Iron neighbor stair
The 6-iron is usually the liar in the bag
Irons are why the vises exist. A 4-through-PW set is supposed to be a staircase. What we keep finding on Broadway is a missing step hiding inside a 6 or a 5, wearing the same flex letter as the clubs that actually agree with each other.
Why the stair lives or dies on neighbors
Players describe “a set that feels off” and then point at the 8-iron because that is the club they hit on the range. The sheet often shows the 8 as innocent. The 6 is quick. The 5 is slow. The brain stitches those errors into a story about the short irons. Neighbor delta is how we stop that story.
We plot 4 through pitching wedge on one carbon sheet. Eight CPM between neighbors is the hangar window. A jump larger than that gets a red flag, then a conversation: tip, head mass, or a different tube. We do not “average the set” and declare victory.
Hard-step sets and cavity sets get the same vise
Blade, cavity, hollow — the microphone does not care about the marketing silhouette. Head mass does. A heavier 4-iron will read slower at the same clamp height, which is expected. What is not expected is a 4-iron and a 5-iron from the same boxed set sitting 18 cycles apart because one blank was tip-trimmed like a wedge and the other was not. That is a factory souvenir. We write it down.
If you mix a utility iron into the stair, say so. We can tick it. We may refuse to draw a line through it if the length and mass put it in a different family. Honesty on the paper is the product.