Are golf club manufacturers creating a new category of irons? | Fully equipped

whether 2024 was the year of the driverthen we are pretty confident saying that 2025 was the year of iron.

From publications such as Titleist’s new 2025 T Series, TaylorMade’s fifth generation P790 and stable operation of P770 and P7CB, i240 of PingMizuno’s JPX 925 and Pro S-3, Callaway’s X Forged and Ai150, Srixon’s ZXi lineup and Cobra’s full 3DP tour retail releasethe market has never been so deep.

On this week’s episode of GOLF’s Fully Equipped, co-hosts Johnny Wunder and Jake Morrow were reviewing this year’s iron releases, particularly in the back-cavity category, and Morrow made an interesting point about the focus of golf club manufacturers.

“You have this incredible aftermarket with a cavity, but it seems like all the OEMs are trying to push that a little bit higher,” Morrow said.

As Morrow points out, there’s only so much you can do with a hollow iron before it becomes something that’s more game-optimized, but not at that size in the chassis.

You have the likes of TaylorMade’s P7CB, Titleist T100, Mizuno Pro S-3, Callaway X Forged, Srixon ZXi7, and so on. But it seems like the clubs that OEMs believe more golfers, even handicappers, should buy are the P770, T150 and T250, JPX 925 forged and Hot Metal Pro, X Max Counterfeit and He150 and ZXi5.

TaylorMade P770 Custom Cuff

SOLID FORGED BODY CONSTRUCTION Hollow forged body construction gives players the best of both worlds; beauty and performance. A smooth 8620 carbon steel body is combined with an ultra-thin 4140 steel face and Thru-Slot Speed ​​Pocket™ for a design that is fast, flexible and forgiving even in a compact head shape. FLTD CG FLTD CG strategically positions the center of gravity (CG) lower in the long iron and progressively moves higher throughout the set. Using up to 46g of tungsten, the FLTDCG is designed to provide players with improved launch and playability on long irons and increased spin on point irons. SPEEDFOAM AIR All-new SpeedFoam Air is 69% less dense than its predecessor, creating massive savings that are redistributed to improve performance. SpeedFoam Air dampens vibrations for great sound and feel, while providing a fast and flexible face. TOUR-INSPIRED SHAPE With stylish improvements including less offset in the long irons, the new P•770 is designed to suit a more discerning player’s eye with visual cues including a slimline, less offset and shorter blade length compared to the P•790. THRU-SLOT SPEED POCKET Thru-Slot Speed ​​Pocket™ provides increased face flexibility while maintaining ball speed and distance on low face shots.

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These clubs live in a category that is more playable than the traditional hollow iron, but is not quite the size, look or ball speed performance of the distance golfer category. It is almost a new category of iron that is forming between the back of the golfer’s cavity and the golfer’s distance.

“You’re seeing it a little bit with the drivers as well, whether it’s the super game improvement ones and the player drivers, the gap between the two is getting smaller and smaller,” Wunder said. “And these R&D departments are able to put a lot of technology into a smaller package.”

Morrow noted that TaylorMade probably made the second-generation P770, the first to adopt a hollow-body design in 2020, to be perhaps a little too hot for most of its intended players.

Now the focus is on finding a hollow body iron that isn’t as fast as those in the golfer distance category, but retains the ball speed and spin retention characteristics of those models.

Golfers who play hollow and bladed irons use them because they want stability and control. If you can give them irons that offer the same level of control but even more forgiveness for their bad swings, they will use them.

Wunder and Morrow already saw this in action with PXG’s new 8th generation “T” iron at a preview event earlier this month, which will apparently enter this new category.

It looks like it won’t be the last iron to drop in this new player-to-player distance category.

For more from Wunder and Morrow, take a listen Full episode of GOLF’s Fully Equipped hereor see below.

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