It doesn’t matter if you’re scratch or just picked up the game — we’re all looking for a tighter iron dispersion. Dispersion is defined as how far your shots span from left to right and back to front.
The smaller the pattern, the better.
A tight pattern generally indicates you’re a good ball striker. Or, in this case, whether a club has just the right amount of ball speed retention (or forgiveness) across the entire face. As we’ve seen in the past with some drivers, it’s possible to hit it all over the face and see very little distance drop-off. The same goes for certain irons.
In this case, we tested all irons at 81 mph (using the same shaft and attack angle) and compared the carry distance on center face contact against an average of heel and toe misses to get a carry distance delta. The smaller the delta, the higher the likelihood you’ll see minimal distance drop off, regardless of where you miss it on the face.
It’s easy to assume irons with larger profiles will dominate the top of the list — due to the high MOI properties baked into the design — but as we found out, better-player offerings can hold their own against game-improvement counterparts.
Below are the 5 models with the smallest carry distance delta.
****
1. PXG 0311 P Gen6 (4.8 yards of distance dropoff between center and high-toe/low-heel)
2. TaylorMade P770 (5.2 yards)
3. Mizuno JPX 923 Tour (5.3 yards)
4. TaylorMade Stealth HD (5.8 yards)
5. Callaway Paradym X (5.9 yards)
Want to overhaul your bag for 2023? Find a fitting location near you at True Spec Golf.
