So we want a consistent separation of sines (or maybe cosines, I can't remember it's been 50 years ffs!)

And that's why we see gaps of 2.5* at the low end, and 5* in the wedges.

Of course pretty much everyone (including a ton of pros) have come to realize a 16.5* 2i is a tough club to get much love out of, hence the popularity of hybrids.