July 23, 2025 • 36 mins
Shane and Marty discuss the most recent addition to the PING iron lineup, the i240 irons. They dive into the technologies have helped advance performance in the new players-style design, how the i240 irons are engineered to blend well with other models and the early success of the model on professional tours worldwide.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The guys from Ping. They've kind of showed me how
much the equipment matters.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
I just love that I can hit any shot.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
I kind of want we're gonna be able to tell
some fun stories about what goes on here to help
golfers play better golf.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
Hey, everybody, welcome back to the Ping Proven Grounds Podcast.
I'm Shane Bacon. I'd say, joined as always by Marty Jertsen.
But Marty, occasionally you're you're popping out on your own,
you're hosting pods, you're getting yourself dialed, I mean added
to the resume.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Baby.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Well, you know I saw yours with Bubba the Masters.
You know I didn't get the invite, so Shane, I
just had to reciprocate a little bit.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
It was fun, man, I mean chatting with those guys.
Masters week is always so crazy. Been a wild year,
I think in the golf world. Something exciting that Ping
has rolling out. I kind of the middle of this summer,
which is exciting for us as I two forty and
we're gonna dive into kind of some of the new
irons for Ping. And you know, I want to start here, Marty,
because I think something we've preached a lot on this
(00:58):
podcast is mixed bag, and I think that's something that
you have been a proponent of really long before it
became popular. And I feel like when like the Eye
Irons pop, it's just such an exciting time for any
player because it adds like another layer of mixing up
the golf bag. And so I feel like you're a
perfect person to talk about this because you're somebody that's
(01:20):
been a big fan of this for so many years.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Yeah, the mixed bag is it's like the I don't know,
it's it's been like a secret menu item or something like.
I think the very detailed techie players know how to
do They know how to do it right. There wasn't
great tools out there to help figure it out, you know,
a lot of like guessing and checking on loft's lengths,
(01:43):
how they're gonna fly, how are they gonna spin? Well, Shane,
I think it was fun about two forty and even
our brand new IDI that's in our product suite allows
the everyday person to build the mix bag just like
our tour players. One of the funnest examples of this
for me right now is Neil Shipley. He plays our
(02:05):
I two thirty probably be moving to our I two
forty here pretty soon like three iron. Then he plays
a blueprint S I think four four iron blueprint S
four four through six. Then he goes to blueprint T
like seven through nine. Then he plays our S one
(02:26):
fifty nine forty six degree, so like he's playing four
different sets basically in three through pitching wedge. I absolutely
love that.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
He's like the perfect brand ambassador. Right, He's like, you
want to see any of these irons, I've got them
all through the bag. I mean, you know you.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
You mentioned the secret menu.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
It's like like this is the animal style of golf,
like the fact that you can throw in different things.
When did when do you feel like seeing the iron
sets became popular on tour? When did that kind of
start to pop? Was there an iteration of eye irons
that you felt like you started to see players go
like an eye iron with the long irons and maybe
(03:07):
like an S fifty nine or something in the lower irons.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Yeah, yeah, no, I do I do think that. I
Mean traditionally, Shane, like until like the last two three
four years, it's been just like the one club in
the bag, like okay, you'll play you know, you'll play
our blades all the way until you're three iron and
maybe you got an EYE two hundred three iron in
the bag or whatever, or four iron something like that.
But now you're seeing the Neil Shipley configurations and things
(03:33):
of that nature. I mean, it's really now that we
have you know, our I five hundred series iron like
our I five thirty that has some distance. Maybe folks
are playing that in your in your three iron driving
iron type of club. And then now that we have
our I two forty blueprint s blueprint te all with
the same losts in length configuration and they do different
(03:56):
things from a distance standpoint. That's really where we've made
it sooner convenient, both for tour and now using our
copilot gapping opp tools like your everyday golfer can get
these absolutely dialed and make them work seamlessly right out
of the gate.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Yeah, I'm already.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
I mean I've been an IT two thirty, you know,
four iron sometimes now with the three iron in the
bag depending on the golf course, and maybe seven would
maybe the three iron. It's something that I've really been
a big fan of. You know what, I don't know
about you. The older I get, the uh, the less excited.
I am to hit a long iron, and so any
of the help I can get in that department, YEP,
is great. I love kind of going from the blueprint
(04:34):
S five iron into the I two thirty, And so
now we go to I two forty. What's the big
difference in two forty versus the success of two thirty
because I feel like two thirty has been a great
iron for so many people.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Yeah, and I think you hit the nail on the head.
It's like where is it the most important? Like why
are you playing the two thirty? You know, why have
you played the two thirty long irons? Because more forgiving,
launches a little bit higher, gives a little more ball speed.
That's where you a little bit of help in all
those areas. So that's where we put the focus in
the two forty is how can we elevate the inertia
(05:07):
of the long iron specifically, so the three iron through
seven iron, the inertia is way higher. It's like five
six percent higher in the three four iron, then it
goes to you know, three four percent higher in the six, five, six,
seven iron. So we really elevated the inertia in the
long irons, and we did that Shane through if you
(05:28):
kind of look at the iron the cavity view. We
gave it a little bit more of this like cavity
look to it. So and at the same time that
the badge that we use in the back, which helps
with feel and vibration, damping and things of that nature
with which golfers expect, and urine four in our In
our I two forty iron, we made it substantially lighter,
(05:50):
so it's like eight grams lighter, and we really use
that to save weight from the middle of the club
specifically in those long irons, distributed the weight low to
lower the CG and we have more mass in the
heel weight, the tip weight, and the toe weight to
boost the inertia. So you're gonna see higher launch angle,
(06:10):
little bit more ball speed in substantially more forgiveness, which
I think is why players like me and you use
it and transition to these in the long irons. In
the long iron specifically.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
You know, I find it so interesting in terms of
transitioning because you know, the irons, as we said, I
two thirty has been a big success, and I think
so many people have been a big fan of that iron.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
I have definitely been a big fan of those for
a number of years.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
When it comes to drivers, you know, when you go
into a new driver category at paying, I'm assuming forgiveness, distance,
Things like that pop up, and what are we going
to do now to improve our driver from one iteration
to the next. What's the real what's like number one
on the chalkboard When it comes to irons, I mean,
is at height?
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Is it distance? Is it forgiveness?
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Like, what's the number one thing you guys, the smart
guys in the backs are thinking about when you're diving
into the new iteration of ion?
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Oh, such a great, such a great question, Shane. It's
it's dependent on which iron we're designing, right. So like
let's say our tour irons. You know, when I say
tour irons, I consider the irons where the player brings
the speed and this is blueprint ask blueprint T And
this iron we're talking about today, which is I two forty,
that's where generally speaking, the players bringing the speed to
(07:26):
the table and we don't necessarily need to have the
club have a lot of face flexing or some exotic
things to get it to go further. Those irons we
approach differently. The importance level of different of what we're
trying to optimize for maximize or minimize is different for
that category of player. So a big thing we try
(07:46):
to do in these tour irons is optimize uh, the
launch and spin, the land angle. Then things like turf interaction,
feel things of that nature are on that priority list.
But one big piece Shane that we studied quite a bit,
and it's one of the big things when you go
first set down the I two forty is the grooves
(08:07):
are substantially different. So with I two thirty we use
this groove we called the Micromax groove, so they had
they were very tightly spaced, and we did a lot
of research on this topic. This is actually a very
fun thing to talk about where we're taking very nuanced,
detailed feedback from tour and plugging it right into our
product quickly. Is that with that groove that we used
(08:30):
on the two thirty Micromax very tightly spaced, we sacrificed
or gave up a little bit of spin, like not
a lot. We're talking like one hundred and fifty RPMs
somewhere in that neighborhood on dry good condition lies. So
if your ball's in the fairway or you're heating off
a tee, the iron spun about one hundred to one
(08:52):
hundred and fifty RPMs less. But what we gain by
having that groove is a reduction in flyers, right. And
so but after we kind of launched that iron, we
had it on tour. The players are so good both
PGA and this iron is super popular on the LPGA tour.
So both PJ and LPGA tour players were giving us
(09:13):
this feedback that they wanted to spin a little bit
more when they have those perfect lies because that's when
they need to do their scoring. That's the green light zone.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Right.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
So they're like, hey, guys, I know I'm getting less
flyers out of the rough. They're realizing it, but give
me more spin when I'm ready to score, which is
shots off the te I know, Shane, we've talked about
that quite a bit. As you actually hit your irons
off the te your mid irons about a third of
the time. So put more priority on having the ball
(09:44):
spin a little bit more off a tee off of
good lies, and this was a we actually made some
two thirty irons with this. We call it the tour groove,
the groove that's on the two forty now, and we've
had a lot of PGA like Victor Perez and tons
of lp J. Tour players use this new groove that's
on the two forty with their two thirties because we
(10:06):
validated this concept a game a little bit more spin
when they're ready to score. So really that premium on spin,
which which reduced their you know, increase their disease control,
improves their peak height stopping power when there ready to score.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
Marty, I don't want you to necessarily name names, but
are there certain tour players that you guys maybe go
to more often than others, Maybe some that can just
explain it better, like what they're looking for what makes sense,
because I mean, not everybody's gonna sing the same way, right,
but I'm assuming there are certain tour players that the
moment you need feedback, you go, we got to go
to X.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Yeah, one hundred percent. I mean I even remember thinking
back when we were doing some of our are original
I iron designs. I mean little step back into history
here would be when we were working on like the
Eye ten iron long time ago. It was Chris DeMarco.
(11:03):
I mean that's when DeMarco was battling Tiger at the Masters,
and DeMarco was like our best Yeah, he was our
best iron player and he was like the quintessential I
three plus blade player. So we we we would fly
down and work with DeMarco because he was so nuanced
and so detailed. And yes, we do. We do have
that short short list of players, and I think what's
(11:23):
fun now is we have we have so many very technical, detailed,
nuanced players on the Ladies tour as well that we
we we get a lot of great feedback. Again because
this iron is so important, it's it's the I series.
Iron has always been kind of dominant on the LPGA
tour with both our staffers and tons of non staff players,
(11:43):
and so we have a we have a short list
out there that's very fun to work with some of
the more detailed and nuanced UH ladies on the LPGA
Tour that give us some very insightful feedback on how
the Irons perform.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
I feel like you've.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Touched a little bit on this, but when you think
about I two, is you kind of fitted in the
category amongst the ping irons, who's the player that this fits?
Speaker 2 (12:06):
When you think about I two forty.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Yeah, No, I think it's you know, it's it's it's
an avid player and maybe that that you know, our
blueprints are just too small. They scare you a little
bit and you need some more help. But you're not
the player that wants to go to our I five
thirty like the I five thirties strong lofted that that's
that's an iron that's gonna help you. Maybe you're hit
(12:29):
it a little bit further that that iron is going
to give you some distance infusion. The lofts are a
little bit stronger, but we could retrospectum and power respect
them to kind of dial in launch and spin on those.
So you not necessarily looking for that distance infusion, but
you need a little bit more forgiveness. Maybe also you're
an avid player. When I say avid player, ten handicap
(12:51):
in below is good here, but certainly you're five six
seven handicaps and below I two thirties in the sweet spot.
If you have plenty of distance, plenty of speed, and
you're looking for this kind of mid size, high forgiveness iron,
uh that gives you the ability to control your ball
flight really well. So so you're your your you're a score.
(13:12):
You need to use your irons to score and control
your distance. Where then the I five thirty that's gonna
give you a little bit more distance infusion that it's
going to be for your maybe your avid player aging gracefully,
but you still want to hit eight iron from your
one sixty number, then take it, you know, and maybe
one maybe the the IE two forty would go one
(13:35):
fifty for you or one forty five. Go take a
look at the Uh, the I five thirty is gonna
be a great option. We can dial in the loss
and things of that nature. But avid player, the other
the other aviad avenue for the I two forty over,
maybe say blueprint chain is the sole design right there.
The soul's a little bit wider, it's got a little
(13:56):
more rounded lead edge. So if you are a little
bit steeper on your angle of attack or playing like
a wide variety of conditions, or maybe our blueprints with
the smaller blade in the little sharper lead edge get
into the ground a little bit too much for you.
There's another avenue to think about this iron. Maybe it's
beyond just the forgiveness per se, and it's more about
(14:18):
fitting the iron for your turf interaction, your angle of
attack and giving you a little bit more wiggle room
there in how that's going to interact with the turf.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
Yeah, Marty, I find it interesting that Victor's an I
series guy. You know, when you think about great Iron
players and you think about, you know, some of the
you were talking about DeMarco, I mean kind of modern
day if you will. Amongst the ping staff is Hoblines
and the way he kind of delivers the club, I mean,
the consistency of delivery. I think it's my favorite on tour,
you know, just basically from let's say, from what would
(14:50):
it be for righty not nine o'clock through?
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Yes, it's just crazy as consistency.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
And you think about an Iron player like that, you
might not immediately go to like an I series Iron,
But is that is Hoblin mostly I through the bag.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Yeah, he's He's played our I series Iron for a
long time. He's hit our blueprints. And I have a
little bit of a hypothesis on this shamee that that
I'll talk about here with with Hobblin.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
And and.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
I'll do a little analogy to putters. You know, we've
talked a lot about putters where if you play more
toe down putter, the face will be delivered more open,
and you'll start the ball more to the right for
the right handed golfer, so it's a great way to
eliminate a left miss. So if very putter fitting one
on one, if you pull your putts, go to more
(15:37):
toe down putter, and you'll you'll hit your start lines
better or you'll deliver the face more open. So when
you're looking at irons, a simpler behavior and mechanism of
action is at play here. And I think that's really
why Hovelin likes our I series irons is because the
blade length is longer. So if you play a longer
(15:59):
blade length iron, so the cig is just further from
the shaft, even at the same line gole, same shaft,
everything else, the face will be more delivered, more open
to the path. And so when he's tried our blueprint irons,
obviously it's like, obviously, he's a good enough ball striker
from an impact dispersion standpoint to play our blueprints. So
(16:21):
it's like, Okay, why does he always like our I
series irons? The blade lengths a little bit longer and
that matches up to his expected start lines in his
delivered face angle that he likes to see. So it's
another it's another factor.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
You know.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
I've always had friends say, hey, these these bigger long irons.
I can fade the long irons easier. And the reason
why is is not to do with the offset and
things of that nature. It's more that the blade length
is longer, the sieg's further away from the shaft, and
for Victor, it's a better matchup of his delivered face
angle that he likes to sense, see and feel that
(17:00):
he naturally does because he has the face. Obviously, his
wrist angles are are such that his risk conditions are
such that the face is staying very square relative to
the to the target longer than most like he looks literally,
you've probably seen some videos of his swing that looks
like it mirrors kind of ping man as it's done
(17:21):
through impact.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Right, it's crazy.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
I mean, are you pretty good about maybe you have
a new staffer, maybe a college kid's turning pro, new
product comes out. Are you pretty good about nailing what
you think they'll land in? Or are you at times
as surprised as maybe I am when I see Victors
being an I Series guy.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Yeah, it's it's it's not. We don't always nail it,
you know, And I think that's the beauty of custom fitting.
And I think that's why everyone still needs to be
custom fit in the in we're the custom fitter is
not going to be replaced by AI or some algorithm
or something like. Fitting the human is very goodness. It's
(18:00):
very detailed, it's very nuance nervous, it's very detailed. It's
very nuanced. And so even with all the research we
do Shane, for example, on like shaft fitting, like we
got algorithms that are we've been working on for decades
and they are really really good. But even me, I
will still say, you have to go hit it, see
(18:20):
how you respond and iterate. Now, yes, we're getting better
at whittling it down to your two or three options
that will probably work for you, but I can't it's
still there. You can't take that aspect of what is
the behavior, what is the response of the player uh
to that particular attribute in the club design or shaft.
(18:42):
And so Victor is a great example of that. I
think you'd look at him and be like, hey, he's
a blueprint guy flushes it never misses the center of
the face. But what I think we're really doing the
victor is fitting him to the blade length to hit
his start lines. That's that's probably like the primary thing.
And so no, I think, going back to your question,
we don't always nail it, and that's what makes custom
fitting fun and still require I think it should be,
(19:06):
you know, a good testimonial for folks to go out
there and and still engage in in a really good
custom fitting. Hopefully we're building some great tools to help
you get more dialed more than ever.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
What about lofts on I two forty, anything different in
terms of loft or gapping with these guy irons versus
maybe two thirty or even blueprints our I two forty.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
We kind of pride ourselves in it's being it's like
our best gaped iron. So along with the blueprints, so
we do we do very rigorous gap testing. And what
does that mean, Shane? It means like we want, you know,
relatively even spacing throughout all clubs in the bag for
the target player, right and so, and even our tools
(19:47):
and copilot there will help give you a recommendation, uh,
for our gapping app Shane. Really cool. You can go
in and say, hey, I'm gonna play I two forty irons,
put in your seven iron balls, launching spin with your
fitter there, and the app might say, hey, you might
need to go to the IDI four iron and your
(20:08):
longest iron should be a five because it's kind of
looking at where your gaps start trailing off, so gapping
that the goal of gapping is to get even spacing
from all your clubs. And there's a lot of sets
out there, even in this category of the I two
forty that don't deliver that as well as they should
and you don't feel the pain of it in the
(20:29):
fitting experience. Sadly. It's how the loft progressions and the
length progressions play through. So the lofts on the I
two forty thirty three degree seven iron, which is plenty
of loft. It matches our blueprint as loft, so has
plenty of loft again because spin is your friend for
(20:49):
the player trying to control distance, and how we progress
them has delivered very even spacing. And then obviously, Shane,
we have power spec retrospec which are great fitting options.
You know we do a lot of retrospec I five thirty,
so that's our iron is pretty the strong lofted and
we we need to get a little more launching spin
for a lot of players in there. And then conversely
(21:12):
we'll do way more power spec I two forty. And
because it's thirty three degree seven iron, if you power
spec gets thirty one and a half gets you kind
of right in between the I five thirty and the
I two forty from a distant standpoint, gets you a
little bit more distance. And again, Shane, this iron has
an ample amount of bounce on it, plenty of soul wit,
(21:35):
so you can do it and not worry about the
club getting diggy on you.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
In terms of launch, like when you kind of look
through a window of all the irons, where does the
I series specifically I two forty kind of fit is it?
You know, if you're launching let's say five hundred series,
the highest is two forty low blueprint? Is it similar
to blueprint? What does launch look like for these irons
For somebody that's thinking, maybe I'm thinking about an eye,
(22:01):
but I'm not.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
One hundred percent sure.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
I want it to go a little bit higher than
maybe my previous iteration of iron.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, So launch we designed so you got
blueprint T or two or iron will fly the lowest,
and then you have blueprint s flies the higher than that,
and then you have I two forty one window higher
than that. So it's again it's it's perfect from the
standpoint of if you're thinking about doing a blended set,
(22:26):
this is a great way to kind of think about it.
You got the T going the lowest, the S a
little bit higher, the two forty a little bit higher.
Then you get into our other category of irons like
that the I five thirty that's gonna fly, that's gonna
fly pretty high, really high relative to what the lofts are.
But it's kind of that's where you start mixing lofts
(22:47):
a little bit. But we do have some nice tools
again in co Pilot Pilot if you did want to
kind of blend a two forty iron with some of
other irons, you know, including I five thirty long irons.
But Shane, what's really nice now is with the addition
of IDI is the IDI is designed to be your
(23:09):
long iron replacement that fits seamlessly from a length loft
gaping standpoint, trajectory, windows standpoint into your two forty. So
let's say you're let's say you want to play the
I two forty, you know, kind of full homogenous set,
maybe five through pitch. You can go to the id
I four iron and get that little elevation peak height
(23:31):
that's going to help transition into wherever you go beyond
that part of your back.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
Yeah, it seems like long irons aren't going away. I
was a little bit fearful of this, I think when
the lofted wood started to pop. I mean, you and
I've spent time talking. I mean, I've had the seven
more of the bag pretty consistently for the last couple
of years. I've messed around with the nine wood, which
I really like at times, especially when I'm playing Northeast
golf with gnarly ruff and trying to chop it out.
You know, we saw that earlier this year at Oakmont,
(23:57):
where you know, guys were even leaning can.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
You make mean eleven?
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (24:00):
Right, I mean something crazy as.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Deep as that.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
But it feels like the long irons aren't going away,
as is three iron offered in I two forty as well.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, So we got the we all
the way down to the three iron, and uh, you
know that that is not a lot of high not
a lot of folks will be fit into that club
or use that club. I think that's where you go
into the hybrids, the ferry woods, the uh, the the
id I is a great solution for that transition point.
But certainly, Yeah, Shane, I'm a fan of you know,
(24:31):
if you're a player kind of in our category, or
you maybe you're you're traveling around to play some tournaments
or some golf with your buddies. I love having a
couple of clubs at that top end of the bag.
So you got like, you know, for me, it's like
I got the id I three iron, but if I
go to high elevation or firm golf course, something with
no wind, I'm throwing the five wood or the four
wood in there, right, So you got a couple options.
(24:53):
I think that's a great Now we have so many
options right in there. I think for a traveling golfer,
a tournament golfer, you should have a couple different options
in that part of the bag, depend on the conditions,
the win traveling things of that nature.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
You know what's interesting is that part of the bag
seems to be getting a ton of attention now. You know,
you think about i'd say eight nine, ten years ago,
it seemed like there was a lot of focus on
what's the wedge set up in your bag? You know,
it was are you a four wedge guy? I think
there were people with five wedges at the time.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
They would play like that.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
It feels like we're focusing a lot of that attention
around that longer iron, three iron, four iron, something in
that category and making sure that there's multiple options for
players depending on where they play, how far they hit it.
Obviously they're handicapping skill set, but I love the fact
that that part of the bag isn't isn't isn't forgotten
(25:49):
at this point.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Yeah, I mean, just from our standpoint of paying, I mean,
we have like four different options in there. You can
play your long iron, you can play an idi, you
can play a hybrid, you can play a high lofted
fairway would so I mean, but with these options comes
the challenge of like fitting them properly. And that's where
I mean, we're very excited about all those tools in
(26:11):
the Gaping app, which helps helps narrow that down and
can make those recommendations based on you know, your your
typical launch conditions because it's so individual to the player.
So you got the player launch conditions, and then you
have their course conditions, their playing conditions, their preferences, course designed.
I mean, Shane, I travel around, you did two, and
(26:31):
you know you could be in the same geographic location.
One golf course has bunkers and elevated greens in front
of in front of it, and if you play all
your golf there, that's a totally different fitting optimization. Then
some more open where you can run it up and
not elevated greens. So, uh, there's so much to it.
I love having all these options and uh, you know,
(26:52):
hopefully trying to make it easier for the golfer to
figure out which one's right for them.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
Did you see some of the tour players lean into
I two forty pretty quickly?
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Yeah, yeah, so, uh, you know Turle Hatton put the
A couple he's a he's he's he's been kind of
a blended set player for us. So he put long
irons into play right out of the gate. Tristan Lawrence
a couple of long irons and play right out of
the gate.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
A couple of guys that played well at Oakma play well.
You know, a couple couple guys that played well at
a tough golf yep Uh.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
Lauren Coughlin, friend of the pod Uh, she put them
in immediately, absolutely loves off the Harmunos on the LPGA
Tour Again, Shane, I just want to emphasize how important
this iron has been on the LPGA Tour, So I'm
super excited to see, uh kind of what our numbers
are and how they shake out, both with our PGA
Tour players, live players and and and LPG.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
Marty, what's it like for the design team when an
iron like this is introduced, you go take it to
the best players in the world and they immediately buy in. Like,
what is that like in the background for you guys,
when you know, you guys understand the science behind it
and the hard work to win into it, but you
obviously would like to see incredible player, top twenty player
in the world buy into it immediately. When they buy
(28:07):
into it immediately, what's that like in the background for
you guys?
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Opinion?
Speaker 1 (28:10):
It's very gratifying, Shane, because behind every product that comes out,
the designer who has led that product has been, you know,
pouring their entire professional effort, blood, sweat and tears into
that for a couple of years. I mean it's a
couple of years of full time work, and so every little,
(28:33):
every little piece of nuance and detail that went into
it is very very rewarding. You know, you're always kind
of nervous. You're always nervous when the iron, you know,
when an iron or product goes out to tour, because
you've done everything you could and it's time to let
the bird out into the wild and see if it flies.
(28:53):
And so it is very very gratifying. So we love
keeping our pulse. Our tour department sends a very detailed
report every single week of what happens on tour and
you better believe that. You know, come Wednesday night when
that report goes out before the tournament, that we're all
glued to the email, getting ready to getting ready to
(29:13):
hear the feedback and then make sure it's in play
there when the Daryl survey comes out on Thursday.
Speaker 3 (29:19):
What about shaft options, We haven't really talked about shaft
options in terms of I two forty anything different in
that department.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
Yeah, I know, we have a great We have a
ton of no up charge fitting options. I mean we've
we've been doing that with our oron families for a
number of years now. It's been absolutely fantastic. Our default
stock option is the Modus one fifteen, and we picked
that shame because it's kind of the sweet spot right
for this type of player. So it's it's it's not
up in the one twenty one thirty weight category. The
(29:48):
Modus one fifteen. The Modus family has been super popular.
Nipon does a fantastic job. From a toleranting standpoint, I'm
in their quality in their manufacturing has been absolutely superb.
But we want to we that would be a great
option is the stock option in this in this iron
because it fits kind of the sweet spot target of
the I two forty player. But tons of great no
(30:11):
up charge options, including our AWT three point zero, which
I'm a big fan of, which is lighter weight and
the long irons gets heavier into the short irons, but
you got you got dynamic gold in there. A lot
of great, great fitting options. When it comes to iron shafts,
it's it's it's all about the custom fitting. So you
want to match the weight of the iron to help
(30:33):
you manage and control that low point. If the iron
shafts get too light, you might not control your low point.
That well, even though, yeah, your good shots might launch
a little bit higher. So that's a tip for folks
out there when you go into your fitting environment, be
very mindful not only the launch and spin when you're
trying different iron shafts. And we have this great AFS
three D fitting head where you can plug in different
(30:55):
iron shafts in and hit them chain, but be mindful
of the term interaction and how many times you maybe
hit a little fat hill a little bit thin. You
want to both optimize the launch and spin, so keep
your eye in the numbers, but also pay attention to
your control of that low point, like which iron shaft's
(31:15):
shaft helps you bottom out the most consistently. So those
are the two pieces in iron shaft fitting that you
kind of want to be aware of.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
All right, Marty, I think the thing I paid the
most attention to, and I think you mentioned you've touched
on this a little bit earlier, but sound. I mean,
I'm a big sound guy with the golf club. You
and I've talked a lot about practicing without AirPods on,
I mean, so you can kind of get that feel.
It was funny I played a little nine hole round
alone yesterday and I hit a six iron out of
a fairway bunker and I had headphones in and it
(31:47):
kind of I was kind of watch it in the air,
and I'm like, I think I got all of it,
but I didn't hear it. And then I see it
roll up to like ten feet. I was like, there
was the headphones. How is sound in terms of I
two maybe? How different is the sound versus I two thirty?
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Yeah, very big deal. It's gonna be be even just
a little bit of that, you know, a little more
kind of quieter, slightly more muted. And the way that
we accomplished that, Shane was re engineered the activated elastomer.
So right underneath the badge, if you kind of look
down in the cavity of the iron, there's a big
(32:23):
kind of pocket in there, and we put a very
high volume amount of elastomer material that's very light light
in terms of the density, so it saves a ton
of weight. Is this is what allows us to put
weight to the heel and toe kind of like a barbell.
But the benefit is not only the weighting. That elastomer.
When the ball impacts the face gets what we call activated,
(32:46):
so it actually gets kind of squished just like layers
on the golf ball. Just like you have different layers
on the golf ball, we have different layers in the
cross section of the I two forty iron. So when
you start hit the eye iron with some speed, the
face flexes a little bit and it starts putting those
vibrations or that energy into the elastomer, and the elastomer
(33:10):
gives some what's called Visco elastic damping. So provide some damping,
which that gets the volume of the sound down a
little bit into that zone that the player is kind
of yearning for and expecting from this type iron. Again, Shane,
I think a big part of what we're trying to do,
you know, it'd be very you know, I think all
(33:32):
of us in golf have hit a product that it
looks like it should sound one way. Then you hit
it and it doesn't, and you're like, wait a minute,
my brain's confused. Things aren't matching up. Maybe even if
you like the sound, maybe it just doesn't match what
I'm expected. And so that's really what we're trying to engineer.
We have some great tools. I mean, we talked about
the four to forty driver with the carbon fly wrap
(33:54):
and all these tools we have now that are getting
better better optimizing the acoustics. So yeah, I think folks
go out and hit it with AFS three d uh
and uh and test it for yourself. But so far,
the feedback from from our tour players, better players, player
testing here is the acoustics of this iron absolutely fantastic
and more importantly match what you expect from this iron.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
Marty.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
The biggest question as we wrap up on I two
forty is how many I two forties are in Marty
Jertsen's golf bag.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
What's what's the number I got? What's the number? Zero zero?
Speaker 1 (34:27):
I go, I'm Blueprint, I'm blueprint, ass, I'm Blueprint, I'm
three iron player. Right now, I got the ID I
four iron, and then I go to blueprint S five
through nine. Then I I go to Blueprint T pitching, Wedge,
Blueprint T pitching, wedge, custom fitting.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
You know it's so good, It's so good, h Marty.
I I'm excited about this. I think the I two forties,
as I said, I two thirty was was one of
my favorite irons.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
And again kind of that mixed bag set has been
great for me.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
As I mentioned, I've kind of pulled out the I
two thirty three iron really like the last probably two
or three months, and it's been a savior for me
because depending on the golf course. Played a couple of
courses on the West Coast and it was firm. You know,
you get that thing running and it's a little bit
a different situation than hit that seven would for me.
And then I come back home and the seven wood
goes right back into play because it's been really wet
(35:25):
in the Northeast, and you know, the rough's kind of
been gnarly, and if you miss a fair way, especially
on a par five, you can maybe still give it
a rip into that par five. So as we wrap
anything else on I two forty we didn't hit on
before I start to convince you offline to put one
in your back.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Oh yeah, no. I love the I two ford aerons.
It's just such an important iron for us. Launches high,
more forgiveness in the long irons, plenty of spin. That
is so important. Man. Maybe maybe you're a better player
out there, Shane that's dabbled with one of these other
low spin irons and you're struggling with your distance control.
You haven't been able to hit your numbers like you
(36:01):
used to. The I two forty is gonna be the
club for you. It allows you to hit your numbers
with a lot of precision. All the boost we have
in the in the in the inertia and the long
iron specifically easy to get the golf ball in the
air uh and then the grooves like getting more spin
uh and and tighter dispersion and in all conditions. Absolutely fantastic.
(36:22):
A lot of a lot of great shaft options.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
Good enough for else, good enough for Tyroll, good enough
for Victor, good enough for everybody out there listening. Always appreciated, Marty.
This is the Ping Proving Grounds Podcast.
The guys from Ping. They've kind of showed me how
much the equipment matters.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
I just love that I can hit any shot.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
I kind of want we're gonna be able to tell
some fun stories about what goes on here to help
golfers play better golf.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
Hey, everybody, welcome back to the Ping Proven Grounds Podcast.
I'm Shane Bacon. I'd say, joined as always by Marty Jertsen.
But Marty, occasionally you're you're popping out on your own,
you're hosting pods, you're getting yourself dialed, I mean added
to the resume.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Baby.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Well, you know I saw yours with Bubba the Masters.
You know I didn't get the invite, so Shane, I
just had to reciprocate a little bit.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
It was fun, man, I mean chatting with those guys.
Masters week is always so crazy. Been a wild year,
I think in the golf world. Something exciting that Ping
has rolling out. I kind of the middle of this summer,
which is exciting for us as I two forty and
we're gonna dive into kind of some of the new
irons for Ping. And you know, I want to start here, Marty,
because I think something we've preached a lot on this
(00:58):
podcast is mixed bag, and I think that's something that
you have been a proponent of really long before it
became popular. And I feel like when like the Eye
Irons pop, it's just such an exciting time for any
player because it adds like another layer of mixing up
the golf bag. And so I feel like you're a
perfect person to talk about this because you're somebody that's
(01:20):
been a big fan of this for so many years.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Yeah, the mixed bag is it's like the I don't know,
it's it's been like a secret menu item or something like.
I think the very detailed techie players know how to
do They know how to do it right. There wasn't
great tools out there to help figure it out, you know,
a lot of like guessing and checking on loft's lengths,
(01:43):
how they're gonna fly, how are they gonna spin? Well, Shane,
I think it was fun about two forty and even
our brand new IDI that's in our product suite allows
the everyday person to build the mix bag just like
our tour players. One of the funnest examples of this
for me right now is Neil Shipley. He plays our
(02:05):
I two thirty probably be moving to our I two
forty here pretty soon like three iron. Then he plays
a blueprint S I think four four iron blueprint S
four four through six. Then he goes to blueprint T
like seven through nine. Then he plays our S one
(02:26):
fifty nine forty six degree, so like he's playing four
different sets basically in three through pitching wedge. I absolutely
love that.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
He's like the perfect brand ambassador. Right, He's like, you
want to see any of these irons, I've got them
all through the bag. I mean, you know you.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
You mentioned the secret menu.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
It's like like this is the animal style of golf,
like the fact that you can throw in different things.
When did when do you feel like seeing the iron
sets became popular on tour? When did that kind of
start to pop? Was there an iteration of eye irons
that you felt like you started to see players go
like an eye iron with the long irons and maybe
(03:07):
like an S fifty nine or something in the lower irons.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Yeah, yeah, no, I do I do think that. I
Mean traditionally, Shane, like until like the last two three
four years, it's been just like the one club in
the bag, like okay, you'll play you know, you'll play
our blades all the way until you're three iron and
maybe you got an EYE two hundred three iron in
the bag or whatever, or four iron something like that.
But now you're seeing the Neil Shipley configurations and things
(03:33):
of that nature. I mean, it's really now that we
have you know, our I five hundred series iron like
our I five thirty that has some distance. Maybe folks
are playing that in your in your three iron driving
iron type of club. And then now that we have
our I two forty blueprint s blueprint te all with
the same losts in length configuration and they do different
(03:56):
things from a distance standpoint. That's really where we've made
it sooner convenient, both for tour and now using our
copilot gapping opp tools like your everyday golfer can get
these absolutely dialed and make them work seamlessly right out
of the gate.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Yeah, I'm already.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
I mean I've been an IT two thirty, you know,
four iron sometimes now with the three iron in the
bag depending on the golf course, and maybe seven would
maybe the three iron. It's something that I've really been
a big fan of. You know what, I don't know
about you. The older I get, the uh, the less excited.
I am to hit a long iron, and so any
of the help I can get in that department, YEP,
is great. I love kind of going from the blueprint
(04:34):
S five iron into the I two thirty, And so
now we go to I two forty. What's the big
difference in two forty versus the success of two thirty
because I feel like two thirty has been a great
iron for so many people.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Yeah, and I think you hit the nail on the head.
It's like where is it the most important? Like why
are you playing the two thirty? You know, why have
you played the two thirty long irons? Because more forgiving,
launches a little bit higher, gives a little more ball speed.
That's where you a little bit of help in all
those areas. So that's where we put the focus in
the two forty is how can we elevate the inertia
(05:07):
of the long iron specifically, so the three iron through
seven iron, the inertia is way higher. It's like five
six percent higher in the three four iron, then it
goes to you know, three four percent higher in the six, five, six,
seven iron. So we really elevated the inertia in the
long irons, and we did that Shane through if you
(05:28):
kind of look at the iron the cavity view. We
gave it a little bit more of this like cavity
look to it. So and at the same time that
the badge that we use in the back, which helps
with feel and vibration, damping and things of that nature
with which golfers expect, and urine four in our In
our I two forty iron, we made it substantially lighter,
(05:50):
so it's like eight grams lighter, and we really use
that to save weight from the middle of the club
specifically in those long irons, distributed the weight low to
lower the CG and we have more mass in the
heel weight, the tip weight, and the toe weight to
boost the inertia. So you're gonna see higher launch angle,
(06:10):
little bit more ball speed in substantially more forgiveness, which
I think is why players like me and you use
it and transition to these in the long irons. In
the long iron specifically.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
You know, I find it so interesting in terms of
transitioning because you know, the irons, as we said, I
two thirty has been a big success, and I think
so many people have been a big fan of that iron.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
I have definitely been a big fan of those for
a number of years.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
When it comes to drivers, you know, when you go
into a new driver category at paying, I'm assuming forgiveness, distance,
Things like that pop up, and what are we going
to do now to improve our driver from one iteration
to the next. What's the real what's like number one
on the chalkboard When it comes to irons, I mean,
is at height?
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Is it distance? Is it forgiveness?
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Like, what's the number one thing you guys, the smart
guys in the backs are thinking about when you're diving
into the new iteration of ion?
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Oh, such a great, such a great question, Shane. It's
it's dependent on which iron we're designing, right. So like
let's say our tour irons. You know, when I say
tour irons, I consider the irons where the player brings
the speed and this is blueprint ask blueprint T And
this iron we're talking about today, which is I two forty,
that's where generally speaking, the players bringing the speed to
(07:26):
the table and we don't necessarily need to have the
club have a lot of face flexing or some exotic
things to get it to go further. Those irons we
approach differently. The importance level of different of what we're
trying to optimize for maximize or minimize is different for
that category of player. So a big thing we try
(07:46):
to do in these tour irons is optimize uh, the
launch and spin, the land angle. Then things like turf interaction,
feel things of that nature are on that priority list.
But one big piece Shane that we studied quite a bit,
and it's one of the big things when you go
first set down the I two forty is the grooves
(08:07):
are substantially different. So with I two thirty we use
this groove we called the Micromax groove, so they had
they were very tightly spaced, and we did a lot
of research on this topic. This is actually a very
fun thing to talk about where we're taking very nuanced,
detailed feedback from tour and plugging it right into our
product quickly. Is that with that groove that we used
(08:30):
on the two thirty Micromax very tightly spaced, we sacrificed
or gave up a little bit of spin, like not
a lot. We're talking like one hundred and fifty RPMs
somewhere in that neighborhood on dry good condition lies. So
if your ball's in the fairway or you're heating off
a tee, the iron spun about one hundred to one
(08:52):
hundred and fifty RPMs less. But what we gain by
having that groove is a reduction in flyers, right. And
so but after we kind of launched that iron, we
had it on tour. The players are so good both
PGA and this iron is super popular on the LPGA tour.
So both PJ and LPGA tour players were giving us
(09:13):
this feedback that they wanted to spin a little bit
more when they have those perfect lies because that's when
they need to do their scoring. That's the green light zone.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Right.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
So they're like, hey, guys, I know I'm getting less
flyers out of the rough. They're realizing it, but give
me more spin when I'm ready to score, which is
shots off the te I know, Shane, we've talked about
that quite a bit. As you actually hit your irons
off the te your mid irons about a third of
the time. So put more priority on having the ball
(09:44):
spin a little bit more off a tee off of
good lies, and this was a we actually made some
two thirty irons with this. We call it the tour groove,
the groove that's on the two forty now, and we've
had a lot of PGA like Victor Perez and tons
of lp J. Tour players use this new groove that's
on the two forty with their two thirties because we
(10:06):
validated this concept a game a little bit more spin
when they're ready to score. So really that premium on spin,
which which reduced their you know, increase their disease control,
improves their peak height stopping power when there ready to score.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
Marty, I don't want you to necessarily name names, but
are there certain tour players that you guys maybe go
to more often than others, Maybe some that can just
explain it better, like what they're looking for what makes sense,
because I mean, not everybody's gonna sing the same way, right,
but I'm assuming there are certain tour players that the
moment you need feedback, you go, we got to go
to X.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Yeah, one hundred percent. I mean I even remember thinking
back when we were doing some of our are original
I iron designs. I mean little step back into history
here would be when we were working on like the
Eye ten iron long time ago. It was Chris DeMarco.
(11:03):
I mean that's when DeMarco was battling Tiger at the Masters,
and DeMarco was like our best Yeah, he was our
best iron player and he was like the quintessential I
three plus blade player. So we we we would fly
down and work with DeMarco because he was so nuanced
and so detailed. And yes, we do. We do have
that short short list of players, and I think what's
(11:23):
fun now is we have we have so many very technical, detailed,
nuanced players on the Ladies tour as well that we
we we get a lot of great feedback. Again because
this iron is so important, it's it's the I series.
Iron has always been kind of dominant on the LPGA
tour with both our staffers and tons of non staff players,
(11:43):
and so we have a we have a short list
out there that's very fun to work with some of
the more detailed and nuanced UH ladies on the LPGA
Tour that give us some very insightful feedback on how
the Irons perform.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
I feel like you've.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Touched a little bit on this, but when you think
about I two, is you kind of fitted in the
category amongst the ping irons, who's the player that this fits?
Speaker 2 (12:06):
When you think about I two forty.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Yeah, No, I think it's you know, it's it's it's
an avid player and maybe that that you know, our
blueprints are just too small. They scare you a little
bit and you need some more help. But you're not
the player that wants to go to our I five
thirty like the I five thirties strong lofted that that's
that's an iron that's gonna help you. Maybe you're hit
(12:29):
it a little bit further that that iron is going
to give you some distance infusion. The lofts are a
little bit stronger, but we could retrospectum and power respect
them to kind of dial in launch and spin on those.
So you not necessarily looking for that distance infusion, but
you need a little bit more forgiveness. Maybe also you're
an avid player. When I say avid player, ten handicap
(12:51):
in below is good here, but certainly you're five six
seven handicaps and below I two thirties in the sweet spot.
If you have plenty of distance, plenty of speed, and
you're looking for this kind of mid size, high forgiveness iron,
uh that gives you the ability to control your ball
flight really well. So so you're your your you're a score.
(13:12):
You need to use your irons to score and control
your distance. Where then the I five thirty that's gonna
give you a little bit more distance infusion that it's
going to be for your maybe your avid player aging gracefully,
but you still want to hit eight iron from your
one sixty number, then take it, you know, and maybe
one maybe the the IE two forty would go one
(13:35):
fifty for you or one forty five. Go take a
look at the Uh, the I five thirty is gonna
be a great option. We can dial in the loss
and things of that nature. But avid player, the other
the other aviad avenue for the I two forty over,
maybe say blueprint chain is the sole design right there.
The soul's a little bit wider, it's got a little
(13:56):
more rounded lead edge. So if you are a little
bit steeper on your angle of attack or playing like
a wide variety of conditions, or maybe our blueprints with
the smaller blade in the little sharper lead edge get
into the ground a little bit too much for you.
There's another avenue to think about this iron. Maybe it's
beyond just the forgiveness per se, and it's more about
(14:18):
fitting the iron for your turf interaction, your angle of
attack and giving you a little bit more wiggle room
there in how that's going to interact with the turf.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
Yeah, Marty, I find it interesting that Victor's an I
series guy. You know, when you think about great Iron
players and you think about, you know, some of the
you were talking about DeMarco, I mean kind of modern
day if you will. Amongst the ping staff is Hoblines
and the way he kind of delivers the club, I mean,
the consistency of delivery. I think it's my favorite on tour,
you know, just basically from let's say, from what would
(14:50):
it be for righty not nine o'clock through?
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Yes, it's just crazy as consistency.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
And you think about an Iron player like that, you
might not immediately go to like an I series Iron,
But is that is Hoblin mostly I through the bag.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Yeah, he's He's played our I series Iron for a
long time. He's hit our blueprints. And I have a
little bit of a hypothesis on this shamee that that
I'll talk about here with with Hobblin.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
And and.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
I'll do a little analogy to putters. You know, we've
talked a lot about putters where if you play more
toe down putter, the face will be delivered more open,
and you'll start the ball more to the right for
the right handed golfer, so it's a great way to
eliminate a left miss. So if very putter fitting one
on one, if you pull your putts, go to more
(15:37):
toe down putter, and you'll you'll hit your start lines
better or you'll deliver the face more open. So when
you're looking at irons, a simpler behavior and mechanism of
action is at play here. And I think that's really
why Hovelin likes our I series irons is because the
blade length is longer. So if you play a longer
(15:59):
blade length iron, so the cig is just further from
the shaft, even at the same line gole, same shaft,
everything else, the face will be more delivered, more open
to the path. And so when he's tried our blueprint irons,
obviously it's like, obviously, he's a good enough ball striker
from an impact dispersion standpoint to play our blueprints. So
(16:21):
it's like, Okay, why does he always like our I
series irons? The blade lengths a little bit longer and
that matches up to his expected start lines in his
delivered face angle that he likes to see. So it's
another it's another factor.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
You know.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
I've always had friends say, hey, these these bigger long irons.
I can fade the long irons easier. And the reason
why is is not to do with the offset and
things of that nature. It's more that the blade length
is longer, the sieg's further away from the shaft, and
for Victor, it's a better matchup of his delivered face
angle that he likes to sense, see and feel that
(17:00):
he naturally does because he has the face. Obviously, his
wrist angles are are such that his risk conditions are
such that the face is staying very square relative to
the to the target longer than most like he looks literally,
you've probably seen some videos of his swing that looks
like it mirrors kind of ping man as it's done
(17:21):
through impact.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Right, it's crazy.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
I mean, are you pretty good about maybe you have
a new staffer, maybe a college kid's turning pro, new
product comes out. Are you pretty good about nailing what
you think they'll land in? Or are you at times
as surprised as maybe I am when I see Victors
being an I Series guy.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Yeah, it's it's it's not. We don't always nail it,
you know, And I think that's the beauty of custom fitting.
And I think that's why everyone still needs to be
custom fit in the in we're the custom fitter is
not going to be replaced by AI or some algorithm
or something like. Fitting the human is very goodness. It's
(18:00):
very detailed, it's very nuance nervous, it's very detailed. It's
very nuanced. And so even with all the research we
do Shane, for example, on like shaft fitting, like we
got algorithms that are we've been working on for decades
and they are really really good. But even me, I
will still say, you have to go hit it, see
(18:20):
how you respond and iterate. Now, yes, we're getting better
at whittling it down to your two or three options
that will probably work for you, but I can't it's
still there. You can't take that aspect of what is
the behavior, what is the response of the player uh
to that particular attribute in the club design or shaft.
(18:42):
And so Victor is a great example of that. I
think you'd look at him and be like, hey, he's
a blueprint guy flushes it never misses the center of
the face. But what I think we're really doing the
victor is fitting him to the blade length to hit
his start lines. That's that's probably like the primary thing.
And so no, I think, going back to your question,
we don't always nail it, and that's what makes custom
fitting fun and still require I think it should be,
(19:06):
you know, a good testimonial for folks to go out
there and and still engage in in a really good
custom fitting. Hopefully we're building some great tools to help
you get more dialed more than ever.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
What about lofts on I two forty, anything different in
terms of loft or gapping with these guy irons versus
maybe two thirty or even blueprints our I two forty.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
We kind of pride ourselves in it's being it's like
our best gaped iron. So along with the blueprints, so
we do we do very rigorous gap testing. And what
does that mean, Shane? It means like we want, you know,
relatively even spacing throughout all clubs in the bag for
the target player, right and so, and even our tools
(19:47):
and copilot there will help give you a recommendation, uh,
for our gapping app Shane. Really cool. You can go
in and say, hey, I'm gonna play I two forty irons,
put in your seven iron balls, launching spin with your
fitter there, and the app might say, hey, you might
need to go to the IDI four iron and your
(20:08):
longest iron should be a five because it's kind of
looking at where your gaps start trailing off, so gapping
that the goal of gapping is to get even spacing
from all your clubs. And there's a lot of sets
out there, even in this category of the I two
forty that don't deliver that as well as they should
and you don't feel the pain of it in the
(20:29):
fitting experience. Sadly. It's how the loft progressions and the
length progressions play through. So the lofts on the I
two forty thirty three degree seven iron, which is plenty
of loft. It matches our blueprint as loft, so has
plenty of loft again because spin is your friend for
(20:49):
the player trying to control distance, and how we progress
them has delivered very even spacing. And then obviously, Shane,
we have power spec retrospec which are great fitting options.
You know we do a lot of retrospec I five thirty,
so that's our iron is pretty the strong lofted and
we we need to get a little more launching spin
for a lot of players in there. And then conversely
(21:12):
we'll do way more power spec I two forty. And
because it's thirty three degree seven iron, if you power
spec gets thirty one and a half gets you kind
of right in between the I five thirty and the
I two forty from a distant standpoint, gets you a
little bit more distance. And again, Shane, this iron has
an ample amount of bounce on it, plenty of soul wit,
(21:35):
so you can do it and not worry about the
club getting diggy on you.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
In terms of launch, like when you kind of look
through a window of all the irons, where does the
I series specifically I two forty kind of fit is it?
You know, if you're launching let's say five hundred series,
the highest is two forty low blueprint? Is it similar
to blueprint? What does launch look like for these irons
For somebody that's thinking, maybe I'm thinking about an eye,
(22:01):
but I'm not.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
One hundred percent sure.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
I want it to go a little bit higher than
maybe my previous iteration of iron.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, So launch we designed so you got
blueprint T or two or iron will fly the lowest,
and then you have blueprint s flies the higher than that,
and then you have I two forty one window higher
than that. So it's again it's it's perfect from the
standpoint of if you're thinking about doing a blended set,
(22:26):
this is a great way to kind of think about it.
You got the T going the lowest, the S a
little bit higher, the two forty a little bit higher.
Then you get into our other category of irons like
that the I five thirty that's gonna fly, that's gonna
fly pretty high, really high relative to what the lofts are.
But it's kind of that's where you start mixing lofts
(22:47):
a little bit. But we do have some nice tools
again in co Pilot Pilot if you did want to
kind of blend a two forty iron with some of
other irons, you know, including I five thirty long irons.
But Shane, what's really nice now is with the addition
of IDI is the IDI is designed to be your
(23:09):
long iron replacement that fits seamlessly from a length loft
gaping standpoint, trajectory, windows standpoint into your two forty. So
let's say you're let's say you want to play the
I two forty, you know, kind of full homogenous set,
maybe five through pitch. You can go to the id
I four iron and get that little elevation peak height
(23:31):
that's going to help transition into wherever you go beyond
that part of your back.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
Yeah, it seems like long irons aren't going away. I
was a little bit fearful of this, I think when
the lofted wood started to pop. I mean, you and
I've spent time talking. I mean, I've had the seven
more of the bag pretty consistently for the last couple
of years. I've messed around with the nine wood, which
I really like at times, especially when I'm playing Northeast
golf with gnarly ruff and trying to chop it out.
You know, we saw that earlier this year at Oakmont,
(23:57):
where you know, guys were even leaning can.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
You make mean eleven?
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (24:00):
Right, I mean something crazy as.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Deep as that.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
But it feels like the long irons aren't going away,
as is three iron offered in I two forty as well.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, So we got the we all
the way down to the three iron, and uh, you
know that that is not a lot of high not
a lot of folks will be fit into that club
or use that club. I think that's where you go
into the hybrids, the ferry woods, the uh, the the
id I is a great solution for that transition point.
But certainly, Yeah, Shane, I'm a fan of you know,
(24:31):
if you're a player kind of in our category, or
you maybe you're you're traveling around to play some tournaments
or some golf with your buddies. I love having a
couple of clubs at that top end of the bag.
So you got like, you know, for me, it's like
I got the id I three iron, but if I
go to high elevation or firm golf course, something with
no wind, I'm throwing the five wood or the four
wood in there, right, So you got a couple options.
(24:53):
I think that's a great Now we have so many
options right in there. I think for a traveling golfer,
a tournament golfer, you should have a couple different options
in that part of the bag, depend on the conditions,
the win traveling things of that nature.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
You know what's interesting is that part of the bag
seems to be getting a ton of attention now. You know,
you think about i'd say eight nine, ten years ago,
it seemed like there was a lot of focus on
what's the wedge set up in your bag? You know,
it was are you a four wedge guy? I think
there were people with five wedges at the time.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
They would play like that.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
It feels like we're focusing a lot of that attention
around that longer iron, three iron, four iron, something in
that category and making sure that there's multiple options for
players depending on where they play, how far they hit it.
Obviously they're handicapping skill set, but I love the fact
that that part of the bag isn't isn't isn't forgotten
(25:49):
at this point.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Yeah, I mean, just from our standpoint of paying, I mean,
we have like four different options in there. You can
play your long iron, you can play an idi, you
can play a hybrid, you can play a high lofted
fairway would so I mean, but with these options comes
the challenge of like fitting them properly. And that's where
I mean, we're very excited about all those tools in
(26:11):
the Gaping app, which helps helps narrow that down and
can make those recommendations based on you know, your your
typical launch conditions because it's so individual to the player.
So you got the player launch conditions, and then you
have their course conditions, their playing conditions, their preferences, course designed.
I mean, Shane, I travel around, you did two, and
(26:31):
you know you could be in the same geographic location.
One golf course has bunkers and elevated greens in front
of in front of it, and if you play all
your golf there, that's a totally different fitting optimization. Then
some more open where you can run it up and
not elevated greens. So, uh, there's so much to it.
I love having all these options and uh, you know,
(26:52):
hopefully trying to make it easier for the golfer to
figure out which one's right for them.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
Did you see some of the tour players lean into
I two forty pretty quickly?
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Yeah, yeah, so, uh, you know Turle Hatton put the
A couple he's a he's he's he's been kind of
a blended set player for us. So he put long
irons into play right out of the gate. Tristan Lawrence
a couple of long irons and play right out of
the gate.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
A couple of guys that played well at Oakma play well.
You know, a couple couple guys that played well at
a tough golf yep Uh.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
Lauren Coughlin, friend of the pod Uh, she put them
in immediately, absolutely loves off the Harmunos on the LPGA
Tour Again, Shane, I just want to emphasize how important
this iron has been on the LPGA Tour, So I'm
super excited to see, uh kind of what our numbers
are and how they shake out, both with our PGA
Tour players, live players and and and LPG.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
Marty, what's it like for the design team when an
iron like this is introduced, you go take it to
the best players in the world and they immediately buy in. Like,
what is that like in the background for you guys,
when you know, you guys understand the science behind it
and the hard work to win into it, but you
obviously would like to see incredible player, top twenty player
in the world buy into it immediately. When they buy
(28:07):
into it immediately, what's that like in the background for
you guys?
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Opinion?
Speaker 1 (28:10):
It's very gratifying, Shane, because behind every product that comes out,
the designer who has led that product has been, you know,
pouring their entire professional effort, blood, sweat and tears into
that for a couple of years. I mean it's a
couple of years of full time work, and so every little,
(28:33):
every little piece of nuance and detail that went into
it is very very rewarding. You know, you're always kind
of nervous. You're always nervous when the iron, you know,
when an iron or product goes out to tour, because
you've done everything you could and it's time to let
the bird out into the wild and see if it flies.
(28:53):
And so it is very very gratifying. So we love
keeping our pulse. Our tour department sends a very detailed
report every single week of what happens on tour and
you better believe that. You know, come Wednesday night when
that report goes out before the tournament, that we're all
glued to the email, getting ready to getting ready to
(29:13):
hear the feedback and then make sure it's in play
there when the Daryl survey comes out on Thursday.
Speaker 3 (29:19):
What about shaft options, We haven't really talked about shaft
options in terms of I two forty anything different in
that department.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
Yeah, I know, we have a great We have a
ton of no up charge fitting options. I mean we've
we've been doing that with our oron families for a
number of years now. It's been absolutely fantastic. Our default
stock option is the Modus one fifteen, and we picked
that shame because it's kind of the sweet spot right
for this type of player. So it's it's it's not
up in the one twenty one thirty weight category. The
(29:48):
Modus one fifteen. The Modus family has been super popular.
Nipon does a fantastic job. From a toleranting standpoint, I'm
in their quality in their manufacturing has been absolutely superb.
But we want to we that would be a great
option is the stock option in this in this iron
because it fits kind of the sweet spot target of
the I two forty player. But tons of great no
(30:11):
up charge options, including our AWT three point zero, which
I'm a big fan of, which is lighter weight and
the long irons gets heavier into the short irons, but
you got you got dynamic gold in there. A lot
of great, great fitting options. When it comes to iron shafts,
it's it's it's all about the custom fitting. So you
want to match the weight of the iron to help
(30:33):
you manage and control that low point. If the iron
shafts get too light, you might not control your low point.
That well, even though, yeah, your good shots might launch
a little bit higher. So that's a tip for folks
out there when you go into your fitting environment, be
very mindful not only the launch and spin when you're
trying different iron shafts. And we have this great AFS
three D fitting head where you can plug in different
(30:55):
iron shafts in and hit them chain, but be mindful
of the term interaction and how many times you maybe
hit a little fat hill a little bit thin. You
want to both optimize the launch and spin, so keep
your eye in the numbers, but also pay attention to
your control of that low point, like which iron shaft's
(31:15):
shaft helps you bottom out the most consistently. So those
are the two pieces in iron shaft fitting that you
kind of want to be aware of.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
All right, Marty, I think the thing I paid the
most attention to, and I think you mentioned you've touched
on this a little bit earlier, but sound. I mean,
I'm a big sound guy with the golf club. You
and I've talked a lot about practicing without AirPods on,
I mean, so you can kind of get that feel.
It was funny I played a little nine hole round
alone yesterday and I hit a six iron out of
a fairway bunker and I had headphones in and it
(31:47):
kind of I was kind of watch it in the air,
and I'm like, I think I got all of it,
but I didn't hear it. And then I see it
roll up to like ten feet. I was like, there
was the headphones. How is sound in terms of I
two maybe? How different is the sound versus I two thirty?
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Yeah, very big deal. It's gonna be be even just
a little bit of that, you know, a little more
kind of quieter, slightly more muted. And the way that
we accomplished that, Shane was re engineered the activated elastomer.
So right underneath the badge, if you kind of look
down in the cavity of the iron, there's a big
(32:23):
kind of pocket in there, and we put a very
high volume amount of elastomer material that's very light light
in terms of the density, so it saves a ton
of weight. Is this is what allows us to put
weight to the heel and toe kind of like a barbell.
But the benefit is not only the weighting. That elastomer.
When the ball impacts the face gets what we call activated,
(32:46):
so it actually gets kind of squished just like layers
on the golf ball. Just like you have different layers
on the golf ball, we have different layers in the
cross section of the I two forty iron. So when
you start hit the eye iron with some speed, the
face flexes a little bit and it starts putting those
vibrations or that energy into the elastomer, and the elastomer
(33:10):
gives some what's called Visco elastic damping. So provide some damping,
which that gets the volume of the sound down a
little bit into that zone that the player is kind
of yearning for and expecting from this type iron. Again, Shane,
I think a big part of what we're trying to do,
you know, it'd be very you know, I think all
(33:32):
of us in golf have hit a product that it
looks like it should sound one way. Then you hit
it and it doesn't, and you're like, wait a minute,
my brain's confused. Things aren't matching up. Maybe even if
you like the sound, maybe it just doesn't match what
I'm expected. And so that's really what we're trying to engineer.
We have some great tools. I mean, we talked about
the four to forty driver with the carbon fly wrap
(33:54):
and all these tools we have now that are getting
better better optimizing the acoustics. So yeah, I think folks
go out and hit it with AFS three d uh
and uh and test it for yourself. But so far,
the feedback from from our tour players, better players, player
testing here is the acoustics of this iron absolutely fantastic
and more importantly match what you expect from this iron.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
Marty.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
The biggest question as we wrap up on I two
forty is how many I two forties are in Marty
Jertsen's golf bag.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
What's what's the number I got? What's the number? Zero zero?
Speaker 1 (34:27):
I go, I'm Blueprint, I'm blueprint, ass, I'm Blueprint, I'm
three iron player. Right now, I got the ID I
four iron, and then I go to blueprint S five
through nine. Then I I go to Blueprint T pitching, Wedge,
Blueprint T pitching, wedge, custom fitting.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
You know it's so good, It's so good, h Marty.
I I'm excited about this. I think the I two forties,
as I said, I two thirty was was one of
my favorite irons.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
And again kind of that mixed bag set has been
great for me.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
As I mentioned, I've kind of pulled out the I
two thirty three iron really like the last probably two
or three months, and it's been a savior for me
because depending on the golf course. Played a couple of
courses on the West Coast and it was firm. You know,
you get that thing running and it's a little bit
a different situation than hit that seven would for me.
And then I come back home and the seven wood
goes right back into play because it's been really wet
(35:25):
in the Northeast, and you know, the rough's kind of
been gnarly, and if you miss a fair way, especially
on a par five, you can maybe still give it
a rip into that par five. So as we wrap
anything else on I two forty we didn't hit on
before I start to convince you offline to put one
in your back.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Oh yeah, no. I love the I two ford aerons.
It's just such an important iron for us. Launches high,
more forgiveness in the long irons, plenty of spin. That
is so important. Man. Maybe maybe you're a better player
out there, Shane that's dabbled with one of these other
low spin irons and you're struggling with your distance control.
You haven't been able to hit your numbers like you
(36:01):
used to. The I two forty is gonna be the
club for you. It allows you to hit your numbers
with a lot of precision. All the boost we have
in the in the in the inertia and the long
iron specifically easy to get the golf ball in the
air uh and then the grooves like getting more spin
uh and and tighter dispersion and in all conditions. Absolutely fantastic.
(36:22):
A lot of a lot of great shaft options.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
Good enough for else, good enough for Tyroll, good enough
for Victor, good enough for everybody out there listening. Always appreciated, Marty.
This is the Ping Proving Grounds Podcast.
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