Equipment
2011 Ping Forged Anser Iron Review
PING ANSER FORGED IRONS REVIEW LINK FOR MORE PICS AND COMMENTS
Pros-
Hit the sweetheart for feel and forgiveness. Ping launches the “Super Car” of Irons. Forged, milled, exotic material for weighting, CG and MOI. Touch of class with weight ports in the center of the head (typical to Ping) to tune swingweight without moving the CG away from the center of the face. The Anser is a special club for the serious golfer looking to enjoy a unique set of irons not many will see.
Cons-
Made for a golfer that is looking to play with Aston Martin with a touch of forgiveness. A traditional blade player will shy away. The Anser has a wider sole and more forgiveness that will make some look for something more compact.
Bottom Line-
Sign me up brother. Sign this guy up. Normally I like a blade type head but after days of mashing balls I could game this right here and now. If KJ Choi plays G15’s I can game the Anser right?
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Review-
Anser are forged from a single billet of 8620 steel. Spanked 3 times and then ground parting lines. Off to the machining center and milled one at a time. That is part one of a lengthy process that makes these irons very different that the majority of sets today. No cost was spared to build these unique high end technology packed sets.
Looks- The looks of the new 2011 Anser Forged irons are striking. Satin chrome finish with ox blood red and grey accents. Did I say ox blood? Yes I did. Just like the old English Doc Martin boots these irons scream character and have won our hearts. The size of the heads are on the larger side but not to the point I would mark them down because of it. Want a smaller head than play the S-56 irons. Reduced offset on these cavity backs over most of Ping’s irons are a pleasant surprise. The offset of the 5 iron is .17” compared to the i15 with .19”. This translates to a look that will give the better player confidence the fit the eye for some would rather have less offset.
The heel, toe and CTP cavity are all milled using a CNC machining center. This type of costly process drives the cost up but also insures the face thickness is minimal and meets tolerances post forging. By doing this Ping says they will be able to maintain the tightest standards as the forging dies wear over time. The result is visually appealing as you look at the cavity. Jewelry comes to mind as you look and see the machining cutter paths. The face and groves are machined also. At first it is hard to pick up, but after a few hundred balls you can see the milling marks on the face.
Performance/playability- We tested with Ping blade S-56 to see if there was a big difference between the 2 for playability. When the sole get wider as it is in the Anser you gain in performance on miss hits but you also lose some playability. Shaping shots on challenging lies becomes more difficult when you have an additional mass on the sole. After repeated days of demo we loved the sole design and had little negative effect on playability. I was puzzled and expected worst to be honest. Why am I able to nip shots that had bad lies when you would think the fatter sole would be having more of an effect on the hit? Looking deeper you can see it in the bounce for one. The bounce of the Anser 5 iron is -1.0*. I said negative 1 degree! Compare that to the blade s-56 5 iron with a bounce of +2.0 degrees. That makes a big difference when that head is screaming by at 85 mph and you have to go down after a ball with a bad lie. Great blend of forgiveness and playability here.
Other performance features are a bunch of very technical advanced engineering design enhancements. Some features I understand and some I don’t and will probably never quite grasp. Removing metal post forging via CNC machining allowed Ping to add more moment of inertia (MOI) in 2 directions. Left to right and high to low on the face for mishit in the two ways we can miss it. They added a dual cavity and covered the lower on with a high tech tungsten nickel sole. They say it softens the feel and positions the CG for higher launching shots. I didn’t notice higher shots as much. What I saw was a good solid trajectory.
Feel- I had the Anser and the s-56 in dynamic gold s300 and they were both at D2. Same setup and there were mild differences in trajectory and to be honest I didn’t see the difference. The feel was different between the two. S-56 are cast and the Anser are forged using a single billet of 8620. The forged Anser had a more muted feel and trying to put feel in words is like trying to write about the taste differences in food or wine. I will try. The Anser felt as if the event of the hit took longer than the s-56. Meaning at impact the feeling of the impact took longer to experience than the event of the s56. Another way to say it was the mid and bass ranges were accentuated and the S-56 had more mid and treble. Hope that covered it. LOL. Seriously the feel of the 2 were close but the Ansers are softer and more muted than the s-56. The same type of feel can be experienced hitting a Titleist AP-2 iron. While you don’t get that quick jump of solid soft feel you might experience through a true muscle back you do get a great longer more muted feel in the Anser. It is like you keep the ball of the face for a millisecond more than another Ping iron. Felt as if I was compressing the ball more and longer than a cast club. No click and more of a thud.
Overall bottom line- Years of hearing Ping fans desire for a forging and here it is. True jewelry and packed with technology. Looking for an option that isn’t a blade you need to put this model on the top of your list to consider. I am one lucky tester to be able to hit these side by side with Ping cast options. If you are serious about the game and want to have irons that very few will ever see then the Anser is the way to go. Softest Ping iron I have ever hit and looks to kill.
Here are a bunch of cool pics…
PING ANSER FORGED IRONS REVIEW LINK FOR MORE PICS AND COMMENTS
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- Kevin Tway what’s in the bag accurate as of the Wells Fargo Championship. More photos from the event here.
Driver: Ping G430 LST (10.5 degrees)
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus Black 6 X
3-wood: TaylorMade Stealth 2 (15 degrees)
Shaft: Mitsubishi Diamana D+ 80 TX
5-wood: TaylorMade Stealth 2 (18 degrees)
Shaft: Mitsubishi Diamana D+ 90 TX
Irons: Wilson Staff Utility (2), Titleist T100 (4-9)
Shafts: Mitsubishi MMT 100 TX (2), True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue X100 (4-9)
Wedges: Titleist Vokey Design SM10 (48-10F @47, 52-12F @51, 56-14F), SM7 (60-10S)
Shafts: True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue X100 (48-56), True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue S400 (60)
Putter: Scotty Cameron T-5 Proto
Grip: Scotty Cameron Black Baby T
Grips: Golf Pride Tour Velvet Plus4
More photos of Kevin Tway’s WITB in the forums.
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Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from a piece our Andrew Tursky originally wrote for PGATour.com’s Equipment Report. Head over there for the full article.
The timing of Lowry’s putter changeup was curious: Was he just using a Spider putter because he was paired with McIlroy, who’s been using a Spider Tour X head throughout 2024? Was Lowry just being festive because it’s the Zurich Classic, and he wanted to match his teammate? Did McIlroy let Lowry try his putter, and he liked it so much he actually switched into it?
Well, as it turns out, McIlroy’s only influence was inspiring Lowry to make more putts.
When asked if McIlroy had an influence on the putter switch, Lowry had this to say: “No, it’s actually a different putter than what he uses. Maybe there was more pressure there because I needed to hole some more putts if we wanted to win,” he said with a laugh.
To Lowry’s point, McIlroy plays the Tour X model, whereas Lowry switched into the Tour Z model, which has a sleeker shape in comparison, and the two sole weights of the club are more towards the face.
Lowry’s Spider Tour Z has a white True Path Alignment channel on the crown of his putter, which is reminiscent of Lowry’s former 2-ball designs, thus helping to provide a comfort factor despite the departure from his norm. Instead of a double-bend hosel, which Lowry used in his 2-ball putters, his new Spider Tour Z is designed with a short slant neck.
“I’ve been struggling on the greens, and I just needed something with a fresh look,” Lowry told GolfWRX.com on Wednesday at the 2024 Wells Fargo Championship. “It has a different neck on it, as well, so it moves a bit differently, but it’s similar. It has a white line on the back of it [like my 2-ball], and it’s a mallet style. So it’s not too drastic of a change.
“I just picked it up on the putting green and I liked the look of it, so I was like, ‘Let’s give it a go.’”
Read the rest of the piece over at PGATour.com.
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Equipment
Webb Simpson equipment Q&A: Titleist’s new 2-wood, 680 blade irons, and switching to a broomstick Jailbird
With seven career wins on the PGA Tour, including a U.S. Open victory, Webb Simpson is a certified veteran on the course. But he’s also a certified veteran in the equipment world, too. He’s a gearhead who truly knows his stuff, and he’s even worked closely with Titleist on making his own custom 682.WS irons.
On Wednesday at the 2024 Wells Fargo Championship, I caught up with Simpson to hear about his experience with Titleist’s new prototype 2-wood, how Titleist’s 680 Forged irons from 2003 ended up back in his bag, and why he’s switching into an Odyssey Ai-One Jailbird Cruiser broomstick putter this week for the first time.
Click here to read our full story about Simpson’s putter switch on PGATOUR.com’s Equipment Report, or continue reading below for my full Q&A with Simpson at Quail Hollow Club on Wednesday.
See Webb Simpson’s full WITB from the 2024 Wells Fargo Championship here
GolfWRX: It seems like you’ve been a little all over the place with your irons in the past six months or so, and now going back to the 680’s. Is that just a comfort thing? What’s been going on with the irons?
Webb Simpson: Titleist has been so great at working with me, and R&D, on trying to get an iron that kind of modernizes the 680. And so the 682.WS took the T100 grooves, but kinda took the look and the bulk and the build of the 680’s into one club. They’re beautiful, and awesome looking. I just never hit them that well for a consistent period of time. It was probably me, but then I went to T100’s and loved them. I loved the spin, the trajectory, the yardage, but again, I never went on good runs. Going through the ground, I couldn’t feel the club as well as with the blade. So last week, I’m like, ‘Alright. I’m gonna go back more for…comfort, and see if I can get on a nice little run of ball striking.’
So that’s why I went back.
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OK, that makes sense. I know you had done some 2-wood testing recently. Is that in the bag right now?
It’s like day-by-day. I used it at Hilton Head every day. Valero, I used it one round. And this week, me and my caddie will do the book every morning, and if it’s a day where we think we need it, we’ll just put it in and take the 3-wood out. I love it because it’s a super simple swap. Like, it doesn’t really change much.
Yeah, can you tell me about that club? I mean, we don’t really know anything about it yet. You know? I haven’t hit it or anything, obviously.
It has grooves like a 3-wood. Spin is perfect. And it’s honestly, like, everything is in the middle of a 3-wood and driver number. Trajectory, spin, carry, all of it. So, a Hilton Head golf course is almost too easy to talk about because, you know, there, so many holes are driver 3-wood.
Valero, our thinking was we had two par-5’s into the wind, and we knew that it would take two great shots to get there in two. So instead of hitting driver-driver, we just put it in. And I used it on those holes.
Hilton was a little easier because it was off-the-tee kind of questions. But Colonial will be a golf course where, you know, there’s a lot of driver or 3-woods. It’s kind of like a backup putter or driver for me now. I’ll bring it to every tournament.
So it’s, like, in your locker right now, probably?
Well, it would be. It’s in my house [because Webb lives near by Quail Hollow Club, and is a member at the course.] It’s in the garage.
Oh, yeah, that’s right. Do you know what holes you might use it out here if it goes in play?
Potentially 15, depending on the wind. Second shot on 10. Could be 14 off the tee. The chances here are pretty low (that he’ll use the 2-wood). But, like, Greensboro would be an awesome club all day. I’m trying to think of any other golf courses.
There’s plenty that it’ll be a nice weapon to have.
It’s interesting, the wave of 2-woods and mini drivers. Like, it’s just really taken off on Tour, and all the companies have seemed to embrace it.
Yeah. The thing I had to learn, it took me, like, at least a week to learn about it is you gotta tee it up lower than you think. I kept teeing it up too high. You need it low, like barely higher than a 3-wood. And that was where I got optimal spin and carry. If you tee it up too high, you just don’t get as much spin and lose distance, I don’t know if that’s just a mini driver thing.
And you obviously have a Jailbird putter this week. What spurred that on?
Inconsistent putting. I’m stubborn in a lot of ways when it comes to my equipment, but I have to be open minded – I just hadn’t putted consistently well in a while. And I’m like, ‘Man, I feel my ball-striking coming along. Like I feel better; for real, better.’
If I can just get something in my hands that I’m consistent with. Being on Tour, you see it every year, guys get on little runs. I can put together four to five tournaments where I’m all the sudden back in the majors, or in the FedExCup Playoffs. You can turn things around quick out here. I’m like, ‘Man, whatever’s going to get me there, great.’
My caddie, David Cook, caddied for Akshay at the Houston Open and he putted beautifully. Then, I watched Akshay on TV at Valero, and he putted beautifully. And, I’m like, ‘I’m just going to try it.’
I’ve never tried it for more than a putt or two, and I just ordered what Akshay uses. It was pretty awkward at first, but the more I used it, the more I’m like, ‘Man, it’s pretty easy.’ And a buddy of mine who’s a rep out here, John Tyler Griffin, he helped me with some setup stuff. And he said at Hilton Head, he wasn’t putting well, then tried it, and now he makes everything. He was very confident. So I’m like, ‘Alright, I’ll try it.’”
And you’re going with it this week?
Hundred percent.
Alright, I love it. Thank you, I always love talking gear with you. Play well this week.
Thanks, man.
See Webb Simpson’s full WITB from the 2024 Wells Fargo Championship here
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Clipper
Mar 15, 2012 at 7:06 am
How about Anser distance compared to the g-15?