- 2 days ago
In this video, Joe 'The Pro' Ferguson gets to grips with Bryson DeChambeau's actual back up set of Avoda irons on the range with his launch monitor to see exactly what they feel like and how far they hit the ball. For those of you who don't know, the US Open champion has a very unusual spec and design on his 3D printed irons which Joe explains in this video - be sure to watch to the end to see how far the 17° five-iron goes!
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00:00I've got with me Bryson DeChambeau's actual backup set of Avoda golf irons. I'm going to
00:06take you through a full range session to show you just how crazy they are. So let me give you
00:10some
00:10context about why these irons are so crazy. Now those of you who follow golf will probably know
00:15Bryson is a one length player so all of these irons from five iron down to lob wedge are exactly
00:20the
00:20same length which is very very unusual and it's going to be very interesting when I get down
00:25to the 60 degree lob wedge playing that at six iron length could give me some problems so I'm
00:30interested to see how that takes place. So to give you some context these irons were built by Tom Bailey
00:35and Mike Shai with Avoda golf and they're a hollow body construction they've been 3D printed and one
00:41of the most interesting parts about them is they've got curved faces and these faces progress throughout
00:46the sets when you start with the five iron we've got quite a significant amount of face progression
00:51and as you go down through the set they get flatter and flatter and flatter and that's to take
00:55advantage of gear effect like we do in drivers fairway woods and hybrids. Now another really interesting
01:02part about this set of irons is the grips they are incredibly incredibly thick I can't give you the
01:08exact dimension now I'll probably pop them up on the screen once I've done a little bit more research
01:11but they it's extraordinary when I put them up against a normal grip the just the the visual difference
01:16is remarkable when you put your hands on them as I'll show you through the range session it really
01:21is strange. So the irons themselves are hollow bodied and they come in at a very upright lie angle so
01:27those of you again who watch Bryce so much will see how upright he stands with his hands very very
01:32high
01:32so for context these come in around five degrees more upright than a standard a standard club of 37
01:38and a half inches which would be a six iron generally around 62 degrees lie angle these come in at
01:4367 so
01:44they're incredibly incredibly upright so I might have to make some changes to my setup to accommodate them
01:49shaft wise as well I'll get into that in a moment but I have had a little hit with them
01:52before
01:53they are incredibly stiff they are some of the stiffest and heaviest shafts I've ever used these
01:58LA golf shafts so that's enough about the sort of context of the clubs let's hit some I'm going to
02:03take you through the session give you some numbers and let you know what I think as I go so
02:07I'm going to
02:07start with the lob wedge and the first thing you notice when you pick this up is well there's two
02:12things
02:12the grip is just extraordinary I've probably already put up some footage of it up against kind of a normal
02:19size golf grip it's really actually difficult to know where and how to put your hands on I've got
02:24this massive gap between my tip of my fingers and my palm here which sort of makes me feel like
02:30I'm
02:30not holding it that securely then when you pop it in down behind the ball crikey it's 60 degrees of
02:36loft I'm used to sort of being more in that sort of position and when you hold it at the
02:40end of the
02:41club at six iron length it is really a really unusual sensation let's hit one away
02:49a decent strike that was better than I was expecting so the context of my normal lob wedge
02:54apply about 85 90 we've got 77 that's interesting there that's really I thought I'd got hold of that
03:02let's go again
03:06decent strike again this feels such hard work I mean they just feel so heavy with 72 yards there
03:14and that's kind of a fairly full out lob wedge for me that's not actually gone that far so I
03:18wonder
03:18from a technical point of view when you've got so much loft and you've got so much more club head
03:24speed which I probably have here I'm about three miles an hour three four miles an hour up on my
03:28normal
03:28lob wedge club speed I wonder if that's creating more of a glancing blow and maybe not quite getting
03:33the same oomph of impact and I'm not quite seeing the yardage that I normally would someone mentioned
03:39this to me actually if you look at Bryson's wedge play it's a lot of wedges sort of back foot
03:43with a
03:43lot of sort of preset shaft lean so I wonder whether that's a part of making these work but I'm
03:48just going
03:48to sort of hit them how I normally would to get some real decent feedback but yeah fairly remarkable
03:54feeling at this length
03:59three decent strikes all where I'm looking in terms of target but again I think that's probably only
04:04going yeah 76 so I'm down on my sort of normal lob wedge yardage which isn't what I was expecting
04:09I
04:09was expecting to feel maybe the additional length would provide some extra speed and help me put it out
04:15there a bit further I'm going to try and hit a couple of partial shots because spoiler alert I'm doing
04:19another video here for golf monthly where I'm going to go and play these in a professional event I
04:23actually want to know what they do so I'm going to have to have a few of these partial lob
04:28wedges let's
04:28see what it's like hitting sort of a half shot maybe choke down on it a bit for a more
04:33familiar size
04:40that's exactly where I was looking that's a good pitch but I mean these shafts feel great in terms of
04:46the quality of the LA golf shot but I cannot describe how poker stiff they are he's a big strong
04:52boy that Bryson if he's getting some load into these that is incredible it feels like
04:57yeah it feels like picking up one of the marker poles from down the range and putting a head on
05:01it and trying to move that it's incredibly incredibly robust not getting much feedback here
05:11but I am finding strike a little better than I thought I would and again that's a nice little
05:16pitch these wedges are interesting actually so as some of you might know in Bryson's main set I think
05:21he's been playing a ping glide 4.0 that's been custom made so you have to do a lot of
05:26work to get
05:27a one length set to work particularly if they're not designed like that to start with so ping have
05:31created some heads so all of the head weights in this set I think off the top of my head
05:36I think
05:36it's 275 grams whereas a normal lob wedge sand wedge gap wedge etc would weigh a lot lot more than
05:43that so ping have obviously created some special light heads ground a lot of weight off in certain
05:47areas for him to work that but the wedges I've got here these are the original wedges that were designed
05:52to go with this set that Avoda made for Bryson so these are Avoda stamped with the BD logo
05:58and they're actually the very low bounce option that they've made so it's really really tight
06:03I'm playing on some tight links turf today so that might be beneficial but that's an interesting
06:06start with a lob wedge let's move up and go with the eight iron so we hear a lot of
06:12talk about how
06:13far Bryson hits these irons and you see a bit of it online sort of the loft jacking debate and
06:19people
06:19suggesting that maybe it's a loft issue this eight iron comes in at 30 degrees and those of you who
06:26know
06:26lofts at home a standard eight iron in a in a more normal set would probably be around the 37
06:3238 degree
06:33mark and these clubs tend to work in about a four degree increment so arguably this is two probably
06:38two clubs stronger at the equivalent to a a fairly standard six iron so that might have something to
06:43do with what you see from those other than his strength and his conditioning and his incredible
06:47technique that might have something to do with why you see those yardage and for me
06:51my standard eight iron generally in my set i'm about it's about the 160 mark for me so it'll be
06:57interesting to see how far i can get this out there let's get one away
07:06that was slightly out of the toe so it was a little bit mistruck even that yeah so that's gone
07:10165 so
07:12that's five yards longer than my normal a time with a pretty pretty average strike truth be told let's see
07:17i can really crush one and see see if we're going to see a proper incremental yardage game here
07:26that was a more compressed strike so i'll be interested to see how far that one's gone
07:29so an a time for me like i said standard would be about 160 i put 179 so 180 yards
07:36basically so that's
07:38that's a big old a time for me so when you hear these numbers that you're hearing from bryson obviously
07:43he's an incredible striker of the ball however yeah that two clubs of extra sort of de-lofting has
07:49really really helped me there that's a big old a time i like the uh it's quite flattering for the
07:54ego
07:54that but again from a field point of view it's almost like a strength and conditioning session this
07:59it's so hard to move this they feel so heavy i'm getting no sort of flexing or kicking of the
08:06shaft no
08:07assistance it it's just really quite hard work the heads feel great they're so smooth they're very
08:14soft they come off beautifully and a really interesting point about the first one i hit
08:18off the toe the bulge faces is where gear effect comes in so when you're striking off the toe
08:23it's helping me start the ball a little bit further right the ball is going to work a little
08:26bit more towards the center alter that spin axis and that's exactly what i saw off that first one
08:30it just got a little bit of a draw so when ordinarily the the face might popped open a bit
08:34with a bit of deflection from a toe strike and stayed right i did see that drawing back so
08:39i'm looking forward to getting these out on the course and seeing if sort of the corrective nature
08:42of those curved faces can help me out on the golf course i'm gonna have to overcome the fact that
08:46i'm
08:47holding what feels like a cricket bat and swinging an iron bar to make that a benefit let's see if
08:53i can
08:53get let's see how far i can pop one out let's hit a proper full compressed eight iron and see
08:57what we've got
09:00yeah that was good nice strike dead down the target line this is promising i thought these
09:06would be harder than they are 183 for an eight iron so that's really interesting numbers that i'm seeing
09:12here i could get used to that from an eight iron it's quite flattering let's go let's go all the
09:17way
09:18to the top let's go to the five iron now this one's a really interesting one so we've got
09:22again from a five iron point of view you don't see many at 17 degrees this would be equivalent to
09:28probably a two iron in most sets and most of the utility irons you see in the two they're around
09:3316
09:34to 18 degrees this sits right in the middle of this so again maybe when you see those numbers on
09:38tv
09:39about bryson hitting this five ones in from 250 yards maybe there's something to it now i will caveat
09:47that by saying it's going to be a shorter shorter in length sharp than a normal two iron so
09:52there potentially be some speed differences there from his input into the ball but it's obviously
09:57still impressive numbers and looking down on this it just flat out looks like a two iron to me you
10:02can
10:02really start to see the face obviously as i said up the set the curvature really starts to come in
10:08you can see it much less to very minimal in the wedges get up to this five iron you can
10:12really see the
10:13curvature in the face and the bend and it almost looks onset it's a really incredible look and then
10:18again it's almost like an attack on the senses this because when i put the lob wedge down it felt
10:23incredibly long and even though this is exactly the same length it feels incredibly short because
10:28i feel like i'm looking at two iron where i'd normally be up here in this sort of position and
10:33i'm down in what feels like that six seven iron area so even though they're all the same length
10:38they're the same weight they're the same swing weight you pick up the wedge having been a normal
10:41length set player and like i said it feels incredibly long then you pick up the five iron
10:46slash two iron and it feels like you're hitting a junior club so very interesting let's have a
10:52little swipe with this and see what numbers we're going to get so my normal five iron in my main
10:56set
10:56be about 200 yard carry
11:01so it was a little bit clean a little bit off the heel but again the sort of gear effect
11:05there started
11:06left had a little cut back there it's very very noticeable that was similar to my
11:11standard five that's about 200 yards so the poorer strike i don't think really did that justice
11:17that's one thing i'm seeing here is i think to make the most of these out on the golf course
11:22i'm
11:22gonna have to find a way to consistently find the middle of the face because it's so there's so many
11:27different things at play here the grips feel so alien in my hands it feels sort of halfway back and
11:33at
11:33the top that i might sort of be losing control of the club and it's almost slipping out my hands
11:37because it's so much thicker than normal so for me to try and return that to the right area is
11:41difficult
11:42the lie angle being so upright is a really it's a strange visual when you look down on it and
11:49to get soling that out flush with the ground which would help me get a strike i'm not quite
11:54doing it yet and then when you combine that with the weight setup is remarkable so the the overall
12:00static mass of these clubs is incredibly heavy they do feel like a little barbell at the gym to live
12:04however the swing weight which would be the balance of the club because the grips are so heavy
12:09is actually really light they're coming in about c1 c2 i think i measured them at which
12:14is a very far stretch away from like a rory mccleary playing at d4 or d3 would be a fairly
12:21standard swing
12:21weight on tour so in terms of the balance about where the weight is distributed up the club
12:26it's so strange to try and time this up and find strike so i think when i do i'll start
12:32to see
12:32those real distance benefits that was a better strike from me again little cutties it's really
12:41difficult to try and square the club face up 223 so that's a big big five iron from me there
12:46that's
12:47really sort of powered out there and it's gone really low so because maybe i'm using less club heads
12:52less club head speed i'm generating from the six iron length i'm not seeing as much club head speed
12:58into the ball i'm not quite getting the elevation i've got low loft and it was kind of like this
13:03head height stinger that still carried over 220 yards that's remarkable so i think that's given me
13:10a good flavor of what these irons are all about they're very i've been told not to say interesting
13:16because i've said it too many times but they are super super interesting so i'm really looking forward
13:20to getting out on the golf course finding out what i can do with them that is an amazing set
13:25of golf clubs
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