Creating More Golf Distance | Loft vs Technology

Creating more golf distance is the name of the game today. Golf manufacturers are putting in countless hours to provide more distance for golfers in their new irons. Lofts on new irons are also becoming stronger as the construction of the irons has changed over time.

But what is creating more golf distance, the loft or technology? In this video, 2nd Swing's Thomas Campbell and Drew Mahowald test out TaylorMade's P7MB and P790 irons and match up the lofts to see if there is a difference in distance.

[StephenParsey]

Thanks for this test! And for Thomas’s consistent swings. That dude is a machine!

From this data we can say distance is roughly 97% loft + speed and 3% tech (which also provides for launch and forgiveness benefits).

[stevegeorge]

Great job guys! One of the best videos yet! I’ve used the similar example of my Srixon ZX 2 iron vs. my old cavity back 2 iron. Both are 18 deg of loft, but that hollow bodied Srixon launches in a way that it just carries so much farther. Launch angle and ball speed are both up for equivalent strikes.

[davidterrie]

Taking the comparison back in time, I've moved from '84 Hogan Apex PCs to P7MBs. The Hogan 7-iron is 37 degrees vs 35 for the P7MB. When I was fitted, the launch angle of the PC was half a degree lower than the MB. Spin for the MB was 500 higher, vs the nearly 40 year old grooves of the PC. Distance was about the same. The CG of the Hogan is much higher - there's a lot more meat lower on the back of the MB. This also gives the MB much better forgiveness when you're a few grooves low on the face - better than you'd expect.

[stevenjenkins]

You guys are always straight to the point 👉. Awesome.

[slytown]

This video is so important. It shows what you are paying for in game improvement.

[markc]

Great comparison video guys. Thanks for proving my point that I've tried to make with fitters.. that for me and my swing the ball travels further with a blade than with a game improvement irons.

[Ryglado]

Excellent test and comparison. Thanks guys.

[BiologistRyan]

Pretty spot on. My stock 7i strata that I hit first. Never could get above 98mph ball speed. SimOS I hit 110mph on a ball strike. All strikes over 100mph of ball speed.

The hell of it was. I hit the OS last. So I wasn’t fresh at all and yet it produced the highest ball speed.

I had hit a small bucket of balls at the range before my fitting. So I hit probably close to 100balls or more in an hour.

[chadode]

Does the P790 have the speed slots on the 7 iron on down? Maybe that technology contributed to the jump?
At the end of the day - maybe the tech is best in regards to forgiveness. I would have to guess off the toe, the P790 holds its distance better than the P7MB...?
Great test - that was fun!

[goeatbox]

Your video is perfectly timed for me at this moment. I’m currently in the process of re-fitting my irons to try to figure out my launch. I have new stock T100 irons, my 7 iron swing speed is 95-100mph but my launch is 38 degrees and my spin is 8000+ so 165 is pretty much the end of the world.

I thought it was the AMT s300 shafts being over powered. The x flex shafts actually went even higher. The fitter recommended that I consider different clubs. He said (with caution) that a blade may actually help you get that lower launch.

He did say lessons would help too.

[gabrielkim]

You failed to mention the thru-slot speed pocket thats in the p790 7 iron that isn’t in the p790 8 iron, the likely cause of that massive ball speed jump

[adrianjackman]

A couple of things strike me firstly just how consistent the numbers are for each club, to get ball speed, smash factor, spin etc in such a tight window is amazing, is that heavily edited or not? Secondly a 25 yard gap is just crazy in my world, okay as a much older player with a slower swing speed mine will always be less but that is at least two clubs for me.

[joebouscaren]

One explanation for the jump in distance with the p790 7 iron would be that, that is the iron in which the speed foam starts (at least from my memory of the 2017 version) Can you confirm that the speed foam either diminishes or is not present in 8-Approach wedge in p790?

[billygraham]

I WISH I could know what golf pros were using as their irons — including the shafts.

I used to have a set of cavity back irons with Dynamic Gold Lite stiff, and got 3 iron distance in air over 230 yds, 7 iron distance over 190 in air. I am using S300 now and about 15 less yards. Is that normal? Tried a friend’s technology clubs with ultralight shafts and got like 195 in air with his 7 iron (Mizuno 923 or something like that) and 220 in air with his 4 iron. So is it in the technology OR in the shafts?

[benrobertson]

In the first test with the 35* clubs you had a 3* difference in the dynamic loft at impact between the MB and the 790 and they both went the same distance. So you've delivered the clubs differently with the MB getting less dynamic loft than the 790 got. In the second test with the 31* and 30.5* clubs the difference in dynamic loft was the .5* the clubs have in static loft and then we saw the technology take over and the 790 ball go 10 yards farther with the same delivery conditions. So the second round of testing was a much better example of loft vs technology. Looks like MB vs 790 is almost 2 clubs worth of distance when the number on the sole of the club is the same! One club of distance with loft and one almost one club with technology.

[BAA]

Was not surprising when comparing p790 7 iron and p7mb 6 iron because the p790 7 iron has tungsten and the p790 8 iron doesn't. It's the reason you have such a large distance gap for the p790s between the 7 and 8 irons.

[pakman]

great video! 7 iron has the speed pocket where the 8 iron does not. I wonder if most of the distance diff can be attributed that

[steveh]

This was a very interesting test. Your analysis focused a lot on matching club-head speed, and then comparing launch, ball-speed, spin and carry distance. However, one of the most critical variables in the test was largely ignored: dynamic loft. Your attempts to even out the clubs and conditions for the test was great, but one of the biggest differences in club performance was due to the dynamic loft delivery of the different clubs. In both match test cases, the delivered or dynamic loft is the biggest reason for the observed results. I find it interesting that Thomas' natural swing with the 6-iron and 7-iron comparison resulted in such a different dynamic loft being delivered to the ball.

[robertcourt]

I always think that to get a fair comparison you should just take 1 shot from each clubs data set that are as close to each other as possible. If the strike position is similar, speed, angle of attack and delivered loft are similar then surely any difference is down to the club.

[dabdias]

It looks like Thomas should be using P790 - carry and total dispersion are much tighter, the difference in stopping power is inexistent (maybe P790 have better stopping power). Gapping is easy to fix 😀 (if not P790, P770)