Titleist Believes It's Found You More Distance, Forgiveness in T-Series Irons
The best of all possible worlds where it comes to irons are clubs that deliver distance, forgiving enough to matter and still have a blade-like look — or at least close to it. Titleist believes it has captured all the elements in not just a couple but all four of its new T-Series irons.
Says Luke Epp, Titleist’s global product marketing director for irons, “Dan Stone, our head of research and development, says at our blade lengths (in the T-Series), we have the most forgiving clubs in the industry.”
Even the T100, which the company says is the No. 1 iron model on the PGA Tour, is chock full of technology in a small package, which leads to more forgiveness than could be expected in a tour-caliber iron.
Tungsten is the reason in the T100, some 80 grams of it, which amounts to one-third of the overall clubhead weight. Titleist uses a denser tungsten, called D18, in the heel and toe in the back of the 3-through 7-irons through a brazing process that makes the forged clubhead more stable, thus more forgiving without sacrificing precision. The 8-through pitching wedge in the T100 is forged without the tungsten because the higher-lofted clubs don’t need extra forgiveness, especially for better players.
It’s like having a combo set without being concerned about the loft gaps between the longer irons of a more forgiving set and player’s short irons. “Because of the intellectual property we have regarding our use of tungsten, we can make a very forgiving club in a player’s shape,” Epp said.
Related: Closer Look: Titleist U-505 Utility Irons
The other significant change from the previous T100 is the sole design. The R&D department went to Titleist wedge guru Bob Vokey and his team and determined that the irons should have additional bounce in the toe and more relief in the heel — just like some wedges do. The result is better turf interaction throughout the set.
The T100S is the longer-distance version with lofts 2 degrees stronger throughout the set than the T100. However, Titleist didn’t just bend the T100. It engineered a different club. The T100S has all the characteristics of the T100, including the same blade size and offset, but engineers carved out some weight behind the face and replaced it with polymer. The result is a slightly springier face, which creates more ball speed and higher launch. On average, players will get about 7 more yards of carry from the T100S over the T100.
In the middle of the T-Series is the T200, which represents a radical difference from the original model. “The T200 represents the biggest changes we’ve made in an iron from previous generations,” Epp said. “It’s the most advanced iron we’ve ever made.”
Titleist engineers have reduced the blade length and offset in the T200 to be nearly the same as the T100 and with slightly stronger lofts than the T100S. The primary design feature is a hollow body construction and an update of Titleist’s Max Impact, which is the core of the iron and serves to mitigate vibration. Its speed primarily comes from a thin, forged face and the stability from the same tungsten technology in the T100 and T100S. Instead of the exposed cavity of the previous model, the T200 is enclosed in the back with a polymer plate, which saves weight. Not to be forgotten, Epp said, is that the sound of the T200 was engineered for optimal feel.
Epp said a number of T200 long irons can be found in the bags of PGA and Korn Ferry tour players. Titleist staffers Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth used T200 2-irons at the British Open.
The game improvement space has never been Titleist’s strength, partly because of the idea that the company produces irons primarily for the better player. The company hopes the T300 will put that to rest.
Epp said it’s the best game improvement iron Titleist has made. It uses 40 percent more tungsten than the other T-Series models for stability and high moment of inertia (MOI) and a clubface with variable thickness — thinner toward the heel — for higher speed and maximum forgiveness on off-center hits. Even with that amount of technology, the T300’s footprint is not appreciably larger than its smaller brethren.
The T-Series irons will appear in stores and golf shops starting Aug. 26. For information on stock and custom shafts and grips for each model, go to Titleist.com.