“Look, the Idea Pro A12s offer outstanding feel. The MB2s offer even better feel.  One tester said they are the best feeling iron he’s ever swung.  Another said he’d replace his Titleist AP2’s with the Adams MB2’s in a heartbeat.  And tester Mark, summed up my feelings on these irons perfectly when he said, “If you’re man enough, bag them!”

Adams Idea MB 2 Irons

(Written By: GolfSpy T) If you think we’ve been reviewing a lot of Adams gear lately you’d be right. With their mid-summer, fall, and early Spring 2012 releases it’s safe to assume that the team at Adams is no longer satisfied with producing the #1 hybrids on tour. Of course generally regarded as producing the best of anything is something to be proud of, but in the case of Adams even we think they’re selling themselves a bit short.

As part of what I think is an initiative designed to make you think a bit differently about Adams, their team has gone out of their way to put not just some, but pretty much all of their latest equipment in our hands for testing. They want it reviewed by MyGolfSpy, because they believe they’re making some of best performing (and best looking) equipment on the market today.

While I’m admittedly reticent to feature the same company so often, the fact of the matter is nearly every piece of Adams gear I’ve handed my testers in the last 2 years has been extremely well received. So much so that if a couple of months go by without an Adams test, somebody always asks when we’re getting more Adams in. Yeah…it really is that popular.

Tell Us What You Think!

• Would you consider changing your irons out for the Adams MB2’s?
• Do you think Adams Golf has improved their iron line-up over the past couple seasons?
• If you worked for Adams what would you keep or change about this design?

The Marketing Angle

Like the Idea Pro A12 irons we reviewed a few weeks back, Adams designed the MB2s with better players in mind. It’s fair to say that these were actually designed with the best players in mind. The design is pure muscleback and has a blade on blade appearance reminiscent of some of the best Ben Hogan designs. Each iron features brass weight plugs designed to lower the center of gravity. Now normally when we hear lower CG, the talking points are always about forgiveness and getting the ball in the air. In this case, Adams says the weight plugs help promote shot shaping and control.

The MB2s feature a raw finish that will rust over time (actually we’ve found they rust very quickly). Some guys love a little rust, for others it’s a deal breaker. Quite frankly, I don’t have an opinion either way, but it is important you know what you’re buying. Finally, a fact perhaps only interesting to me; the Idea MB2 is the only iron set in the Adams 2012 lineup that includes a 3 iron as part of the set make up.

How We Tested

To find out more about how we test our irons: CLICK HERE

Radius-Based Scoring

For more information on our “Radius Based Scoring System”: CLICK HERE

Material Composition: 8620 Carbon Steel (forged)

For testing purposes our sets consisted of 3-PW with stock KBS Tour Black Nickel shafts. Adams also offers Mitsubishi JAVLN shafts as a stock graphite option. Is they often do, Adams has selected GolfPride’s New Decade Multi-Compound as the stock grip.

PERFORMANCE SCORING

Accuracy

Our accuracy results are somewhat curious. Under our scoring system, the MB2s actually outperformed the Idea Pro A12s (which is saying something) Now I’m not one to try and explain away a very good score, but a couple of points need to be made in order to put the score in its proper context. First, because this is a true players iron, our testing pool consisted (on average) of slightly better players. What we also observed is that the distance lost on the worst of shots was greater than with most any other iron we’ve tested. That said, we also found that the best of the shots produced better results in comparison.

Most notable, the accuracy gap between our lowest and highest handicap players was greater than we normally see. All of this suggests that in the right hands the MB2 is an absolute weapon! Although, typical of many similar style designs in the wrong hands, it could very well be a liability.

MGS Accuracy Score: 92.58

Consistency

Even with the occasional mis-hit (more often than not a ball that crept up a little high on the face), our golfers did a reasonably good job of keeping their dispersion tight. I’ve pointed out before that under our current formula consistency numbers often creep in to the 97 range. With that in mind, understand that 94 is within the range of average. Average is good, but average for a true blade is really, really good. The point is, if you miss the sweet spot expect your distance to suffer, but when you hit it good with the MB2s you can expect some truly exceptional shots.

MGS Consistency Score: 94.23

Overall Performance

While I would probably support any argument that playing blades will ultimately make you a better player, in the short term they’re probably going to cost most golfers a stroke or two over the course of a round. That said, given the precision shots that our better golfers hit, it’s not unreasonable to think that if you’ve got the consistency to make center of the face contact on most swings, the Adams MB2 might just save you a stroke or two. What we can say with absolute certainty is that all 6 of our performance testers really enjoyed getting their swings in.

MGS OVERALL PERFORMANCE SCORE: 92.93

SUBJECTIVE SCORING

Looks

I’ve covered this before, but at the risk of repeating myself…the secret to creating an iron that the majority of golfers will love the looks of is fairly simple. Either make a blade, or make it black. One of these days we’re going to get a black blade in for testing and my spreadsheet is going to explode. As it turns out, however; a blade with a raw finish goes over pretty damn well too. For the purposes of full disclosure, the majority of our tests were conducted before the oil coating wore off and the blades began to rust. Still, those who hit the clubs that were already showing rust thought they looked really cool as well.

One other detail that drew accolades from our testers is the KBS Black Nickel shaft. It looks absolutely killer when paired with the MB2 heads, however; although we haven’t witnessed it for ourselves, we’re hearing that the finish on the shafts has a tendency to wear and flake over time. Of course, given how easily the MB2s rust, if true, the wear on the shafts might actually add something to the overall appearance.

MGS Looks Score: 98.85

Feel

Look, the Idea Pro A12s offer outstanding feel. The MB2s offer even better feel. Tester after tester raved about the feel, and commented that it was something they probably wouldn’t have expected from Adams. One tester told us the MB2 is nothing less than the best feeling iron he’s ever swung (this is a guy who has tested both Miura and Mizuno for us), so while I might not personally make that leap, the feedback from our testers suggests that based on feel alone Adams belongs in the conversation with those two other brands I just mentioned.

MGS Feel Score: 95.85

Perceived Distance

No real shocker here. On center struck balls, distance was right in line with most anything else from the “not completely jacked up” category. I found myself hitting the same iron (the 9) that I hit with the Pro A12s (and the majority of other irons we’ve tested). The same was largely true for the rest of our testers, which suggests that if you’re looking to draw an apples to apples comparison, the best I can offer is that distance is average – don’t expect any huge gains.  That is not a bad thing.

Of course, our testers also noticed that there was some distance loss when they missed the sweet spot. While we’re not talking an obscene penalty, it’s not surprising that losses were larger than with the GI and super GI irons we’ve tested.

If you’re one of those guys hoping to score huge distance gains from an iron, this isn’t the club for you, in fact, you probably shouldn’t be looking at blades at all.

Tester Perceived Distance Score: 84.21

Perceived Accuracy

Testers noted that when they made good contact the ball flew where they wanted it to. When they didn’t, well, the ball sometimes did its own thing (often falling short of the target). This is of course true of most any iron (PING K15s, Cobra S3s as notable exceptions). Solidly struck balls produced some of the best results we’ve seen with any iron. This misses…well…the results weren’t nearly as good, but I’d argue they were still better than one might expect from what’s clearly a better player’s iron.

Tester Perceived Accuracy Score:  86.00

Perceived Forgiveness

Two of our testers rated the Adams MB2 irons extremely high for forgiveness. Dan, one of our low handicap players, scored them a 9 out of 10 and commented that he’d replace his AP2 with the MB2’s in a heartbeat. Nick, who currently games a 2-year old set of Nike cavity backs, did the same. The majority of our remaining testers scored the MBs’2 in the slightly below average range for forgiveness, which is, in my mind, a fair assessment.

Tester Perceived Forgiveness Score: 84.21

Likelihood of Purchase

“Likelihood of Purchase” (aka: LOP) is often where our testers stop being nice, and start saying exactly what’s on their mind. If you really want to know exactly how a set of irons was received by our testers (regardless of the actual performance), look no further than this number. Sometimes we get a high performing club with LOP scores in the 70s, and sometimes we see a mediocre performing club post a LOP score in the high 80s or low 90s (score one for paint).

In the case of the MB2s, LOP is extremely consistent with both our performance and subjective portions of this review. The data suggests our testers should love the clubs (although clearly some more than others), and everything in the subjective portion backs up fact with opinion. I can’t say I’m truly surprised that more than one of testers wants the MB2s in his bag like yesterday.

Tester Likelihood of Purchase: 93.17

Realistically at least 3 of our testers would probably be making a mistake by putting the Idea Pro MB2s in their bags. Of course, it’s the guys who could probably put these to good use that not only put up the best performance numbers, but also rated them highly across the board in our subjective categories. One of our higher handicap golfers, Mark summed up my feelings on these irons perfectly when he said, “If you’re man enough, bag them!”.

TOTAL SUBJECTIVE SCORE: 89.83

CONCLUSION

Though the numbers would suggest the Adams MB2 is an outstanding iron, and among the best we’ve ever tested, you definitely need to make sure you understand you’re game and what you’re hoping to achieve before you decide to put the MB2s in your bag. The majority of our testers, and I would think the majority of our readers would probably be better served with the Idea Pro A12s. There’s definitely more forgiveness to be had there, and while they won’t give you a free pass, they won’t cost you quite as much distance when you catch it out on the toe, or a couple grooves higher than you might have liked.

If you’re one of those guys who consistently makes center of the face contacts, hits greens, and penciling in the type of score cards you’d be proud to hand on your mamma’s fridge, you’d be out of your mind not to take a serious look at the Adams Idea Pro MB2s, assuming you don’t mind a little rust.

MGS TOTAL SCORE: 92.41

MORE PHOTOS!

Want to see additional pictures of the Adams MB2 Irons, checkout the Adams MB2 Iron – Photo Gallery.

Tell Us What You Think!

• Would you consider changing your irons out for the Adams MB2’s?
• Do you think Adams Golf has improved their iron line-up over the past couple seasons?
• If you worked for Adams what would you keep or change about this design?

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