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Gear: PXG 0211 irons
Price: $195 each
Specs: 431 stainless steel body with HT1770 stainless steel face and polymer insert
Two years ago, PXG debuted its 0211 irons, which are slightly more affordable for golfers who might have admired the looks and technologies found in the company’s ultra-premium PXG 0311 irons but didn’t want to shell out thousands of dollars for a set of irons. The 0211 irons lacked the 0311’s signature weight screws on the back, but PXG included several critical features in the 0211s, and they were sold at half the price of their 0311 counterparts.
Now, coinciding with the release of the 0211 drivers, fairway woods and hybrids, PXG is releasing an updated version of the 0211 irons.
Aesthetically, the new 0211 irons look like muscleback blades, but they have a slightly wider sole than most irons designed for elite players. From a size perspective, they match with PXG’s game-improvement 0311 XP irons. They also have a progressive–offset design, with the long irons having moderate offset that decreases as the set flows into the short irons.
There is also a progressive amount of bounce designed into the set. Most golfers sweep their long irons, so those clubs have moderate bounce, while more bounce was built into the short irons’ soles to help golfers avoid digging on approach shots. Simultaneously, the topline appears thinner on the short irons while in the address position because the back edge is beveled downward.
The strength of the 0211 irons, however, is something you can’t see. Instead of leaving the 0211’s 431 stainless steel bodies hollow or filling them with foam, PXG added two types of polymer: a soft polymer encased in a firmer polymer. The company refers to it as a DualCor system, and it debuted in the 0311 GEN3 irons last January.
When the thin HT1770 stainless steel face strikes the ball, it flexes back and compresses both the soft and the firmer polymers, which snap back into shape extremely quickly to increase ball speed and distance. PXG added more of the soft polymer to maximize the effect in the long irons, and designers gradually reduced it through the mid- and short irons to make them more control oriented. PXG said that in every case the polymers improve distance and absorb excessive vibrations to make the clubs feel and sound better at impact.
To activate a larger portion of the hitting area and protect ball speed on off-center hits, PXG designed an undercut inside each head. Basically, it is a notch that pushes the seam where the face meets the chassis farther out, so about 15 percent more of the hitting area can be activated on heel or toe strikes.
PXG said the new 0211 irons produce about 4.6 mph more ball speed with significantly less spin, yet shots fly to about the same height. That results in the new irons being more than 12 yards longer than the first generation 0211 irons.