- 5 weeks ago
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
00:48it 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 perimeter
00:59waiting helped with the forgiveness but the really interesting bit for me was this particularly thin
01:05sole area so they thinned out this sole which saved weight which allowed them to move it further up the
01:09club to give you a higher toe so arguably this is the original high toe wedge another really interesting
01:15design feature which made it exceptional out of the bunkers was the sole geometry if i bend the club
01:21back here and you begin to see the sole you'll see how there's very very little bounce on the heel
01:27side of the club now when you open the face the heel is generally the first bit that gets into
01:31the
01:31sand so this made the entrance to the sand really really smooth then as you move along the sole
01:36of the club and you get to the middle of the toe there's loads of bounce and that would kick
01:40in
01:41and help the exit of the club so the club itself just traveled really smoothly through the bunkers
01:46and as i said made it one of the best bunk clubs of all time so there's only really one
01:50place to
01:51start this test in the sand and i've got a bunker just here now i've tested an awful lot of
01:56wedges in
01:56my time so i'm really keen to see how this legend gets on so let's hit a couple away and
01:59see how it feels
02:07oh i have to say i mean we've got some really high quality sand here at the berkshire and it's
02:11beautifully raked which does help but that really did slip through with very very little resistance
02:16let's go again
02:22i don't know if you can hear that lovely sort of nippy slappy sound as it hits the sand that
02:28that
02:28feels 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
02:37that's pretty unpleasant let's see if it can dig this out
02:45that's come out pretty well as well so the versatility of the sole that stacks up as well
02:50okay well that was really good out of the sand but i did kind of expect that because of this
02:55club's
02:55reputation but we need it to do more than just be a one trick pony out the bunker so i've
03:00got kind
03:00of a bread and butter pitch shot here 25 yards i'm going to go to this short right pin here
03:05off some
03:05quite tight heathland turf so let's see if this sole can do anything with this shot
03:18the answer i think is yes that stiffed it that felt great it was a little bit of resistance from
03:23the
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
03:42dropped
03:42one here in this kind of heathery gorsy rough area it's buried a bit and i want to see if
03:46this club
03:47had still got it what it takes to cut through this grass and i'm pretty short-sided as well so
03:51let's see
03:52what it can do it's come out nicely again cut through really nicely i think that minimal bounce
04:03on the heel is something really interesting that was some really good short game performance
04:08but one concern i do have about buying a wedge that's over 40 years old is has the spin rate
04:13diminished so i'm going to head to the practice ground i want to use my foresight gc quad launch
04:17monitor take some spin rates and see where it stands but i want to see how it stacks up against
04:21potentially a modern day equivalent so i've got with me ping's brand new s159 e-grind wedge which
04:28is based on the i2 so let's get to the practice ground let's get some numbers and see how it
04:33stacks
04:33up we're down at the practice ground now because i wanted to hit some mid-length pitch shots now we're
04:39going to use real balls so i've got Titleist pro v1 x's and we're going to measure the data on
04:45the foresight
04:45gc quad launch monitor now we're off mats here it's a really nice artificial surface which is probably
04:51a good thing it means i'm not going to get any grass caught between the club and the ball and
04:55give us
04:56any misreading so i've got three shots in my arsenal really my pitching game i tend to play what feels
05:01like a half a three-quarter and a full so i'm going to do that with both clubs and i
05:05want to see the
05:05launch and the spin numbers to see how they compare so i'm going to start with the i2 and hit
05:09my half
05:10shot oh hang on before i forget if you're enjoying this content please hit the like button comment
05:20down below if you play the old ping i2 copper beryllium wedge and if you haven't already subscribe
05:25to the channel okay so that's interesting so launch angle there just under 30 degrees at 29.4 backspin
05:38feels relatively high at 8498 revs so it'll be interesting for that to compare that to the s159
05:46so the s159 i'm going to give it that same sort of half feel that position i'm pretty familiar with
05:52and 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 8600 so i'm getting a little more grip off the
06:10face of
06:11that very similar carry so it's interesting let's hit some three-quarter ones now and see if that carries
06:21through okay 30.6 launch has come up a little bit and 9489 in the spin that feels like quite
06:29a good
06:29healthy number again so let's find out what the s159 will do
06:38okay launch a little bit lower there 29.4 so coming out a little flatter window and 9484 revs of
06:45spin
06:46so some interestingly similar spin numbers so far so let's hit my full shot and see if it continues
06:57and that was under 30 degrees of launch again 29 and a half and then 11 837 revs of backspin
07:05again
07:05which seems a lot so let's see how the modern day equivalent compares with a full swing
07:16okay popped up in launch a little bit 31.1 again comparable but a bit less so 11 615 revs
07:24on that
07:24one very very interesting you'll have seen through that the spin numbers are actually pretty comparable
07:31and on the full shot this was actually generating a little bit more the older wedge it's 42 years old
07:36and it's taken me back a bit because this new s159 wedge is literally fresh out of the wrapper
07:41it's never hit any more any shots before so the grooves are as fresh and as new and as sharp
07:46as
07:46possible but there is potentially another story to be told here because back in the day when they were
07:52making these i2s and the irons as well as the wedges some of them were built with what we called
07:58box
07:58grooves u-shaped grooves which ultimately the usga and rna deemed to create too much spin and they made
08:05them illegal for competition now we've spoken to ping we've given them the serial number
08:10it's actually really difficult to tell whether your club has box grooves or legal grooves for
08:17competition but from the spin numbers i'm looking at there i would suggest that this is probably one of
08:23the old box grooves now i want to do a further test here because those were dry and we've got
08:29a new
08:29finish with the ping wedges which ping are very proud of and i know a lot of the other manufacturers
08:34are
08:34quite jealous of the hydra pearl finish which claims to produce exceptional spin when wet so let's spray
08:41these faces up i've brought a little spray bottle along hit the same sort of shots and figure out
08:45where the spin is now so i've got with me a handy little bottle of water i'm going to absolutely
08:49drench
08:50the face we're going to start with the older i2 first i'm even going to drench up that ball
08:55and 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
09:18that's exactly what's happened there 36.9 launch 5079 spin let's try the s159 and let's do the same
09:25thing that 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
09:39but the
09:39backspin is over 3000 revs more but 8155 revolutions per minute out of this which would suggest to me
09:48that ping's hydra pearl 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
10:08little nippy shot off the tight turf the pit shot and hacking it out of that longer rough still
10:12performed really really well and then when we came here to the practice ground and started hitting
10:17those three quarter half and full shots the spin number was super comparable with even a brand new
10:23fresh s159 which got me even suspicious about the grooves however then we introduced the moisture
10:29and i think as you can see the s159 and the hydra pearl technology there from ping
10:35elevated it to a completely different level of spin so if you're someone who plays in the desert and
10:40never sees any moisture whatsoever you can probably get some really similar performance for a little bit
10:45less money but if you play an early morning dew rain or any type of moisture then you're going to
10:50really sacrifice some spin numbers from a newer model
10:54you
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