chiromikey

I just ended up with one of LAB Golf’s blade putters. While not “face balanced”, it is an extremely well balanced putter when in play. My stroke has noticeable arc so face balanced putters flat out won’t work for me. I was fooling around with a few of LAB’s putters and complained about their designs not offering anything in carbon steel. Sam ended up contacting me and offered me one of their original carbon steel prototypes. I had them leave it in raw steel with no paintfill with an Accra shaft and a leather GripMaster. It’s slightly larger than the average Answer style blade but lighter than the putters I’m used to. Even so, it has a better feel than the stainless steel blades I’ve owned (even the Betti with the copper insert) with almost a heavily muted ring at impact. I’m not sure what’s responsible for the sound but it’s quite unique. My putting stroke is pretty well dialed in so I don’t think it’s good enough to knock the Zen out of my bag but I can most certainly see this putter making someone who hasn’t found their putting stoke or who is going through the yips a better putter. Just lighten up your grip and basically let the putter stroke itself.

I’ve had a BTG Stability Shaft sitting here but I’m not a fan of cutting my current shaft in half to do the install and I don’t want to be without my putter for several weeks to send it in and have BTG do the install.

😂😂😂

Got confused after reading about recently reshafting them.

These look tempting! Tell me more about the shaft please.

Not sure where the op is from but it’s definitely a thing here in the U.S. people see iron covers and they immediately think you’re a 30 handicaper that’s trying to buy a game. Maybe it’s because most people here don’t understand true quality or even know what a forged iron is anymore and they’ve never seen bag chatter because their cast clubs don’t show any. Most of these people actually think PXGs are the top of the line.

I have a few sets that always go out with covers. And I love the look on other people faces when they start to realize that I’m no beginner and I’m gonna spank them!

No doubt, it’s very busy when looking at the sole but from the top not that bad. The traditional shape and it being so compact allows me to get past the way they blended the carbon crown to the body. Although I might have preferred a classier painted or glossy finish to the raw look.

In my quest for lighter clubs to get me through until I can get my butt back in the gym I picked up Royal Collection's new 3w. Their new stuff is a slight departure from their tried and true line ups from the past but you can still see much of the old traits put in place. I actually got the club out last week in stock form and the overall lighter shaft and swingweight wasn't a fit at all for my game, more so the swing weight and length than anything else. All I did was top it on every shot. So I added a 1" extension which didn't add much overall weight but brought the swingweight up to D5 and fit my flat swing plane much better. What a HUGE difference for me. One of the main reasons I chose this 3w was not the technology with it's adjustable heal/toe or fore/aft weighting screws, adjustable hosel, or it's Ti face and carbon crown but because the TM-X line up is damn near the only thing available with a 56* lie angle. I'm so sick of us short guys stuck with woods with their toe sitting a full cm in the air at address. Yes, I understand the upright lie angle helps the average golfer fight the slice or fade but I'm not playing game improvement clubs here. Give me a damn fairway with a proper lie angle!!! This thing has it and because of that is probably the easiest fw I've ever played. It was so easy to hit straight from tight lights to first cuts and even side hill lies. It has a nice solid feel, maybe not the thump of their old stuff but still very good. The Ti face with the carbon crown gives it a good click at impact, nothing high pitched and the metallic sound is gone, just a solid click. The head is extremely compact, as small as, if not smaller than my Yamaha Inpress 5w. Distance is as good as anything else nowadays. As it sits now I may not even need to put an aftermarket shaft in this thing. I love it...in fact I just ordered the 5w to compliment it.

Pulled the graphites out of the Miuras and dropped a stiff set of these in. Knowing going in that these are a higher trajectory shaft I also delofted the clubs 1*. I couldn't be happier! Nice mid trajectory ball flight with VERY little lateral movement...just my nice tight draw. Good spin from any iron without any ballooning. It was nice to be able to aim at pins and hold the green with any iron including the long irons. I was surprised I was able to get used to the overall lightweight club with a D1 swingweight so quickly as I only hit a few shots with my 6,7,& 8 irons before hand but never missed solid contact all day. I'm very impressed with the feel of these regardless of their weight (although it helps when you're centering your shots all day). My gamers are now set, at least until I can get back in the gym. Thanks for the recommendation nob!!!

And what is that…?

Lol, the pin up girls were on my 3w and 5w and I have been playing them both until today. I also tried to replace the 3w with new Roy Col TM-X today with zero range time and it didn’t do well. It’s drastically different than Tourstsge!

On my quest for a geriatric set up until I can get back in the gym I decided to build a lighter driver than my tank 435/7D set up. That shaft is 85g XX and the head is around 310g. I still hit it well but just don’t get the shaft to flex like I used to. So I mounted a Ryoma D1 Vspec on a Zinger 5. My first impression was that I’m never going to be able to time the delivery of this shaft. It literally feels so sloppy when waggling the club in your hands. Then you hit a few shots and most of what everyone says about these multi/auto flex shafts is pretty accurate. Somehow it actually does stabilize itself in the downswing. It’s able to do what you want. If you want to lag it behind it stays there. If you want to whip it through, it does that too. It never put me into big trouble even on my bad swings. My timing was definitely off since this was my first outing with it but it still rewarded me with a nice medium trajectory and my expected draw ball flight every time. Feel was very soft and stable but I think the Ryoma makes everything feel good. With the Crazy LaBomba that was in there, the feel was also there but I couldn’t time that shaft to save my life these days so it sprayed my drives all over the place. I can’t say I found any magic distance with this shaft. In fact this set up can’t out drive the 435…but I was able to finish the round without the utter exhaustion I experience by hole 14 when swinging that tree trunk. I think it will be a good combo until I can get back in the gym, when my swing is off, or if I haven’t played in a while.

Thanks! I think I’m going to put a Zinger in my D1 V-Spec and give that a shot as my geriatric driver. I’ve been getting along with the 435/7d and scoring well but it’s still a tank and it takes every bit of effort for me to finish the round with it.

You may be into something…My neck has been killing me lately and I think it’s from trying to hit golf balls while avoiding any glimpse of these Medusa like graphite shifts. 😜

Did you get to make this comparison? Any updates on the Vanquish?

I was being a little sarcastic about the ugly part, but these Padetsons are truly ugly. I’m just more of a traditionalist I guess, especially when it comes to feel. I even played a wood driver and woods with steel shafts over a decade into the Ti era because I hated the early lack of feel from whippy or boardy graphite shafts in metal heads.

I’m just not seeing the professed benefits in any of the graphite iron shafts I’ve tried so far. No added distance and the feel gets muted (maybe that’s the trade off for vibration damning but it’s not worth it imo)…oh yeah, and they’re ugly!

You’re probably right! Send me a set Stew! 😂

Where can I find these NS Proto STx 105s?

The Miuras I just built have Padrrson 105s and I’m getting along with them well but they don’t have the height or spin I’m used to so maybe these might be worth a go. What wedge shafts are you guys liking to match these lighter iron shafts?

Couldn’t stop watching that!

We did get some facts cleared up but there may not be another set of production irons that have more mystery, speculation, and discussion surrounding them than these things. The only thing I know for sure is that they’re coming with me to my next range session! I’ll hit them along side a set of tour issue Miuras and some Epons and see if I can add to the speculation as to who produced them for Taylormade. Ha!!

You could very well be right about the way my search creates answers. I still believe it was the TP version that was created for Goosen and the set you and I have are the regular RAC MBs. I do recall reading that the originals were Endo forged but I fear I’ll never be able to prove that now.

Digging a little deeper and it appears that the TP version may not have been released to the U.S. market until 2006 so there may be more than one correct answer as to when it came out…none of which gets you any closer to the answer to your original question. Sorry if this rabbit hole led you too far off topic.