CAN THIS RADICAL WEDGE DESIGN FROM 1982 STILL SAVE YOU SHOTS?! Retro Review

Next up for the Retro Review treatment is arguably the most iconic wedge of all time, the Ping Eye2 copper beryllium. It was first introduced in 1982, just as part of the Ping Eye2 iron set, but little did Ping know, it would soon become one of its most successful ever creations as a standalone product. In this video, Joe Ferguson finds out if this classic wedge can still save him shots around the green by comparing it with the modern day S159 E Sole wedge from Ping.

► Skip to different sections:
Introduction 0:00-0:52
Design 0:52
Bunker shots 1:54
Pitching test 2:51
Long rough test 3:30
Data Comparison 4:34
Wet v dry test 8:26
Conclusion 9:54

► We teamed up with second hand golf club retailer golfclubs4cash to create this video, check out its website for the best prices on preowned equipment: https://www.golfclubs4cash.co.uk/

► Video shot on location at The Berkshire Golf Club. Visit https://www.theberkshire.co.uk/ for more information.

► Did you use these wedges back in the day or even now? Let us know in the comments below! 💬

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I’ve got an absolute monster for you today I want to take you back to 1982 and relative newcomers and upstarts in the equipment industry ping have just released their first set of brillium copper irons the I2 and little do they know within that set they’ve actually developed one of the most iconic wedges of all time the Ping I2 copper burum wedge so I’ve come down to the barkshire golf club probably my favorite golf course in the whole all of the UK and we’ve teamed up with golf clubs for cash one of the leading retailers of pre they’ provided us with some absolute gems to test so please check them out in the description below and I’ve picked this up for the bargain price of $79.99 this golf club is over 40 years old so I can’t wait to put it through its paces and see how it Stacks up against the modern day equivalent so as I said this was first introduced in 1982 and the design was pretty revolutionary as you can see it had a cavity back so that perimeter waiting help with the Forgiveness but the really interesting bit for me was this particularly thin sole area so it thinned out this sole which saved weight which allowed them to move it further up the club to give you a higher toe so arguably this is the original high toe wedge another really interesting design feature which made it exceptional out of the bunkers was the sole geometry if I bend the club back here and you begin to see the sole you’ll see how this very very little bounce on the heel side of the club now when you open the face the heel is generally the first bit that gets into the sand so this made the entrance to the sand really really smooth then as you move along the sole of the club and you get to the middle and the toe there’s loads of Bounce and that would kick in and help the exit of the club so the club itself just traveled really smoothly through the bunkers and as I said made it one of the best bunker clubs of all time so there’s only really one place to start this test in the sand and I’ve got a bunker just here now I’ve tested an awful lot of wedges in my time I’m really Keen to see how this Legend gets on so let’s hit a couple away and see how it feels oh I have to say I mean we’ve got some really high quality sand here at the bar sh and it’s beautifully rake which does help but that really did slip through with very very little resistance let’s go again don’t know if you can hear that lovely sort of nippy Slappy sound as it hits the sand that that feels fantastic and I’m quite relieved it stands up to the hype there so I wonder how this so would stand up if I give myself a slightly trickier lie so that’s pretty unpleasant let’s see if it can dig this out that’s come out pretty well as well so the versatility of the sole that Stacks up as well okay well that was really good out of the sand but I did kind of expect that because of this club’s reputation but we need it to do more than just be a onetick pony out the bunker so I’ve got kind of a bread and butter pit shot here 25 yards I’m going to go to this short right pin here off some quite tight Heath and turf so let’s see if this Soul can do anything with this shot the answer I think is yes that stiffed it that felt great it was a little bit of resistance from the turf there didn’t slide through quite as easy as it did through the sand but the result was really really good so I don’t think I need to hit anymore so that was some really nice performance from the bunker and I really enjoyed that nippy little pit shot but as a man who’s prone to the odd wonky approach shot I need to know whether it can get me out of some trouble some long stuff so I’ve dropped one here in this kind of heathery gorsy rough area it’s buried a bit and I want to see if this club head still got it it takes to cut through this grass and I’m pretty short-sided as well so let’s see what it can do it’s come out nicely again cut through really nicely I think that minimal bounce on the heel is something really interesting that was some really good short game performance but one concern I do have about buying a wedge that’s over 40 years old is has the spin rate diminished so I’m going to head to the practice ground I want to use my forsight GC quad launch mon to take some spin rates and see where it stands but I want to see how it Stacks up against potentially a modern day equivalent so I’ve got with me Ping’s brand new s159 EG grind wedge which is based on the I2 so let’s get to the practice ground let’s get some numbers and see how it Stacks up we’re down at the practice ground now because I wanted to hit some midlength Pitch shots now we’re going to use real balls I’ve got titless Pro V1 x’s and we’re going to measure the data on the foresight GC quad launch monitor now we’re off mats here it’s a really nice artificial surface which is probably a good thing because it means I’m not going to get any grass caught between the club and the ball and give us any misreading so I’ve got three shots in my Arsenal really want pit game I tend to play what feels like a half a 3/4 and a full so I’m going to do that with both clubs and I want to see the launch and the spin numbers to see how they compare so I’m going to start with the I2 and hit my half shot oh hang on before I forget if you’re enjoying this content please hit the like button comment down below if you played the old ping I2 copper brilliant wedge and if you haven’t already subscribe to the channel okay so that’s interesting so launch angle there just under 30° at 29.4 backspin feels relatively high at 8,498 revs so it’ be interesting that to compare that to the s159 so the s159 I’m going to give it that same sort of half feel that position I’m pretty familiar with and let’s see how it Compares in launch and spin yeah touch more spin actually popped up a little bit more slightly higher launch angle 30.7 and the spin number is coming in at just under 8,600 so I’m getting a little more grip off the face of that very similar carry that’s interesting let’s hit some 3/4 ones now and see if that carries through okay 30.6 launches come up a little bit and 9,489 in the spin that feels like quite a good healthy number again so let’s find out what the s159 will do okay launch a little bit low there 29.4 so coming out a little flatter window and 9,484 revs of spin so some interestingly similar spin numbers so far so let’s hit my full shot and see if it continues and that was under 30 of launch again 29 A2 and then 11,837 revs of backspin again which seems a lot so let’s see how the modern day equivalent Compares with a full swing okay popped up in launch a little bit 31.1 again comparable but a bit less so 11,615 revs on that one very very interesting you have seen through that the spin numbers are actually pretty comparable and on the full shot this was actually generating a little bit more the older wedge and it’s 42 years old and it’s taken me back a bit because this new s159 wedge is literally fresh out of the wrapper it’s never hit any more any shots before so the grooves are as fresh and as new and as sharp as possible but there is potentially another story to be told here because back in the day when they were making these i2s and the irons as well as the wedges some of them were built with what we called box grooves u-shaped grooves which ultimately the USGA and RNA deemed to create too much Spin and they made them illegal for competition now we’ve spoken to Ping we’ve given them the serial number it’s actually really difficult to tell whether your Club has box grooves or legal grooves for competition but from the spin numbers I’m looking up there I would suggest that this is probably one of the old box groups now I want to do a further test here because those were dry and we’ve got a new finish with the Ping wedges which ping are very proud of and I know a lot of the other manufacturers are quite jealous of the hydrop pearl finish which claims to produce exceptional spin when wet so let’s spray these faces up I brought a little spray bottle along hit the same sort of shots and figure out where the spin is now so I’ve got with me a handy little bottle of water I’m going to absolutely drench the face we’re going to start with the older I2 first I’m even going to drench up that ball let’s see what that does to the spin number I’m going to go in my half shot again okay so spin came off quite significantly there that was only just over 5,000 revs so 579 launch popped right up so when you get less friction launch generally pops up spin comes down that’s exactly what’s happened there 36.9 launch 579 spin let’s try the s159 let’s see the same thing that similar half shot feel and see where we go wow that is a big old difference so the launch is only just gone up it’s not even 31° but the Back Spin is over 3,000 revs more but 8,155 revolutions per minute out of this which would suggest to me that Ping’s hydrop pearl finish is working very very well here well I found that fascinating around the greens this old copper barilan ping I 2 still did a really great job for me the entrance and exit through the sand how Little Resistance it created let me play some really really good bunker shots even the little nippy shot off the tight Turf the pit shot and hacking it out of that longer rough still performed really really well and then when we came here to the practice ground and start hitting those 3/4 half and full shots the spin number was super comparable with even a brand new fresh s159 which got me even suspicious about the grooves however then we introduced the moisture and I think as you can see the s159 and the hydrop Pearl technology there from ping elevated it to a completely different level of spin so if you’re someone who plays in the desert and never sees any moisture whatsoever you can probably get some really similar performance for a little bit less money but if you play an early morning duw rain or any type of moisture then you’re going to really sacrifice some spin numbers from a newer model