Vice Golf Clubs Are NOT What I Expected!

An on-course review and assessment of the Vice VGI02 Irons.

——————–

➜ Get Official Mere Mortal Merch: https://fenixxcell.com/collections/fenix-x-mere-mortal

➜ SUBSCRIBE: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgb-p291xQ_hUx7hQtOb72A?sub_confirmation=1

➜ GET YOUR GOLF TECH AT PLAYBETTER & SUPPORT THIS SHOW: https://www.playbetter.com/LPT

a lot of lot of lot of requests for this brand and I’m pumped that I finally get to test it out. It’s a ball brand that really came on the scene hard. It’s just offering great value for money. Are they doing the same thing with their clubs? Now, this is the Vice Golf VGIO2. And what makes this a really interesting product is that it’s a direct to consumer club, but it’s really, in my estimation, aimed at a higher handicap player. And we don’t see that a lot honestly in the DTC market. Generally, we’re looking at players distance irons, cavity backs, sometimes blades from these brands, but this is a bigger club. Definitely meant for forgiveness. And we’re going to put it through the full gambit out here at Carowwell Country Club today. I’m going to play nine holes of golf with it. But first, let’s take a little bit of a closer look at the VGIO2. So, the first thing I notice is in addition to the name there, it actually says German engineering. So, they’re really proud of that. They also say that these clubs are handbuilt in Germany. Now, of course, this head very likely made in China or certainly somewhere out in Asia. I don’t know for sure, but I’d got to say very good-looking one and a very interesting design. It’s this kind of like maybe a golf course, but maybe kind of like a heat map of a golf course in this patterning. You’ve got a nice large face there. Very deep, very long from front to back in terms of a top line. Pretty good up there. It’s definitely going to inspire some confidence in higher handicap golfers. The sole also wide, not extremely wide. This is not super game improvement wide. It’s not players distance thin. It’s sort of in between. And we’ll find out if maybe that in between is a Goldilocks for us here today. But I do like that sole design. I think that’s nice. In terms of offset, it’s there, but again, not extreme. We see a lot more offset in this style of club. So, it’s almost towing the line between a game improvement club and a player’s distance iron. But again, I think it leans more towards that game improvement side. Now, this looks like it’s a single piece construction, but it’s actually a two-piece construction here. And you can also tell by the port there in the toe. What that always allows is for a little extra MOI, a little extra forgiveness, and generally some good peak height because they can move mass down towards the sole of this club. In terms of a shaft, this is not a shaft pairing that’s really ideal for me. This is a regular 105, but this is interesting in that it’s Vice Golf branded KBS Tour. I love that they just happened to send me the wrong shaft here. So, we’ll make some adjustments. Not a professional golfer, but I am a professional YouTuber. And uh hopefully I can adjust my swing here to uh get the most out of these. In terms of a grip, we often see Lamin cross lines. That’s what this looks like, but it’s again also Vice branded. So, at least there’s the appearance of getting a little bit higher value here out of this direct to consumer brand. Good looking package. As you know, for me, it’s all about performance. So, let’s take this one out on course and see what we can do. All right, first te here, par five. It’s going to be about 470 or so from where we’re playing here today. Five iron is the lowest club I’ve got here in the bag. So, that’s what we’re going to tee off with. Let’s see what we can do. All right. Well, heading down the left side there is probably going to catch the rough, but I also did catch that a little toe side. and uh feel for a cast club. Really good. Again, we’ll continue to test performance here, but for the first shot, nice peak height. Felt good, sounded good, and uh again, for an offc center strike, very forgiving result. All right, so we are just here in the rough, which luckily is not super super thick here this summer. Last summer, if I was in this rough, you might not have even been able to find the ball. This is very findable right now. So, one thing about these particular clubs is they’re going to have a wider sole being a game improvement club that’s generally going to be a little bit more difficult to get you through the rough, but not impossible. So, I’m going to go seven iron here just to get us into position. All right. Hopefully, we can be able to put a lower iron in our hand. Maybe a pitching wedge or the attack wedge here in this set. Let’s see how we do through the rough here. Shot two. That should be just fine. drawn down the left side there, which is where I want to be because that pin is cut right. As you improve in golf, you do want to be able to think about your next shot and try to set it up if you can. Doesn’t always happen in the beginning, but uh hopefully you can start to build some consistency and do that as you get to be a little bit better player. By the way, that ball got out of the rough I thought very well. And I’m just in the rough here. I missed by like a foot and a half. But again, the angle is right. I’ve got 109. The number or the club I think I’m going to hit here is going to be basically the gap wedge, which they call the A wedge. Here, let’s see if we can kind of keep this shot flighted down a little bit. I like to control the spin. We’ll see how this also holds the green. It’s right on target. If it’s the distance, it’s going to be good. Now, that did take a big hop. Now, we were in the rough, but I did not get the check I was hoping for out of that. So, we’re actually going to be chipping back off that green. I thought we were gonna have a nice chance at a birdie. And we might have with a club that um would have got us maybe a little bit more spin, but we can still get up and down here from par. Now, mine hit right in here, but we rolled way off. I do think part of it is that these greens have a little bit of arration in them. They were airated a while ago, but it’s still they’re just not quite holding as well. And it is a bit of a downs slope there, too. So, we’re going to have to put a good shot on here. I’m shortsighted if we can save par. And that was pretty good. We got our par. We’re heading to two. 30 chance I’d say. All right. So, shorter par4 here. A little dog leg left. And I always try to play every club in the bag. I know this is probably the best chance for this one. So, this is the sixiron. We should, if we hit a good one, still be able to put like an eight or nine iron in our hands here to attack this pin. I’m testing here a little bit of shot shaping, too, because I always like to test workability of a club. Can you move the ball right or left? Obviously, this is going to play into my prevailing shot shape, which is a draw, but I’m going to try to really overdo it here. We’ll see what happens. Oh, that was not a good shot. We’re going to see how these clubs recover from a very difficult part of the course. Well, I think I tried to do too much there. And now I’m in a really difficult position. Not quite jail, but not a whole lot better either. I’ve got a ton of trees to deal with. And we’re going to be able to test really just how controllable these clubs are, especially from a tough lie. Not only am I on the hard pan here, but I’m also on a slope. And really the right shot here is going to be a fade, which is going to be very tough to pull off from that type of lie. Only good news here is that I’ve got 138 in. So that would normally be like a 9 iron. But what I’m going to do is again really try to control my trajectory, control my shot shape hopefully. And we’re going to pull down an eight here. Hit it a little bit lower. And we’re going to need that in order to also get a little bit of fade here on this shot. So I’ve got to keep it under this tree but over the next set of trees. It’s going to be very difficult shot to pull off. Let’s see what we can do. Wow, that looks really good. That just hit the front of the green there. It looks about pin high. I’d say we’re going to have like a 25footer. And that for me is like what makes golf fun. My father always said it would not be fun if it was easy. And I believe that 100%. I think my favorite shots in golf are the ones that you’re recovering. That’s what the pros do so well. That’s what makes them good golfers is they recover from difficult positions. What impressed me about these clubs right there, honestly, is the fact that I was able to shape my shot, which again, you don’t expect too much out of a game improvement club, but I was able to do it perfectly there. All right. So, better than 25 ft. I’d say this is 18 to 20. It’s a very good crack. I feel like I stole one if that goes in. Oh, I thought we were going to steal one. All right, we are on to the third hole here. This is going to be the teeth of the course where it’s going to get pretty difficult here for three holes. So, we’re going to need precision. I’m going to need to start hitting some fairways. See if we can start getting the T- ball in the groove. That’s perfect. That’s right down Broadway. They do feel really good. So far so good right now. All right. Well, it couldn’t be much more center cut than this. I’ve got 150 exactly in. I’m going to go 9 iron here and uh just take hopefully just a nice smooth swing. That pin is in a tasty spot. You can attack. I love to do that. It’s a little left of the pin. Distance looks good. We’re going to have another birdie putt. All right. We’re gonna have a very similar putt to the one I just had. I’m a little above the hole. These clubs are long. They’ve got all the distance you could possibly need. And it’s also breaking hard left to right. So, I got to control speed here. The other putt broke way more than I thought, too. So, I’m be a little bit more conservative here on this one. And that should leave us a little tap in here for par. All right. So, touchy hole here where it gets very narrow at the end. I am going to try to really hit a smart shot. Hopefully, it’s about 165 to cover that tree on the left, which I need to get past. But I don’t want to go too far cuz like I said, it gets very, very narrow. What I’m going to try to do is take the sixiron out here and cut one off that tree. Hopefully, it’ll fade back into the fairway and uh we’ll have a good shot here coming in. See if we can pull it off. It didn’t cut. Come on. So, it’s got to go. If it didn’t cut, it’s got to go. So, it did go. It got over that tree, but hit the car path. I actually hit it twice. So, I could either be perfect with like maybe a 70 yard shot or I could be in the water. We’re about to find out. Just like I expected though, these clubs, you can move them a little bit, but it’s not going to be super dramatic. But this is a game improvement club, and the goal of a game improvement club is to be a straightforgiving club. These do seem to be that. Hopefully, we got lucky. Let’s find out. So, this is the card path I hit. I hit it twice. And yeah, we got very lucky. We are going to have a tiny little pitch shot here into this green. All right, 109’s the number. I’d rather be lucky than good, that’s for sure. So, let’s take advantage. When you have a good break, you got to take advantage of it. I am going to go sand wedge here cuz these clubs have so much pop to them. But, we’re going to have to get all of it for sure. This is kind of an island green. I do not want to come up short. And I did not get all of it. We didn’t take advantage of the break. But at least I think I got over the junk. So, we’re going to have at least a chance to get up and down. So, two breaks in a row. Let’s call it now. I’ve got to let that pay off for me. Just a bad swing. Caught that one heavy. These clubs are not going to be magic. Very forgiving clubs, but they’re not going to be magic. Ton of green to work with. The only thing I got going against me is I’m actually in someone’s old different. I’m not going to let that bother me. It was going to hit down on the ball. Got to travel a long way though. Boy, it checked up nice. But that was the one time I did not want it to check up. So longer putt here for par. Oh, I didn’t hit that one, I don’t think. This hole’s become an adventure, and it really shouldn’t have been. I was in such good shape after that T-OT. Okay. All right. Well, we surrender one, but luckily after two really poor shots, it was only one. So, we’re playing temporary T’s here today. They’re way up. 129’s the number. I’m kind of in between that a wedge and pitching wedge, but I think especially after what happened on last hole, we’re going to take a little bit more club and a little smoother swing, especially again having these regular shafts. It’s not the perfect shaft for me. So, it’s better I take a smoother swing here. Pitching wedge is the number like that. It’s drawn in there and 20 ft. I think 25 maybe. All right. Well, I did just miss the green, but it is pin high. Like I said, about 20 25 ft here. See if we can get the speed right this time. Is it enough? Didn’t hit it. Didn’t hit it. Can’t leave the birdie putt short. For some reason, I knew I was going to do that. All right. Well, you can’t ever ever take them for granted. We got to get one back here and we got to do it quick. So, we’re heading actually to the number one hole on this side. But if you watch the show, you know I think as long as you get a good drive, we’ll have a a reasonable eight or nine iron in our hand here to attack this pin. And I got to get a birdie real quick or we’re in trouble. All right. So, got to get max distance here. I’m going five iron and I got to hit it well. I cannot pull this one because there’s water down that left hand side. But if I can hit it right side of the fairway, there’s a little bit of a speed slot I can catch, too. That’s ideal. So, we’re going to again try to hopefully work this ball a little left to right. That should be good. Didn’t work left to right, but it’s going to be fine. It’s long enough. And that was center of the club face. They sound great when they’re struck in the middle. I’ll tell you that much. And still a very forgiving result. Even some of these poor shots today. I haven’t hit anything really, really bad. All right. Well, that was definitely a missile. And on this long hole, number one hole, I’ve only got 121 in. That felt very, very good when struck in the middle. These clubs are straight and long. All right, so we’re going to go gap wedge here, which again they call the a wedge. That looks really good. That’s heading just slightly left of the flag stick. And yeah, we’re going to have a good crack at one here. All right, this is 12 ft. Okay. Woo. Get one back there. And uh a little bit of breathing room here as we head to seven. If we can keep up the uh strong iron play, we’re going to hit that over under. And to do that on the number one hole, got to love putting a circle around it. We got a couple holes here in this little stretch that are birdie opportunities. This one’s a straightaway par4. Playing about 333 from this T- box. All right. Okay. Boy, they are really straight clubs. And again, very forgiving for a misit there. 134 is the number. Pitching wedge is going to be the club. Again, just want to keep taking nice smooth swings with this shaft. That’s It’s better I take a little speed off. I’ll have better results with it. And we did that last hole. Let’s see if we can repeat. I got to go right over this bunker. I’m going to take it on, though. All right, we are in the groove. Now, again, I can’t say that that was the best strike I’ve ever seen. And you didn’t see any divot fly up out of that one. Hit it thin, but forgiving. What can I say? Very forgiving club. Okay, see if we can go back to back. Come on. Oh my gosh. Oh, it’s twice today. We haven’t seen a par in a while. I wouldn’t mind one right now to be quite honest with you. All right. 13’s the number I’m going to go to that a wedge. Hit it well last time. Let’s see if it comes through again. Just nice smooth swing as the thought. Like that. That looks really good. Get tight. Oh, at least in terms of direction, it was all over it. I don’t know if it’s a little long or what, but yeah, if there’s any in the armor today, it’s been the putting. Definitely not the irons. A snapped. It snapped. All right, I’m not even going to mess with this one. I’m not going to think about it. Well, it was only a par, but a par felt pretty good there right now. Okay, so we’re right on the number plus two. That was what we decided here when we started this nine, and it’s going to be an exciting finish. We got a par five. Last shot’s going to be into an island green here. Probably going to be a three shot hole. So, wish me luck. After I hit this T-shot, we’re going to go ahead and rank these irons. So, that’s as bad as I can hit a shot. Just goes to the forgiveness of these clubs, which is the perfect time to go ahead and rank them. So, distance-wise, very long. I mean, some of these five irons I’ve hit well over 200 yards here today off the tea. And throughout the bag, I’ve been taking very easy swings and I’ve generally been hitting it past the pin or at least pin high. I’m going to give these clubs a 4 and 1/2 out of five for distance. I think the loft structure is really well suited for this level of high handicap club. I think they did a very good job figuring out the engineering here with these clubs because next category here, absolutely a five out of five. That was as bad as I could hit a golf shot. I’m just a couple yards here off the fairway left and still traveled a fair amount of ways as well. in terms of workability. Now, with a game improvement club, oftentimes you’re not going to get much workability. We had a couple exceptions this year, though. The Srixon ZXi4s come to mind where those were a very workable club, and still a very long and forgiving club, but these are going to be a lot less workable than those, I’d say. I’m going to go ahead and rank these a three and a half out of five for workability. I was able to shape a few shots and get out of trouble with them as well. So, not a poor performer in any way, shape, or form. When it comes to aesthetics, looks, feel, and sound. This is going to be definitely a little bit more offset, definitely a little bit chunkier, definitely a little more top line than I personally like, but this is not a club meant for me. They did do a really good job keeping that sole a little thinner. And all in all, sound and feel is fantastic. So, I’m going to give these a 4 and 1 half out of five for aesthetics. And then we talk about value. This set, $6.99 for a 7 piece set, I think, is very good value in today’s day and age of $1,200 club. So, for me, 4 and 1/2 out of five for value. Oh, we’re going to be in good shape here to attack. All in all, the score is up on your screen. I have enjoyed these clubs immensely. Again, you always have preconceptions, even if you try not to. Like, I don’t watch reviews from other reviewers when I do club reviews. I try not to have anyone’s else’s thoughts in my mind, but I just did not expect to like these clubs. That was kind of how I went into this review. But my mind has been completely changed here by the Vice VGI O2s. Really, really an exceptional offering from a direct to consumer brand here. And I think one that a lot of people are going to enjoy and save a lot of money. And that’s what golf should be about is getting good clubs for a reasonable price and not having to break the bank. They’ve done it really well here. And uh hopefully we’re going to finish here with a good score. We need a par. Wish me luck. Hit subscribe. helps the show more than you know. And go ahead and hit that like button. That helps the channel as well. Thanks so much for watching. Here we go. 107’s the number. We’ve got the club for that. I’m going to hit I just that nice smooth a wedge has been pretty money for me. Could go sand wedge, but I don’t want to be short. I’ve still got that last shot in my mind from uh the fourth hole. It was smooth. Almost too smooth. I came up on it, hit it thin, but uh two putts here for par. And these clubs will pass the score test again. Didn’t deserve. And that’s been the theme really today. There’s been some shots I did not deserve and I really haven’t taken advantage of those uh breaks today. But maybe on this last one we can do it. This is going in. This is going in. Well, we’re out of here. We’re plus two. Not a bad round. Hope you enjoyed this one. Hit subscribe. Catch you back here next time on another edition of Let’s Play Through.