Recently, Vice Golf –heretofore known for value conscious, competitive ball offerings– has now taken the steps to bring more products to their audience. Irons, putters and wedges now enter the conversation. We’ll not spend too much time here telling you the Vice story. You can find their biography in many places. Suffice it to say, these folks take golf seriously and have done remarkably well with their golf ball line-up. Many different models, colors, and packaging. Stay tuned here for a report on an evaluation we just conducted of the Vice Pro Air ball. Hmm…very interesting. Compelling, even.
Back to the irons: We were anxious to see the new Vice offering. And…?
To begin, these are sweet (technical term!) looking irons. We conducted our proprietary “ten players, ten swings” examination of the VGI02. Spoiler alert? These irons fly to the moon! “Bang….zoom!”, as Ralph Kramden used to say. Are they for everyone? Read more…
As always, we give you our data capture and testing methodology.
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Importantly, our players were fully warmed up with their own clubs, on the range for approximately 15 minutes.
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We believe in outdoors, on-the-grass testing. We were given access to a “course closed on Monday” track. (Grateful.)
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Testing done on the 1st fairway at 1300 hrs, “north county” San Diego, California. Temperature 74f/23c. Wind less than 5 mph. Sunny. No humidity. (San Diego is awesome.)
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Flat lie. 148 yards to front of green; 175 yards to back fringe.
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We use Trackman for data and our eyes for visual. (No better way folks…there just isn’t. You need to see the ball in the air.)
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Same ball for everyone (Callaway Chrome Soft Tour) which was supplied by pals at Callaway along with a dozen each as a gift to the testers, from us.
Player profiles:
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2 men, 28 & 35 and both were “A” players. Handicap less than 5. (Hate them!)
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3 men, 40-50 and each were “B” players. Handicap 12-18
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2 men, 36 & 41 both newer players with handicap 20-22
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3 men, all over 55 (exact ages none of your business! Grey Dogs!) and each a good player with handicap <12. (Our focus audience to be sure.)
Testing procedure:
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Five shots with current gamer 7 iron; we capture these data:
- club speed,
- ball speed,
- carry distance (with visual check),
- spin,
- descent angle,
- left/right dispersion.
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Then five shots with VGI02 same data capture.
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Back to three shots with current gamer.
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Finally, five shots with VGI02
We calculated data for each player from 18 total swings, with ten taken with the VGI02. We removed the two worst and three best OVERALL. Then we built a performance profile for each player with his own club and the new Vice club. (We also at this point look at standard deviation numbers.) We don’t do overall averages because they are meaningless. This all sounds more complicated on paper than in actual practice! Ultimately, we are interested in performance-by-player-profile (swing speed/ball speed!) vs. current gamer club. All we can do is ask: “Is it better, worse, or the same when compared to your current club? And would you play it?”
Results, as anecdotes:
Very good. The two good (and young) lads were at 86-87 mph club speed so…boom! And yes, the better the player the better the performance. (No surprise here.) Carry distance was ~3.68 yds farther as an average at 186 yards for the better player vs gamer at ~182 yards. The dispersion was tight but yielded to left side by 7 yards (yikes). We attribute this as likely due to clubhead offset and the lighter shaft weight and stiffness of the 95gram graphite Mitsubishi shaft. The flight height and descent angle numbers were astonishing! 109 feet and 47.6 degrees. This is where better players “make money”.
With the slower speed players, we saw a carry distance gain-average of 2.8 yards. But the flight height was through the roof even with the slower speed! Fully 11 feet average higher at 84 feet. Descent angle was an average of 43.6 degrees. Some dispersion gains with a small decrease in right-side miss (from their “gamers”.) The all-important higher handicap miss, the “toe strike” , and the resulting distance loss was marginally less than current gamer. Nice!
Conclusion:
What Vice and their merge-partner HIO Labs have done here is noteworthy. The VGI02 is a solid, well-built and stable alternative to any of the hollow-body biggest names. TaylorMade P790 is the closest I’d see as a competitor. Maybe the Mizuno JPX 925 Hot Metal Pro. Titleist T200. Sure, in the direct-to-consumer arena (Takomo, Toura, Haywood, Maltby, Caley etc.) they all have “something” and some of it quite good, but I look at proprietary engineering, build quality and shaft offerings and this is a sweet spot advantage for Vice. But look and examine for yourself! Really.
(nb. We have not tested every club from every manufacturer. So, our informed opinion is weighted by those collaborative partners we enjoy that have tested the models.)
One of the biggest takeaways is these VGI02 irons launch really high. Well weighted. Good balance. Good sole relief (bounce) and the slightly-beveled sole appealed to almost all our test players. The engineering effort they’ve made was well worth the investment. The build quality is an eight from ten. Very good.
All-in-all, we say the Vice VGI02 is a serious option for the moderate swing speed player that is looking to add height and carry to their iron game. The VGI02 can net out a little longer than competitors, and that’s due primarily to that carry gain via the height gain. The lofts are contemporary (meaning slightly juiced) but not excessively so. The bag appeal is high. They’re GREAT looking! Downside: The inability to get custom fit (although Club Champion is ramping up a fitting offering for Vice) may be off-putting to some so you must know your specs well. The shaft naming nomenclature takes a bit of deciphering, but it’s doable and there are a lot of offerings. We suggest initially ordering a 7 iron and testing it.
Finally… money. As to price, look squarely in between direct to consumer pricing and the increasingly costly offerings of legacy brand clubs and Vice is where you’ll land. So, would we recommend them? Yes, we do and not because of the $200-300 savings. That means nothing to us if the performance isn’t good. These are a fine option.
And did I mention they look great?”
Disclaimer.
Vice neither paid for, nor asked us for this review. We work for you folks, our audience. As with every single product review we perform, we send a pre-publication copy to the company to read. If they ask, “Guys, please don’t print it”, we don’t. Why? We are all about advancing the game and finding products that will benefit our followers and subscribers. We have no interest in injuring a company, particularly if they are legitimately trying to be better. We’ve tested a ton of products. You’ll not see all of them here. We assure you that every review we’ve done has done more for the manufacturer (and YOU) than it has us. Take from that what you will.
In my bag (Wes) is a set of Vice’s other iron, the VGI01, a more “bladey” player’s iron. I like them enough to be playing them now. And, yes, I paid for them. And I’ll do a review, soon.