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Whatever you are buying in life you will usually want to compare everything in the market to make a choice. If you are buying a car you would probably not walk into the nearest showroom and just take their best model. You might if you are very brand loyal, but then you would be missing out on possibly the best model for you.

At SGGT we always offer the best model for you as we have all the major equipment brands available for custom fitting. To demonstrate this, we put our resident reviewer Martin Hopley through a long-term test over the last year. We fitted him in the Hogan Studio using only a single brand and then 6 months later across every brand and measured on course performance using Arccos.

Over to him for his review:

For a number of years I had been using the Srixon custom fitted irons from SGGT, but prior to that I had used Callaway X-Forged irons which I loved the control and feel off. Therefore I wanted to get back to that feel and went through a single brand iron custom fitting at SGGT using 4, 6, 8 and PW for a Callaway set in 2022. As a 2-handicap it was coming down to the feel of the Apex or Apex Pro irons.

What became clear was that the Apex Pro irons offered a better flight trajectory than the standard Apex irons. Yes, they were not quite as forgiving, but the control was better and the feel was back to what I remembered from my old favourites.

The Trackman data backed this up with very similar carry numbers for 8 and 6 iron. The 4-iron was not generating the correct flight so we filled out the set with the Callaway X-Forged UT hybrid iron.

The biggest difference though was the switch from a lightweight steel shaft in the Srixons to the KBS TGI 80 graphite shaft in the Callaways. These shafts gave all the stability and performance of the steel shafts but were 20g lighter, which meant more club head speed. I already had the excellent KBS Tour Hybrid graphite shaft in my hybrid so I was happy with the switch.

Over the next 6 months I tracked my on-course performance using the Arccos sensors available through SGGT and was pleased to see the on-course numbers matching those in the fitting bay. This is a big advantage of SGGT fitting outdoors using Titleist Pro V1 golf balls is that what you see there is what you get on the course.

Whilst I gained 0.8 shots per round on my approach play over the Srixons, anecdotally I felt that the more compact heads of the Apex Pro irons were no as long or as consistent as before, especially in the 6 and 5 irons. The feel from the shorter irons was great, but as well as that I wanted more distance too.

So back into the Hogan studio I went, this time with an open mind looking across every brand. Scott and I tested all the better player irons at SGGT from Callaway, Cobra, Mizuno, Muira, Ping, TaylorMade and Titleist to find the best one for me.

As you can read in the Ping i525 irons review, these are the ones that came out on top, fitted with the same KBS TGI 80 shafts as the Callaways. Both the Ping irons in the current range fared very well, but i230 irons were more compact and reminded me of the Callaways. This brought back all the forgiveness issues I had suffered from before as a result of going for what I thought I should have, rather than what I needed.

The Trackman stats in the fitting studio showed me gaining 4 yards carry with the Ping i525 6-iron, but the real benefit was the greater consistency from the more forgiving head. It was almost back to the forgiveness I had from the longer Srixon irons, but with better feel.

Over the next 6 months, the on-course stats from 25 rounds on Arccos backed this up with 5 yards gain in distance on the 6-iron and an overall 0.2 increase in strokes gained across all approaches between the Ping and the Callaway.

However within these stats were some bigger wins. In the 125-149 yard range, which was my mid to longer irons, I gained 0.5 strokes per round between Ping and Callaway. Across all shots from the fairway I was also hitting it 4 feet closer to the flag. This could be from the better forgiveness, but also because I was around half a club longer with the Ping irons than the Callaway.

All’s well that ends well, but in reality I could have saved 6 months by having an independent fitting rather than a single brand fitting. The performance difference between my Srixon and Ping irons approach play was 1 stroke gained per round and I could have got there in one step instead of two.

Therefore the next time you are looking for a new set of irons, open your mind to SGGT independent iron fitting as it will not only save you shots, but also time and money too.

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