In short, Players-Distance irons likely will give you all the iron game you need. In fact, our players liked the versatility of these clubs throughout the entire set. Said one tester, “The look is super sleek, super elegant, super thin. They make you feel confident and aggressive. I wouldn’t mind staying hours and hours on the range with these.”
In terms of raw data collected at the Hot List, Players-Distance irons proved even more impressive. Our testers saw a nearly 10-metre distance advantage over Players irons. Compared to irons in the Game-Improvement category, Players-Distance irons flew the ball nearly half a club further on average. They also reached a higher apex.
the early successes of the category, the P·790, had sales that covered an almost bizarrely wide range. According to company research, the level of players who purchased the original P·790 irons included nearly a third with handicaps less than 8 but also 25 percent with handicaps over 12. Perhaps the most exciting aspect of Players-Distance irons is that second word in the name. Because thinner face inserts are a separate piece from the rest of the body, which is sometimes also hollow, engineers have gotten those faces to flex much the same way they do on a driver. Even those low-on-the- face impacts that are so common with an iron feature extra rebound because the faces wrap around the leading edge, or slots in the sole get the entire face to give more at impact. Any iron can be made more forgiv- ing by stretching its size. The appeal of a Players-Distance iron is that its size is relatively compact and still provides the off-centre forgiveness of a larger design, according to Titleist’s Chuck Golden, senior vice president of club research and development. He explained that you can have a greater effect on forgive- ness by pursuing MOI in an iron, not- ing that a couple of metres on a 7-iron mis-hit can be the difference between hitting the green and going in the wa- ter. That kind of improvement with the driver might be a fraction of a metre, which is imperceptible on a tee shot. “If you can get away with maximis- ing the moment of inertia as much as possible within a pleasing shape, that’s a hill worth dying on,” Golden said. All of those theories make sense, but more compelling is what happens when we put Players-Distance irons in the hands of real golfers at the Hot List. Our testers found Players-Distance irons to feel nearly identical to traditionally soft and solid Players irons while providing better feel than Game-Improvement types. They found Players-Distance irons to launch just as high and to be considerably more forgiving than the Players irons. Compared to Game- Improvement irons, Players-Distance irons launched just as high and were equally as forgiving.
HOT LIST TESTING Our testers scored Players-Distance irons higher than any other iron category. Here’s a look at a few of their favourites:
ROBERT SHAW, 28
SKYLAR FRANKIEWICZ, 28 7-handicap TaylorMade P•790 “Absolutely electric. You can work the ball any which way. Like, if you wanted to go a mile straight, take a right, then a left, then another right, it can be done. Plus, these look rich and very classy.”
TOM ALLEN, 61 7-handicap Callaway Apex Ti Fusion “I can throw anything at it, and it was just going high and straight every time. The turf never bothered it. The clubhead just ploughed right through it. Super easy to hit. Pitching wedge, 7-iron, 5-iron, they were all down the middle and long.”
WESLEY GILMORE, 31 +3-handicap Mizuno Mizuno Pro M-15 intimidating, but they play like a game- improvement iron. Very easy to get the ball “They look pretty up in the air, fast through the turf, and I was able to hit them high or low, from the pitching wedge on up.”
+2-handicap Titleist T250 “A very simple design that sits well behind the ball at address. Noticeably higher ball flight without being too spinny, which I enjoyed, especially in the longer clubs where I’m able to hit them into a par-5 green and stop it fairly quickly.”
PHOTOGRAPHS BY STEPHEN DENTON
GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA 83
MAY 2026
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