Cleveland Zipcore & Halo XL2 irons: Everything you need to know

Realizing not everyone has the time to consume endless content on club launch day, we’re trying something different and offering a fresh version of our detailed tech write-ups that hits the high points. Here’s everything you need to know about Cleveland’s ZipCore XL and Halo XL FullFace irons, coming to retail on January 19th.

Maximum Forgiveness

Cleveland has aggressively positioned itself as a company making easy-to-hit clubs, designed for maximum fun and enjoyment of the game, and with both the ZipCore XL and Halo XL FullFace irons, they’ve created two options to help golfers do just that.

“We designed these Irons with the intent to let the clubs do all the hard work with optimized tech features like our XL head designs and MainFrame to ensure maximum forgiveness. Our goal was easy. We wanted golfers to see better results on the course with products made specifically for their needs.” – Dustin Brekke, Director of Engineering at Cleveland Golf.

ZipCore XL Irons

Forgiveness where you need it and precision where you want it is at the heart of the ZipCore XL irons design.

The longer 4-7-irons are equipped with Cleveland’s MainFrame technology that positions CNC grooves and channels on the back of the face to increase flex to help deliver more ball speed — especially on mishits.

As for the short irons and wedges (8-Sw), for the first time, Cleveland has brought two of its key technologies from its highly touted wedges into its iron line to help with scoring from all conditions and better mass distribution in the head with their HydraZip face technology and ZipCore.

HydraZip helps to make spin more consistent with the help of a special blast applied to the face, to further help with spin consistency, the irons feature loft-specific grooves to better optimize spin from the longer to the shorter irons.

Last but not least, the ZipCore XL irons utilize Cleveland’s V-shaped sole to add more bounce while reducing the size of the trailing edge of the club. This helps prevent digging on shots that might be hit a little heavy, while still offering face control and workability on touch shots.

Halo XL FullFace irons

The looks of the Halo XL FullFace irons are quick to grab anyone’s attention thanks to their hybrid-iron design to deliver maximum forgiveness and high launch. Also as the name suggests, the FullFace irons feature full-face grooves for the first time in an iron design to create a larger effective hitting area to help maintain spin, and that’s to go along with the 20% larger striking area to further boost MOI.

On the inside, the Halo XL FullFace irons utilize the same AI-designed MainFrame XL technology as the Halo XL woods to expand the effective size of the sweet spot to boost distance and forgiveness, but with evolving variable face thickness through the entire set to best match how each club is most often missed based on player testing data.

A key attribute of the Halo XL FullFace irons is the Glide Rails on the sole of the longer clubs that match the design of the XL woods and hybrids to help lower the center of gravity by positioning extra mass on the sole and to help deliver more effective turf interaction to better maintain a square face through the impact zone. To also help golfers with easy alignment the bottom two grooves are painted with a high-contrast white to make getting square to the target easier.

More technology carried over from Launcher XL2 drivers and Halo XL woods is Action Mass CB (counterbalance) to help make the club feel lighter and easier to control by placing an 8-gram counterweight under the extreme butt end of the grip. Testing has proven that counterbalanced clubs feel lighter, promote a more stable and controlled backswing, and encourage a more inside club path leading to a more square face at impact.

Both the ZipCore XL and HALO XL Full-Face Irons include a custom Accuracy Build, which are a half-inch shorter and comes without counterbalancing.

Pricing and availability

Both the Cleveland ZipCore XL Irons and Halo XL FullFace irons will be priced at $999.99 in graphite for a 7-piece set and $899.99 in steel. They will be available in retail shops and online starting on January 19th.

Want to overhaul your bag for 2024? Find a fitting location near you at True Spec Golf.

Golf.com Editor

Ryan Barath is GOLF Magazine and GOLF.com’s senior editor for equipment. He has an extensive club-fitting and -building background with more than 20 years of experience working with golfers of all skill levels, including PGA Tour players. Before joining the staff, he was the lead content strategist for Tour Experience Golf, in Toronto, Canada.