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Next up for the Retro Review treatment is arguably the most iconic wedge of all time, the Ping Eye2 copper beryllium. It was first introduced in 1982, just as part of the Ping Eye2 iron set, but little did Ping know, it would soon become one of its most successful ever creations as a standalone product. In this video, Joe Ferguson finds out if this classic wedge can still save him shots around the green by comparing it with the modern day S159 E Sole wedge from Ping.
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00:00I've got an absolute monster for you today. I want to take you back to 1982 and relative
00:06newcomers and upstarts in the equipment industry Ping have just released their first set of
00:11beryllium copper irons the i2 and little do they know within that set they've actually developed
00:17one of the most iconic wedges of all time the Ping i2 copper beryllium wedge. So I've come down
00:26to the Berkshire golf club probably my favorite golf course in the whole of the uk and we've teamed
00:31up with golf clubs for cash one of the leading retailers of pre they provided us with some
00:37absolute gems to test so please check them out in the description below and i've picked this up for
00:42the bargain price of 79.99 this golf club is over 40 years old so i can't wait to put it through its
00:49paces and see how it stacks up against the modern day equivalent so as i said this was first introduced
00:54in 1982 and the design was pretty revolutionary as you can see it had a cavity back so that
00:59perimeter weighting helped with the forgiveness but the really interesting bit for me was this
01:04particularly thin sole area so they thinned out this sole which saved weight which allowed them
01:08to move it further up the club to give you a higher toe so arguably this is the original high toe wedge
01:14another really interesting design feature which made it exceptional out of the bunkers was the sole
01:20geometry if i bend the club back here and you begin to see the sole you'll see how there's very very
01:25little bounce on the heel side of the club now when you open the face the heel is generally the first
01:30bit that gets into the sand so this made the entrance to the sand really really smooth then as you move
01:35along the sole of the club and you get to the middle of the toe there's loads of bounce and that
01:40would kick in and help the exit of the club so the club itself just traveled really smoothly through
01:46the bunkers and as i said made it one of the best bunk clubs of all time so there's only really one
01:50place to start this test in the sand and i've got a bunker just here now i've tested an awful lot of
01:56wedges in my time so i'm really keen to see how this legend gets on so let's hit a couple away and see how
02:00it feels oh i have to say i mean we've got some really high quality sand here at the berkshire and
02:10it's beautifully raked which does help but that really did slip through with very very little
02:15resistance let's go again then if you can hear that lovely sort of nippy slappy sound as it hits
02:27the sand that that feels fantastic and i'm quite relieved it stands up to the hype there so i wonder
02:33how this sole would stand up if i give myself a slightly trickier lie so that's pretty unpleasant let's
02:38see if it can dig this out that's come out pretty well as well so the versatility of the sole
02:49that stacks up as well okay well that was really good out of the sand but i did kind of expect that
02:54because of this club's reputation but we need it to do more than just be a one trick pony out the
02:59bunker so i've got kind of a bread and butter pitch shot here 25 yards i'm going to go to this short
03:04right pin here off some quite tight heathland turf so let's see if this sole can do anything with this
03:09shot
03:18the answer i think is yes that stiffed it that felt great it was a little bit of resistance from the
03:23turf there didn't slide through quite as easy as it did through the sand but the result was really
03:27really good so i don't think i need to hit anymore so that was some really nice performance from the
03:32bunker and i really enjoyed that nippy little pitch shot but as a man who's prone to the odd wonky
03:37approach shot i need to know whether it can get me out of some trouble some long stuff so i've dropped
03:42one here in this kind of heathery gorsy rough area it's buried a bit and i want to see if this club
03:47had still got it what it takes to cut through this grass and i'm pretty short-sided as well so let's see
03:52what it can do
03:52it's come out nicely again cut through really nicely i think that minimal bounce on the heel
04:04is something really interesting that was some really good short game performance but one concern
04:09i do have about buying a wedge that's over 40 years old is has the spin rate diminished so i'm going to
04:14head to the practice ground i want to use my foresight gc quad launch monitor to take some spin rates
04:18and see where it stands but i want to see how it stacks up against potentially a modern day equivalent
04:23so i've got with me ping's brand new s159 e-grind wedge which is based on the i2 so let's get to
04:31the practice ground let's get some numbers and see how it stacks up we're down at the practice ground
04:35now because i wanted to hit some mid-length pitch shots now we're going to use real balls so i've got
04:41tight list pro v1 x's and we're going to measure the data on the foresight gc quad launch monitor
04:47now we're off mats here it's a really nice artificial surface which is probably a good thing
04:52it means i'm not going to get any grass caught between the club and the ball and give us any
04:56misreading so i've got three shots in my arsenal really my pitching game i tend to play what feels
05:00like a half a three quarter and a full so i'm going to do that with both clubs and i want to see
05:05the launch and the spin numbers to see how they compare so i'm going to start with the i2 and hit my
05:09half shot oh hang on before i forget if you're enjoying this content please hit the like button
05:20comment down below if you play the old ping i2 copper beryllium wedge and if you haven't already
05:24subscribe to the channel
05:32okay so that's interesting so launch angle there just under 30 degrees at 29.4
05:37backspin feels relatively high at 8498 revs so it'll be interesting for that to compare that to the
05:44s159 so the s159 i'm going to give it that same sort of half feel that position i'm pretty familiar
05:51with let's see how it compares in launch and spin
06:00yeah touch more spin actually popped up a little bit more slightly higher launch angle 30.7
06:05and the spin number is coming in at just under 8 600 so i'm getting a little more grip off the face
06:11of that very similar carry so it's interesting let's hit some three quarter ones now and see if that
06:15carries through
06:22okay 30.6 launch has come up a little bit and 9 489
06:28in the spin that feels like quite a good healthy number again so let's find out what the s159 will do
06:35okay launch a little bit lower there 29.4 so coming out a little flatter window
06:43and 9 484 revs of spin so some interestingly similar spin numbers so far so let's hit my full shot
06:50and see if it continues
06:58and that was under 30 degrees of launch again 29 and a half and then 11 837 revs of backspin again
07:05which seems a lot so let's see how the modern day equivalent compares with a full swing
07:10so let's take a look at it okay popped up in launch a little bit 31.1 again comparable but a bit less so
07:2211 615 revs on that one very very interesting you'll have seen through that the spin numbers are actually
07:30pretty comparable and on the full shot this was actually generating a little bit more the older
07:34wedge and it's 42 years old and it's taken me back a bit because this new s159 wedge is literally
07:40fresh out of the wrapper it's never hit any more any shots before so the grooves are as fresh and as
07:45new and as sharp as possible but there is potentially another story to be told here because back in the
07:51day when they were making these i2s and the irons as well as the wedges some of them were built with
07:57what we called box grooves u-shaped grooves which ultimately the usga and rna deemed to create too much
08:03spin and they made them illegal for competition now we've spoken to ping we've given them the serial
08:09number it's actually really difficult to tell whether your club has box grooves or legal grooves
08:17for competition but from the spin numbers i'm looking at there i would suggest that this is probably
08:23one of the old box grooves now i want to do a further test here because those were dry and we've got
08:29a new finish with the ping wedges which ping are very proud of and i know a lot of the other
08:33manufacturers are quite jealous of the hydropurl finish which claims to produce exceptional spin
08:39when wet so let's spray these faces up i brought a little spray bottle along hit the same sort of
08:44shots and figure out where the spin is now so i've got with me a handy little bottle of water i'm going
08:49to absolutely drench the face we're going to start with the older i2 first i'm even going to drench up
08:54that ball let's see what that does to the spin number i'm going to go in my half shot again
09:04okay so spin came off quite significantly there that was only just over 5000 revs
09:11so 5079 launch popped right up so when you get less friction launch generally pops up spin comes down
09:17that's exactly what's happened there 36.9 launch 5079 spin let's try the s159 let's do the same thing
09:25that similar half shot feel and see where we go
09:31wow that is a big old difference so the launch has only just gone up it's not even 31 degrees but the
09:39backspin is over 3000 revs more for 8155 revolutions per minute out of this which would suggest to me
09:48that ping's hydropurl finish is working very very well here well i found that fascinating around the
09:55greens this old copper beryllium ping i2 still did a really great job for me the entrance and exit through
10:02the sand how little resistance it created let me play some really really good bunker shots even the little
10:08nippy shot off the tight turf the pit shot and hacking it out of that longer rough still performed
10:13really really well and then when we came here to the practice ground and started hitting those three
10:17quarter half and full shots the spin number was super comparable with even a brand new fresh s159 which
10:25got me even suspicious about the grooves however then we introduced the moisture and i think as you can
10:31see the s159 and the hydropurl technology there from ping elevated it to a completely different level of
10:37spin so if you're someone who plays in the desert and never sees any moisture whatsoever you can
10:42probably get some really similar performance for a little bit less money but if you play an early
10:47morning dew rain or any type of moisture then you're going to really sacrifice some spin numbers from a newer
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