Are Your Irons Too Old? My 20 Year Old Models Were Not But …

Before I went for a recent iron fitting, I had one big question on my mind—were my 20 year old irons TOO old?

With playing partners now routinely reaching for two clubs less than on par 3s and approach shots I was starting to wonder – was I leaving easy gains on the table by not upgrading?

What I discovered from my fitting experience however changed my understanding of when to replace irons and wedges.

Chapters
0:00 Introduction
0.42 2004 Irons Too Old?
2:54 Too Old vs Too Heavy?
4:55 Forged vs Cast Irons
6:16 Wedges Too Old?

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before I went for a recent iron fitting I had one big question in my mind were my irons too old I’d been using my Muno MP 32s for 20 years but with playing Partners now routinely reaching for two clubs less than me on par 3s and approach shots I was starting to wonder was I leaving easy gains in the table by not upgrading what I discovered from my fitting experience however changed my understanding of when to replace irons and the lessons to be learned so let’s get into it and while we’re at it also take a look at what the verdict was in my wedges released back in 2009 welcome back to the channel everybody and in this video our golfing focus is on what my recent iron fitting experience showed me about telling whether your IRS are too old and worn out and need replacing there which means when I went into my fitting I was pretty sure that my irons were outdated having been released by Muno the way back in 2004 but it turns out I was wrong or kind of wrong so here’s what the overall results were firstly my mp32 still performed as well as comparable modern blade irons but the shafts were way too heavy and after testing different shafts I switched from very heavy 130 G shafts to ones almost 20 G lighter and the result of this change I not only got to keep my trusty old eye irons which I love hitting but gained an average of 6 yards per club with 1 mph less Club speed so my irons weren’t too old but they were too heavy for me and therefore required a lot of work to get the best results on a consistent basis so the truth is irons don’t really expire just because they’re old because here’s the thing about modern golf clubs they are built to last a long time and the science backs this up take titanium for example Le a key material that is combined with a very strong and thin Steel in a lot of irons it has a halflife of around 60 years which in practice means your clubs aren’t going to suddenly expire or lose their engineer performance characteristics just because they’ve been in your bag for a few years there are also examples of some of the best players in the world continuing to use old irons former US Open Champion Matt Fitzpatrick for example recently switched back to his 2013 ping s55 IRS after testing the latest titless t00 and pink blueprint models for a few months last year and the simple reason for this was that he felt most comfortable with them and wasn’t getting any meaningful performance and benefits from the newer irons so if you’re wondering whether your irons are too old the real question isn’t their age it’s whether they still perform for you better than any alternatives available and in my own case the reason my old irons weren’t performing was because of their weight which matters far more than than I realized back when I bought them 20 years ago Club Fitters at the time followed a simple philosophy heavier shafts gave players more control so if you had reasonable Club speed you were automatically fitted with heavy stiff shafts as they were essentially the only options available fast forward to today however and the Golf Tech landscape has completely changed with countless weight combinations and offer to match your evolving game and physical capabilities and when my recent iron fitting allowed me to take advantage of these options and test various lighter shafts I was able to get more consistent results and extra Distance by dropping to a much lighter shaft also no comparable modern blade that we tried during the session was giving me such an outstanding Improvement in performance that it was a no-brainer to switch to them but here’s what really surprised me when it came to the topic of weight where the weight sits in the club head can be just as important as the overall weight of the club some newer irons we tested with way more Tech in the club head compared to my old 20-year-old irons and which in theory should therefore have given me more ball speed and distance actually produced poor results overall and that was because some irons position weight lower in the club head to help launch the ball higher but because my strike pattern is naturally higher up in the face it meant I was striking the ball in the newer irons in an area with less Mass behind it as a result the ball flight and spin rate was higher with the new irons and my old MP 32s actually produced better results for my swing because their weight distribution was higher up closer to where I naturally hit the ball this was a big eye opener as if I had just gone out and bought a new set without testing assuming yours was better I would have ended up with irons that actually performed worse for my game while as we’ve already seen irons don’t really expire one thing that does make a difference when you’re looking at whether your irons are too old is whether they’re forged or cast irons forged irons are made from softer steel and can be bent or adjusted more easily they are therefore more prone to Loft and lie changes over time especially if you hit a lot of balls off practice mats if you forged irons therefore you need to be checking the lies and Lofts every couple of years especially if you play frequently cast iron by comparison are more durable and don’t change as much over time they are therefore harder to adjust but built to last longer without losing shape in my own case as an example since my mp 32s are forged my fits are found in my three iron and four iron had nearly the same Loft from years of wear so they were flying essentially the same distance and what are some other signs to look out for that may signal to is time to get your IRS looked at and potentially replaced your iron distances maybe inconsistent you’re struggling to hit the center of the face consistently your shots are flying lower than usual you feel like you have to swing extra hard to get results or certain irons perform much better than others if you’re noticing any of these it doesn’t necessarily mean you need brand new irons but it might be time for a fitting or a lesson to check out if your irons still suit you one part of your bag that does wear out faster than all your other clubs though your wedges wedges are the most versatile clubs in anyone’s golf bag and are therefore the most used and often in conditions that mean they they can need replacing faster than the other clubs when wedges wear out it’s also not always obvious to the naked eye a key sign of wear however is when the top edge of the groove begins to round off once this happens the groove can no longer effectively cut through to the back of the ball leading to reduce Spin and control and this becomes particularly noticeable in two specific situations firstly half wedge or other partial wedge shots and secondly wet conditions where moisture management is crucial the importance of sharp grooves also increases as Club speed decreases this means your highest lofted wedges used for those delicate shots around the green may need looked at before your gap wedge that you primarily use for full shots testing forther shows worn wedges can lose up to 2,000 RPMs of Spin and even more telling fresh GRS produce less than half the roll out distance compared to wedges that have seen 100 to 125 rounds of use to put this in perspective for the average golfer 125 rounds typically equ equals about 3 years of play for someone getting out 35 to 40 times per year that’s a decent lifespan but it means while your irons may not be too old there’s a higher probability if your wedges were as old as mine were and released all the way back in 2009 they may be passed their best before date so that’s it for this video If you enjoyed it please do hit that like button and join us our next video where we discuss what happened when I took my 15-year-old driver to get checked out and as ever and most importantly we hope you’re enjoying your golf