I am looking to start committing myself to playing more golf. I laid off way more than I should have the last decade but I have always enjoyed it plus I am starting to try and get my kids in to it.

My question, should I look at investing in a new set of Irons?

I currently swing a set of Taylormade RAC irons that I bought used my junior year of college....Im 36, so these would have been bought in about 07-08.

Im not upset with the clubs, I feel like they hit as well as can be expected the bigger problem is the person swinging them...but theyre nearly 20yr old clubs so im starting to wonder if I shouldnt just make an investment in a newer set. With that in mind I dont believe Id be looking to go brand new. But maybe something from this decade at least.

I know this isnt the Outdoor board but still...TexAgs knows things

If it were me I would play with what I have until I get a little more consistent and take a few lessons, then go get fitted for new clubs. I hate for you to invest in new clubs only to have a major swing change (i.e. correction) and need to bend, lengthen the new set.

BreNayPop said:

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Don't change irons- just regrip them which you can do yourself.

Iron technology HAS changed in that they are a little more forgiving on mis-hits and definitely longer distances. But the longer iron distances has been a byproduct of changing degrees on a club so that what used to be a 9 iron degree is now between an 8 and 9 iron in degrees.

And the forgiveness isn't THAT forgiving that it suddenly makes a big difference to a newish player. Play your clubs through the fall. Then, look for a deal after hitting some friend's clubs and finding what you like.

Your swing is going to change so much in the first 3 months that what you think you like now won't necessarily be what you like later.

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EOT

BreNayPop said:

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Don't change irons- just regrip them which you can do yourself.

Iron technology HAS changed in that they are a little more forgiving on mis-hits and definitely longer distances. But the longer iron distances has been a byproduct of changing degrees on a club so that what used to be a 9 iron degree is now between an 8 and 9 iron in degrees.

And the forgiveness isn't THAT forgiving that it suddenly makes a big difference to a newish player. Play your clubs through the fall. Then, look for a deal after hitting some friend's clubs and finding what you like.

Your swing is going to change so much in the first 3 months that what you think you like now won't necessarily be what you like later.

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Refreshing...

Depending on how much you think you are going to be playing, spend the money on lessons - the game is much more fun when you see improvement…find a good pro, schedule 3 lessons over a 6 week period. It's fun to have that accountability and adds purpose to the practice.

If none of that sounds appealing, definitely don't spend $$ on new irons - they wont make any difference.

bowhuntr said:

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Depending on how much you think you are going to be playing, spend the money on lessons - the game is much more fun when you see improvement…find a good pro, schedule 3 lessons over a 6 week period. It's fun to have that accountability and adds purpose to the practice.

If none of that sounds appealing, definitely don't spend $$ on new irons - they wont make any difference.

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A couple months back I was speaking with Jim Phenicie at Windrose about doing some lessons, work got busy and my job changed a little so it got put on the back burner but it is still in the plans.

As far as playing, my current goal is to go at least once a month, I know for many on here that isnt much but seeing as how I went about 3 times from 2011-2021 its a huge jump for me.

If you do really want something new, Ping G425s are awesome and just got marked down with the release of the 430s last week. Quality game improvement iron

Lonestar_Ag09 said:

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bowhuntr said:

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Depending on how much you think you are going to be playing, spend the money on lessons - the game is much more fun when you see improvement…find a good pro, schedule 3 lessons over a 6 week period. It's fun to have that accountability and adds purpose to the practice.

If none of that sounds appealing, definitely don't spend $$ on new irons - they wont make any difference.

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A couple months back I was speaking with Jim Phenicie at Windrose about doing some lessons, work got busy and my job changed a little so it got put on the back burner but it is still in the plans.

As far as playing, my current goal is to go at least once a month, I know for many on here that isnt much but seeing as how I went about 3 times from 2011-2021 its a huge jump for me.

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Gotcha, yep, we're at the age where a golf hobby can be more range sessions than 18. Still fun. I avoided lessons for the longest time until I realized I had plateaued in my ball striking ability with my natural swing plane. The improvement I saw from a new coach and lessons gave me a something to tinker with on the range instead of just blasting balls. Enjoy your re-entry into the game!

BreNayPop said:

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Don't change irons- just regrip them which you can do yourself.

Iron technology HAS changed in that they are a little more forgiving on mis-hits and definitely longer distances. But the longer iron distances has been a byproduct of changing degrees on a club so that what used to be a 9 iron degree is now between an 8 and 9 iron in degrees.

And the forgiveness isn't THAT forgiving that it suddenly makes a big difference to a newish player. Play your clubs through the fall. Then, look for a deal after hitting some friend's clubs and finding what you like.

Your swing is going to change so much in the first 3 months that what you think you like now won't necessarily be what you like later.

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This is good advice. Regripping is easy to do yourself. I just finished taking the grips off all my irons, putting in 1/2" extensions, and putting the same grips back on last weekend. Cost me about $100 in supplies. (My grips were still pretty new from when I put them on last summer, so I didn't need to buy new ones.) My irons are about 8 years old and still good GI cavity backs. Length wasn't quite right, hence the extensions. But otherwise perfectly fine for my current skill level.

"Refreshing..."

Gloating because you got someone to join your pseudo-cult of antiquity?

I'm not against new clubs at all… but have known 2 guys who have restarted golf recently and that advice served both of them well. One guy bought clubs and regretted it because they ended up not being what he wanted after playing every day for the summer- he went for 2 year old pings. The other guy play every day for just under a year, then got fitted and loves his clubs.

I'm the end, both guys got better being dedicated to playing every day and at a year (now 18 months) of golf, only one guy is happy with his clubs.

And if you buy new clubs but then decide golf is too expensive in time spent/money/frustration, then money on new clubs is a waste anyway.

Played daily!? Goodness, that would be a hard pass for me

Yeah- he was crazy obsessed. Played 36 every Monday and 9-18 EVERY day for a year. Went from never touching a club to breaking 80 twice

BreNayPop said:

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just regrip them which you can do yourself.

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Regripping clubs isn't super difficult, and I have no problem doing maybe 2 or 3 at a time, but doing the whole bag kinda sucks..

Sooooo about regripping….why?

Now I will fully admit these are same grips I bought the clubs with. But I don't see a need. This photo is my 4 and my 9. I doubt y'all can tell the difference in wear on them. Both still have good texture, no cracking or breaking etc

The only place I'll admit they have wear is from sitting on the bottom of my old bag because it was falling apart and some stuck to it a little bit. Most of their life has been stored in closet though, not in a garage.

I used to game those clubs until 2 years ago. Stick with them. They are an easy club to hit and very foregiving.

Lonestar_Ag09 said:

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Sooooo about regripping….why?

Now I will fully admit these are same grips I bought the clubs with. But I don't see a need. This photo is my 4 and my 9. I doubt y'all can tell the difference in wear on them. Both still have good texture, no cracking or breaking etc

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Couple of reasons. First off, you might be surprised how quickly the tackiness of your grips degrades. You should swap them out long before they start breaking down. The grip should be tacky enough to help you hold the club without having to squeeze down too hard. Excess tension in your hands is a swing killer. Second, you might find different sizes or styles suit your swing better. It's easier and cheaper to experiment if you can do it yourself.

The RAC TPs are still some of the best irons TM has ever produced to this day

Mine are RAC LT's aside from the SW which is an OS and the PW which is off brand because my freaking brother in law lost mine on a course

aggiedent said:

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"Refreshing..."

Gloating because you got someone to join your pseudo-cult of antiquity?

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Cult!

Yes!

I had those. Solid clubs. Play this year and then reevaluate.

I just booked my first lesson with Jim Phenicie at Windrose!

I'd hit some balls, play a few rounds, and have a professional give me a few pointers with a demo club or two. Once I made the decision I'd live on the driving range for a month and let yall know how it went!

Rubber has a shelf life, even stored properly. But since there is a chance you will get fit for a new set of clubs, you may want to use as-is. I've had ok success restoring grips with dawn soap and scrub with green scotch bright pad to remove old residue. You might do that first and then even run some 120 grit sandpaper on them and clean them again. At that point you will have removed the top layers of rubber that have seen the most exposure to UV, wear, etc.

With just normal (not specialized) grips going for $7 each plus tape and solvent, regripping a full set is $100+.
If you think you will want a new set, then maybe don't spend $100 to use these for a few months unless the grips are just unusable. It's cooler weather now, so at least your glove won't be sweaty.

It's not the iron heads that will drive you to upgrade - what you have is fine. If you need an update, it will be shafts and maybe lie angle. IMO, very little reason to throw new shafts into a 20 year old head when a new set isn't much more after you pay for the labor to install shafts and will give you some technology benefits.

I made a separate thread on this but we all have a good dialogue going so I can post some here I guess as an update.

Quote:

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Non golf game related items: was learning that my clubs had been altered slightly to adjust their lie, learning my shafts were stiff not regular as I suspected. Learning that my shafts were rifle and vibration tuned or whatever it was called...then a history lesson about the company that designed them etc.

Golf Game items learned:
Within a few swing he asked if I get hot spots on my hands specifically on my right thumb...made an adjustment there.

With this it caused the balls to now slice because of how my follow through was happening.

So then we moved the creating better posture which would help my swing be more clean and straight. With this adjustment it allowed for slightly better body/hip rotation.

We then worked through getting my hands extended in the follow through, rotating the wrists and trying to finish higher on my backswing.

The coolest part in my opinion is that the lesson included a video synopsis that took the tips and built them into a video showing what we went over, how we adjust items as we went and him explaining it...this im sure is standard but it blew me away (im a simple man)

What was extremely surprising to me is the velocity I was producing. According to his computer tech stuff my irons I was around 92-94mph club head speed which surprised the heck out of me.

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