Best Golf Game Improvement Irons 2023
I have seven of the newest game improvement irons I'm going to put them head-to-head and I'll rank them from best to not the [Music] best we're going to take a look at the Callaway Paradigm X the tius t350 the Ping g430 the Srixon zx4 Mark I the Cobra aerojet the tailor made p790 and the mauno jpx 923 hot metal for those of you that have been here before welcome back and for those of you that are new the way that I do my Club reviews is I'm going to get 10 hits I'm going to delete the best hit and the worst hit so I get a pretty good Baseline on how the club is performing we're using a trackman to get all this data I'm using a prov1 RCT ball we're in Calgary Alberta I have the trackman set to Calgary elevation which is about 3,400 ft and to pick a winner I'm looking at a couple things I'm looking at a combination of distance and dispersion the first club I'm testing out is the mauno jpx 923 hot medal this club actually won the best game improvement Club of 2022 to the life cycle of irons is a little different than driver every manufacturer is different so just because the time of year I'm including this because it's still part of the current Muno lineup this is still what Muno is offering in 2023 feels so good man just how I remember it something that has changed from my last video 2022 to this video is last year all the fitting irons were six irons that was kind of the standard even back like 15 years ago when I was selling golf clubs now everything is a seven iron I find seven IR a little bit more forgiving when you're doing a fitting they're a little easier to hit it's kind of like that middle of the road Club so all these irons I'm going to be hitting are seven irons I did listen to all you guys all my subscribers and people in the comments that I'm using the same shaft for all but one of these clubs six of these seven clubs I'm using my fitted shaft this is the nipon modus NS Pro it is a 2120 xlex I'm using this in six of the seven the one club I'm not using this shaft in is Callaway callway wanted to send their own fit cart I don't have the fancy adapter so I have to use the stock option for Callaway but everything else is going to be the same with this shaft one of the things I'm looking for in a game improvement iron is forgiveness so the mauno feels really good up and down the face and it feels really familiar so far so good something I thought would be fun for this series on finding the best game improvement iron is once I rank all of them I'm going to bring in like a mid High handicap player he's going to hit the exact same clubs I did and we'll see how they rank on his list compared to mine just to see if there's some crossover between like a decent player I'm playing to about a scratch and someone that would be like a 15ish handicap which would be more realistic to someone picking these irons and playing them some of you guys might be looking at my carry distance my total distance and being like that's such [ __ ] that's a classic golf influencer jacking up the elevation to get big numbers this is realistic numbers for or where I live in Calgary we're in the mountains elevation is high like I told you like 3,400 ft and these Lofts aren't traditional seven iron lofts because these are game improvement irons they are a little bit stronger than say like a players iron that I would play so for reference the loft of this seven iron in the Muno is 28 12° The Loft in the irons that I use Titleist t00 is 34° but these game improvement irons still go very high when game improvement iron started delofting their clubs they went pretty low they were just like low Runners players needed to get some height and all of these manufacturers have since moved weight to the back to help get the ball up and I'm seeing that a ton with this mauno it's going high Landing soft and it's going far pretty good combo that felt buttery buttery oh there's my worst one usually save my worst for last okay well that's a good sample size all right let me walk you guys through the data to see how the mauno performed okay this is why I like removing the best and the worst if I look at just my down the line data I clearly had one outlier my last hit I always tried to hit it the best and I typically hit it the worst I had this kind of smother chunky pull it didn't feel very good and on the shot list you'll see that it was by far my worst hit carrying 177 rolled to 190 was just like a terrible contact but if you look at the rest of my shots how tight is that dispersion I typically play a cut let's go take a look at my dispersion version here so everything for the most part was carrying around 200 even just over I have maybe just one that missed the Fairway so if I'm hitting 8 to nine out of 10 in the Fairway the dispersion is great the shaft obviously works well for me that's why I'm using a fitted shaft but everything was awesome it felt really good off the face and then here's my one outlier I told you I'm going to delete my best and my worst so there was my worst one obviously that 190 guy kind of that pull hook and my best I had this guy 212 206 carry anything close to 206 carry doesn't look like it so this was definitely my best one kind of like a nice high cut so I'm going to delete that as well so here's my new averages average carry 190 198 total so I'm averaging about eight yards of roll with the mauno overall felt really good and my spin was about 6,400 which is kind of Right Where I want to see it so overall really impressed with the mauno this next club I'm hitting is the tailor p790 and it's kind of a game improvement Club the real game improvement Club in this lineup is the stealth I also included that in my 2022 video I don't want to keep doubling down on previous clubs I've reviewed it's categorized as like a player distance Club The Loft on this iron is 305° it's still lofted down compared to my current 34° 7 iron I really just wanted to include another one of tailor Ma's club that they offer in their lineup it's still in the game improvement iron realm of clubs this is also a club I haven't hit yet it looks super clean I kind of like this like satin silver it's not super shiny and I like that at a dress it still has kind of like a chunkier Topline so I find that it does look very similar to that Muno I just hit that felt good yeah something pretty cool out of the gate that I'm noticing is I was expecting the tailor made to not go as far as the Muno out of the gate because it has more Loft what I'm finding with the tailor mid is that it's spinning a lot less so I might not be hitting it as high and I'm getting more roll out I'm averaging so far about 10 yards of roll out where the Mauna was only like five six yards so spin comes down distance actually improves I find the sound quite impressive in this p790 it sounds like very clicky almost like a ping like I'm a big sound guy when it comes to picking clubs and I find that these sound really good it does have the speed slot on the bottom too so I'm not sure if that's helping sound or not but I just realized that it still has the same speed slot lot like the stealth did as well I find these p790s very easy to hit I find they're very forgiving up and down the face I was thinking oh maybe it's more of a Players Club maybe I have to be a little closer to the center of the face I've been up and down this club face and I'm getting really good results so from a forgiveness standpoint I'm saying that it is as forgiving as the mauno had been okay first thoughts after hitting the tailor made it felt really good and I didn't have one shot that I can think of that felt like a bad shot looking at my tracers I had some more go left than I had previous with the mauno let's look at my dispersion here super tight oh my God look at that dispersion of one two 3 four five within just a couple of yards and they're deep too that's well over 210 that's about 2115 so I'm really surprised how far those went this dispersion here is awesome but I have three outliers so I think last time on the mauno I only had one guy in the rough oh no and I deleted that other one so two in the rough but here I have one two three but distance-wise extremely consistent so if I was on like a par three I have like that 215 distance I could comfortably pull my 7even iron and B pin high so dispersion I'm actually quite happy with let's let's determine the best and the worst so best I actually had holy smokes I had three go 220 so one 320 was a pull another 320 was a pull but I had this guy here 320 total smack in the middle of the Fairway unfortunately I have to delete that one and let's find my worst 213 and pulled left so this was my worst I'm going to pull that one out okay so here's my new averages averaging 211 carry 220 total but my spin was way down so again that's why the ball's going so much further is that tailor made just seems to be producing less spin less spin more more distance at my club head speed anyway potentially when I get my new test subject in to test out the game improvement clubs he might have way less Spin and these clubs might act differently for him but in my testing this is just the results that I'm getting let's compare these to the Muno so mauno average carry 198 where the tailor made 209 wow I was not expecting that big of a difference but look at the spin right spin 600 with the mauno a tailor R 6,000 so yeah it's definitely going to go further but that's interesting for the test dispersion wise I think I got to give it to tailor made 2 look how tight that dispersion was to have four that close together and mauno was close but I would say that the distance dispersion is not nearly as tight as the tailor Ma's been yeah another setat that I'm looking at too is the landing angle so this is 47.6 De for the mauno so it's still coming in landing soft as is the tailor made so the tailor is going further even though it is higher lofted I'm getting less Spin and the dispersion is pretty tight so that was a really good performance out of the tailor made a lot of times when I'm talking to you guys you might say oh the Lofts are jacked and that's why you're hitting it so far and it's rolling and it's staying low that's not necessarily the case these are still going really high and Landing soft so to have a seven iron that's Landing like 209 relatively soft is a pretty cool weapon to have in the bag so very impressed out of that p790 let's go on to the next one moving on we got the Titus t350 this looks relatively familiar because I'm playing the t100's but at a dress it does look much chunkier so for me that I'm used to a player's iron or even closer to a blade this looks big but it looks just as big from the top line as the mauno and the tailor made the Loft on this t330 comes in at 29° I find it just interesting that all these game improvement irons are different Lofts you think that there would be one set regulation for all these Lofts they're all a little bit different but let's see how it performs to the mauno and the tailor made [Music] well so far it's keeping up soundwise I find it very comparable to the tailor maid and the mauno maybe this is like just the highest pitch iron so far maybe like the most kind of pingy or tingy but it sounds good and so far it does feel really good across the face my first flare I don't think that was the club's fault Sun's also low spin yeah definitely not my best session unfortunately okay let's look at the data on the Titleist this is why I find hitting different clubs so fun I'm a huge Titleist guy of title In My Bag t100's were by far the best irons for me at the time when I hit them unfortunately for the T 350s it was my furthest dispersion I had almost as many left as I had go right and if you look at those tracers just compared to the tailor made and then the Muno obviously it wasn't my tightest session I'm well warm I've now gone through two different clubs this is my third I should be swinging as good as I have been and for whatever reason I just wasn't able to keep the ball as tight as the previous irons let's look at my dispersion here so dispersion distance looks relatively consistent but it could be a lot tighter again this is the exact same shaft that I used in the other clubs just for whatever reason the way that this club set up for me wasn't giving me my best results let's compare these actually no let's find the best and the worst so it's like I had this huge poly one 230 could you classifi that as the worst probably not couple 208 that's middle of the Fairway 209 in the Fairway 215 left I want to find this guy here 202 in the Fairway versus like this one's in the trees this one was take that one so I'm actually G to take even though this one went the furthest I'm going to take that out as my worst it was like a big smother pull my best was probably this guy up here so 218 just like looks like it's just in between the first cut and the Fairway let's call it Fairway for sake of argument so I'll delete this guy so like as far as distance goes it was very consistent so again forgiving up and down the face but I it just wasn't giving me as tight as results as the other two let's compare the averages average carry 199 with the Titleist tailor was 209 so like 10 yards difference 11 yards difference and then is very comparable to the mauno it was actually going further than the mauno 201 versus 198 and the total 20 five it was rolling out further so I still getting about 10 yards of roll so far though comparing the three I'm still looking at the tailor made as my best session so far with the game improvement irons all right we're still moving this is the Ping g430 if you guys are new to the channel and you haven't seen my videos before make sure you smash subscribe so you can see more of our videos or if you've seen a bunch of my videos and you've yet to hit subscribe please hit subscribe it really helps us grow the channel okay g430 this Topline actually looks the thinnest of all of the game improvement irons that we've hit so far what I find with the Ping is that for me visually it just looks to have the most offset for me personally I don't love looking at a ton of offset I didn't notice the offset on the other clubs but for whatever reason looking at the Ping it just looks to like there's a little bit more offset than the others ping is giving you a ton of options if you think you're in the market for pings they also have a high launch option if you have troubles getting the ball in the air I do not have that problem so I'm hitting just the regular g430 ping is giving you a lot of options and that's kind of a cool thing that they let the consumer pick The Loft on this g430 is 29° so I think that's the same as the Titleist that I just hit and it's kind of right in that ballpark of all the other game improvements but it is 29 degrees that felt good in years past when I've tested ping clubs I felt like Ping always felt and sounded the most unique or the most different from kind of the rest of the clubs so far this sounds and feels as good as everything that I've hit but I just don't love the looks of it visually it it doesn't really speak to me but it's performing really well so if you really like the look of these you got to hit them even if you don't like the look of them you got to hit them like that man it's like butter was skinny forgiving wasn't the center of the face still went 204 216 middle of the Fairway pretty good okay now that I can see all my dispersion I felt like my session was tighter than this is showing me I still have some left some right over allthough it felt good look at dispersion interesting that's the most unique dispersion that we've had yet it looks like a pretty big gap between my furthest and my shortest but I got to delete my best and my worst my worst I would say is this guy that's almost OB 228 total delete you and my best is probably this one 220 in the Fairway that's probably my best now we got a pretty good Baseline I still had three missed the Fairway but I was pretty happy with the majority of these so to have five close to the center line the distance was all within reason I thought that was a really good session out of the Ping onto the Cobra aerrow Jet I'm excited to hit this I've always been a cobra fan I remember in my 2022 video these were going the furthest but they were the lowest so and that was the LTD X model so be interesting to see if the aerrow Jets are going higher let's see what type of performance we're getting right off the bat I'm noticing that I can feel more offc Center hits than maybe I could with some previous clubs that last one there I hit it dead center on the screws and it might have felt better than all the ones that I hit prior so I'm finding that the feel up and down the face feels the most different than maybe the competitor so far interesting feel up and down the face so far 237 iron crazy it kind of annoys me that these don't necessarily feel the best compared to the other ones but they're going a mile like 220 230 was the previous one interesting these probably aren't Landing as soft as maybe some of the other clubs that I've hit because they're higher lofted but if you need distance if you need that extra roll out these Arrow jets are going to be a great option for you okay let's find those outliers pretty good dispersion I don't know why I'm favoring the left side today typically my Miss is like a flare to the right I haven't golfed for a couple months so for whatever reason I seem to be kind of just turning it over a little bit dispersion really good so the fact that I'm seeing more balls at like the 220 mark and Beyond is pretty crazy especially for a seven iron these things go far so like I said if you need distance like these are a really good option for you let's find those outliers this guy I do not like short and left let's delete that and then my best was this guy out here what was my best 218 carry 231 total so I was not seeing that type of roll out the 15 yard roll out anything beyond 10 yards of roll out I haven't really seen yet the cobras are all rolling out a bunch got to delete this guy 2317 iron come on overall though I was happy with that session from a feel standpoint the arrow Jets didn't feel the best compared to basically all three clubs that I hit prior to it but the result kind of speak for themselves the fact that they're going further than everything else dispersion is still relatively good and like from a price point standpoint these are probably like the best value clubs so overall I'm happy with the session I think just from a field standpoint was the only thing maybe letting me down a little bit next next is it now ston zx4 Mark 2 Ina were the best selling irons oh really oh W all right Next Iron is the Ron zx4 Mark I I was just talking to the Fitters here at modern golf in Calgary the fitting facility where we film and they just said that the Srixon and the Munos are the two highest selling irons that they have I've been a big fan of Srixon the last couple years when I did my driver bracket series The I think it was the zx5 ls like blew me away it was like the most accurate driver by far people are swearing by Srixon irons let's hit them and I'll let you know how they feel the loss of the stons are 28 1/2 de so right in line with everything between 29ish the Cobra I guess was the one exception I think it was 26 and 1/2 again feels good I'm noticing relatively low spin out of the gate it's going to increase my distance so that one there like a 224 total that's big but the roll out again is 10 yards I ideally want to have it maybe just less than 10 yard roll out feel wise it feels like they have a pretty pretty big sweet spot I've caught some close to the toe close to the heel overall it feels really good when you do hit the center of the club face it is just like butter hitting through that ball even though these are going a mile I'm looking at the Landing angle with them landing at like 47° they're still Landing relatively soft and they're keeping up distance-wise with the cobra that's like almost the perfect combination that's pretty cool it's probably my worst hit yet toe flare I knew right as soon as I hit that not much to not like in that session let's look at my uh averages that session there felt really good I had the consistent shot shape that I'm used to kind of like that bleeding cut high cut I didn't have any go left with me so so far for my game I really like that I didn't go left I tried to take out one side of the golf course it's look at my dispersion I found the Fairway with all 10 hits that's the first time out of any of these clubs I found the Fairway all 10 times got to find the worst and the best the worst is this one which is close to the rough still not in the rough went 197 208 I got to delete that that's pretty cool though that was my worst and my best it's probably this one this little line you can see where the 220 line crosses vertically and horizontal that's like center of the Fairway this one I think went the furthest and it's closest to that line so I'm going to delete that one just 224 total look at this line here 1 2 3 4 5 6 seven eight all in the Fairway all on a straight line like who doesn't want that that's cool one more unomas unas kooy paradim last Club we're hitting before we look at all the data and find the winner is the Callaway Paradigm X now this club is the only one that I can't use the same shaft because Callaway wanted to get fancy and their own fit cart they don't have the exact shaft that I was using I'm using the closest one which is a Project X rifle shaft it's extra stiff so hopefully I can get very similar dispersion results as the previous clubs but we won't know till we hit it so let's get right at it pretty hot out of the gate The Loft on this Paradigm is 272° so it's very close to the Cobra so it should be relatively low spin and it should be going far far roll out my last one there was just like 13 yards of roll out still not exactly what I'm looking for but it is a very far iron if you want distance so far this is a good option how far is your 7 iron go oh 243 visually I find the Paradigm to look the thickest at a dress it's got a big top line and I can actually almost see the cavity behind the club looking at it it just looks the biggest for me personally I don't love the look of a big Club but some of you guys might prefer looking at a a bigger Club head so that's kind of personal preference but that's just kind of what I noticed that wraps up all my testing now we can dive into the data and find out which one of these clubs is going to win so we just finished callway we took out my best and my worst looking at the dispersion is nowhere near as tight as some of the other sample sizes that I had a big thing that I'm looking at is the distance from my best and my worst or my furthest and my shortest so I look at this guy here the shortest is about 215 all the way up to like 242 I can't have that big of a gap in my clubs and for the most part they all felt good so if I hit it thing it went good is it going to go 215 or is it going to go 242 so if I can compare the distance total with those other ones that went really far like the arow jet AOW jet went 222 Callaway went 224 in the testing so again if you want a club that goes far this Callaway and the the Cobra are still really good options but for me and for how I'm ranking this they're going to be near the bottom what I like about the arrow jet is that I had way tighter dispersion so look how consistent this was I'm all the way between kind of like that 218 to 226 227 I can have that 10 yards of dispersion but I can't have that like 30 yard Gap I just can't have that some other ones that kind of come to mind that I think will be lower on the list is Ping I was thinking of again I have this big distance uh gapping so like 202 2011 versus 226 like I can't have 25 yards in distance of dispersion I felt like I had a really good session with the Ping but again I still have three or two and 1 half out of bounds I just don't think that's going to be as high performing as some other ones some ones that I like right off the bat were the strix on I had every I had all 10 of my shots in the Fairway so for me to have to delete a best and worst that are still in the Fairway from a playability standpoint like Srixon is to the near the very top of my list look how consistent these are I had seven all within like that 223 224 22 4 223 like look how consistent that is with my outlier being 208 so to go from 208 to 224 is still a pretty big gap but it's only one out of the eight right some other high performing ones were the uh tailor made I've been I remember being really impressed with the tailor made out of the gate those four this collection of four is the closest dispersion I think I had out of everything I have a really good gapping or a decent gapping I would say so to be that tight with a iron at 217 yard 218 yard 216 and then the dispersion gap between the two I have this guy at 210 all the way to 220 so that's only a 10 yard gapping distance I can live with that that that's realistic numbers Titleist I found the distance to be um very even across the board so this might actually be the best dispersion Gap that I have 202 to 2117 about 15 yards between the two but looking at it for the most part they all went the same distance but I had a couple left and a couple right so dispersion wise wasn't the best I think titles is going to be middle of the pack Mauna where we started last year's winner very consistent I had a good gapping into the middle of the Fairway one little outlier just in the first cut not a big deal this is going to rank near the top I don't think it's going to rank number one felt really good looks really good I would be happy playing these clubs I'm just thinking that there was one club that's actually outperforming all of these so let me think on how I want to rank these I'm using my data a lot as my guidelines that I can't ignore data that just is illogical I want to take into account looks feel sound price these are all the things that I think of when I'm buying clubs so I'm going to take those into consideration with the data let me come up with a list and I'll tell you how I'm ranking these I came up with a list it wasn't easy again this is my list feel free to rip me apart in the comment section but let me tell you how I ranked these clubs coming in the seven spot is the Callaway Paradigm X looking at my dispersion I was talking about the distance between my shortest hit and my furthest hit is like 33 yards I can't have that the other thing to consider is the price point these come in at$ 13.99 US they are tied for the most expensive club that I tested and the results that I got were nowhere near less expensive clubs so that's why the Callaway is coming in the seventh spot coming in at the sixth spot is going to be the Ping g430 very similar reasons as to why I ranked the callow near the bottom the distance between my shortest at 2011 and the longest at 226 25 yards I just can't have that in my game I did have some tighter dispersion in the Fairway there's two side by side 3 four five in the Fairway but still three outliers to the left these come in at 1,200 bucks us for me personally something that came into consideration is the looks I just didn't love the look of the pings if I'm going to be buying new clubs I want to make sure that I'm excited when I go to pull a club out of my bag the pings just didn't really do that for me and then the performance didn't necessarily back it up they did feel really good but based on all those considerations it's coming at the six spot coming in at the Five Spot this kind of hurts me a little bit CU I am a huge Titleist fan I play Titleist t100's what I loved about them was the consistency of the distance looking across the board I didn't have that huge jump in distance between my shortest and my highest what I did find though was that I had three outliers to the left I had one outlier kind of up near the sand one was short right I was just expecting tighter dispersion out of the tit list they felt really good but when I play into consideration the price point for what the results were that's why I kind of have to rank it just in the middle of the pack now on the flip side one of the more inexpensive clubs that we tested was the Cobra aerojet these coming in about 1,000 bucks us and I was overall really impressed with the performance of these clubs I love this dispersion anytime I get a relatively tight Circle that makes me happy these were going far they weren't Landing as soft as I had hoped they were rolling a good amount about 11 to 12 yards of roll but I can live with this dispersion sure I had two left but the majority of all my balls were to the left I didn't have a big flare to the right I didn't have a big pull Hook from a price point consideration the dispers that I got they look really good I think they look pretty cool I like the color combo kind of a little bit of carbon and some blue overall I really like these they're coming in it the four spot okay we're into the top three so we have mauno strion and tailor made rounding out the top three this was tough for me you could argue any one of these to be the number one number two or number three but let me tell you how I got there coming in in the three spot was the tailor made p790s the biggest reason as to why the these are ranked in the three spot for one is the price point these come in at 13.99 us so they are tied for the most expensive clubs out there and I had two big outliers to the left the positive that it had going for while you could consider it in the two or even the one spot is this was the tightest area of dispersion I had in my entire session you have basically four balls on top of each other and the distance difference is only two yards those four shots were incredible but I have to take into account the other four I had one two on a very similar line the distance difference was about eight yards but the biggest thing keeping this in the three spot is that those two outliers to the left and the price point okay only two clubs left were between the Srixon and the mauno I actually find it hilarious that the best-selling clubs here that the fitter told me was Srixon and mauno and that's what we came down to in my conclusion coming in at the two spot I have the mauno jpx 923 hot medal which was my last year's winner this is still an amazing performing Club there was no way that this club was going to be in the 567 spot there's a reason why it won last year looking at my dispersion I have a relatively tight Circle they felt so good I found this to be the heaviest Club if you prefer heavy clubs this would be a great option to start with looks really good but something that's really jumping out is the price point these are actually the most inexpensive clubs or the least expensive coming in at 962 us the fact that you can get this good of a club for this price point is mindblowing looking at my dispersion I had a great uh gap between my furthest being at 212 my worst at 197 so not the most ideal distance gapping but when I factor in price looks feel sound and data I would be crazy not to have this in my top two you could argue it to be the one spot that means the winner of the 2023 game improvement iron is the Srixon zx4 Mark 2 irons I had 10 out of 10 of my shots go into the Fairway as a golfer one of my wishes would be keep all the balls in play hit the Fairway and I did exactly that with the shrix on felt good looks good price point is $1.99 so it's not the highest price point it's certainly not the lowest but I found it to be a happy medium price point especially for the results that I got now that I have this list of how I ranked the 2023 game improvement irons I'm going to bring on a test subject in my next video to see how a mid to high handicapper would rank the these clubs make sure you subscribe if you haven't already thanks to all you guys that have helped build this Channel and I look forward to the next video so from here we'll check in with you next [Music] [Music] time