Re: Blade or cavity

If you are hitting the blades great then stick with them. The blades are for low handicappers that want to shape the ball though. The cavity backs are for people like me who are happy to hit the ball straight. The cavity backs are way more forgiving.

Re: Blade or cavity

Read my sig.

That said, I have played everything from a muscleback 2 iron (Wilson) to extreme cavity back (SE 600XC) to even the GolfSmith Special Force irons (closed face).

Here's the deal, skimpy.

When you miss the sweet spot (which, contrary to popular hype, is the size of a pinhead - no bigger) you lose yards. This is why the amateur 'nukes' one every now and then. They simply found the sweet spot.

Now, musclebacks and blades penalize you more yards the further you get away from the sweet spot; compared to cavity backs. This has to do with weight placement. With cavity backs, the weight is more uniformly spread around the head, lending similar mass in multiple places to create 'forgiveness' - in other words, less penalty for missing the sweet spot. Blades and musclebacks, by comparison, have more mass located by the sweet spot, which leaves less material to 'spread around' creating more discrepancy between 1/4" off and 3/4" off.

So you need to decide for yourself whether you want more forgiveness or not. If you're happy with your current clubs, swing away.

Re: Blade or cavity

I have been playing for 20 years and I recently went out to buy a new set of clubs. I went in open minded and hit everything they had--it was a big shop and it took me nearly 4 weekends to narrow down my finalists. I was professionally fitted ---well as good as it gets at a busy name brand pro shop (swing speed, lie, ball spin, etc). The fitting narrowed down my choices quite a bit. The last few options for my choice boiled down to personal fav (which really translates into long mid/high accurate shots), feel when I struck the ball well and feel when I didn't (oddly equally important to me), and need.

Although I have played a fair while, I have never had time to get better than an 8 handicap and I have had periods where I couldn't play for years at a time and at the time of my purchase I was an 18 handicap. Even when I played off an 8, I can never remember needing to shape shots all that much. I have always considered the hardest shot in golf to be a pure straight shot. About the only time that I attempted to shape shots was when I was behind an obstical that I really shouldn't be behind in the first place. So for me, if I could get a club that promoted straight shots I would be more than happy.

lots of things to consider, but even many PRO's on the tours don't play true blades--they may be forged but many are designed with forgiving features... I have never understood, why someone who gets really great at hiting iron shots decides that they should try to get a more difficult club to hit---shape shots?!? Hmmm.... If I were on the jury, it would still be out. I am willing to bet that all the tour players could hit cavity backs just as well as blades--in fact I bet that their scoring averages wouldn't change in fact they might even get better!!! who knows...

Your choice, don't let your decision be influenced too much by shaped shots. You can still shape shots with cavity backs, just not as well.

Re: Blade or cavity

All great advice to here, all I will add is this...

IMO golf is all about repetition...

The individuals ability to repeat the same swing, swing in swing out, day in day out...

So, if you go to the range and hit 100 balls, where each shot marked the clubface at impact so that after the 100 shots you could see the pattern, the greater the dispersion, the greater your need for forgiveness. The greater your need for a forgiving iron.

If that makes sense...

Bottom line, I can only endorse LP's comments. If you are happy with your results swinging the clubs you already have, then continue on.....

Cheers

Re: Blade or cavity

Thank you all for your advice I will borrow a set of cavity backs and compare them with my blades.


Skimpy

Re: Blade or cavity

I disagree with this.
If CB's were better for Pro's then they would use them.
When golf is your job you use whatever gives you the best results irrespective of anything else (except your sponsor!)

Re: Blade or cavity

IMO, blades are not that much "harder" to hit than cavity backs, that is, they are no harder to swing correctly and to put on the ball than CBs. They are a bit less forgiving, but we’re talking about maybe a 5 percent difference with a SLIGHTLY off center mishit and that’s assuming EVERYTHING else was perfect, ie path, face angle, clubhead speed, release. A cavity backed club is not going save bladed shots, fat shots, open faced shots, OTT moves, shanks, chunks, etc. which are MUCH more common than slight mishits. Blades WILL make you feel it when you hit thin, though.

When the pros DO miss, they barely miss. They can really take advantage of the forgiveness in a CB iron on the occasional slight mishit. Pros who can live with a percent or two error on the VERY RARE occasion of a slight mishit, may choose to trade a bit of forgiveness for a bit of workability and go with blades.

A more radical "game improvement" CB irons CAN give you a higher ball flight (and thus more distance) than a blade (or regular CB) on good shots, so there is some advantage in these clubs for slow swing speeds, but again, you have to be able to get the club on the ball.