ulukinatme
Carr for QB 2025!
- Messages
- 31,516
- Reaction score
- 17,374
Any modern club is going to be good. It's all about personal preference and the confidence you feel standing over the shot.
Whenever you buy a set of irons that match the driver release (Ping G, Stealth, Epic, Sim, AI Smoke, etc), it's going to be geared towards the masses and typically fall into the "game improvement" category. Most of those clubs are cast iron, not forged, so they're indestructible. If you hit them well and like the look, they should last you for 20+ years.
As you find time to play more often, become a little better, or just want to buy new clubs then other things might become more important to you: offset, size, feel, looks, etc. A forged club will offer a lot of feedback on where you struck the face and typically feel amazing when pured, but wear out pretty fast. Especially of you play a lot or are in desert/sandy environments.
Each brand offers a different type of iron: super game improvement, game improvement, players distance, players, CB, and MB.
Mizuno MP line, Taylormade P series, and PXG offer the ability to mix your sets, but still look like you're playing the same clubs.
I've blended MP25/MP5, MP20HMB/MP20MMC/MP20, P790/P770, PXG 0311 P/T and they're all great.
I currently use PXG Gen7 0311P 5-6 and 0317T 7-G.
I find myself using the players distance for the long irons and players in the scoring clubs.
Players distance irons are typically compact in size, hollow, hot faces, high/easy launching, and low spin. They go far with the high launch and low spin, but I find them slightly unpredictable. Their high launch is supposed to offset the low spin for holding greens, but it's not as reliable as I'd like. I've also had a lot of "phantom fliers" where my typical 165 yard 8 iron hits that dead spot on the club face and produces a no spin 190 yard shot. At my club, long is dead on every green.
The players irons are a little more compact, slightly more traditional lofts, more spin for consistency and control, but are slightly less forgiving and more difficult to launch.
I've got an old set of Arnold Palmer Signature clubs my dad gave me years ago. They look like this. These any good?

I call them the Happy Gilmore clubs. The irons look like this:
Needless to say, I haven't golfted much the last 15 years since my back surgeries