SwingU Review: The Vertical Groove Vipper

What You Need To Know

  • Vertical Groove Golf’s The Vipper features Tour-winning technology now available in a chipping iron.
  • The Vipper eliminates skull shots, aids in alignment during setup and improves contact off of any lie.
  • The Vipper has 39° of loft, sits at a 67° lie angle and is available in a right-handed offering.

Arnold Palmer once said, “Golf is deceptively simple and endlessly complicated.” Truer words may have never been spoken. 

Let’s take a few situations that arise on the golf course, and do a little Q&A segment. 

  • If you want to hit a ball far off the tee, what club do you use? A driver.
  • If you want to get a ball out of the bunker, what club do you use? A sand wedge.
  • If you want to get a ball back in play from a difficult lie, what club do you use? A rescue club.
  • If you want to hit a ball into the cup from the green, what club do you use? A putter.

You get the idea. Our 14-club bag makeup is tailored to specific situations, yet when the question becomes what club do you use to chip around the greens, the answers vary from golfer to golfer, and more often than not, the answer is a club that is typically used for something else.

Why is that? As Arnie said, golf is complicated. But Vertical Groove Golf is trying to make golf simple with their Vipper chipping iron.

In the same way you have a club that you hit 125 yards, you should have one that you lean on when you miss a green. The Vipper is that specialty club that can make a massive difference in your score, shaving strokes off your handicap as soon as you put it in the bag.

First Impressions

When it comes to specialty clubs, whether you notice it or not, at this point, they are unique in their shape and look. You don’t think about how weird a putter or driver or hybrid looks anymore, but when they first came about, these clubs were the exception, not the rule. 

Interestingly, The Vipper doesn’t have that awkward “what is this?” phase. Thrown into a normal golf bag right now, you wouldn’t notice anything out of the ordinary from a design shape standpoint, which eases that barrier to entry, but with the club in your hands, you can see the small intricacies that make it unique.

The Vipper has 39° of loft – between an 8-iron and pitching wedge in most sets – and a 67° upright lie angle. The club’s length accentuates its short-game prowess. Perhaps most noticeable is the 45 vertical microgrooves that Vertical Groove Golf is known for. 

Lastly, The Vipper’s 8° of bounce ensures that the leading edge of the club effortlessly moves under the ball for precision and control from any lie.

Overall, The Vipper is a lovely mix of tradition and innovation. It masquerades as a typical iron so as not to throw off the player, but it has enough unique attributes that it clearly has a purpose.

On The Course

As someone who typically plays short game shots with a 54° or 60° wedge, The Vipper was a complete revelation. You hear pros talk about “windows” when they hit a shot, which is an inside baseball way of saying the trajectory and flight that a ball is expected to take after contact. 

When it came to my chipping, my window is a second story, high ball flight while The Vipper prefers to walk right out the front door, taking off low and running. It’s a cool and useful shot, especially in situations when you have a lot of green to work with. 

The ease of use is readily apparent. Whereas traditional wedges require slight tweaks — ball back in your stance, hip rotation and locked wrists — The Vipper allows you to basically replicate a motion that you already use 30 or so times per round: a simple putting stroke.

The engineering design is brilliant in its simplicity, to reference back to the quote at the beginning of this article. All the player needs to do is make a longer putting stroke, and the ball is off and running without any stress. 

The Takeaway

Like any club in your bag, The Vipper is perfect for certain situations. Sure, you probably don’t want to pull it out when you’re faced with a short-sided shot over a bunker, but for the run-of-the-mill straightforward shots we face most often around the greens, the consistency and reliability The Vipper provides is second to none. 

The Vipper’s design and function make hitting the same shot over and over the expectation, not the exception. Golfers who struggle with consistency around the greens will love having this scoring crutch to lean on, as it does exactly what it’s advertised to do: eliminate skull shots, aid in alignment during setup and improve contact off of any lie.

Only having 14 clubs to choose from makes finding room in your bag a tough decision, but this one is a no-brainer. If you want to score better around the greens, eliminate mistakes and big numbers and shoot your best scores, The Vipper needs to find its way into your bag.