The clubs that would serve me best — - that is, pro­vid­ing the max­i­mum dis­tance yet with the opti­mal tra­jec­tory to hit and stop on a green, and the tight­est down­range dis­per­sal pat­tern — - would have ultra-light stiff-flex True Tem­per M-80 shafts about a half-inch longer than stan­dard. But­ler also rec­om­mended a mid-sized Iomic grip with an extra layer of wrap­ping under my left hand.  And to my sur­prise, he said Miura’s lim­ited edi­tion Series 1957 forged blades per­formed best for my par­tic­u­lar swing.

These clubs are 15 per­cent smaller than Miura’s reg­u­lar muscle-backed Tour­na­ment Blades, and look noth­ing like the game-improvement cavity-backs that most retail­ers would try to sell to a fel­low with an index that floats between 9 and 13. But­ler, how­ever, insisted that once he assem­bled and adjust these clubs, “You’ll hit them bet­ter than any club you’ve ever played.”

From the City of Samu­rai Swords

Well, he was right.  I’ve now had these clubs for three weeks and after putting in a few rounds with what are also known as Baby Blades, I’m mak­ing crisper con­tact on the ball far more often than nor­mal, have hit my 110-yard club 130 yards — - which means I’ve got to start mak­ing adjust­ments — - and have found the Miura wedges the most deadly accu­rate sticks in the bag.  In fact, the on-course per­for­mance of these clubs con­firms what Kat­suhiro Miura said when he intro­duced the Series 1957 in 2009.

“I have a spe­cial pride in this club,” he explained, “because it’s so easy to hit.”  To Miura’s way of think­ing, the smaller size actu­ally makes it eas­ier to square up the face at impact.  More­over the cor­ners near the heel and toe are ground upward slightly, which allows the head to more eas­ily cut through the turf.  What’s more, while the forg­ings are soft, the face of the Series 1957 is denser than any other Miura iron, which puts punch into the impact and sends the ball on an aggres­sively angled flight.

“I’m always look­ing for new ways to help the recre­ational player hit the ball more eas­ily,” says Miura, whose small fac­tory is in the Japan­ese city of Himeji, which for cen­turies was the cen­ter for supe­rior samu­rai sword forg­ings. “With this design, you really just have to put your swing on it. In a way, we’ve done the think­ing for you, so you can just play and enjoy.”

Indeed, a set of brand-name off-the-shelf irons verses a per­fectly bal­anced Miura care­fully assem­bled by a fit­ter like David But­ler is like the dif­fer­ence between an upright honky-tonk piano and a full-sized Stein­way.  There is a touch and feed­back that one sim­ply doesn’t get from most other clubs, and given the mild and soft steel it’s not painful like a mishit with a base­ball bat.  My col­league David Gould, who plays Miura Pass­ing Point 9003 irons, goes down­right poetic over his clubs, which were assem­bled by Frank Viola, a Boston-area mas­ter fit­ter.  Like oth­ers who use Miura, he sees each club as a work of art.

The K Wedge and Gim­mie One-Putts

The sweet design of Miura’s K Wedge.

Just as Stein­way puts more effort and qual­ity mate­ri­als into their pianos than do most com­pa­nies, so does Miura, But­ler explains.   “When the met­als used by most man­u­fac­tur­ers are molten, impu­ri­ties rise up to the top, but are usu­ally just folded back into what turns into a bar that’s used for heads,” explains But­ler.  “Miura takes out that top layer with the impu­ri­ties, and uses only the best low-carbon pre­mium steel.”  That’s what makes the metal dense and soft at the same time, and it’s why so many play­ers use the word “but­ter” as an excla­ma­tion after hit­ting a Miura iron or wedge.

Miura clubs are mar­keted only through cus­tomer club fit­ters.  While the com­pany isn’t well-known out­side of the inside golf world, if you will, it’s a fact that a lot of play­ers besides K.J. Choi are using them, albeit stamped with another company’s logo. Play­ers who are look­ing for the best, Mr. Miura often says, will find him.

The same is true for a great club fit­ter.  But­ler, in fact, is increas­ingly mak­ing his oper­a­tion larger and more sophis­ti­cated.  He now rents two spaces in the same Prince­ton by the Sea shop­ping mall, one devoted to research and devel­op­ment and the other to assem­bling clubs and sell­ing Miura gear retail.  For now, in fact, But­ler has the only retail Miura oper­a­tion in the world, and brings in Teach­ing Pro Tracy Nichols three days a week, to help swings get closer in qual­ity to the clubs.

Another friend who plays Miura that are assem­bled by But­ler, Wayne Freed­man, pre­dicted that hit­ting one custom-made for me would be like my first taste of choco­late, yet another food metaphor.  But that’s actu­ally how I feel about my favorite club in the set, the K wedge, which comes only in a 56-degree version.While Miura offers sev­eral dif­fer­ent mod­els and grins in the wedges — - and the so-called Y wedges in 51 and 60 degrees per­form as well as any brand I’ve ever use — - the K is decid­edly dif­fer­ent in look.  It’s sole is fluted, appear­ing as if three finger-tips or knuck­les have made an impres­sion.  The chan­nels osten­si­bly reduce resis­tance against the wedge in wet sand and thick rough, reduc­ing the chance of catch­ing the ball heavy.  As with the Baby Blades the bal­ance on the K wedge is per­fect, lead­ing to effort­less swings near the green and over the past three rounds, and an obvi­ously grow­ing num­ber of gim­mie one-puts — - thanks to the genius and tech­ni­cal exper­tise of Mr. Miura and Doc­tor Grip.