Tag: Irons for high-handicap golfers

Callaway Paradym Ai Smoke, Ai Smoke HL, Ai Smoke Max Fast irons

Moderate and slower-swinging golfers will benefit from the Paradym Ai Smoke’s fast faces and low centers of gravity.

Gear: Callaway Paradym Ai Smoke, Ai Smoke HL, Ai Smoke Max Fast irons
Price: $999.99 (seven clubs) with True Temper Elevate steel shafts and Lamkin Crossline grips; $1,099.99 with Project X Cypher 2.0, Mitsubishi Tensei Blue White or Eldio graphite shafts
Specs: Hollow-bodied stainless steel iron
Available: Feb. 2, but available via pre-order NOW

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Who They’re For: Golfers who want a distance-oriented, game-improvement iron that launches the ball high.

The Skinny: Callaway designers used artificial intelligence to design iron faces for the Paradym Ai Smoke and Ai Smoke HL irons to deliver enhanced ball speed for moderate-swinging players and more distance and height for slower-swinging players. 

The Deep Dive: Jon Rahm has no trouble generating distance with his Callaway irons because the 2023 Masters champion has a powerful, repeatable swing. Time and again, he hits the center of the face. However, recreational golfers who shoot in the mid-80s and 90s tend to swing more slowly. They often hit the ground first instead of the ball and make contact all over the face. On some shots they hit it in the center, but they are just as likely to strike the ball near the toe or in the heel.

Callaway’s new Paradym Ai Smoke irons are not for Jon Rahm. They’re game-improvement irons designed to help golfers overcome shortcomings and inconsistencies.

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To make that happen, Callaway designers used supercomputers to study hundreds of thousands of swings of actual golfers to see how they hit shots. Using that data, the supercomputers employ artificial intelligence to create thousands of iron faces and simulate how they would perform in the real world. All those faces look the same on the outside, but the inner-facing sides are covered with thick and thin areas that act like miniature sweet spots.

That work resulted in the faces designed into the Paradym Ai Smoke irons. Attached to the hollow-body chassis of each iron, the faces flex more efficiently at impact to generate more ball speed on every shot and tighten the dispersion pattern.

There are three different Callaway Paradym Ai Smoke irons: the standard model, HL and Max Fast.

Callaway believes most golfers who need a game-improvement iron and who have a driver swing speed between 85 and 100 mph will find the standard Ai Smoke iron fits them well. While the standard Paradym irons will remain available in 2024, the Paradym Ai Smoke will replace the Rouge ST Max irons.

Callaway offers the Paradym Ai Smoke HL, which stands for high launch, for golfers who need more height and lift on their shots. The face design and low center of gravity combine with weaker lofts in this iron to make getting the ball high in the air easier, especially with the long irons. While the Paradym Ai Smoke’s 5-iron has 22 degrees of loft, the 5-iron in the HL version has 24 degrees of loft. Callaway believes this club should be ideal for golfers with a driver swing between 70 and 90 mph.

Finally, Callaway is offering the Paradym Ai Smoke Max Fast, which has been optimized for golfers who have a driver swing that is slower than 75 mph. These irons have the same weakened lofts as the HL irons, but the Max Fast irons come standard with lighter shafts and grips, which should make it easier to create more clubhead speed and carry distance.

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Discover the new Titleist T350 irons

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.