Question:
Nothing’s wrong with the Lynx clubs, but I think the company may be going under. I’d love to have a set of the Black Cat Tour irons, now selling for about $300 or so. I love the way they feel, and they look really nice at address too. My wife says I have enough clubs now though (Dang it!!) They also make an oversize iron called simply the Lynx Oversize…looks like the Black Cat Tour only a little bigger. Good luck!
Response:
I have just gone through the same transition with an unwillingness to get into the extravagent cost associated with brand name clubs. I am a 10 handicap and played with Golden Ram Tour Grinds since 1983. I decided to utilize Golfsmith’s 5 iron demo program to purchase the components for 5 different five irons of clubhead designs that interested me. I then assembled all 5 with the exact same shaft, grip and swingweight. I took these to the driving range and alternated between the various 5 irons, including my own 5 iron. What I found was that the clubhead design that I visually had thought would work for me was one of the first that I set aside due to its feel on impact. I found that I had gotten used to the solid feel of the muscle back and I did not like the soft feel of the fully perimeter weighted cavity back design. It is similar to driving an English sports car where you feel every nuance of the raod then driving a Cadillac with no feedback from the road. I ended up with a cavity back design which also puts some weight right behind the sweet spot. This still gave me some of the feel I liked but also a great deal more foregiveness due to increased head size and perimeter weighting. I went with the Counterpoint irons. I would also suggest trying the Jetstream Pro, XPC3, Tour Cavity and Tour Model 4000 (all components available from Golfsmith). This also enabled me to expand my enjoyment of golf from just playing to now include fitting and assembling clubs for friends. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I have some old Wilson Staff blades from the early ’80s — great clubs but today’s new big sweet spots are sure appealing. Anyone have a suggestion on a club that combines the feel of a blade with the forgiveness of the perimeter weighted clubs I see so much of today? I’ve been eyeing the new Titleist DCI 981 but they’re terribly expensive. By the way, does anyone know why the Lynx Black Cats are so cheap? What’s wrong with them? Thanks.
Response:
Joe – I have a set of Chicago 944c’s which are like the new Penicks but with a much more compact head. IMHO, this type of club is definitely the way to go if you want the best of both worlds. I’ve raved enough about the 944’s in the past here and elsewhere, but FWIW I think they are the best heads out there. You’ve got to be able to find the middle of the face pretty consistently though. The new Penicks might be a little more forgiving (the ‘97 Penicks I had previously were). They were my second choice but I’m really happy I went for the 944’s. Cheers M – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Another option I haven’t seen discussed: how about one of those sets I’ve seen (such as the newest Harvey Penick Classics) with a deeper cavity back in the longer irons that gets progressively shallower on the shorter irons? Anyone tried those?
Response:
that is basically what i was clumsily alluding to. i think you can probably overcome any potential distance gaps by adjusting the lofts of the irons, though this then creates other problems such as for each degree you increase the loft on an iron you are adding another degree of bounce to it as well ,,,, it starts getting a bit messy here. i think one significant problem would be say you do adjust the lofts and have "calibrated" in still conditions. you may have the situation where your 7i still flies much higer than your 8i even though you’ve set a gap of about 10m. what happens in the wind when you’ve got different ball flights between your cavity and blades …. i think you would get some kind of funky distance gaps which as we are talking about scoring clubs here might be something of a pain. brett This occurred to me also. Here’s an example. Say I
have a cavity back 7 iron and a muscleback blade 8 iron. The 7, with it’s lower CG should have a higher flight – and the 8 a lower flight. Wouldn’t
that tend to compress the distance gap between the 7 and the 8 – maybe even
eliminate it? If so, should you skip a club – carry the 6 & 8 but no 7?
Have the entire set (or at least a few clubs) re-lofted to even up the gaps from club to club? Maybe this isn’t really a problem. Someone who plays
this type of set tell – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -us your experience. one word of warning on this kind of a setup. while it sounds quite good on paper, one problem is that it’s kind of hard to match ball flight between blades and cavities. what i mean is that you’ll typically get a little higher ball flight with cavity backs, which on occasion could probably be a problem to some players …. just something to think about. brett
Response:
This occurred to me also. Here’s an example. Say I have a cavity back 7 iron and a muscleback blade 8 iron. The 7, with it’s lower CG should have a higher flight – and the 8 a lower flight. Wouldn’t that tend to compress the distance gap between the 7 and the 8 – maybe even eliminate it? If so, should you skip a club – carry the 6 & 8 but no 7? Have the entire set (or at least a few clubs) re-lofted to even up the gaps from club to club? Maybe this isn’t really a problem. Someone who plays this type of set tell us your experience. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – one word of warning on this kind of a setup. while it sounds quite good on paper, one problem is that it’s kind of hard to match ball flight between blades and cavities. what i mean is that you’ll typically get a little higher ball flight with cavity backs, which on occasion could probably be a problem to some players …. just something to think about. brett
Response:
Another option I haven’t seen discussed: how about one of those sets I’ve seen (such as the newest Harvey Penick Classics) with a deeper cavity back in the longer irons that gets progressively shallower on the shorter irons? Anyone tried those? – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I have some old Wilson Staff blades from the early ’80s — great clubs but today’s new big sweet spots are sure appealing. Anyone have a suggestion on a club that combines the feel of a blade with the forgiveness of the perimeter weighted clubs I see so much of today? I’ve been eyeing the new Titleist DCI 981 but they’re terribly expensive. By the way, does anyone know why the Lynx Black Cats are so cheap? What’s wrong with them? So long as you’re looking for ideas and suggestions. let me suggest a slightly different approach… Being a 10 handicapper, so you would normally shoot in the mid 80’s or better. So I assume that you have mastered the scoring clubs (say 7, 8, 9 and the wedges) with a reasonable degree of skill. So I extrapolate and further assume that you are looking for forgiveness in your mid irons and long irons, right? So why not a set that is a mix of blades and cavity backs? Some manufacturere have offered this arrangement in the past (wilson staff, ram pro set…) although I’m not sure if they still do. If I were in your shoes, I would visit a good clubmaker and look at Golfsmith and Dynacraft. They both offer cavity back and blade clubs that are meant to make up a mixed set (consistent weight, offsets, shape, look at address…). You may want to go with cavity backs for 1-6 and blades for 7-PW. Should cost you 1/2-2/3 what you would pay for the Titleists and such (with Rifle or Balistik shafts… the only way to go). Or better yet… If you want to save additional $$$, why not keep the short irons from the Wilson set you already have and just have the long irons and the mid irons made… you could always have the rest of the set made if you’d like. My father in law (single digit handicap) plays with such a set (wilson staff short irons and yamaha cavity back mid/long irons). Or even better… If you were able to get to a 10 with these clubs (probably put you in the top 5-10% of all golfers)… are you really looking for a change? Maybe you should get your game analyzed first by a good pro (someone who’s not trying to sell you clubs) and get some advice on any equipment change from him? regards… and remember… free advice usually is worth wht you pay for it…
Response:
it wasn’t so much the difference in actual distances that i was alluding to although this is very important. in reality with a little trial and error you can probably bend the lofts right through a mixed set to ensure that you have a nice even progression in distance from club to club. what can’t be adjusted though is the cg of the clubs. as it’s a much higher in the blades you get a lower more penetrating ball flight, in cavities which has more weight around the sole of the club, you’ll get a higher flight. there are a few potential problems that i could see with something like this. probably the big one is that for example you match your club distacnes in calm conditions. once wind becomes a significant factor you’ll likely run into problems due to the different ball flights the both kinds of club produce. i’m not saying that it’s essentially a bad idea to mix a set in fact many aspects of it are downright appealing. i’m just maybe saying it’s something that you need to go into with your eyes open. brett
Brett… I agree with you here… You do have to be careful that you don’t have a "gap" in your distance dispersion from club to club in a mixed set. I think this is why Dynacraft offers slightly
different lofts on their matched forged blade / cavity back mixed set (kind of an
oxymoron) and the Rams and – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -staffs were similar. regards… one word of warning on this kind of a setup. while it sounds quite good on paper, one problem is that it’s kind of hard to match ball flight between blades and cavities. what i mean is that you’ll typically get a little higher ball flight with cavity backs, which on occasion could probably be a problem to some players …. just something to think about. So why not a set that is a mix of blades and cavity backs? Some manufacturere have offered this arrangement in the past (wilson staff, ram pro set…) although I’m not sure if they still do.
or Start Your Own
Response:
This occurred to me also. Here’s an example. Say I have a cavity back 7 iron and a muscleback blade 8 iron. The 7, with it’s lower CG should have a higher flight – and the 8 a lower flight. Wouldn’t that tend to compress the distance gap between the 7 and the 8 – maybe even eliminate it? If so, should you skip a club – carry the 6 & 8 but no 7? Have the entire set (or at least a few clubs) re-lofted to even up the gaps from club to club? Maybe this isn’t really a problem. Someone who plays this type of set tell us your experience.
It’s definitely an issue. One nice thing about blades is that they are easy to bend. With a full set it’s easy — it’s pretty much proportional differences in loft from club to club. With an unmatched set, there’s no practical way to predetermine your adjustments. Two different clubs with nearly identical specs may have a 10 yard differential in average distance. It’s going to take some tweaking. It’s easier to adjust the blades, so you should probably pick the cavity backs you like and then make the blades fit into the natural progression. I do this exact thing on a very minimal scale. For a long time, I carried a 13 degree tour spoon and 2-pw Hogan blades. There was a big gap between the spoon and the 2 iron. I took the 2 out and replaced it with a Ping Eye-2 1 iron which I could hit about 10-20 yards farther. Then, I bent my 3 iron about 2 degrees stronger. For those who have been reading my "Pro Blade" posts, I must explain that the main reason I decided on the Ping Eye-2 1 iron instead of my Hogan 1 iron was because I can flip the Ping over and hit it left handed with the cavity back! If I catch it good, I can hit it about 150 yards. But usually if I use it LH, it’s just to punch it out from under a tree that grew up on the wrong side of my ball 
one word of warning on this kind of a setup. while it sounds quite good on paper, one problem is that it’s kind of hard to match ball flight between blades and cavities. what i mean is that you’ll typically get a little higher ball flight with cavity backs, which on occasion could probably be a problem to some players …. just something to think about. brett
– Barry Smith