about Japanese clubs
- Thread starter tongzilla
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Can't claim any objective evidence, but please.... does anyone believe that 98% of the golfing population could tell the difference between a Miura and a Cleveland? I say no way in heck. The Japanese club "stigma" has created an effect that's hard to describe. Now, if they put really good shafts that are consistent throughout the set, then there is probably a benefit to players that are in the very low handicap range. Other than that it's all about having the nicest "toys", regardless of your ablility to hit the club itself.
But......... that's the game of golf. It tends to have plenty of those with enough disposable income to be able to afford a set of irons that cost 4 figures, so there's a market for high-end "custom" clubs and probably always will be. It sort of what makes the club world go round. Nothing wrong with that, I always get a kick out of seeing a 20 hdcp with a set that cost $3000 but can't break an egg.
IMHO there's a big difference. The Japanese market will pay a lot more for their equipment than people in the US or Europe. That allows them to manufacture to much tighter tolerances than here.
Additionally, the biggest differences are in shaft technology and irons. Miura and high end Endo forgings are some of the finest forged steel products in the world. Please note Endo also has some lower quality facilities that OEMs will contract with for a much lower cost.
I have a set of Miura forged irons and a set of TourStage high end Endos.
By the way, all Clevelands are cast, even the ones that say "form forged".
On the other hand, you can buy any irons, take them to a really good clubfitter, have them blueprinted and they will be as good as any clubs anywhere. This typically costs about $50-$70 per club. If you need some referrals to craftsmen that do this, pm me.
Almost EVERY forged iron you see on tour is Japanese. The clubmakers have a select number of Japanese forging houses make the tour irons. In fact, when you see most tour Taylor Made R7 TPs, they are forged, and forged in Japan. The R7 TPs you can buy in the US are cast.
The Titleist forged irons tour players use are Endos. So are ALL the Callaway tour irons. Tiger's Nikes are Miuras. If you want Tiger's irons, you can get them in the Miura name for a cool $10,000. The MacGregors are Miuras too. There are a few smaller forging houses in Japan that make some of the other irons on Tour too.
Srixon does their own forgings as does Mizuno. If you buy Japanese market Srixons or Mizunos, they are higher quality and newer designs than what's sold in the West.
Almost all the rest of the forged irons in the US and Europe are Chinese forgings. A notable exception is cast clubs. Those are pretty much the same heads, but totally blueprinted for the player to his specs.
Someone asked about blueprinting. The tolerances on clubsand shafts are very broad. Most drivers have a lot more loft than stamped on them, most irons have lofts that are not accurate, the lies are not accurate and the shafts will vary widely in frequency (the measure of stiffness). Why? In order to meet market pressures, they are slapped together in China by people who are low paid assembly line workers and usually know nothing about golf or clubs. A noted exception is Ping. Their Tour clubs are the same thing we can buy, but of course they are cast and their irons are made in the US.
A great example is my friend Doug. Doug bought a set of $1000 irons made by one of the big names. They had Project X shafts too.
When they were checked, his lofts were way off, his lies varied from 2 degrees flatter than spec to 2 degrees more upright than spec. All in the same set! His shafts were supposed to be 5.5 (stiff). They ranged from 4.0 (ladies flex), through over 7.0 (XX stiff). All in the same set. He got them blueprinted. He immediately scored about 5 shots better per round. He paid HotStix $400 for the fitting and then bought new clubs from them. Total bill was $2,800 including Driver, 3 wood, hybrid and irons.
This lack of quality control has created a new type of equipment specialist- the blueprinter. Probably the most famous is HotStix, but there are many others. They take your clubs, fit you properly, then bend your loft and lie to your specs. They check your shafts for stiffness and repair or replace any shaft that is out of your proper spec. Usually they will also spine them. It's a lot of work. All tour sets are built this way.
Funny you should bring this up as a friend of mine (a mini-tour player who is now working in one of these sorts of places) and I were talking about this very topic yesterday. The QC on most of the stuff out there is awful. Lofts, lies, flexes, swingweights, etc just off the charts! Now... who will benefit most? I don't know how well your friend Doug plays, but I still think there's a threshold for when spending the $500 to blueprint pays off. If you can't make decent contact you need to fix those "issues" before you worry about tweaking your set. And remember that $500 is to merely get your set "in order"... no shaft upgrades, etc.
To me it's disappointing to think that I need to drop another 5 bills just to make sure I got what I ordered.... but it indeed it seems to have come to that.
Robbo
watson08
New
I'm not surprised. Ping is no exception. I ordered a 60D lob wedge from them and after hitting 2 shots knew it was way off. I went to shop on site and they measured the loft at 57D. I told him to bend it and if it broke, I'd, well never mind... I hate that I now have more bounce on this club than I need or want. Manufactures should be embarassed.
tongzilla
New
Great info Leek.
I ordered a set of irons from Miura.
I didn't specify swingweights, but they ranged from D1 to D4 randomly spread throughout the set. I had DG shafts on them.
mjstrong
New
That being said, the PGA Tour guys' clubs all go through a process that would rival even the most expensive retail manufacturer. ie, their set of Clevelands has been put through the same tolerances as a Honma or Miura set. The same trait that makes these sets more expensive does not apply to the TOUR player, so you aren't likely to see them on TOUR until somebody gets paid big bucks to do so.
Just my 2 cents.
Jared Willerson
Super Moderator
Tong,
I thought you were looking for "off the rack" stuff
I thought you were looking for "off the rack" stuff
No.
Most of the top names manufactures use founderes in China now because its cheaper there, before that they where made in Tiawan.
All the top names use the same 4 or 5 founderes.
tolerances are very tight +/- 1* and thats why you pay a little more.
All the other founderes make cheap clubs with very poor tolerances.
There are still a few made in Japan, but they are not better than the top factorys in china, just they have been going longer.
As for the guy who says Pings are not good i find that hard to belive because they cast all there own iron heads, and they have very high tolerances.
Best place to find top quality clubs is to have them custom fit by a Professional clubmaker, In the end you only get what you pay for.
Langer
tongzilla
New
well...it's sort of off the rack. As opposed to Wishon or HG.Tong,
I thought you were looking for "off the rack" stuff
Great info Leek.
I ordered a set of irons from Miura.
I didn't specify swingweights, but they ranged from D1 to D4 randomly spread throughout the set. I had DG shafts on them.
Were those Miuras assembled in Japan?
Miura's for the North American market are assembled in North America.
tongzilla
New
Yes! Assembled in Japan! I ordered it through an official Miura dealer in HK.
A lot of what has been said here adds up in a particular way for me: my next set of clubs will probably be components.
Indeed, my current set of irons really is a component set, it's just that I bought the heads from Wilson rather than from Golfsmith. I bought a set of Pi5s with X100s on eBay for $175, NEW. I then had them reassembled with Black Gold Stiff shafts that were spined and floed and added Golf Pride Multicompound grips. I had them swingweighted according to new 'MOI' approaches, so that the swingweights are slightly ascending: the 3 iron is D1 and they go up in half steps from there (5 iron is D2, 7 iron is D3, 9 iron is D4, etc.). Every club is exactly on its swingweight.
Now, I'm lucky because my father is a clubmaker and does all this work for free. But even so, I think component clubs are the way to go. Wishon's clubs are as good (I think they might be better) than the best OEM's out there. A set of his cast iron heads is less than $100 and a set of forged heads are around $240. Add in $200 for premium shafts, $50 for good grips, and you've spent $350 to $500 on the components. Then you pay the $500 for blueprinting, and you still have only spent the same or less as you would on a top line OEM set. But now you have a set with consistent swingweights, proper lofts and lies, pured shafts, AND premium shafts and grips. And I'm not selling for Wishon: Snake Eyes, KZG, Maltby, all make quality components. KZG and Snake Eyes offer some particularly nice forgings.
But after playing my current set, I can't imagine playing clubs that have not been blueprinted. Tongzilla's experience with his Miuras mirrors mine with a number of new sets from OEMs: the swingweights, lofts, and lies are just all over the place. And if you are going to spend all the money on blueprinting, I don't see the reason to give the OEMs $700 to $1000 to begin with. After all, what are you paying them for if they have no quality control?
By the way: things have changed in this regard. When I was checking a number of sets of clubs on my swingwieight scale this summer (and every set had swingweights all over the map) I also checked my 1988 Hogan Apex Redlnes (with 15 years of play on them) and every single club came out to an exact D2.
Indeed, my current set of irons really is a component set, it's just that I bought the heads from Wilson rather than from Golfsmith. I bought a set of Pi5s with X100s on eBay for $175, NEW. I then had them reassembled with Black Gold Stiff shafts that were spined and floed and added Golf Pride Multicompound grips. I had them swingweighted according to new 'MOI' approaches, so that the swingweights are slightly ascending: the 3 iron is D1 and they go up in half steps from there (5 iron is D2, 7 iron is D3, 9 iron is D4, etc.). Every club is exactly on its swingweight.
Now, I'm lucky because my father is a clubmaker and does all this work for free. But even so, I think component clubs are the way to go. Wishon's clubs are as good (I think they might be better) than the best OEM's out there. A set of his cast iron heads is less than $100 and a set of forged heads are around $240. Add in $200 for premium shafts, $50 for good grips, and you've spent $350 to $500 on the components. Then you pay the $500 for blueprinting, and you still have only spent the same or less as you would on a top line OEM set. But now you have a set with consistent swingweights, proper lofts and lies, pured shafts, AND premium shafts and grips. And I'm not selling for Wishon: Snake Eyes, KZG, Maltby, all make quality components. KZG and Snake Eyes offer some particularly nice forgings.
But after playing my current set, I can't imagine playing clubs that have not been blueprinted. Tongzilla's experience with his Miuras mirrors mine with a number of new sets from OEMs: the swingweights, lofts, and lies are just all over the place. And if you are going to spend all the money on blueprinting, I don't see the reason to give the OEMs $700 to $1000 to begin with. After all, what are you paying them for if they have no quality control?
By the way: things have changed in this regard. When I was checking a number of sets of clubs on my swingwieight scale this summer (and every set had swingweights all over the map) I also checked my 1988 Hogan Apex Redlnes (with 15 years of play on them) and every single club came out to an exact D2.
Jim Kobylinski
Super Moderator
leek, I think the Internet has "gotten" to you. While some of the things you have said are true a lot are not. I am typing this from my phone so I can't go into much detail BUT miura RARELY forges irons for any oem anymore even thought they used too back in the day. Also there is no such thing as a forged r7 tp iron. Taylormade does have a set of forged r7 irons that are japan only right now. Again, don't let some propaganda machines on the net make you think all tour equiptment is some highly spec'd thing. In a lot of cases (not all obviously) they are simply modified off the rack stuff. Exceptions to this are one-offs for particular players and oems "tour line" such as tm TP line.
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