Equipment Insider: Stricker's Titleist CB Irons key at Deere

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The tee markers at the John Deere Classic are little tractors, which is appropriate for Steve Stricker, who plowed through the course at TPC Deere Run with a field-leading 31 birdies in 72 holes. Eleven of those came Thursday in a bogey-free 60 that only Paul Goydos could surpass with a 59, golf's version of a no-hitter. We don't talk about it when it's happening, but we talk about nothing else once it's in the books.

Check out more of Adam Barr's equipment coverage at AdamBarrGolfGearGuide.com.

Any discussion of Stricker's near-under-60 dip, and his solid play all week, would have to include his irons, Titleist CBs. Stricker hit more than 80 percent of his greens for the tournament (89 percent Thursday) with this model's blend of old school and high tech thinking. The CBs are cavity back forged clubs, something that less than a generation ago would have been considered an oxymoron. There were forged irons for players and cavity back, game improvement models for the rest of us.

But modern iron design has caught up. The CBs are indeed forged, giving them the better-player look at address. The debate will go on forever about whether forged irons feel better than cast. Devotees of forged irons insist that the smoother, tighter grain structure of the metal leads to that elusive center-of-the-face feel, while cast adherents point to the buttery feel of high-quality castings.

Fact is, neither method guarantees a better feel than the other; metal quality, workmanship, and player preference have a lot to do with it. But if the look is right, there's no need to extract the psychology from the recipe.

And so it is with the CBs, whose chromed look says pro. But the heel-to-toe length is slightly longer than the snub-nose shape some players' irons have. The topline looks a little softer from the hitting position. And here's where old and new school meet: there is that cavity, which allows for some perimeter weighting and therefore, a measure of mishit forgiveness, Titleist says. But inside the cavity is a muscle back construction that puts more mass behind the face, leading to more power through impact, the soft-solid oomph so many good players insist on.

Titelist CB Iron

The CBs have offset, but it's subtle, blended and progressive. From the 3-iron, which has .140'" offset, the face moves forward .01" per club down to the 9-iron at .080", and then to .075" on the pitching wedge.

Speaking of wedges, Stricker was pretty pleased with his wedge play Sunday. He set up birdie at the par-5 10th with a sand wedge from 89 yards to about four feet. At 17, the other par 5 on the inward side, he hit sand wedge again from 91 yards to leave himself a 12-footer for birdie. The sand wedge was a Bob Vokey design Spin Milled model (so was Stricker's 60-degree lob wedge), which is almost like designing the wedge yourself. The happily wedge-obsessed Vokey can often be seen at TOUR events, notebook in hand, working with players to get their preferences and integrate them into his latest creations.

Stricker is playing a Titleist 909D3 driver, a mid-launch, low spin model that has a pro-look head size of 440 cc, 20 cc less than the maximum under the Rules of Golf. Titleist is coming out with the next generation of its drivers, the 910 series, and it has been working with pros on the range to persuade them to upgrade. It remains to be seen whether and when Stricker will decide to change. Titleist engineers say the 910s have a hotter face that could add yardage for just about any kind of player. For more on the 910s, click here to go directly to the story at AdamBarrGolf.com.