Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Golfers: What is difference between a 10 iron and a PW?

My irons are from the 90s. I bought a set of new old stock Yonex irons because I used to have a graphite Yonex driver that I really liked. I am very pleased with the way I am hitting these irons. I have a dozen or more complete different set of irons from Titleist, Hogan, Jones, Hagen, Yonex, and Ping. I try them all from time to time and use the ones I hit the best.

The difference is whether or not you hit the green.

If you miss, you clearly should have used the other club.

Sixty-three years ago, Ben Hogan stood in the 18th fairway at Merion Golf Club’s East course, needing to make par at the 72nd hole of the 1950 U.S. Open to shoot 7-over-par 287 and find his way into a playoff with Lloyd Mangrum and George Fazio.

From 213 yards on his 36th hole of the day, Hogan pulled a 1-iron for the most iconic shot of his career. Using what he had learned from years of digging the game’s secrets out of the dirt, Hogan executed. He found the green, 40 feet from the hole, two-putted for par and landed in an 18-hole playoff he won the next day.

By most accounts, Hogan should not have even been in that fairway on that Saturday.

About 16 months earlier, Hogan and his wife were involved in a near-fatal automobile accident. While driving along a highway, a Greyhound bus came into the same lane as the Hogan’s car on a tight highway, looking to pass a truck on a foggy day. Sensing what was to happen, Hogan dove to cover his wife, Valerie. The act saved both their lives, as the steering column of their car surely would have killed Hogan. Instead, he fractured his collarbone, pelvis, ankle and rib, with his golf career proclaimed finished.

The 1950 U.S. Open was Hogan’s first tournament back after the accident, whose effects loomed large. Before each day, Hogan bathed in epsom salts, rubbed his legs with ointment and wrapped them.

The pain became nearly unbearable on Saturday, with Hogan telling his caddie on the 13th hole that he was done. The looper told Hogan he wasn’t working for a quitter and would see him on the next tee. Fellow competitor Dr. Cary Middlecoff helped Hogan literally limp to the finish line, picking up his ball at various points. A lot of hands helped Hogan get to the point where he had the national Open in his own.

That strike with a 1-iron was immortalized in a photograph by Hy Peskin. But the club Hogan used to win the national Open for the second of four times could have easily disappeared forever.

After Hogan had finished playing that final day of regulation, the Hawk instructed his caddie to leave his bag at the bag stand near the clubhouse. An enterprising thief decided to swipe the 1-iron from Hogan’s bag, leaving him without the club for the playoff. The story ended well for the Texan, but the most precious artifact from that Hollywood-esque week went missing for 33 years.


No one knew where the 1-iron had gone until a fateful day in 1983.

Golf-club dealer Bobby Farino bought himself a set of irons for $150 from an old man who showed up to The Players Championship, looking to make some scratch for his bag of nine irons and four woods. As he was inspecting the set, Farino noticed the 1-iron was different from the others in the bag. He wondered if he had stumbled upon Hogan’s 1-iron from Merion. Taking the club to the Ben Hogan company for identification, the man himself told Farino he had found the long-lost iron. The ground-down hosel — which Hogan did himself to prevent shanks because he tended to make contact close to it — was probably the most-obvious clue.

The club was eventually turned over to the USGA, which has dutifully held onto the club ever since.

The 1-iron made its return to Merion this week, with the USGA bringing the club from its headquarters in Far Hills, N.J.


Back9Network’s Matt Adams was given special dispensation to recreate Hogan’s immortal shot. Wearing the mandatory white gloves to protect the club and swearing to let no one — and we mean no one — else touch it, Adams returned the 1-iron to the plaque that now commemorates its most famous descending blow and hovered the anachronistic blade over the spot.

The 1-iron is a club whose popularity has dwindled over time. What, with titanium metalwoods and ultra-forgiving hybrids, the longest iron has largely gone the way of the dinosaur.

But for these first few days of the 2013 U.S. Open at Merion, almost every player on the field is champing at the bit to get their hands on a 1-iron.

A 213 yard 1-iron back then is a 4-5 iron today.....at least for tour pros. Tiger’s 2-iron “stinger” is around 240.

A top golfer earns a hell of a lot more than a top shooter.

You can teach someone to shoot in 10 minutes, it takes that long to to explain how to grip the club....

love it

Yes...no. Players today tend to hit their clubs as far as they can hit a particular club and then move up or down clubs. Hogan didn’t play that way. He hit his one iron anywhere from 190 to 230. He might hit his driver 240 or 300 spending on what he thought the shot required.

In Hogan’s day, the courses were shorter, so you didn’t need to hit it as far. The equipment was much less forgiving, so you couldn’t go at the ball as hard. And thus, courses didn’t need to be as long. A slight mishit today that will put you 320 out and ten yards in the rough would have put you in the next county in Hogan’s day.

But Hogan could be long when he wanted to. A feature from life magazine of his drives in the 1951 US Opens shows several drives over 300 and one at about 310. There was another story of Hogan playing late in his career at the Masters when he was semi-retired with Arnold Palmer. Palmer really went after the ball and was seen as a big hitter. Hogan didn’t like Palmer much. So Palmer stepped up and hit a big drive that went about 290 and the crowd applauded very loudly. Hogan stepped up and hit his standard fade and they all started walking up the fairway. Palmer and his caddy were ahead and Hogan was limping along behind. Palmer went to the ball that was farthest up the fairway by about 30 yards and stood waiting for Hogan to play his shot. Hogan got to the first ball and didn’t even look at it and kept walking to the farthest ball where Palmer was standing. At this point, Palmer got a little confused and walked over and looked at the ball. IT WAS HOGAN’S. With a sheepish grin, Palmer had to trudge 30 yards back down the fairway to his ball. Hogan consistently outdrove him that day whenever the hole called for a big drive.

Daly started “bomb and gouge”...which is why I like links courses more than anything. Wind is a bitch....

This link has some information about golf club lofts differing between modern day club manufacturers, and there's also an interesting chart in the middle of this link which shows, for example, that today's 3-iron is pretty much an older time's 1-iron.

https://www.todaysgolfer.co.uk/news...-hit-youre-either-vain-an-idiot-or-both/

There's also some other good reading about club lofts, club face design, and golf shafts attached to the article from the ink above.

I should say so. If you can’t hit something the size of a green at 450 yards with any rifle, you shouldn’t be shooting...