New club season is just around the corner and this week at the Hero World Challenge hosted by Tiger Woods, Collin Morikawa was spotted with some new forged irons in the bag.
The irons are an updated version of TaylorMade’s P7MC and MB irons, which share similar looks to the previous generation but with subtle tweaks made to the cavity of the MC and a shift in the muscle of the MB.
With these irons in play, we went to the USGA conforming list to confirm their existence and found some higher-resolution black-and-white photos highlighting the updates.
Although we are waiting for the full details on TaylorMade’s newest P-series irons, there are some interesting takeaways from the USGA images along with shots of Collin’s bag that we can discuss. The first is the change in muscle design on the P7MC to have a slightly more toe-bias weight pad compared to the original. This could be for any number of reasons including an additional tweak to the sole which required refinement to the muscle placement.
The P7MB is where it gets interesting because the USGA site only shows the P7MB, while Collin has a set of P7CM (Collin Morikawa spec) in the bag. Both irons show the same design change of a straight muscle across the back of the iron with two converging points compared to the single point of the previous generation P7MB with the likely reason for this simply being for aesthetic purposes.
Now, if we cross-reference the USGA conforming list with TaylorMade irons spotted in players’ bags in the past, we won’t find any evidence of TaylorMade player-specific proto irons, meaning the USGA considers them only visual variations of the original and don’t need to be resubmitted for conforming purposes — Rory McIlroy’s RORS Proto’s are an example of this, which you can see above.
For Collin, this likely indicates his P7CM irons have a visual modification compared to any forthcoming P7MB, which can mean anything from the sole design to the blade length. It could even be that TaylorMade engineers were just having fun during the production process, the same way they did for Tommy Fleetwood when they gave him a set of P7TW marked with P7TF, but judging by the pictures it could be a raw finish that sets the P7CM apart.
One way or the other, the sighting of these new irons is an indication that TaylorMade has something up their sleeve soon with an update to the P7MC and MB, and for Collin, we must admit that if you’re going to be in the Bahamas right after your wedding, it’s also pretty nice to have some new clubs in the bag too.
