Ping iBlade irons v Ping i irons – The methodology
We’ve already conducted a review on the Ping iBlade irons and the i irons separately but wanted to test them out together to help golfers decide which might work best for them.
This was definitely a job for our anonymous big-hitter who we have seen hitting the i irons previously.
How would our man get on with the iBlade and i 7-irons in the same Project X 6.5 shaft?
Shots were hit off the mat in the Golf Shack and the results were monitored by our resident pro James Whitaker using Trackman 4.
James uses the optimiser feature on the Trackman which states how well the club is performing for a particular swing speed, detailing the spin, launch, height and carry distance.
Ping iBlade irons v Ping i irons – The results
Our anonymous big hitter started off hitting the iBlade 7-iron and straight away we saw that the spin rates were quite high.
This was surprising to our resident pro James Whitaker as he would have expected the spin to be lower on the iBlade than with the i.
When watching the ball flight you could see that the ball was just climbing up a bit rather than piercing through the air which resulted in a few yards less carry than our anonymous big hitter would expect with a 7-iron.
We’ve seen him hit 7-irons carrying about 175 yards and with the iBlade they were going about 169. The lofts are quite weak on the iBlade 7-iron at 34˚ compared to 32˚ on the i.
It wasn’t much of a surprise to see that the performance was better with the i from the off.
The spin came down almost 1,000 rpm which resulted in a a carry distance of around 175 yards.
The ball flight was similar from a hight point of view but the lower spin meant the ball was traveling further through the air.
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Ping iBlade irons v Ping i irons – Conclusion
We don’t mean to go on like broken records but we feel this test really highlighted the importance of the custom-fitting process.
You can’t necessarily just put any head in a shaft that you know works well as the combination just might not work.
In this instance, our resident pro James Whitaker would have had our anonymous big hitter testing the iBlades in a couple of lower spinning shafts to try and get the numbers more into the optimum range.
The Project X 6.5 was working really well for our guy with the i head but not quite as well with the i Blade.
We know from how popular they are among tour players that the iBlades are a fantastic golf club – they look, sound and feel superb.
But you can get the best head in the world and it isn’t going to work properly with the wrong shaft.
Another option he would have been to crank the lofts a bit on the iBlades to see if that reduced the spin and resulted in a bit more carry.
But this wasn’t a Ping iBlade fitting, we were trying to compare products.
And our conclusion was that with the Ping iBlades a bit more time might be needed in the custom-fitting process to get it working correctly for you.
There’s a bit more helpful technology in the i irons where the head is doing a bit more work to get the right height and distance.
With a club like the iBlade it’s about getting it properly dialled in so you can enjoy the feel, feedback and precision that this club offers.
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