Here’s how most iron hardware go You walk in, the fitter sets up a launch monitor and you hit five or six different 7-irons. The numbers appear on the screen. One iron looks better than others. You buy that iron – in a complete set – and walk out thinking you’re properly fitted.
For that club? In that attic? You probably were.
The problem is that you play six or seven different irons each round, and the data shows very clearly that the club that wins on the 7-iron doesn’t always win anywhere else in the bag. In some cases, it doesn’t come close.
When we do iron testing at MGS, we do it on the 5-iron, 7-iron and pitching wedge. We looked at proximity to the hole, carry distance and strokes gained at each loft. What we found is that the rankings change, sometimes dramatically, as you move through the group.
Pinning depends on the iron you’re looking for
Pin Proximity is simple to understand. How many feet from the hole does the average shot finish? Lower is better. It’s one of the most direct measurements of iron performance because it combines accuracy and distance control into a single number that every golfer can relate to.
When you graph the proximity between the 5-iron, 7-iron and wedge for each model in the players’ iron test, a clear pattern emerges.
Players irons · Fig. 1
Nail the closeness to the whole group
Walking distance – lower is better. Hover over each point to identify the pattern.
5 iron
7 iron
PW
15-player iron patterns · proximity in feet from the hole · lower = tighter
of Apex Ai 150 ranks 12th in closeness in the 5-iron and 13th in the 7-iron and then moves up to second in pitching wedge. of Title T150 ranks fifth in the 5-iron and second in the 7-iron, then drops to 13th in the PW.
of Tour Edge Exotics CB it is worth calling for the opposite reason. She ranks 13th in the 5-iron, but comes in first in the 7-iron and pitching wedge. This type of twist in the kit is exactly the type of information that reveals a proper fit for many clubs.
The distance problem that no one talks about in an adaptation
The carry distance on a device is usually treated as a single number. But the more interesting question is whether the carry distances in a complete set are consistent and properly spaced. If a leading 7-iron club falls into the middle of the 5-iron field, you may have a gap problem that you would never catch from a single-club test.
of Wilson Staff Model XB drops from ninth to 5-iron to 15 at PW and Ballistic CB climbs from 13 to 5-iron to 8 in PW. In a full-on scenario, they translate into real gaps in your distances that you can’t determine by swinging a club.
Players irons · Fig. 2
Keep your distance in the whole group
Keep it in the yards through the 5-iron, 7-iron and PW. Crossing lines indicate where the carry order is shifted. Hover over each point to identify the pattern.
5 iron
7 iron
PW
15 player iron models · keep it in the yards
Strokes Gained: Where the scoring iron matters most
Strokes Gained is the best scoring metric available for irons. It measures how better or worse a club performs compared to the field average. A higher number is better. Absolute values ​​are less important than the difference between clubs and where in the group that spread is wider.
What the data shows is that the SG spread is wider in the pitching wedge. The point end of the bag, where pin accuracy matters most, is where the biggest performance differences exist between iron designs.
Players irons · Fig. 3
Hits earned across the board
Higher is better. The spread between best and worst is wider in PW – where it matters most. Hover over each point to identify the pattern.
5 iron
7 iron
PW
Iron patterns for 15 players · strokes gained · higher = better
of PING i240 has been a standout in SG records at PW, posting the highest strokes gained by any club in the point iron test. Stay dead last on the field at the 7-iron. A 7-iron setup would give you no reason to prioritize it. PW’s data tells you it may be the best-scoring iron in the test.
The best players in the world know this
If you need any further proof that one iron pattern doesn’t optimally serve every loft in the bag, check out what the world’s best players are doing.
Approximately 70 percent of PGA Tour wins this season have come from players holding combined sets. Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, Collin Morikawa, Cameron Young and Matt Fitzpatrick all play combined groups. All have independently come to the same conclusion: the best iron for your long game is not the best iron for your scoring game.
Morikawa, widely considered the best iron player on Tour, carries three different iron designs. It has a drive iron, a mid iron and a short iron pattern, each chosen for what it does best at that point in the set. Cameron Young plays a T200 4-iron, a T100 5-iron and a prototype model from the 6-iron down. These decisions are the result of testing irons across the range and building accordingly.
Does the same apply to game improvement irons?
While the data above focuses on players’ irons, this is not the only test we perform. As a comparison, when you look at the game improvement bars at the same three clubs, you will see the same issues.
of ONOFF Iron AKA moves from a close 11th at 5-iron to first at 7-iron before finishing third at PW. The Titleist T350 ranks first in the 5-iron, then drops to 11th in the 7-iron. The Stix Perform Series 2.0 sits 12th and 13th among longer clubs, then moves into second place in pitching wedges. The ranking changes in the GI test are just as significant as what we saw in the players’ irons, which is important because game-improvement irons are marketed specifically for durability and forgiveness. The data suggest that stability does not necessarily extend to the full group.
Game improvement bars · Fig. 4
Nail the closeness to the whole group
Same test, game improvement category. Ranking volatility is just as present – in some cases even more so. Hover over each point to identify the pattern.
5 iron
7 iron
PW
14 Game Improvement Patterns · walking proximity · lower = tighter
What an iron fitting should look like
A proper iron setup should test a minimum of three clubs: a long iron, a mid iron, and a point iron. The order of the clubs isn’t consistent across the board, and a 7-iron setup only tells you which iron wins at some point in the middle.
You probably got a good result from your last assembly. The club you bought is probably the best 7-iron for your game. But there’s a reasonable chance that the irons sitting in your bag now leave shots on the table on the long end—where distribution costs you distance and position—and on the point end where proximity to the pin is directly related to your score.
The best players in the world have solved this by building sets that perform across the range. The data says the rest of us should be looking for the same.
