The next generation of Srixon irons for pros and accomplished golfers made its PGA Tour debut this week in the practice area at Silverado Resort in Napa, California.
With pros preparing for the first event since the season-ending Tour Championship two weeks ago, Srixon brought the yet-to-be-released ZXi5 and ZXi7 irons and expects some players to transition into them in the weeks ahead. Srixon, which is under the Dunlop Sports umbrella along with Cleveland Golf and Xxio, did not release any official details about the clubs or indicate a date when they will be made available to the public.
Based on the naming convention, we can assume that the ZXi5 will replace the game-improvement ZX5 Mk II that was released in 2023 and the ZXi7 will take the place of the better players ZX7 Mk II which was also released nearly two years ago.
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TaylorMade P·790 have a new internal weighting system that boosts performance.
Gear: TaylorMade P·790 irons (2023) Price:$1,399 (seven clubs) with True Temper Dynamic Gold steel shafts and Golf Pride Z grips. $1,499 with Mitsubishi MMT graphite shafts Specs: Hollow-body construction with a forged 4140 stainless steel face, internal tungsten weights (3-7 irons), vibration-dampening foam and polymer-covered sole slot. Available:NOW (pre-orders), September 1 (in stores)
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Who It’s For: Golfers who want an iron that looks like a better-player’s club, but packs the distance and forgiveness of a game-improvement iron.
The Skinny: TaylorMade redesigned the inner chamber and the weight system in the P·790 to make the long irons easier to hit and provide more feel and consistency in the short irons without sacrificing the ball speed and distance.
The Deep Dive: In 2017, the original TaylorMade P·790 was among the first golf clubs that could rightfully be called a better-player’s distance iron. It looked like a muscleback blade, although slightly larger, but it delivered more ball speed, forgiveness and stability than irons made for golfers who might contend for a club championship.
Those clubs were updated in 2019 and again in 2021, and now TaylorMade is releasing the fourth generation of the P·790 irons. Once again, on the outside the club blends easily with the rest of TaylorMade’s P Series irons, but the 2023 P·790 has been radically changed on the inside to give golfers more consistency and a better feel without sacrificing ball speed or distance.
From a design standpoint, the P·790 is still a hollow-bodied iron that has a relatively thin topline, moderately narrow sole and some offset. The hollow-body design allows the forged 4140 stainless steel face to flex more at the moment of impact for increased ball speed. The 2023 version also has the same Speed Foam Air found in the 2021 P·790. It is 69 percent lighter than the original vibration-dampening foam TaylorMade used in the first P·790 irons, so it not only makes the irons feel and sound better at impact, it pushes more weight out of the center and toward the perimeter of the head for added stability. The Thru-Slot Speed Pocket has been designed into the long and mid-irons again to help improve performance on low-struck shots.
Among the features found in the new P·790 is the addition of a Thick-Thin back wall. Instead of being smooth, the inner-facing side of the back of the club is covered with thin areas that give it a snakeskin-style appearance. Before the adoption of carbon fiber crowns, TaylorMade used this technology to take the weight out of titanium crowns in drivers. It does the same job in the P·790, reducing weight in an area that does not enhance performance and allowing designers to repurpose it somewhere else.
TaylorMade P·790 4-iron (top left) has a low CG thanks to a flat tungsten weight in the toe, while the 6-iron (lower left) has a weight that is higher and the 8-iron (right) has no tungsten. The sound stabilization bars in the 4-iron and 6-iron are different too. (David Dusek/Golfweek)
After running thousands of simulations using artificial intelligence (A.I.), TaylorMade designers used some of the weight saved in the back of the heads and designed unique bars and weight areas in the bottom of each head. Some have curves and others are straight, but each is designed to help a specific club perform better. So, for example, there is a curved area in the 6-iron that has extra mass in the heel and toe, along with a tungsten bar that rises vertically in the toe area for extra stability. The 4-iron, however, has a bar that is significantly lower in the head and its tungsten piece lies flat in the toe area, to drive the center of gravity (CG) down even further and encourage a higher launch angle.
The precise location of the CG was a point of emphasis for TaylorMade in this version of the P·790, and by manipulating the weight of each head, the company is touting a “flighted CG” progression through the set. With a better weighting system, the 3-iron and 4-iron in 2023 P·790 now have the lowest CGs, and the CG height gradually elevates as you progress through the mid-irons and into the scoring clubs, which should result in more consistent ball flights. Long irons should be easier to hit high and golfers should be able to flight short irons lower for better distance control.
Finally, TaylorMade has added a Sound Stabilizing bar inside each P·790 iron, to stiffen the topline and help tune the frequencies created when the club hits the ball. Each club’s bar is uniquely designed and in a different location because the mass is distributed in different parts of each club.
Many golfers will opt for a traditional set of the new P·790 irons, but cosmetically they blend very well with the P·770 irons that were released last year. The P·770 is smaller but shares the same hollow-body design, so working with a good fitter should make designing a personalized combo set of P·790 long irons and P·770 short irons easy.
Below are several close-up images of the new TaylorMade P·790.
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The Titleist 350 irons are designed to provide distance and forgiveness.
Gear: Titleist T350 irons Price: $200 each with True Temper AMT Black steel shafts and Titleist Universal 360 grips; $216 each with Mitsubishi Tensei Blue AM2 graphite shafts. Specs: Forged SUP-10 stainless steel face with 17-4 stainless steel body and internal tungsten weights. Available: August 28
Who They’re For: Mid- and higher-handicap golfers who want to maximize distance and forgiveness.
The Skinny: This game-improvement club utilizes a hollow-body construction and multimaterial design to provide distance and stability, while updates to the internal design have made it sound and feel better at impact.
The Deep Dive: While the previous versions of the T300 had been a one-piece, cast construction with a massive under-cut cavity, the 2023 T350, which replaces the T300, is a forged, hollow-bodied multimaterial design. It is built like the T200 but bigger, and that magnifies many of its playing qualities.
The T350 has a forged, SUP-10 stainless steel face that is L-shaped and wraps under the leading edge. This allows the lower portion of the hitting area to flex more easily, especially on thin shots. Titleist also designed the entire hitting area to gradually become thinner toward the perimeter to broaden the sweet spot and protect ball speed more effectively on mis-hits.
The body and chassis of the T350 are forged from 17-4 stainless steel, a material that is strong but lighter than the SUP-10 steel used in the hitting area.
While the previous T300 irons had a Max Impact system in the back, Titleist has made it an internal element in the T350. Designers added a polymer piece and affixed it to a metal bar that connects the topline and sole. When a ball is hit, the face flexes and presses into the polymer, which acts like a spring and snaps the hitting area back into shape faster than it would alone. This should help golfers attain higher ball speeds and gain distance. In the new T350 the system has been updated by positioning it more in the center of the face, and designers made the polymer piece thinner.
The bar in the Max Impact system serves a dual purpose. It holds the polymer and also stiffens the head at impact. In the T350 irons, Titleist added more mass in the low tow area and redesigned the polymer plate that covers the back of the club and encases the hollow chamber. Instead of being flat, it now has a waffle pattern on the inner-facing side. These elements stiffen the T200 even more at impact and allowed engineers to adjust the club’s harmonics to sound better without a loss of speed or distance.
Titleist added tungsten to the heel and toe areas to increase the moment of inertia and help the T350 resist twisting on off-center hits. The exact amount of tungsten varies by club but averages about 80 grams per head.
The T350 has the widest sole and the thickest topline in the updated T Series iron family. While elite golfers want a thin topline, golfers who routinely shoot in the high 80s, 90s and over 100 often find thicker toplines reassuring. The trailing edge has also been made with a sharper upward curvature, which should help the club work through the turf more effectively, especially for players who have a steep angle of attack.
Shifting the Max Impact system inside the head helps the T350 irons blend better with the rest of the new T Series irons, aesthetically. Golfers working with a good custom fitter should be able to easily create combo or blended sets with T200 irons easily.
Below are several close-up images of the 2023 Titleist T350 irons.
