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Gear: Wilson Staff D7 Forged irons
Price: $999 (4-PW) with KBS $-Taper Lite steel or True Temper Catalyst Black 80 graphite shafts and Golf Pride Tour Velvet grips
Specs: Forged 8620 carbon steel, urethane-filled inner chamber and slots in the sole
Available: Jan. 21
For elite golfers with powerful, repeatable swings, such as 2019 U.S. Open champion Gary Woodland, Wilson offers the Staff Model blade irons. For players with slow swings who struggle to hit the ball consistently, the company has the Staff Launch Pad irons.
There is plenty of middle ground between those clubs, and for golfers who like the look of a better-player iron but want enhanced distance, Wilson will offer the Staff D7 Staff Forged.
Wilson debuted the standard Staff D7 irons last season, and they are distance-enhancing, game-improvement clubs with good looks. Instead of placing the primary emphasis on distance in the Staff D7 Forged irons, however, Wilson engineers’ first goal was to make a club that would visually appeal to better players, then get more distance from it.
With that in mind, when golfers look down at this cavity-back design in the address position, they will see only a touch of offset, a modest topline and a very clean look.
The distance-boosting technology is in the sole, where two rows of Power Holes were designed behind the leading edge. They are small slots, each covered by a polymer to stop grass and debris from getting inside the heads, that allow the face to flex more efficiently at impact to create more ball speed.
To enhance feel, Wilson created an area inside the lower portion of the back of the head and filled it with vibration-dampening urethane. It’s called a Power Chamber and should help produce a more solid feel when golfers strike the ball.
Designers also added extra mass to the topline, making it firmer to reduce twist and support the face more effectively. The extra mass pulls up the center of gravity slightly, but Wilson is fine with that because the Staff D7 Forged is made for more-accomplished players who have some speed and may be looking to shape shots. Moving the center of gravity fractionally higher and increasing spin will not be a problem for those players.
Being distance-enhancing clubs for better players, Wilson made the lofts of the Staff D7 Forged irons stronger than the Staff Model blades’ lofts but weaker than the standard Staff D7. The 7-iron is 30.5 degrees and the pitching wedge is 43 degrees. With that in mind, golfers may want to work with a custom fitter to ensure the gapping between their irons and their first wedge is appropriate to avoid excessive distance gaps.