Learn the differences between Conventional Irons and Single-Length Irons
I am constantly amazed when golfers boast about their conventional sets of irons being “custom fitted” and, therefore, producing enhanced and consistent performance. The concept of being “custom fitted” for a set of conventional golf clubs is ridiculous in that you still end up with 13 clubs (excluding the putter) of different lengths, weights, shaft flexes, lie angles, bounce angles, offsets, etc. when, in fact, your body gravitates to only one efficient movement for any physical endeavor (that is the reason why all golfers have a “favorite” iron). Therefore, after being “custom fitted” for a set of conventional clubs you still end up having only one iron in your bag that even comes close to fitting you correctly and that somewhat allows for the swing posture and swing movement that your body wants to make when hitting a ball with a golf club. As far as consistent performance goes I have to bite my tongue. The following table shows the typical specifications for a conventional set of irons (varies between brands as there are no specification standards in the golf industry).
How this equates to consistency I do not know. I would like to point out something from the above table that most golfers do not realize and that has to do with the varying shaft flexes within a set of conventional irons. Regardless of what the shaft bands state, every one of the irons in a conventional set has a different shaft flex that gets progressively stiffer from the #3 iron to the wedges. To prove this to yourself simply hold the clubhead of a conventional #3 iron in one hand with the grip in the other hand and bend it – then do the same thing with the PW from the same set and you will see what I mean.
Another thing that most golfers do not realize is that in a conventional set of irons the clubhead weight progressively increases from the #3 iron through the wedges. This results in a greater amount of mass impacting the golf ball with the wedges than the low lofted irons. Wouldn’t you want the higher impact mass associated with the iron that is designed to produce the most distance? Enhanced and consistent performance? – Go figure.
The specifications for a set of 1 Iron single length irons are shown below. With the exception of the bounce angle on our SW the only difference between irons is the exact 4º loft angle progression from the #3 iron through the wedges. The reason for the additional 3º of bounce angle on the SW is to enhance play from a soft bunker. You may note that the bounce angle of a typical conventional SW varies from 10º to 14º. Bounce angles this high produce a clunky shot out of the sand and make playing shots from a close cut fairway virtually impossible. What is sad is that most golfers will continually blade shots out of the fairway with a conventional SW without ever even understanding why. Our 1 Iron single length SW was designed for highly effective sand play as well as fairway play, and an interesting point is that part of my design testing for our SW involved hitting balls off of a cement driveway (no skulled shots with our SW).
At the end of the day you just have to leave all of the marketing hype about custom fitting and conventional golf club design behind and simply rely on plain old common sense.
Do they come in left hand?
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1 Iron Golf replied:
Hi! Here are our left handed offerings: https://1irongolf.com/collections/left-hand-offerings. Let us know if you have more questions!
How do I measure myself for your club?
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1 Iron Golf replied:
Hi! Thanks for reaching out. Our fitting process is very easy to do at home, follow this link for instructions: https://1irongolf.com/pages/fitting Let us know if you have any more questions!
I’d like to up my game. I am 73 yrs, old. With a 9 handi cap per 9 holes. I have a single plain swing. Moe Norman ,Natural golf.
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1 Iron Golf replied:
Hi Amos! You can’t go wrong with any of our lines of irons since they are extremely forgiving for golfers of all skill levels. I would suggest either the Pro-line or Blackstone irons as they have been rated Ultra Game Improvement by independent Maltby Playability Factor testing. I am 71 years old and have been playing the Blackstones for five years. Excellent irons.
What is the difference in your one length iron sets? Is there graphite shafts?
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1 Iron Golf replied:
Hi! We have 4 sets to choose from and you can see the specs for each here: https://1irongolf.com/pages/single-length-irons. We only install our proprietary steel shafts in our irons and fairway woods. The design of our golf shafts in combination with our proprietary Shaft Optimization Process produces a perfectly balanced golf club (other brands typically use stock shafts with no balance criteria). Once this perfect balance is achieved the concept of shaft flex disappears and the golf club will perform at its peak performance level regardless of swing speed or strength. Our golf clubs are played by professional golfers and long-drive champions with extremely high swing speeds and played by senior women golfers with very low swing speeds.
This balance also greatly reduces any potential vibration of the shaft, and that, coupled with our oversize textured grips, virtually eliminates any vibration you would normally experience with steel shafts. It is of note that many of our customers are former graphite shaft players.
Also, we are the only golf club manufacturer to perform shaft flex plane orientation as part of our proprietary Shaft Optimization Process. If a golf club is shafted without regard to its inherent flex plane the shaft will try to rotate around its axis to a position of stability during the swing which creates an oscillation of the shaft and club-head. This oscillation results in the club-head literally wobbling through impact which causes miss-hits and is the main cause of “impact shock”. When the shaft is correctly oriented in respect to its inherent flex plane it will resist twisting to any other position when placed under load and will remain stable through impact. It is as if the club-head is riding on rails through the impact zone. Let us know if you have more questions!
Is 4 iron shorter then conventional 4 iron
Is pitching wedge longer then conventional wedge and why- why not.
Have left messages and got no responce
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1 Iron Golf replied:
Hi Jack, the irons will be custom built to the length that puts you in the perfect swing position based on your wrist-to-floor measurement. Very likely they all may be the length of your current 6 or 7 iron, it just depends on your measurement. There is a graph that shows all the lengths based on your measurement here: https://1irongolf.com/pages/fitting. Let us know if you have any other questions!
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