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Ping Eye2 Copper Beryllium | Retro Review
Oct 13, 2025
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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I've got an absolute monster for you today. I want to take you back to 1982 and relative
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newcomers and upstarts in the equipment industry, Ping, have just released their first set of
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beryllium copper irons, the I2. And little do they know, within that set, they've actually
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developed one of the most iconic wedges of all time, the Ping I2 copper beryllium wedge
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So I've come down to the Berkshire Golf Club, probably my favourite golf course in the whole
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of the UK, and we've teamed up with Golf Clubs for Cash, one of the leading retailers of pre
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and they've provided us with some absolute gems to test. So please check them out in the description
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below. Now I've picked this up for the bargain price of £79.99. This golf club is over 40 years
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old, so I can't wait to put it through its paces and see how it stacks up against the modern day
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equivalent. So as I said this was first introduced in 1982 and the design was pretty revolutionary
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As you can see it had a cavity back so that perimeter weighting helped with the forgiveness
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but the really interesting bit for me was this particularly thin sole area. So they thinned out
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this sole which saved weight which allowed them to move it further up the club to give you a higher
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toe. So arguably this is the original high toe wedge. Another really interesting design feature
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which made it exceptional out of the bunkers was the sole geometry. If I bend the club back here
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and you begin to see the sole you'll see how there's very very little bounce on the heel side
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of the club. Now when you open the face the heel is generally the first bit that gets into the sand
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so this made the entrance to the sand really really smooth. Then as you move along the sole
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of the club and you get to the middle of the toe there's loads of bounce and that would kick in and
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help the exit of the club. So the club itself just traveled really smoothly through the bunkers
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and as I said made it one of the best bunk clubs of all time. So there's only really one place to
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start this test in the sand and I've got a bunker just here. Now I've tested an awful lot of wedges
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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 it feels. I have to say I mean we've got some really high quality sand here at the Barkshire
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and it's beautifully raked which does help but that really did slip through with very very little
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resistance let's go again. I don't know if you can hear that lovely sort of nippy slappy sound as it
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hits the sand that that feels fantastic and I'm quite relieved it stands up to the hype there so
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I wonder how this sole would stand up if I give myself a slightly trickier lie so that's pretty
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Let see if it can dig this out That come out pretty well as well So the versatility of the sole that stacks up as well
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Okay, well that was really good out of the sand, but I did kind of expect that because of this club's reputation
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But we need it to do more than just be a one-trick pony out the bunker
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So I've got kind of a bread-and-butter pitch shot here, 25 yards. I'm going to go to this short right pin here off some quite tight Heathland turf
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so let's see if this sole can do anything with this shot. The answer I think is yes
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That stiffed it, that felt great. It was a little bit of resistance from the turf there
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It didn't slide through quite as easy as it did through the sand but the result was really, really good
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So I don't think I need to hit anymore. So that was some really nice performance from the bunker
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and I really enjoyed that nippy little pitch shot. But as a man who's prone to the odd wonky approach shot, I need to know whether it can get me out of some trouble, some long stuff
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So I've dropped one here in this kind of heathery, gaucey, rough area. It's buried a bit and I want to see if this clubhead's still got it what it takes to cut through this grass
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And I'm pretty short-sided as well, so let's see what it can do. It's come out nicely
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Again, cut through really nicely. I think that minimal bounce on the heel is something really interesting
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That was some really good short game performance. But one concern I do have about buying a wedge
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that's over 40 years old is has the spin rate diminished? So I'm going to head to the practice
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ground. I want to use my Foresight GC Quad Launch Monitor to take some spin rates and see where it
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stands. But I want to see how it stacks up against potentially a modern day equivalent. So I've got
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with me Ping's brand new S159 eGrind wedge, which is based on the i2. So let's get to the practice
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ground let's get some numbers and see how it stacks up. We're down at the practice ground now
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because I wanted to hit some mid-length pitch shots. Now we're going to use real balls so I've
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got Titleist Pro V1 Xs and we're going to measure the data on the Foresight GC Quad Launch Monitor
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Now we're off mats here, it's a really nice artificial surface which is probably a good thing
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it means I'm not going to get any grass caught between the club and the ball and give us any
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misreading. So I've got three shots in my arsenal really my pitching game I tend to play what feels
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like a half, a three-quarter and a full so I'm going to do that with both clubs and I want to
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see the launch and the spin numbers to see how they compare. So I'm going to start with the i2
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and hit my half shot. Oh hang on before I forget if you're enjoying this content please hit the
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like button comment down below if you play the old pink i2 copper beryllium wedge and if you haven already subscribe to the channel Okay so that interesting so launch angle there just under 30 degrees at 29 backspin feels
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relatively high at 8,498 revs so it'll be interesting for that to compare that to the S159
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So the S159 I'm going to give it that same sort of half feel that position I'm pretty familiar with
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Let's see how it compares in launch and spin. Yeah, touch more spin
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Actually popped up a little bit more. Slightly higher launch angle, 30.7. And the spin number is coming in at just under 8,600
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So I'm getting a little more grip off the face of that. Very similar carry. So that's interesting
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Let's hit some three-quarter ones now and see if that carries through. okay 30.6 launch has come up a little bit and 9489 in the spin that feels like quite a good
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healthy number again so let's find out what the s159 will do okay launch a little bit lower there 29.4 so coming out a little flatter window
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and 9,484 revs of spin. So some interestingly similar spin numbers so far
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So let's hit my full shot and see if it continues. And that was under 30 degrees of launch
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again 29 and a half, and then 11,837 revs of backspin, again, which seems a lot
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So let's see how the modern day equivalent compares with a full swing. okay popped up in launch a little bit 31.1 again comparable but a bit less so 11,615 revs on that
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one very very interesting you've seen through that the spin numbers are actually pretty comparable
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and on the full shot this was actually generating a little bit more the older wedge and it's 42
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years old and it's taken me back a bit because this new s159 wedge is literally fresh out of
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wrapper it's never hit any more any shots before so the grooves are as fresh and as new and as sharp
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as possible but there is potentially another story to be told here because back in the day when they
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were making these i2s and the irons as well as the wedges some of them were built with what we called
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box grooves u-shaped grooves which ultimately the usga and rna deemed to create too much spin and
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they made them illegal for competition now we spoken to ping we given them the serial number Some of them built with box grooves use shake grooves also use yeah It actually really difficult to tell whether your club has box grooves or legal grooves for
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competition but from the spin numbers I'm looking at there I would suggest that this is probably
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one of the old box grooves. Now I want to do a further test here because those were dry and
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we've got a new finish with the Ping wedges which Ping are very proud of and I know a lot of the
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the other manufacturers are quite jealous of, the Hydro Pearl finish, which claims to
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produce exceptional spin when wet. So let's spray these faces up, I brought a little spray bottle along, hit the same sort
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of shots and figure out where the spin is now. So I've got with me a handy little bottle of water, I'm going to absolutely drench the
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face, we're going to start with the older i2 first, I'm even going to drench up that
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ball, and let's see what that does to the spin number, I'm going to go in my half shot
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again. Okay so spin came off quite significantly there that was only just
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over 5,000 revs. So 5,079 launch popped right up so when you get less friction
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launch generally pops up spin comes down that's exactly what's happened there 36.9 launch 5,079 spin let's try the S159. Let's do the same thing that
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similar half shot feel and see where we go. Wow that is a big old difference so
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the launch has only just gone up it's not even 31 degrees but the backspin is
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over 3,000 revs more but 8,155 revolutions per minute out of this which
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would suggest to me that Ping's hydropel finish is working very very well here
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Well I found that fascinating. Around the greens this old copper beryllium ping i2
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still did a really great job for me. The entrance and exit through the sand, how
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little resistance it created, let me play some really really good bunker shots
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Even the little nippy shot off the tight turf, the pit shot and hacking it out of
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that longer ruff still performed really really well. And then when we came here
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to the practice ground and started hitting those three-quarter half and full shots, the spin number was super comparable with even a brand new
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fresh S159 which got me even suspicious about the grooves. However then we introduced the moisture
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and I think as you can see the S159 and the hydroporl technology there from Ping
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elevated it to a completely different level of spin. So if you're someone who plays in the desert
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and never sees any moisture whatsoever you can probably get some really similar performance for
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a little bit less money but if you play an early morning dew, rain or any type of moisture then
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you're going to really sacrifice some spin numbers from a newer model
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