Straighter shots . Sweeter hit . Quality manufacturer .
Disadvantages:
Not quite so good for delicate chip and pitch shots .
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
~ ~ I suppose the day had to come! Old Father Time was beginning to take his toll on the mad cabbie just a little, and I was finding it harder and harder to hit good, pure shots with my old set of trusty ‘blade’ irons, a set of Wilson Staff Progressive that I’ve been playing with for the past decade or so.
~ ~ Golf irons come in two basic designs. My old Wilson clubs were ‘blades’, which in simple terms meant that they had no cavity back at the rear of the club head. This meant that the ‘sweet spot’ on the clubface was a little smaller than you get with modern-day cavity backed irons, so there was less room for error in your swing. The ‘sweet spot’ is the area of the clubface where you want to hit the golf ball, in order to give a true, straight shot. Deviate from the sweet spot, and the ball will either fly to the left or the right, the degree of deviation obviously depending on the degree that your strike is off-centre. The advantage of blade irons is that it is easier to both impart spin on the golf ball, and to work the ball from right to left. (Or vice-versa)
~ ~ I used blade irons (from various manufacturers) for most of my golfing life. (Now over 50 years playing the sport, starting when I was barely able to stand on my own two legs!) But the last three or four years I have been hitting the ball less sweetly, due mainly to having to modify the length and fluidity of my golf swing due to the advancing years leaving their unavoidable mark on my physical prowess. (Getting older and stiffer!!) So last year I decided to make use of all the amazing technological advancement that has been achieved in golf club design and manufacture over the last couple of decades to try to keep my golf game up to scratch. (And my handicap in single figures!)
~ ~ The old trusty Wilson blades were consigned to the (already overflowing with old golf paraphernalia!) hall cupboard, and I purchased a set of new Ping ISI cavity back irons. Well, not quite new, (second hand actually) but new to the mad cabbie! I had used Ping irons before, when I successfully used a set of their old Ping Eye 2 clubs for a couple of seasons in the early 1990’s, so knew that I was buying a set of quality clubs from a renowned manufacturer. You have to be careful these days, as there is such a plethora of golf equipment on the market, it’s easy for an inexperienced buyer to be taken in by the extravagant claims of some somewhat less than reputable manufacturers, who have their lousy equipment made ‘on the cheap’ in Far-Eastern sweat shops, and then sell it onto a gullible public who know no better. (A golf club is a golf club right? WRONG!!)
~ ~ Ping entered the golf club manufacturing market as far back as the 1950’s, when an engineer called Karsten Solheim began to manufacture his own revolutionary design of putter in the garage of his own home, for no other reason than he couldn’t find a putter that suited him in his local pro shop! Success followed quickly, and after firmly establishing themselves as makers of some of the finest putters in the world, Ping moved into making irons and woods in the early 1970’s. With the advent of their Ping Eye 2 irons in the early 1980’s, they broke through into the upper echelons of the golf market, and became major league players.
~ ~ Ping ISI are not new clubs, and in fact, are no longer available to buy new, unless you happen to come across a golf professional or store that have a set lying around in their storeroom. They went out of production around the mid-1990’s, and were superseded by the newer Ping i3 irons. But they were such a popular golf club that they are still widely available used, as a search of any auction site like ‘Ebay’ or the old World Wide Web will soon show. They were made in three different materials; stainless steel, Beryllium Copper, and zinc/nickel. By far the most expensive of these materials is the Beryllium Copper model, and in fact, while researching this review, I came across a brand new set for sale on the American Ebay site for a mind-boggling $2,500! But I didn’t want a Beryllium Copper set, as my old Ping Eye 2 clubs were made out of this, and it is VERY difficult to stop your clubs discolouring (they look really tatty!) and also to stop them getting damaged. (Beryllium Copper is very soft) I went for the zinc/nickel set, which is slightly more expensive than the plain stainless steel, but tougher and longer lasting than both the steel and Beryllium Copper.
~ ~ What I like about the Ping ISI irons is both the design and the playability. Using CAD (computer aided design) Ping have been able to improve both the performance (distance) of the clubs, and have built-in an improved ability to avoid the club head ‘twisting’ on a slightly off-centre strike. This means that I can now hit the golf ball further with each club than I was able to achieve with my old blade irons, and if I do happen to hit it less than perfectly, the degree of deviation in the ball flight is not so great. (So more straighter shots, even on off-centre hits) This improvement is achieved by distributing the weight of the club head more evenly. Most of the weight in Ping ISI irons is located in four key positions on the club head. The upper and lower toe area, and in the heel and hosel of the club. (Where it joins the club shaft) Ping has also improved the performance of the club by lowering the centre of gravity, so the golf ball actually gets airborne more quickly. (And thus tends to fly further in the air)
~ ~ All the shafts on Ping golf clubs are marked with a coloured ‘dot’. The colour of the dot signifies the degree of flexibility of the shaft, whether it’s made out of stainless steel, or the more modern graphite. If you are buying a new set of Ping clubs, then the retailer (or club pro) will measure your swing speed, and advise you what shaft is most suitable for your own individual swing speed. You can also alter the angle of club head between the head and the shaft, again to suit your own individual preference. My own set have stainless steel shafts, with slightly more flex than my old Wilson irons, as the speed of my golf swing has slowed down a little with the passage of time. (Bah!!) Obviously, if you are buying Ping clubs second hand, then it will pay you to go along to either your local golf professional or Ping stockist, and take the test to tell what particular shaft suits you. If you don’t, you could either destroy your game by playing with a totally unsuitable shaft for your swing, or run into a lot of needless expense by having to replace all of the shafts on your clubs. The last thing I did when purchasing these Ping ISI irons was to negotiate a price with the retailer to replace the old (and worn) rubber grips with a lovely new set of ‘cord’ grips. These are soft rubber grips with lengths of thin cord implanted in them, which give you a great grip on the club, and make it less likely to slip out of your hands in wet weather, (We get a LOT of wet weather here in Ireland!)
~ ~ Anything I don’t like about my new Ping clubs? Well, yeah, if I’m totally honest. I simply can’t play delicate chip and pitch shots around the green with a large headed, cavity backed golf club. I feel as though I’m no longer in control of the shot, which has to be played with more finesse and skill than longer fairway irons. So the pitching wedge and the sand iron from my new set of Pings have been binned, and I still use the old Wilson blades for this type of shot. Otherwise I have to say that I’m totally delighted with the clubs, and foresee more regular appearances in the winner’s circle this coming season. (Mind you, I won a couple of competitions last year as well, and this while I was still only getting used to my new clubs!)
~ ~ Price? Well, how long is a piece of string? As I said earlier, these clubs are no longer manufactured, so can’t be bought new. I paid €450 for my set of 9 irons at Nevada Bobs, (the golf superstore) plus a further €100 to have them re-gripped. So €550 in total, or just over €60 per club. When they were still available new they retailed at in or around the €1250 mark for a set, so I’m happy enough that I got a good deal. If you’re interested in a set of Ping ISI irons, then try Google (the excellent search engine), which will throw up any amount of sites where they are for sale, at varying prices. Another plus factor is that Ping golf clubs really retain their second hand value, so if you do happen to buy them and don’t like them, they are easy enough to sell on.
