Muscle Back Blades Are Swing-Improvement Irons

Almost a decade ago I wrote this post about how I changed my irons from so-called "game-improvement" cavity back irons to muscle back blade irons. Basically, my golf swing had worsened while playing cavity back irons and became better with muscle back blades. I've concluded that "game-improvement" is clearly a marketing coined term designed to sell clubs to golfers. It's not a stretch for the consumer to assume that such clubs will improve their golf swing. Heck, that's what I thought at first. But in reality, "game-improvement" clubs are designed to simply improve the results of a bad golf swing. That's a big difference.

Now that I've played with blades for virtually the last decade, I believe that they are the best type of irons to improve your golf swing. I recently came across this promo video for the new Mizuno MP-4 forged muscle back irons where PGA Tour Pro Charles Howell III expresses a similar sentiment at the 4:47 mark:



Howell explains:

If my son decides he wants to play golf...I would start him off in a set like this [muscle back blade irons]. You can tell right away when you hit is solid. You can tell right away how to draw the ball [and] fade the ball. This iron right here, if you play golf with this every day, you'll actually get better. It will make you a better player.

So, if cavity back irons are the "game-improvement" irons, then muscle back blades are the "swing-improvement" irons!

Match Play Upsets Ruin The NCAA Championship

Match play is an exciting golf scoring format. It turns golf into a mono y mono contest where the winner is determined solely by the number of holes won. There's no bonus for the margin of victory on each hole, just one point is awarded for each hole won. As a result, it is "the great equalizer" and has proven to produce far more upsets than the standard stroke play format. In basketball, the NCAA Basketball Championship is known as "March Madness" due to the crazy number of unexpected upsets. But it can't hold a candle to match play golf. The Wall Street Journal compared the winning percentages of higher seeds in golf's WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship to March Madness. They found that the higher seed in basketball won 72% of the time compared to only 60% in golf.

So it's fairly obvious that the match play format sacrifices a bit of fairness for excitement and suspense. It's rare that the player hoisting a match play trophy is truly the best golfer in the field. Perhaps that's the reason there's only one match play tournament on the PGA Tour. But it also makes you wonder why the NCAA added match play to the Men's Golf Championship in 2009. Isn't this the final tournament of the year with the sole purpose of identifying the best team in college golf?

The tournament's current format is 54 holes of stroke-play followed by a match play playoff among the top 8 teams. As one might predict, the format is producing unpredictable results. Of the five tournaments so far, four of the #1 ranked golf teams have been upset. But this year's 2013 NCAA Championship featured the biggest upset of them all. Cal was the best college golf team this year and perhaps all-time. Just check out these fun facts:

• After winning its first two events, the team was ranked #1 and held that spot all season.
• The team set a modern-era NCAA record with 12 victories in 14 stroke-play events.
• Every starter won at least one individual title this season.
• Each starter finished the season with stroke-play averages under 71.00
• The starters finished the season ranked individually #1, 11, 12, 13, and 19 by Golfweek.
• Three starters were first-team Ping All-Americans, the other two are on the second-team.
• The head coach, Steve Desimone, was named national coach of the year for the last two years.

So it was no surprise that Cal crushed the competition in the 54-hole stroke-play portion of the 2013 NCAA Championship by six shots. Entering the match-play portion seeded #1, it was also no surprise that they would be upset by lowly Illinois, the #20 ranked team in the nation.

If this doesn't cast a bright spot light on the deficiencies of the match-play format, nothing will. It's simply not fair for a team that has proven all season it is the best by a wide margin to have it all come undone over several hours of random heads-up golf. Under a conventional 72-hole stroke-play format, Cal would have rightfully run away with the title. Every competitive golfer knows that stroke-play is the best overall test of golf. Heck, it worked for the NCAA Championship for the 44-years prior to 2009. It's clear that the NCAA's effort to spice things up with match-play has been a failure and diminishes the legitimacy of the title. After Illinois upset Cal, Desimone said, “All today does is demonstrate again that this is not the best way to crown the national champion.” It's just a shame that arguably the best college golf team of all-time will fade into obscurity due to a poorly conceived championship format. In this regard, match-play is truly upsetting.

Sergio Garcia Needs a Pacifier

When a 19 year-old Sergio Garcia first burst onto the worldwide golf stage at the 1999 PGA Championship, many thought that this young upstart could be one of the "young guns" to finally challenge Tiger Woods for many years to come. Alas, he never panned out to be the rival to Tiger that many had hoped. In fact, most view his career to date as a disappointment. While he has won 20 tournaments worldwide, none have been majors. A balky putter and a shaky mental game are the major reasons why Sergio hasn't occupied a place in the game's elite echelon. But what's most disappointing to me about Sergio is not his career but the manner that he has carried himself over his career. Sergio has been one of those guys who always finds someone else to blame for their woes. It was easy to dismiss this as immaturity early in his career, but now at age 33, it no longer holds water.

At the 2013 Players Championship Sergio complained that Tiger interrupted his back-swing. It was a curious complaint, to say the least, because Tiger was out of view clear across the other side of the course surrounded by a sea of people and could not have intentionally timed an interruption. Sergio's complaint would carry some merit if Tiger had swung out of sequence or during Sergio's swing. But that didn't happen. It seems the unforgivable offense that Tiger seems to have committed in the eyes of Sergio is that he pulled a club from his bag. The crowd reacted with approval at the club Tiger pulled and this interrupted Sergio. If it seems ridiculous to be upset at a playing partner for pulling a club during your swing, you are not alone. I already called a wahmbulance.

But this incident didn't die as it normally should. Instead, Sergio used it as a springboard to vent his frustration at the World's #1. He clearly doesn't like Tiger and made it known that his main beef is over honesty. In response to Tiger's explanation of the incident, Sergio replied, "That's fine. At least I'm true to myself. I know what I'm doing, and he can do whatever he wants." A week later Sergio said, "He called me a whiner. That's probably right. It's also probably the first thing he's told you guys that's true in 15 years. I know what he is like. You guys are finding out."

Like him or not, Sergio isn't afraid to speak his mind. Many applauded Sergio for calling out the false persona known as Tiger Woods. But wasn't that already revealed after the 2009 Thanksgiving Day Massacre? Regardless, Sergio's praise and goodwill among the Tiger-haters quickly evaporated after he was asked if he planned to have dinner with Woods at the U.S. Open. Sergio joked, "We will have him round every night. We will serve fried chicken." Yup, he went there and at that moment Garcia went too far. Sergio apologized for his comment explaining that "in no way was the comment meant in a racist manner." But such a comment is clearly racist. How do you use a racist comment not meant in a racist manner? I find it highly suspect that Sergio conjured up "fried chicken" just randomly. It's clear that Sergio was trying to make a humorous comment by using a racial stereotype. If Sergio were really true to himself, as he has claimed, he would own up to his action and apologize for making a racist comment instead of claiming the comment wasn't racist. Ironically, it is now Sergio's honesty that is put into question.

Improving Golf and Other Sports

I love virtually all sports. However, no sport is perfect and over the years I’ve thought of some ideas to improve specific sports:

In baseball, reduce the number of fielders by one. I find that baseball can be excruciatingly boring. I attribute it to an imbalance between offense and defense. In my opinion, there are just too many fielders. Simply reducing the number of fielders by one would open up the game and introduce much more strategy. For instance, do you take out an infielder or an outfielder? If you only have 2 outfielders, do you position them favoring the left field or the right field? These are decisions that will really make baseball managers earn their keep.

In basketball, make shooting fouls optional. If a team is fouled and they are awarded free throws, they should have the option to instead take the ball out of bounds. This would avoid the common situation at the end of games where teams use fouling as a weapon and the game turns into a free throw shooting contest. Can you think of another sport where teams intentionally commit penalties? Allowing teams to inbound the ball instead of shooting free throws would eliminate the ridiculous and embarrassing “Hack a Shaq” strategy.

In football, make the extra point kick attempt a little more difficult. In its current state, it amounts to little more than a gimmie. How about extending the length of an extra point attempt by 10 yards? It would make the game much more interesting and dramatic.

When it comes to golf, there's almost too many things that I'd like to change. But most of all, I find it tremendously unfair that you must play the ball as it lies even if it happens to land in a sand-filled divot. How many times have you celebrated a great drive in the middle of the fairway only to have it replaced with disappointment from a random divot? The fairway is supposed to reward you for a quality shot by providing the best lie for your next shot. I most certainly would rather play out of the first cut of rough than a mini-sand bunker of a divot. I say that this is ground under repair and that you should get a free drop. If I really had it my way, I'd take it one step further and rule that all players are allowed to lift, clean, and place balls that land in the fairway. If all players are allowed to do this, isn't it fair for all? After all, isn't that why they call it the "fairway"?