I’ve been looking through my removed posts and found the one I had on my 5 irons at the TXG facility back in 2018, when I was just getting numbers for my clubs.

Now, you all know I’m not happy with how I swung the club back in 2018, because of two things specifically, the left-dominant setup/action and my grip.

Even so, this is the actual footage of two 5 irons I hit and time was pressing because I’d thought we had booked an hour instead of the 30 minute slot.

I had therefore taken a good deal of time to make some warm up swings with clubs wedge through driver, I’d hit a couple of different drivers before then hitting a custom Callaway Rogue to see what numbers I could get, then was informed there were only about 5 or so minutes left in the booking.

I quickly grabbed a 5 iron to get in a couple of balls, then the 7 iron and finally the 9, but like I’m saying, even with a swing that wouldn’t make me happy today, and pressed for time, I got over two balls and hit them the exact same distance with the 5 iron, 207 yards total:

I hit those two balls 25 seconds apart and, missing right by about 7 yards with the 1st ball (I never can get a good bead on the line when hitting at a screen, so I have to adjust my visuals after the first ball), I made the adjustment and hit the 2nd ball the exact same yardage, this time less than 10 feet left of the target (2.5 yards = 7.5 feet, yes?).

And this 5 iron was lofted at 27 degrees, not some crazy 22 or 23 degrees that I’m seeing in some pros’ bags – my Tommy Armour Silver Scott 5 iron from the 90’s was 28 degrees, so I like the lofts on the MB2’s, although I’ll note that my Silver Scot lofts were 32 with the 6 iron, 36 with the 7 iron, 40 with the 8 iron and 44 for the 9 iron, so a little strengthening over the years:

Not bad from 207 yards and to be honest, that’s my “put it on the green” swing – if I had to, I could hit that 5 iron a good deal longer (say if I had 220 to a target and wanted to stop it more quickly than a 4 or 3 iron, I’d put some mustard on that 5 and the steeper descent and spin would literally “stick it” if the green wasn’t made of asphalt).

Nice, easy action, no trying to kill it:

The Action – 5 Iron

Now that I’m nearing the end of my modeling work (if not already, but I’ll need another session in the next few days to see if my hunch on what I was doing un-optimally is correct, at which point I’ll be done with work on the Classic Golf Swing model), I’m looking at how I was swinging when I was still getting in regular sessions a few years back.

So, I was 48 when I shot that video but I’m betting that I’ll have an even longer and straighter 5 iron than this when I next venture to a testing facility.

Until I completely seize up with age, I don’t expect to lose much yardage year over year, because it will be the technique doing all the work.

As long as I can make a full pivot to parallel shaft, I’ll expect little degradation of distance before I hit 60 at the least.

We’ll come back to this later and see how my guess went!

More to come.