I’ve owned my King Cobra II Steel Hump Shaft irons for about 2-3 golf seasons now and I wanted to share some of my experiences with the clubs with you.

A little background...

I started golfing around 5 years ago and after several outings I was hooked. I grew tired of always renting/borrowing my clubs and splurged on a set of Golden Arc Callaway Big Bertha Knock Offs, largely due to the salesman’s pitch about these being a forgiving club.

After learning the game, developing a reasonable swing and having my handicap settle around 18 to 19, I decided that it may be time to splurge again. Throw in a surprise award from work and I was off shopping...

After much investigation and even playing a round with a couple different sets, I ended up narrowing my choice down to be one of three sets of irons:

• Callaway Big Bertha X12 irons (steel shaft)
• Taylor Made LCG irons (steel shaft)
• King Cobra II with Steel Hump Shaft irons

(By the way, I chose to stick with steel shafts since I had a moderate swing speed and I was also used to the steel shafts of the knock offs.)


The comparisons ...

Now you have to realize golf club choice is very personal and very subjective for each individual.

I figured I would give a brief description of the pros and cons which lead me to my choice of the Cobras, and then expand my experience a bit later. (If you don’t care why I chose these clubs, skip down to Comments on the Cobra below.)

I enjoyed hitting the Callaway Big Berthas, especially considering I had played with the Callaway knock offs for about 2 years, so this was almost like coming home. To keep this brief, whereas I did like these Callaway clubs, I chose not to go with them for 3 reasons:

• they were a tad bit more expensive
• I found when I hit the ball fat (hitting behind the ball) my shot results were not spectacular and I even wrenched myself a bit once or twice (I know I know, stop hitting it fat).
• and the clincher - I found the wide upper portion of the club reflected the sunlight a couple times and actually blinded me. To this day I still hold this against the Big Berthas.

The Taylor Made LCGs were solid, but something about the grips irritated me from the beginning. I did not even venture to the course with this club, and left it at just hitting a few range shots. Generally the clubs were pleasant, but they did not jump up and say “Buy ME!”.

I did however really like the consistency with which I hit the Taylor Made clubs, which was probably why I listed them in the final three.


The selection ...

This brings us to the King Cobra II Steel Hump Shaft irons.

I played a full round with a demo set of the Cobras, and the first thing I noticed was that I began hitting my 3 and 4 irons consistently better than I had with the previous Callaway knock offs.

I also enjoyed the weight and feel of the clubs, which just seemed right for me. The grips were comfortable and aside from the bizarre ‘Hump’ shaft technology (which is supposed to reduce torque and club head rotation upon impact), they are a sleek looking club.

The clincher however was scoring one of my best rounds to that date with the demo clubs. The Cobras were definitely more forgiving (with my tendency to hit a little fat back then) and the ample club face allowed for solid, yet not perfect, off-centre club face hits.


Comments on the Cobra after 2 years...

After my purchase (by mail order from the states) of my brand spanking new King Cobra II irons, I of course had to run out and try them on a golf course.

What an AWFUL first round! That’ll teach me not to go to the range first...the only bright spot was birdie-ing (I always wondered how to spell that!?!) a 148 yard par 3 with my 7 iron (to this day I call this club: Excalibur ).

With a bit of practice however, I have really learned to enjoy the King Cobras IIs.

They are very durable, with the faces showing only what I consider to be reasonable signs of wear. The hosel and the little insignia have also held up well, although they have beaten the crud out of my soft faced putter after I lost the head cover.

The grips are still holding up, although I expect I only be able to squeeze one more season out of them (for a total of three).

Also, one fact I hadn’t really noticed until after going back and playing with my old Callaway knock off clubs one day, was that the King Cobras are very uniformly balanced and constructed. Playing the knock-offs I noticed a sincere difference with the 3-iron, 4-iron and 8-iron in comparison to the other clubs in the set. For the Cobras, I notice the same feeling and balance uniformly through the set. If anything, this may be the single best reason for purchasing a professionally name brand manufactured set of golf clubs for the intermediate golfer.


Summary

Even though I am sure every golf club review includes this next statement, I actually do hit these clubs longer than my previous set.

I attribute this fact as much to improving my swing as to the clubs however, but I can definitely say the Cobra’s forgiveness has let me hit the ball more consistently.

Add quite a few birdies, the odd eagle, a couple flagsticks, and even a blasted cup on a par three, and you can see that the King Cobra II irons have really helped me enjoy (if not ‘love’) this game called golf.



BTW the title to this epinion is an old Indian Proverb if you were wondering ...

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