Help w/ Modern Irons & Lofts

I am a senior with a 24 handicap that plays closer to an 18 with my irons (but closer to a 30 with a horrible short game). I play 18-year-old Ping I3+ and 22-year-old TM Burner LCG irons. Both 5 irons, at 27*, are the lowest loft I can reliably hit with the 4 and 3 irons banished to the garage.

So I am now looking at new Game Improvement irons (like Sub70 739s and similar) and see that lofts have come down (today’s 6i is 27*+/-). My core question is whether other improvements in iron and shaft design would likely make me able to hit a modern 5i (at 24* loft) or whether this loft creep over the years is just marketing hooey; and I should only order down to a 27* 6-iron. Thanks for your thoughts.

Bonus question. I am attracted to Maltby TE Forged irons, a ten-year old design still being sold. Have advances by other makers likely lapped these Maltby’s performance-wise?

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Modern game improvement irons are built specifically to launch the ball higher, and with less spin. Because of this the lofts have come down quite a bit. I would guess you’d be able to hit a 24 degree 5 iron, but you mentioned you’re a senior player. Have you considered starting your set with a 6 iron and then getting hybrids or fairway woods to address your longer clubs? These will generally make it even easier to launch the ball, and will be more forgiving. One of my good friends is in his 60s and still plays off a single digit handicap. His longest iron is a 7 iron…below that it’s all hybrid and fairway woods because they help him get the ball in the air and land it softly.

Sorry, can’t address the Maltby question.

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I should add that your best bet is to get fit by a professional who can get you set up with the right combination of irons, hybrids and fairway woods for your game.

I confidently play a 7, 5 and 3 wood for longer shots, and a 4H for distance between the 7W and 5i. My question is whether things have changed enough that my gapping will now be off due to changes to iron performance as designs have changed.

Thanks.

Best advice is to gap the loft number, not the iron number. For example, in my set the irons start at a 24* 6 iron and progress from there. If the gapping is good between your current 5i at 27* and 7w, then target a set where the lowest lofted iron is around 27*. The technology of the modern GI irons should definitely help you hit them. Naturally getting fitted or at least testing them out will be best just to see if they feel alright to you. If you’re going the DTC route, both Sub70 and Hogan have trial programs.

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Im a six handicap and replace my 24 year old irons with 8 year old adams cmbs… I love them! So nothing wrong with older iron designs… honestly, the sales pitch on the new cobra king irons is pretty much the same pitch as the cmb.

That said, distance irons make a ton of sense if you aren’t a long hitter. If you can keep the dispersion of your current 7 iron, but hit it 10 yards further you will lower your scores. The question then becomes: how much does your dispersion change playing distance irons… and that’s something you need to get on a launch monitor to figure out.

I will say the sub70 699s are excellent clubs and plenty forgiving with some added distance… they are releasing the 799 this spring, I think. It might be worth buying a five iron and comparing it to your current five iron and figure out what differences you see.

Get yourself to the nearest bash & thrash. (place where you can test clubs)
Hit as many brands of 5 iron they’ll let you.
Check your flight & dispersion patterns. You’ll answer original 5i question.

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I recently changed from Titleist AP2 714 to new T200. My old 5-iron’s loft was 27*, my new 6-iron goes the same distance, is also 27*. So my 170 yard club is still the 27* club, but the new 170-yard club flies higher than the old one, even though the lofts are the same. When I ignore the “number” from my thinking, my conclusion is that for a given distance, the new club launches higher.
As for gapping, Titleist sells a 48* wedge along with the 43* Pitching Wedge (which replaces my old 9-iron). What I’ve ended up with is playing a set of 7 irons that includes 5 to 48*, replacing my old set of of 7 irons, including 4 to PW. I may try to re-work the specialty wedges in my bag, maybe going from 3 wedges to two, in order to add the T200 4-iron to my bag and fill a gap at the long end.
For the OP, I think you’d be fine hitting the “new” 27* 6-iron in the Sub70 set, and its likely to go longer than your current 6-iron. But all of this varies between players, so you may need to experiment a little to get the gapping you want.

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I think everyone else has addressed the loft question properly enough. I played the Maltby irons for a few seasons year back so I’ll give my $.02 on those. I think they are one of the better basic forged cavity backs out there. I love components and Golfworks has always made great irons that can compete with the OEMs. I do think some newer designs can do better in some respects but the TE’s are still a great head that more than compares with other forged cavity backs of similar size. I have been playing Cally Apex Pro '16 forged irons since they were introduced and I can say that they are a bit more forgiving despite a relatively similar size. There is tungsten buried in some of the heads so maybe that helps. I didn’t expect to buy them, but was surprised how forgiving they are.

So I would say that if you still want a basic forged cavity back that you won’t really do any better than the TE. However if you just like that size and reduced offset, you can find some newer heads that will provide more forgiveness due to their design…especially if you tend to regularly hit toe shots like I do.

I should probably learn more about iron technology, but I’m basically convinced all my irons in the future will have tungsten in the toe… Gaming CMBs now, and eyeing the new TA3s from Sub70 and the King Techs from Cobra… both have tungsten in the toes…

I also just generically enjoy trying irons… I know some people feel bad “wasting” their sales reps time, but I tend to support my local store and only do that sort of thing when they aren’t busy.

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