Are the new Ping i525 irons better than their predecessors? We found out

When golfers talk acoustics, it’s almost always in reference to how a driver sounds. We rarely discuss how irons resonate the eardrum, because irons tend to sound more or less like how they’re made — i.e., cast irons sound a certain way, and forged irons sound another way.

But hollow body and mixed material irons are different animals, with seemingly no two models sounding exactly alike. Which is why we were intrigued to check out Ping’s new i525 irons, which the company says produce big-time performance along with a more pleasing sound than its previous iron line, the i500s.

Irons

“One of the biggest challenges we face in designing all clubs is tuning the feel and sound,” said Ping president John K. Solheim. “Because of the i525’s metal-wood-style face design, we knew sound would require additional attention to ensure the gains in distance didn’t come at the expense of the feel. We couldn’t sacrifice one attribute just to improve another.”

Did Ping succeed in its mission? We took the i525s to the Proving Ground. Check out the results here: