Best New Irons 2021

Leading golf equipment manufacturers Callaway, Ping, Srixon, PXG and TaylorMade have released new irons for 2021. Here’s why they could take your iron play to a new level.

Ping G425

The G425 iron is smaller than the previous G410 model thanks to a shorter heel to toe length. They are also more forgiving by having more weighting in the heel and toe, giving them 3% more MOI than the G410. There’s also a metal-wood style face with a variable thickness design. This gives more flex, providing a boost in ball speed and launching shots longer and higher. A new badge on the back of the club is made up of numerous materials and covers more of the club face to dampen vibrations and improve sound and feel. Standard on every G425 is the Arccos Caddie Smart Grip, an embedded sensor to automatically record and analyse every shot taken when paired with the Arccos Caddie app.

PXG 0211

These irons have been created with three GEN2 technologies. They have a hollow body design filled with proprietary COR2 polymer, the world’s thinnest face, and a 360-degree undercut perimeter channel around the club face. These features produce an iron that goes further, launches higher, feels softer and is more forgiving. Made from 431 stainless steel and powered by PXG‘s proprietary DualCOR System, the 0211 irons feature a progressive offset making it easy to square up the clubface, and a progressive bounce which helps the clubhead glide through turf. An angled top rail positions the CG closer to the clubface’s centre, producing a high MOI, more forgiveness and consistency.

TaylorMade SIM2

For their new game improvement SIM2 Max and SIM2 Max OS irons, TaylorMade concentrated on improving forgiveness to enhance overall performance. They mainly did this by expanding the sweet spot, knowing that most golfers tend to miss the exact centre of the face. So TaylorMade developed a ‘Cap Back Design’, which features light, strong polymer materials along the length of the back cavity. This adds rigidity to the upper part of the face, improving flexibility of the Thru-Speed Pocket in the lower part of the club face, which enhances the sweet spot. The new irons also have an insert in the back cavity called an ‘ECHO Damping System’, to produce a softer feel and sound.

The SIM2 MAX OS provides more stability over the SIM2 MAX with a slightly oversized head, wider sole, strong loft and slight draw bias aimed at making the club easier to hit while still maximising distance and forgiveness.

Srixon ZX Series

Srixon‘s new ZX5 and ZX7 irons are accompanied by a new utility iron, the ZX Utility. The ZX5 irons are for golfers looking for forgiveness and explosive distance whilst still retaining the balance brought by a soft feel, while the ZX7 is more of a ‘true players iron’ which looks and feels like a blade.

The key technological feature of the ZX5 and ZX Utility is MainFrame, a variable thickness pattern made up of grooves, channels, and cavities milled into the backside of each club head. This increases face flex and ball speed.

The ZX7 irons feature Tour Cavity, which repositions mass to the sweet spot and perimeter providing a soft feel at impact and increased workability. Grooves in the 8 iron down to the PW on both the ZX5 and ZX7 irons are sharper, narrower and deeper for more spin and stopping power.

Callaway Apex Range

There are five new irons in the Apex 21 range varying in performance characteristics.

Apex MB irons are designed for the best players, with a classic tour shaping, compact blade length, refined sole, and thin top line. The clubface has ‘precision grooves’ for control and consistent spin, and new tech comes in the form of a large weight in the back of the clubhead which allows Callaway to precisely dial in swing weights without sacrificing CG location.

Apex DCB irons are again designed for better players, and have classic specifications in terms of lofts, bounces, and blade lengths suitable for those players with high swing speeds. They have a hollow body construction and a tour-tuned face plate on the back and tungsten weighting to maximise performance.

Apex Pro irons feature new levels of forgiveness so may appeal to less skilled players. A large tungsten ‘energy core’, a 90-gram plate which sits inside the middle hollow section of the club, makes it easier to launch and adds forgiveness. A forged head combined with Callaway’s urethane microspheres gives you that great sound and feel at impact.

Apex irons are designed more for the mass market. They feature an increased amount of tungsten providing forgiveness on off centre strikes. These irons will give you more distance but without losing out on feel, due to the body being 100% forged with Callaway’s urethane microspheres for sound and feel.

Apex DCB irons are a deep cavity back iron in a forged players’ club shape. Featuring 50 grams of tungsten energy core per club, Callaway can accurately control the centre of gravity location in each iron to get the right launch and add forgiveness. Though these are game improvement irons, they are still forged from carbon steel with the addition of urethane microspheres.