Check out Golfweek’s list of the best irons available to purchase in 2024.
As Golfweek explained in our 2024 Driver wrap-up, the undeniable trend in the world of drivers is toward higher-stability offerings that not only perform well when you hit the ball in the middle of the face, but also help you hit straighter shots and help you maintain distance when you mis-hit toward the heel or the toe.
When it comes to irons, the trend continues to be the broadening array of offers to meet the needs of different types of players. Not that long ago, equipment makers sold blades to the best players, cavity-backs to golfers who needed some forgiveness and oversized clubs to high-handicappers and beginners. Those clubs still exist, but they are complemented by better-player distance irons, sets that blend hybrids and irons for forgiveness, and sets that blend hollow-bodied long irons with precision-minded scoring clubs.
Take Ping as an example. The Phoenix-based brand now has the Blueprint T and Blueprint S for elite players, the tour-proven i230 for good players who want more forgiveness, the i525 for golfers who want a better-player’s distance iron, the game-improvement G430 and it still offers the G710 as a max game-improvement club. Brands like Callaway, Cobra, Mizuno, TaylorMade and Titleist have similarly deep stables.
That’s a double-edged sword for consumers because while a larger variety of irons means there is a better chance that brands are now making sets that match your needs (and your budget), finding those clubs can be a daunting task. Therefore, it has never been more important to seek out a good custom fitter, try several different shafts and heads and see what the data reveals.
Pro Tip: Indoor club fittings have come a long way and are convenient, but as spring approaches, if you have a chance to do a fitting outside, hitting off real grass and seeing real ball flights is always best.
Below are many of the irons that you will see in pro shops and specialty stores. Use this list as a starting point to discover clubs that might be ideal for you game.
TaylorMade Qi and Qi HL irons aim to enhance consistency and forgiveness.
Gear: TaylorMade Qi, Qi HL irons Price:$1,099 with KBS Max 85 steel shafts and Lamkin Crossline 360 grips; $1,199 with Fujikura Ventus Blue TR graphite shafts Specs: Hollow-body heads with multi-material back badge Available: Feb. 2 (Qi), March 15 (Qi HL), but available for pre-order NOW
Who They’re For: Golfers with a handicap between 10 and 20 who want more consistency from shot to shot and enhanced ball-speed protection on mis-hits.
The Skinny: By modifying the thickness of each iron face and managing how the hitting area flexes, TaylorMade aims to improve accuracy and consistency for mid- and higher-handicap golfers.
The Deep Dive: For golfers who typically shoot in the 80s and 90s, the most-common miss off the tee with a driver is to right because they slice. With game-improvement irons, many of the same players also struggle with a right miss, especially with their long irons, but for a different reason. With the release of the new Qi and Qi HL irons, TaylorMade set out to help golfers improve their accuracy from the fairway, especially with their long irons, while also providing more distance and enhanced feel.
TaylorMade said the typical construction of a game-improvement long iron can significantly contribute to the right miss. As the blade length grows longer, the toe side of the hitting area bends back more at impact than the heel side, even on shots hit in the center of the face, creating a fade bias. As blade lengths grow shorter in the scoring clubs – such as the 7-iron, 8-iron and 9-iron – the effect decreases, which is why many golfers don’t see the impact in fittings because the 7-iron is commonly used in iron fittings.
The faces of the Qi irons have been made thicker in some areas and thinner in others to enhance consistency. (David Dusek/Golfweek)
With the Qi and Qi HL irons, TaylorMade has brought a design philosophy that debuted in its recently released P·790 irons – individual head optimization – to game-improvement clubs. In the P·790, that meant shifting the center of gravity in each iron to a different location to make it easier to hit the type of shots players often hit with that specific club. In the Qi and Qi HL, it involves integrating the face thickness, the Speed Pocket slot, topline ribs and the toe wrap.
In the long irons, TaylorMade made the low-toe portion of the face thicker so it flexes less, and the area close to the heel is thinned so it bends more easily at impact. In addition to making the hitting area flex more uniformly, which should help golfers hit straighter shots, by adding mass low in the hitting area and stiffening the metal around the Speed Pocket slot in the sole, the Qi and Qi HL long irons can help golfers get long-iron shots up more quickly.
Most golfers don’t struggle to get a 7-iron high in the air because it has more loft, so TaylorMade designers modified the construction and made the high-toe area stiffer while the area around the Speed Pocket is thinner and more flexible. To enlarge the sweet spot, the area around the edge of the face is very thin.
The Speed Pocket has not been designed into the 8-iron, 9-iron and wedges, and the thickest regions of the hitting area are once again high in the toe. This design should help golfers control spin and trajectory more easily.
While each Qi and Qi HL iron is designed slightly differently, they share several common technologies that make the set cohesive.
All the Qi and Qi HL irons have an internal Echo Dampening Bridge that runs from heel to toe behind the face and soaks up excessive vibrations to improve sound and feel. They also feature a 360-degree undercut cavity design covered by a multi-material back badge. TaylorMade refers to this as Capback, a feature that debuted in 2021’s SIM2 irons. The composite back section reduces weight from the back of the head while still allowing the face to flex efficiently.
These irons have a thicker topline and ample offset, which is common among game-improvement irons. The sole is also fairly broad, but the leading edge is lower. Accomplished golfers tend to shy away from features like these, but they can be visually reassuring to many recreational golfers because the clubs look easy to hit.
While the standard Qi makes it easier for mid- and higher-handicap golfers to hit the ball straight and long, the HL model takes it further. The HL stands for higher and lighter, and with the club’s lighter shaft and grip, moderate-swinging players should be able to generate more speed with it. The lofts in the HL version are also 2 degrees weaker (higher lofts), so shots should also fly higher.
Cosmetically, the Qi and Qi HL irons look similar to the Stealth irons they replace, but TaylorMade is now complementing the visible carbon fiber on the badge with chrome-plated metal to create a more premium, aspirational look.
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Below are several close-up images of the TaylorMade Qi and Qi HL irons:
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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In April, TaylorMade dropped the P•790 Black irons and the clubs were a hit on social media. Now come the Stealth Black irons.
The vast majority of irons for both accomplished players and intermediate golfers come in a silvery-chrome finish. However, starting about a decade ago, manufacturers began to release some irons in darker tones, often applying a PVD finish (physical vapor deposition) on top of the steel to give it a black or nearly-black look. Apparel companies have known for years that black is slimming, and golf equipment companies realized that many players prefer the look of black irons because they are not only unique, but black finishes make clubs look smaller in the address position.
In April, TaylorMade dropped the P•790 Black irons and the clubs were a hit on social media.
Now TaylorMade is releasing the Stealth Black irons, a dark-finished version of the game-improvement clubs the company released last season.
Like the P•790 Black irons, the Stealth Black irons have been given a PVD finish that the company claims is strong and durable, but with play steady usage and play, it can wear down and fade over time in the hitting area and on the sole.
The Stealth Black has a polymer black piece on the back that saves weight. (TaylorMade)
From a performance standpoint, the Stealth Black irons are identical to the standard Stealth irons. TaylorMade designed the hollow-bodied head to have 450 stainless steel faces to flex efficiently at impact for increased ball speed. But instead of making the back of the head using steel, TaylorMade gave the Stealth Black irons a polymer cap that covers the back section. It’s strong and supportive, but lighter, so more of the head’s overall weight is lower in the club. That helps to drop the center of gravity location and encourage higher-flying shots.
The 4-iron though 8-iron have a Speed Pocket slot to allow the lower portion of the face to flex more easily on thin shots, and an internal polymer piece that TaylorMade calls an Echo Dampening system reduces excessive vibrations to improve sound and feel.
The hitting area of the TaylorMade Stealth Black is slightly less dark, to help golfers frame the ball more easily at address. (TaylorMade)
The TaylorMade Stealth Black irons come standard with black KBS Max MT shafts and black Lamkin Crossline 360 grips. They are available in 4-iron through Attack Wedge (49 degrees) and a set of seven clubs will cost $1,199.99 in stores and on taylormadegolf.com.
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TaylorMade is offering the P·790 in a new finish, black, for golfers who love the look of dark-toned clubs and who want reduced glare.
It has been nearly two years since TaylorMade released the current P·790 irons, and the clubs are among the most popular offerings in the brand’s stable. Why? Accomplished golfers who crave distance appreciate the clean looks in the address position and the enhanced feel boosted by Speed Foam Air inside each head, while mid-handicap golfers who need forgiveness benefit from internal tungsten weights that add stability. That makes the P·790 a contender for a broad range of players.
Now TaylorMade is offering the P·790 in a new black finish for golfers who love the look of dark-toned clubs and who want reduced glare.
From a performance standpoint, the P·790 Black irons are identical to the standard P·790, with 8620 carbon-steel bodies and thin, forged 4140 stainless steel faces. The clubs have a hollow-body construction to allow the face to flex more efficiently at impact for increased ball speed and distance. The inner chamber is filled with Speed Foam Air, a lighter version of the original material that was in the 2017 and 2019 versions. The lighter foam reduces weight in the center of club, which elevates the perimeter weighting and stability while still absorbing excessive vibrations. Finally, an internal tungsten bar drives down the center of gravity and encourages a higher launch and steeper descent of the ball for better stopping power on the greens.
The TaylorMade P·790 Black irons will be available for $1,299.99, the same price as the standard chrome set, and come standard with black KBS Tour shafts and black Golf Pride Z grips. Get a close-up look at the P·790 Black irons below.
The Stealth HD irons are designed to get the ball up quickly for slow-swinging players.
Gear: TaylorMade Stealth HD irons Price: $999 with KBS Max 85 steel shafts and Lamkin Crossline Black grips. $1,099 with Fujikura NX Red graphite shafts Specs: Cast stainless steel with polymer insert Available: Feb. 17
Who It’s For: New and high-handicap golfers who need to maximize height, distance and forgiveness.
The Skinny: The Stealth HD irons were designed to get the ball up quickly for slow-swinging players who want a club that has an inspiring shape.
The Deep Dive: When TaylorMade wants to create a new, better-player’s club, it talks with staff players such as Collin Morikawa, Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler. They discover what elite golfers prefer and look for, then create something that provides those attributes.
TaylorMade does not, however, have a staff of golfers who shoot in the 90s and 100s, so to make a new max-game-improvement club, the company did extensive testing with new and slower-swinging players. After hitting shots, reps asked if the player liked that shot, then asked why. TaylorMade learned that players who struggle with the game love seeing the ball go high into the air, prefer to see shots that fly to the left or go straight and want to see a club that inspires confidence.
Keeping the game-improvement Stealth irons in the stable, the brand now offers the Stealth HD, a max-game-improvement iron.
The 2023 P•770 irons have tipped more toward the better-player category, but still deliver more distance and soft feel.
Gear: TaylorMade P•770 irons (2023) Price:$1,299 with KBS Tour steel shafts and Golf Pride Z-Grip 360 grips Specs: Forged 4140 stainless steel face with a forged, hollow-bodied 8620 carbon steel body, internal tungsten weight and foam Available: January 20, 2023
Who It’s For: Accomplished golfers who want a compact club that delivers extra distance and a soft feel.
The Skinny: The 2023 version of the P•770 irons have tipped more toward the better-player category, but they still deliver more distance than you might expect from a club of this size, along with a soft feel.
The Deep Dive: Last season, Tiger Woods and Collin Morikawa blended in a TaylorMade P•770 long iron, or two, with their other irons because the clubs delivered more ball speed and a higher launch angle. However, TaylorMade encouraged recreational and club players to think of the P•770 as a slightly smaller version of the P•790, one of the most popular irons the company has ever produced. If you liked what the P•790 could do but wanted a shorter blade length, then the P•770 was for you.
Golfers who have a repeatable swing and who like to shape shots around the course but want more distance made it clear to TaylorMade that they liked the P•770. So with the 2023 upgrade of the P•770, TaylorMade has opted not to overhaul the club drastically, but instead, the company refined it.
TaylorMade’s new muscleback blade and cavity-back irons have been updated with feedback from Tour players.
Gear: TaylorMade P•7MC, P•7MB irons Price:$1,299 with KBS Tour steel shafts and Golf Pride Z-Grip 360 grips Specs: Forged 8620 carbon steel Available: January 20, 2023
Who It’s For: Elite ballstrikers who want to maximize feel and control.
The Skinny: TaylorMade’s tour-inspired muscleback blade and cavity-back irons have been updated using a new forging process and feedback from golfers like Rory McIlroy and Collin Morikawa.
The Deep Dive: Like most golf equipment makers, TaylorMade’s game-improvement irons, like the Stealth, and better-distance irons, like the P•790, are its biggest sellers, but the irons that golfers seem to covet the most are muscleback blades and cavity-back designs made for tour pros like McIlroy and Morikawa. No brand sells many clubs like those, but they are high-profile creations and demonstrate what designers can do for the most discerning golfers, so they are essential.
For 2023 TaylorMade has updated its flagship irons for accomplished golfers, the P•7MB and the P•7MC. They have been subtly refined because the feedback from elite players who use them has been positive for two years, but thanks to a new forging process, TaylorMade claims they will provide a better feel.
Iron out the kinks in your game and save some money while you do it.
This month, Golfweek is helping you find the most affordable equipment on the market.
Whether you’re young and new to the game, seasoned and looking for an upgrade or just want some new equipment without breaking the bank, we have you covered.
We’ve already found some of the most affordable drivers on the market right now. Look out for affordable wedges, putters and other equipment coming out later this month.
Today, it’s all about the irons!
To classify as affordable, each iron set we selected had to come in under $1,000 for a set or under $150 per iron for a seven club average. Without cutting quality, we’ve done the digging to find the best deals out there at the moment. Many of the items below are currently on sale, so act fast!
Starting in early December, there were whisperings on social media that TaylorMade was going to release something very different in 2022. There were blurry photos here and there, but then the company submitted the Stealth driver to the USGA and R&A, who tested them and added them to the Conforming Driver lists, making the Stealth drivers legal for play in official competitions.
Shortly after that, Tiger Woods used a Stealth driver and 3-wood at the PNC Championship, and equipment junkies took notice. The face of the driver was red and the sole plate on the 3-wood looked different.
On Monday, TaylorMade released three Stealth drivers, two Stealth fairway woods, two Stealth Rescue clubs and the Stealth irons.
