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Breakdown of the $50 Thrift Store Challenge

 As mentioned in The Thrill Of The Hunt, fortune struck twice as I found a set of great condition Ping Eye 2 irons.  I'd already had a set of MacGregor MCX irons, so I headed to X Golf in Holland to jump on their simulator and get some telemetry data comparing the two iron sets:

MacGregor MCX Distance Club Ping Eye 2 Distance
150 3 Iron 160
130 4 Iron 150
140 5 Iron 120
140 6 Iron 120
120 7 Iron 110
110 8 Iron 110
95 9 Iron 90
95 Wedge 100


Now, these are drastically shorter than my modern gamer set, the Ping G400.  My modern Pings are substantially more consistent, with my 9 iron going on average 120, and each club getting about 10 yards farther each step up.

There are also discrepancies in the telemetry system at X Golf - I get far different results on outdoor driving ranges or on the actual course than I have at their indoor range.  I've gotten far more reliable, reproducible results on Maple Hill's Launch Kitchen, for instance.  But, that's far and beyond the point.

What I'm trying to get at is that I've got to make some decisions as to which iron set will actually fit into the spirit of the $50 Thrift Store Challenge.  As seen above, the forged MacGregor irons generally went a bit further, had more consistent gapping between irons, and felt better overall to hit...there's truth to the old guys saying how good and pure it feels to hit a nice set of forged irons.  The Pings went shorter, and had less consistent gapping between irons.  While they went farther off-line left to right, they were dead consistent.  The Macs were all over the place in that regard...some went left, some went straight, some went right.

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