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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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0:00
I've got with me Bryson DeChambeau's actual backup set of Avoda Golf Irons. I'm going to take you
0:06
through a full range session to show you just how crazy they are. So let me give you some context
0:10
about why these irons are so crazy. Now those of you who follow golf will probably know Bryson is a
0:16
one length player so all of these irons from five iron down to lob wedge are exactly the same length
0:21
which is very very unusual and it's going to be very interesting when I get down to the 60 degree
0:26
Lobwedge, playing that at six iron length could give me some problems. So I'm interested to see
0:31
how that takes place. So to give you some context, these irons were built by Tom Bailey and Mike Shai
0:36
with Avoda Golf. And they're a hollow body construction. They've been 3D printed. And one
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of the most interesting parts about them is they've got curved faces and these faces progress
0:46
throughout the set. So when you start with the five iron, we've got quite a significant amount
0:50
of face progression. And as you go down through the set, they get flatter and flatter and flatter
0:54
and that's to take advantage of gear effect like we do in drivers, fairway woods and hybrids
1:00
Now another really interesting part about this set of irons is the grips. They are incredibly
1:06
incredibly thick. I can't give you the exact dimension now. I'll probably pop them up on the
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screen once I've done a little bit more research, but it's extraordinary. When you put them up
1:13
against a normal grip, just the visual difference is remarkable. When you put your hands on them
1:19
as I'll show you through the range session, it really is strange. So the irons themselves are
1:23
hollow bodied and they come in at a very upright lie angle. So those of you again who watch Bryce
1:29
so much will see how upright he stands with his hands very very high. So for context these come
1:33
in around five degrees more upright than a standard club of 37 and a half inches which would be a six
1:40
iron. Generally around 62 degrees lie angle these come in at 67 so they're incredibly incredibly
1:45
upright so I might have to make some changes to my setup to accommodate them. Shaft wise as well
1:50
I'll get into that in a moment, but I have had a little hit with them before. They are incredibly
1:54
stiff. They are some of the stiffest and heaviest shafts I've ever used, these LA golf shafts
1:59
So that's enough about the sort of context of the clubs. Let's hit some. I'm going to take you
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through the session, give you some numbers and let you know what I think as I go. So I'm going to
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start with the lob wedge. And the first thing you notice when you pick this up is, well, there's two
2:12
things. The grip is just extraordinary. I've probably already put up some footage of it up
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against kind of a normal standard size golf grip it's really actually difficult to know where and
2:22
how to put your hands on I've got this massive gap between my tip of my fingers and my palm here which
2:28
sort of makes me feel like I'm not holding it that securely then when you pop it in down behind the
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ball crikey it's 60 degrees of loft I'm used to sort of being more in that sort of position and
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when you hold it at the end of the club at six iron length it is really a really unusual sensation
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Let's hit one away. A decent strike. That was better than I was expecting
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So for the context of my normal lob, would you play about 85, 90
2:56
We've got 77. That's interesting there. That's really, I thought I'd got hold of that
3:02
Let's go again. Decent strike again. They feel such hard work. I mean, they just feel so heavy with 72 yards there
3:13
and that's kind of a fairly full-out lob wedge for me. That not actually gone that far So I wonder from a technical point of view when you got so much loft and you got so much more club head speed which I probably have here I about three miles an hour three four miles an hour up on my normal lob wedge club speed
3:29
I wonder if that's creating more of a glancing blow and maybe not quite getting the same
3:33
oomph of impact and I'm not quite seeing the yardage that I normally would. Someone mentioned
3:39
this to me actually if you look at Bryson's wedge play it's a lot of wedges sort of back foot with
3:43
a lot of sort of preset shaft lean so I wonder whether that's a part of making these work but
3:48
I'm just going to sort of hit them how I normally would to get some real decent feedback but
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yeah fairly remarkable feeling at this length. Three decent strikes all where I'm looking in terms of target but again I think that's probably
4:03
only going yeah 76 so I'm down on my sort of normal lobbed yardage which isn't what I was
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expecting I was expecting to feel maybe the additional length would provide some extra speed
4:13
and help me put it out there a bit further. I'm going to try and hit a couple of partial shots
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because, spoiler alert, I'm doing another video here for Golf Monthly where I'm going to go and play these in a professional event
4:23
I actually want to know what they do, so I'm going to have to hit a few of these partial lob wedges
4:28
Let's see what it's like hitting sort of a half shot, maybe choke down on it a bit for a more familiar size
4:40
That's exactly where I was looking. that's a good pitch but I mean these shafts feel great in terms of the quality of the LA golf shaft
4:47
but I cannot describe how poker stiff they are he's a big strong boy that Bryson if he's getting
4:53
some load into these that is incredible it feels like it feels like picking up one of the marker
4:59
poles from down the range and putting a head on it and trying to move that it's incredibly
5:03
incredibly robust not getting much feedback here but I am finding strike a little better than I thought I would
5:13
and again that's a nice little pitch these wedges are interesting actually so
5:17
as some of you might know in Bryson's main set I think he's been playing a Ping
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Glide 4.0 that's been custom made so you have to do a lot of work to get a one length set to
5:27
work particularly if they're not designed like that to start with so Ping have created some heads
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So all of the head weights in this set, I think, off the top of my head, I think it's 275 grams
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whereas a normal lob wedge, sand wedge, gap wedge, et cetera, would weigh a lot, lot more than that
5:43
So Ping have obviously created some special light heads, ground a lot of weight off in certain areas for him to work that
5:48
But the wedges I've got here, these are the original wedges that were designed to go with this set that Avoda made for Bryson
5:55
So these are Avoda stamped with the BD logo, and they're actually the very low bounce option that they've made
6:01
so it's really really tight. I'm playing on some tight links turf today so that might be beneficial
6:05
but that's an interesting start with a lob wedge. Let's move up and go with the 8 iron. So we hear a
6:12
lot of talk about how far Bryson hits these irons and you see a bit of it online sort of the loft
6:18
jacking debate and people suggesting that maybe it's a loft issue. This 8 iron comes in at 30
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degrees and those of you who know lofts at home a standard 8 iron in a more normal set would
6:30
would probably be around the 37, 38 degree mark. And these clubs tend to work in about a four degree
6:36
increments so arguably this is two probably two clubs stronger It be equivalent to a fairly standard six iron That might have something to do with what you see from those other than his strength and his conditioning and his incredible technique that might have something to do with why you see those yardages
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and for me my standard eight iron generally in my set I'm about it's about the 160 mark for me
6:57
so it'll be interesting to see how far I can get this out there let's get one away
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that was slightly out of the toe so it was a little bit misstruck even that yeah so that's
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gone 165 so that's five yards longer than my normal a time with a pretty pretty average strike
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truth be told let's see if i can really crush one and see see if we're going to see a proper
7:21
incremental yardage gain here that was a more compressed strike so i'll be interested to see how far that one's gone
7:29
So an A time for me, like I said, standard would be about 160, up at 179, so 180 yards basically
7:37
So that's a big old A time for me. So when you hear these numbers that you're hearing from Bryson, obviously he's an incredible striker of the ball
7:44
However, yeah, that two clubs of extra sort of de-lofting has really helped me there
7:51
That's a big old A time. I like the, it's quite flattering for the ego that. But again, from a feel point of view, it's almost like a strength and conditioning session
7:58
this it's so hard to move this they feel so heavy i'm getting no sort of flexing or kicking of the
8:06
shaft no assistance it it's just really quite hard work the heads feel great they're so smooth they're
8:13
very soft they come off beautifully and a really interesting point about the first one that i hit
8:18
off the toe the bulge faces is where gear effect comes in so when you're striking off the toe
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it's helping me start the ball a little bit further right the ball is going to work a little
8:26
bit more towards the center, alter that spin axis, and that's exactly what I saw off that first one
8:30
It just got a little bit of a draw, so when ordinarily the face might have popped open a bit
8:34
with a bit of deflection from a toe strike and stayed right, I did see that drawing back. So
8:38
I'm looking forward to getting these out on the course and seeing if the corrective nature of
8:42
those curved faces can help me out on the golf course. I'm going to have to overcome the fact
8:46
that I'm holding what feels like a cricket bat and swinging an iron bar to make that a benefit
8:52
but let's see if I can get, let's see how far I can pop one out. Let's hit a proper full compressed eight iron and see what we've got
9:00
Yeah, that was good. Nice strike, dead down the target line. This is promising. I thought these
9:06
would be harder than they are. 183 for an eight iron. So that's really interesting numbers that
9:11
I'm seeing here. I could get used to that from an eight iron, it's quite flattering. Let's go, let's go all the way to the top. Let's go to the five iron. Now this one's a really
9:20
interesting one. So we've got again from a five iron point of view you don't see many at 17 degrees
9:26
This would be equivalent to probably a two iron in most sets and most of the utility irons you see
9:32
in the two they're around 16 to 18 degrees. This sits right in the middle of this so again
9:36
maybe when you see those numbers on tv about Bryson hitting this five irons in from 250 yards
9:43
maybe there's something to it. Now I will caveat that by saying it's going to be a shorter
9:49
shorter in length sharp than a normal two iron, so there'll potentially be some speed differences there
9:55
from his input into the ball, but it's obviously still impressive numbers
9:58
And looking down on this it just flat out looks like a two iron to me You can really start to see the face obviously as I said up the set the curvature really starts to come in you can see it much less to very minimal
10:10
in the wedges. Get up to this five iron you can really see the curvature in the face and the bend
10:15
and it almost looks on set it's a really incredible look and then again it's almost like an attack on
10:20
the senses this because when I put the lob wedge down it felt incredibly long and even though this
10:25
is exactly the same length it feels incredibly short because I feel like I'm looking at a two
10:29
iron where I'd normally be up here in this sort of position and I'm down in what feels like that
10:34
six seven iron area so even though they're all the same length they're the same weight they're
10:38
the same swing weight you pick up the wedge having been a normal length set player and like I said
10:43
it feels incredibly long then you pick up the five iron slash two iron and it feels like you're
10:48
hitting a junior club so very interesting let's have a little swipe with this and see what numbers
10:54
we're going to get. So my normal five-line in my main set, be about a 200-yard carry
11:01
So that was a little bit clean, a little bit off the heel, but again, the sort of gear effect there
11:06
started left, had a little cut back there. It's very, very noticeable. That was similar to my
11:11
standard five-line. That's about 200 yards, so the poorer strike I don't think really did that
11:16
justice. That's one thing I'm seeing here is, I think, to make the most of these out on the golf
11:22
of course, I'm going to have to find a way to consistently find the middle of the face
11:25
because there's so many different things at play here. The grips feel so alien in my hands
11:31
It feels sort of halfway back and at the top that I might sort of be losing control of the club
11:36
and it's almost slipping out of my hands because it's so much thicker than normal. So for me to try and return that to the right area is difficult
11:42
The lie angle being so upright is a really, it's a strange visual when you look down on it
11:48
and to get them soling that out flush with the ground, which would help me get a strike
11:53
I'm not quite doing it yet. And then when you combine that with the weight setup is remarkable
11:58
So the overall static mass of these clubs is incredibly heavy. They do feel like a little barbell at the gym to lift
12:05
However, the swing weight, which would be the balance of the club, because the grips are so heavy, is actually really light
12:10
They're coming at about C1, C2, I think I measured them at, which is a very far stretch away from like a Rory McIlroy
12:17
We'd play him at D4 or D3 would be a fairly standard swing weight on tour
12:22
So in terms of the balance about where the weight is distributed up the club, it's so strange to try and time this up and find strike
12:30
So I think when I do, I'll start to see those real distance benefits. That was a better strike from me
12:39
Again, little cutties. It's really difficult to try and square the club face up
12:43
223, so that's a big, big five iron from me there. that's really sort of powered out there and it's gone really low so because maybe I'm using less
12:52
club heads less club head speed I'm generating from the six iron length I'm not seeing as much
12:57
club head speed into the ball I'm not quite getting the elevation I've got low loft and it was kind of
13:03
like this head height stinger that still carried over 220 yards that's remarkable so I think that's
13:10
given me a good flavor of what these irons are all about they're very I've been told not to say
13:15
interesting because I've said it too many times but they are super super interesting so I'm really
13:19
looking forward to getting out on the golf course finding out what I can do with them
13:23
that is an amazing set of golf clubs
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