This Legendary 2014 Golf Club Still Has It – Retro Review - video Dailymotion

Golf Monthly

This Iconic Club From 2014 Can Still Hit All The Shots - Retro Review. Next to go under the microscope in our Retro Review series is the Adams Pro DHY Hybrid Iron. First introduced in 2014, this was one of a vast number of utility iron style releases around this period, with the iron/hybrid combination coming very much into fashion. In this video, Joe Ferguson gets his hands on one for just £64.00 / $81.00 from golfclubs4cash and sees if it can still stand the test of time and hit all the shots off the tee, the fairway into and around the greens. Suffice to say, the results surprised him!

Transcript

00:00Retro review time again, and I've got a bit of a self-indulgent one to date.

00:04This club, the Adams Pro DHY Utility Iron, was in my bag for about three or four years,

00:08so I'm really keen to see if it's still got the magic.

00:11We've teamed up with Golf Clubs for Cash, one of the leading retailers of pre-loved equipment.

00:15They've sent me some absolute crackers to test, so please take a look at those guys

00:19down in the description below.

00:20But now, I've got this 6399, 18 degrees, a really premium graphite shaft.

00:26Let's go and hit some balls and see what it can do.

00:29So the Pro DHY was launching around 2014 when we'd just sort of come out of the era

00:35where hybrids and rescues were new and exciting.

00:38Some people just didn't get on with them, some people hit them left, some people found them too floaty.

00:42So companies started to introduce this kind of iron rescue combination club

00:48that satisfied a few things that people needed.

00:51Companies like Titleist did the Titleist TMB, Ping did the Crossover,

00:55TaylorMade had their UDI, their Ultimate Driving Iron,

00:58and Adams produced this, the Pro DHY.

01:00But this thing had one very significant difference to a lot of those other ones,

01:04and it was more of a blend between irons and woods, and that is the face bulge.

01:09Now, you might have been hearing this term a lot lately with Bryson DeChambeau and his 3D printed irons,

01:14so what does it really mean?

01:16So think about bulge as a bit of a safety net.

01:18On your irons or even the more iron-style utility irons, the face will be flat,

01:23and what can happen is you don't get the assistance of gear effect.

01:26If you hit the ball off the toe, face tends to deflect open and the ball rolls more towards the

01:31centre of the face, creating excessive curvature, and off the toe generally quite a hefty draw.

01:37Vice versa off the heel, the clubface will generally deflect a little bit closed,

01:40and the ball will again roll to the centre, creating that excessive curvature

01:44from left to right for a right-handed player.

01:47What we've got here, and why I call it an insurance policy, is we've got a face that's

01:51kind of curved, that the nearest point to the target is in the centre,

01:54and it falls away on both the heel and toe.

01:57So what that does, if you do hit it off the toe, it helps with your start line,

02:00creating a little bit further right, so it just gives you that little bit of insurance policy

02:04when that side spin does kick in, that you've got the right start off the toe,

02:08or the left start off the heel, and it will create a tighter dispersion pattern.

02:12And down behind the ball, you can actually see that bulge and roll,

02:15I can see the toe and the heel falling away a bit, and because I know

02:20the benefits of gear effect, that's actually quite confidence-inspiring,

02:23lets me know I've got a bit of margin for error here, which I really like.

02:27What else is confidence-inspiring is the blade length, it's really, really long,

02:31I've got plenty of surface area to hit the ball here.

02:34Overall, it's just a really nice, softly rounded profile, so I've got the bulge, which I can see,

02:39the back gently curves away, and it's just a really soft, lovely head profile.

02:42And what I do like about it as well, is this kind of charcoal-y black colour,

02:46it disguises what is quite a big head, it's actually quite slimming when you get this darker colour,

02:51it doesn't look as large or game improvement in any way.

02:56We've got the help, we've got the real estate, we've got the bulge, but it doesn't look too cumbersome.

03:03So the first thing I wanted to know, and this is crucial with any utility iron for me,

03:06is, is it going to be a good fairway finder?

03:09So I've come down to the beautiful Saunton Golf Club at my,

03:12one of my favourite practice grounds in the world, I've got my full swing kit launch monitor,

03:16and I've set up an imaginary fairway down there, 25 yards wide,

03:19between one of those yardage sticks and the bush on the left there.

03:23I've got 20 balls in front of me here, because I want to see a good average.

03:26I'm just going to hit them away, see how many I can get between

03:29that particular parameter and see if it's going to be a good fairway finder for me.

03:43That was actually really good. Out of the 20 shots I hit there,

03:5615 were within my parameters, so that's essentially, well it's not, it's exactly 75%,

04:01and that's really, really good for me. There is a little bit of a right to left wind,

04:04so I could just hold my fade up against it, which was useful, so that needs to be factored in.

04:08But I did feel really confident in hitting a lot of fairways with this. I don't know whether it's the

04:12psychology of having that bulge there that I knew I could get away with a few, or whether it's just

04:16a really nice fairway finding club. So it's a promising start, but I want more from this club.

04:21I need, I demand a lot from a club between my three wood and my iron set. It needs to be versatile.

04:26Can I hit it high? Can I hit it low? Can I shape it a bit? So let's find out.

04:31Sorry to interrupt, I hope you're enjoying the video. If you are, don't forget to subscribe to the channel,

04:37hit that like button and comment down below. Let me know about the retro equipment you play and

04:41you've loved over the years. Okay, well those were great. Those 20 shots were really good. I'm really

04:45happy with the percentage of the fairways I hit there. But like I said, I need a bit more versatility

04:49out of this club. Those were coming out of kind of a mid-launch, mid-spin window, which is great,

04:54and that's a nice starting ground for the club. But I need to know whether I can do some more with it,

04:58whether I can get that high shot that might land softly on a par five, or I'm going four and two,

05:02or I've got to get over a tree or something like that. So I need to be able to vary trajectory.

05:06So I'm going to try and scoop one up here, and it feels really amenable to that. The face looks

05:11like it wants to just sit a little bit open. I'm just going to move the ball

05:14a little bit further forward in my stance and go with a little sweepier swing.

05:21That's great. It's got a bit of a high fade on it, but that's really coming down soft. That's

05:27barely moved once it's hit the deck. So that's interesting. It didn't feel a problem getting

05:31it up. Let's see if we can get a little stinger with it. So we've got that into wind scenario.

05:35We need a more penetrating ball flight. We're going to pop it back in the stance a little bit,

05:39curtail that follow through a little bit more

05:43and just drive it down with that little low fade. That's great. There's got to be,

05:48I don't know, 50, 40, 50 feet between those trajectories. So there does seem to be some

05:53versatility with this club. As I said, my sort of stock shot is a bit of a fade, so it doesn't

05:57seem to be a problem doing that. Let's try and exaggerate that a little bit from left to right.

06:06No problem there. It's not fading massively more than it normally would.

06:10Interesting. Okay, now my nemesis. Let's see if I can turn it over. Let's see if I can aim up the

06:15right, toe the club in a little bit and get it releasing from right to left a little bit.

06:18Okay, that's actually done a really nice job for me, that. Not masses of curvature. I was trying to

06:26play a big slinging hook there and a big carving fade, so maybe the self-correction of the bulge is

06:32kicking in there more than I not necessarily want it to. But yeah, I'm struggling to curve it as much

06:37as I might think, but the high and low wasn't a problem at all there. But it's got more to do.

06:42I'm not always going to be on a nice clean line in the fairway. Let's go to some trouble and see if

06:46it can extricate me out of some rough. Right, those of you that have played any golf with me

06:50will know this is not an unfamiliar situation. I'm off the fairway. I'm in a bit of the thicker clag.

06:55Something I'm really interested to see here, a couple of those ones I hit in my 20 when I was hitting

06:59the fairway finder section were a little bit low off the face, and I was expecting a lower reading

07:03in terms of ball speed and distance numbers, and that maintained really well. So I've heard this

07:09about this club before and I remember it from when I played it. Any sort of low on the face strikes

07:13retained a lot of ball speed more than some others I've used. So I'm in a situation here now where the

07:17ball's lower than the club face really. It's nestled down a little bit in this thicker stuff.

07:21So I just want to see whether that holds true and whether this club head will come smoothly through

07:26this grass and can get me out of a bit of trouble here because I do demand this from my sort of utility club.

07:34That's chopped through delightfully actually. It's come out with very little spin

07:38and that's gone miles. But you can see here that cut through the turf. Some pretty thick long grass

07:44here pretty, pretty well. So that's promising. Let's get it a little bit worse. Let's go in that divot

07:49from where I've just been. Let's see if we can chop that out. You probably can't even see the ball there.

07:53That is not pleasant.

07:54Oh, like a little knife through butter. That was low on the face. Crikey, that's gone a long way.

08:02That was low on the face again. But as off the fairway there, these lower off the face hits seem

08:07to really retain ball speed, produce a really good result. And you can see this is some pretty yucky

08:12stuff. That had no problem getting through there. It seems very versatile. On the subject of versatility,

08:17I've got one more little scenario I wanted to try the Pro DHY out in and that's around the greens in.

08:23It's quite topical. I'm filming this just after the US Open at Pinehurst where I saw Tiger Woods

08:29playing a lot of these little green side shots from scrubby little eyes with his four iron. So

08:35I often play this when I've got a little tough line. I've not got anything to go over. I've got a bit

08:39of a sandy area here, which you often get on Lynx golf courses. I often play this with a hybrid or

08:44even a three-wood. Just something that I can just bump forward. It's going to get the ball just above

08:48the grass and roll in towards the hole. This strikes me that it might be the club for the job

08:53here. It's got a slightly slimmer profile than a hybrid and obviously a three-wood. So I don't feel

08:58like it's going to get caught up. I've got a reasonable lie here, but I'm just going to try and

09:02bump it along the ground. Let's see if the hybrid can work its magic.

09:06So it's done well. It's not snagged up at all. It's rolling nice and safely towards the hole,

09:15probably five, five and a half feet. That's actually a really good result from here. So let's

09:19let's make it a bit tougher and give myself a really nestled down sandy lie. That's not great at

09:24all. So getting a wedge into the back of that would be next to impossible. So this might be another really

09:30safe option from here. So again, just like a putting stroke, bump it forward. It's got enough

09:36forward momentum running up towards the hole and that is absolute tapping range, a couple of feet

09:41away. So in summary, not only is this a fairway finder off the tee, not only can it extricate me

09:48from the horrible lies in the rough, I can actually get up and down from it from a really tricky situation.

09:54There's ultimate versatility in this club. I do a lot of these retro reviews and I shouldn't really

09:58have a favorite, but I think I just might. As I said, I used this club a few years ago and I'm

10:04really surprised at myself having tested it today that I ever let it go. It does so much for me. It's

10:10a really solid, reliable fairway finder. I can get out of trouble with it and I've even shown I can get

10:15up and down with it for some tricky lies around the green. It might not be the perfect shaft for me,

10:20although it is a nice premium Aldilla shaft. I need something a little bit stiffer, but I can take care

10:24of that. For £63.99 I'm not sure golf clubs for cash are going to get this back off me.

10:30but if you want to take care of it. I'm still a shoe I'm just going to sit right off me.

10:38expectations for golf bl

This Legendary 2014 Golf Club Still Has It – Retro Review

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