ALSO AVAILABLE AT: PGA Tour Superstore, Cobra
On the coastal terrain, these irons were exceptionally stable. Total distance consistency was remarkable because the strike didn’t need to be dead-center to maintain ball speed. But while they served their purpose beautifully, this gig provides new gear to be tested and new fitters to learn from.
They still remain the gold standard of what I tested, so many good shots and a user experience to get excited about.
The Push for one shot shape: PXG 0311T Gen8
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ALSO AVAILABLE AT: PGA Tour Superstore, PXG
Next came a shift toward a more compact, tour-inspired shape with the PXG 0311 T Gen8. The Tour profile is arguably one of the cleanest shapes they’ve engineered—thin top line, minimal offset, and a short blade length that just looks right at address. The magic here is their updated weighting system that allows you to create nuanced “bias” in an iron head. This (like Cobra 3DP) is a new form of customization that really speaks to me.
I took them out to the Morris County Golf Club Member-Guest. I hit them great overall, but I ran into a persistent left miss on off-speed shots. Why? Because, against the advice of counsel, I overshot the heel weighting while trying to chase a specific shot shape and mitigate ANY right, which threw a heavy, long left miss into the setup.
Even with that left miss, two great things stood out from that week: first, the sheer level of customization you can achieve with their perimeter weights is unmatched; second, the technology actually works exactly how they say it does. Change the weights, change the flight—I just proved it a little too well.
The Comfort Correction: Callaway X-Forged Max
Forged Precision, Pure Feel
Crafted from a single piece of 1020 Carbon steel, X Forged Max Irons deliver the soft feel and crisp sound preferred by better players—along with a mid-compact profile that blends workability, feedback, and just the right amount of forgiveness.
Clean Looks, Mid-Compact Shape
X Forged Max features a more player-friendly cavity back and offset, mid-compact profile, and a refined topline—crafted to appeal to the eye of the better player looking for workability and forgiveness.
Tri-Level Sole Design
X Forged Max Irons feature a tri-level sole with beveled leading and trailing edge, promoting smooth turf interaction and precise ball control through impact.
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ALSO AVAILABLE AT: PGA TOUR Superstore, Callaway
Seeking a return to a true one-piece cavity back feel with a bit more structural footprint, the transition moved to Callaway and the X-Forged Max. The X-Forged line is a nod to classic Japanese forgings, featuring a pre-worn leading edge that prevents the club from digging too aggressively.
I LOVE THESE IRONS!
Going through this phase underscored how much a sole design impacts delivery. The feel of a pure, single-piece forging is hard to replicate with multi-material construction. Ball speed stayed incredibly tight relative to swing speed, and the spin characteristics were exactly what you want for holding firm greens out of the rough.
The flight was stable and predictable. But the pursuit of optimization never truly stops when you’re searching for that ultimate balance of speed and control. I also appreciate the fact that optically, although this is a player’s distance iron, they look like any tour cavity-back on the market. Compact shape, great lines, and a long iron to short iron progression for launch.
The cool kid set-up: Srixon ZXi5/ZXi7 Combo (Testing)
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ALSO AVAILABLE AT: PGA TOUR Superstore, Srixon
This brings us to the present workspace setup, where two options are going head-to-head. The Srixon ZXi combo approaches performance by blending a multi-piece forged face in the ZXi5 long irons (5-6) with a single-piece forging in the ZXi7 scoring irons (7-PW).
Its primary traits are massive ball speed and spin consistency driven by its i-FORGED and MainFrame face technologies. We all know how well these things feel and get through the ground in any condition, and to be fair, I played them for a while last year when I started with Golf.com. I loved them, actually, just hadn’t tried them with Nippon 120X, so here we are.
This is an ongoing experiment to see if this type of platform works best for me, like X-Forged Max the Srixon combo has that “it” factor of look and feel, and it doesn’t hurt that on Tour they still remain one of the alpha irons out there.
The Play Your Best Matrix i540 / i240 / Blueprint S Combo (Testing)
The Tour-inspired i240 advances our popular Players technology, providing added forgiveness along with the control, look and feel that will appeal to a wide range of skill levels. It’s PING’s highest-launching Players model, giving golfers more control and the ability to consistently hit their distance numbers and stop the ball close to the hole.
A new ABS badge in the true cavity-back design is 8.5g lighter, and combined with an elastomer insert allows for more perimeter weighting to increase the MOI in the mid and long irons. This helps achieve an 11% reduction in dispersion. The badge and insert contribute to a more desirable sound and a softer, responsive feel from the 431 stainless steel cast head.
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On the other side of the bay sits the project we’ve been dialing in, and it’s a completely different animal. This isn’t off-the-rack; it’s a highly planned blending of three distinct Ping platforms to build a progressive matrix. We started with the i540 in the 5-iron to give me that high-launch, high-ball-speed floor where my speed typically drops off. From there, it transitions into the i240 for the 6- and 7-irons, offering a perfect bridge of mid-iron forgiveness and stability, before moving into the pure, fully-forged Blueprint S for the scoring clubs (8-PW).
To make this mix work seamlessly, we bent the entire set to Power Spec lofts, creating a perfectly linear gapping progression: a 23.5° 5-iron, 28° 6-iron, 32° 7-iron, 36° 8-iron, 40° 9-iron and a 44° pitching wedge. Built 1-degree upright with Nippon Modus 120 X shafts at a D3 swingweight, the build feels incredibly unified. This set is built around problem-solving mis-hits.
