Everyone Likes a Front Seat Driver.

by Eliot

The Twirled Club website has a Driving Iron section full of 1 and 2 irons for a few reasons that I wanted to run through since there seems to be some curiosity over that decision - but it’s all really the same couple core reasons. These clubs are fun to play or try to play and they are not made with current sets anymore, and that’s been the case for a long time. and 1 irons weren’t made much at all - ever. Sets were sold 2-9 iron often..

Since going live we have sold fourteen 1 & 2-irons and currently a couple of the driving irons for sale are more remarkable than anything I ever dreamt of selling on this site to be honest. Golfers are buying clubs that we know they rarely play, but conversely they are buying them when the clubs have been refurbished and upgraded with modern tech.

I’m nearly 42 and I really can only imagine what today’s 18 year old carrying his hybrid along with one of those giant Titleist 3 iron “beatsticks” thinks when he sees this Tom Watson Dunlop Tour Special 1-iron (a butter knife if there ever was one) that we sold last year. It’s like it has no top line at all.

People peel off their SW and 1- and 2-irons (and now even 3-irons) as a way to increase their overall take when selling clubs. Collectors then end up buying 3-PW (no often 4-PW) and go looking to complete their set.

The standard set of new clubs being sold off the rack today has morphed into 4-PW from the standard 2-9 with the option to buy the 1-iron, PW & SW a couple decades ago. This was just another approach to today’s practice of stamping “PW” on 9 irons and “7 on 4.5” irons. But let’s avoid that rabbit hole.

For many golfers, their set isn’t complete until they own all the clubs released in that set. So, there are lots of both serious collectors and everyday golfers who just want to complete their single holy grail set, looking for these clubs.

We would like Twirled Clubs to be a reliable source of driving irons that we know are sought after because we are in the business of selling golf clubs and it is our job to understand where both supply and demand lies within the market.

CASE STUDY: Pings

Ping Eye 2 sets (both stainless and BeCu sets) were released with 1-iron through Lob Wedge - 12 clubs - and were notoriously stripped of the top two and bottom two clubs of the set. There are a whole lot of 3-iron (and even 4-iron) through PW sets of Pings on eBay.

Why were Ping sets in particular targeted?  Ping Eye 2 1- and 2-irons are the easiest to hit driving irons ever made in my opinion (yes, easier than the Zing or Zing 2). And of course, there were A LOT of sets of these club sold, so there were lots (relatively speaking) of golfers buying or selling them at any given time; trying to get that elusive complete set with the right dot color. This still goes on today, if at a less rabid pace, but in this economic climate, I think we might see those collectors with (many) more than one set of 12 matching serial numbers looking to sell a few

Twirled Clubs sold a chromed out Ping Eye 2+ 1-iron last year (pictured), and while I never hit this specific 100% mint club, I carried a green dot Ping Eye 2 1-iron for a few years in my late 20’s/early 30’s and would hit it when I needed more accuracy than my 3 wood. I am surely not too cynical to include here that 1-irons have the same loft as your 3 wood (15 degrees) but because the club is shorter, and has less mass, the ball doesn’t travel as far off line.  I see plenty of these in play every season.

Carrying driving irons It’s a great way for our customers to dip their toe into the Twirled Clubs universe by buying something we’ve built or found or going out and doing it themselves. Its one club vs. a set, and happens to look great on the wall if one decides not to play it (please choose to play it though!)

We should include that as a new website, we totally understand that it can be hard to pull the trigger and trust that your high dollar purchase (free shipping or not) will actually happen smoothly. Since it’s just one club, you are obviously going to find some of our least expensive price points. 

Whether its firm turf or windy conditions or both, these clubs generally produce low spin rates and boring trajectories which works wonders on the links. Yes, these shots require practice, but we guarantee you want that 2 iron and not 5 wood when you make that pilgrimage to the GB&I for that first or next golf trip.

Final Reason to have a Driving Irons section – They are really freaking fun to play

You need to put in a bit of practice and learn what you can and can’t do; and no, you don’t have to hit them like Faldo. They can be a crafty auxiliary type club for escapes or a special tool around the greens or something you can just flat out whale on with perhaps limited but HIGHLY rewarding success. A perfect example of a club that is just fun to have in the bag: the Hogan Apex “Redline” 1-iron (pictured) which remains the fastest selling item in the history of Twirled Clubs.

To be clear, Twirled Clubs will sing the praises of these clubs only up to a certain point. 

A beginner should not carry a 1-iron. Golfers with slower swing speeds (Driver swing speeds <95 mph) should probably opt for a club with more mass and more loft at the top of their bag – of course this is true. 

In addition, we aren’t going to try and start a Driving Iron movement.  This is a commercial enterprise and we like being able to afford them for our inventory at the present. Some are already quite expensive and we are not looking to feed any murmuring animal spirits.

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Finally, a note about how we think about putting together iron sets at Twirled Clubs when it comes to 1- and 2-irons and SW’s for that matter. Twirled Clubs tries to offer complete sets when possible and where it makes sense, even if this means adding onto a set after it’s already been posted for sale.

We also like then splitting up that set abs offering as halves after giving folks to purchase full set if that is their pleasure

N.B. Adding clubs that match perfectly to already finished sets after the fact is really expensive. But we are doing it anyway, often, because that is what we would want Twirled Clubs to do if we were customers.

A few examples of where we added to sets:  We added a 1-iron and SW to the Wilson FG-17 set in order to make it 1-SW. We added a PW to the Spalding Top Flite Bird on Balls set to make it 3-PW. We added a 2-iron and SW to the Ben Crenshaw set to make it 2-SW. We added a 1-iron, a 2-iron, and a SW to the Mizuno TP-9 set. We want our members to have complete sets where possible and short of that, we want members to have as many clubs from a given set as possible, I’d that is their goal..

And for balance an example of where we opted out of the complete set offering due to requests from potential buyers: Tommy Armour 845s. The buyer of these clubs will have the option to add on the 2 iron at the average cost per club in the set, but the set is offered as 3-PW.

Conclusion: We have only scratched the surface when it comes to this category, and like always, when you scratch, the itch gets worse.