How to find the perfect iron set for your game? Follow these 4 rules

The Tour launches of the Titleist T-Series and Ping I240 irons this week got me thinking about my own game and what’s most important when finding the right iron for 2025. By using myself as the test dummy, I’m hopeful you can learn some things about how to land in the right irons for your own needs.

There are some hard “truths” to accept as you go through this process, but in my own experience, when I trained myself to focus on the right things and ask myself the right questions, my iron game evolved and improved.

There are 4 key rules to piecing together your perfect iron set. Follow them and you’ll win.

Rule No. 1: Looks matter but only so much

Visit any equipment forum or your local range and you will hear players discussing their preferred “look”. Offset, no offset, thin top line, pinched toe, square leading edge, and on and on. Looks matter — until they start affecting performance. For example, I love the flawless look of a forged muscle back with zero-offset and a thin top line, but I can’t hit ’em. I need offset paired with a shorter blade length.

Why? Because as a push drawer of the ball, offset mitigates a floaty right miss that I hate. A shorter blade length, meanwhile, ensures a faster closure rate to square up the face. I’ve tried irons with offset and a longer blade, and it’s never quite right. Same goes with a little less offset; it’s good until it’s not. These are my needs, and accepting them has really helped me in narrowing down my search to only two or three viable options.

Rule No. 2: Be honest with yourself

The worst part of my game is 4- to 7-iron. I’d bet I lose more shots with those four clubs than any other part of my bag. My contact efficiency goes from pretty damn good with my scoring irons to downright awful, my dispersion is all over the place and my confidence is nil. Yes, my swing doesn’t exactly resemble Adam Scott’s but that’s not the point here — golf technology can and does help me produce good shots despite myself.

Irons

For example, I have always leaned toward players’ cavity-backs for my 7i-PW (i.e., T100s, TCBs, Ping Blue Prints, ZXi7s, etc.). But as I’ve aged and found less time to play and practice, even my 7-iron is now serious source of concern. With my low- and mid-irons, the goal isn’t to find clubs that help me hit it close — I’m simply trying not to lose shots. Not a fun truth but one that’s important to accept.

Rule No. 3: Raise your floor

Now that we have gotten honest about what we need, it’s time to survey the options that can help. I know from 8i-PW I’m efficient; I can actually gain strokes with these clubs and make birdies. With my 4i-7i, I need reliability. Think middle-of-the-green clubs vs. pin seekers. That’s where combo options kick in, along with questions such as, Do I need a 4-hybrid? Or a 9-wood? Do I need a players’ distance iron with some tweaks for gapping?

Once those questions are answered with your fitter, you can begin to address gapping, set makeup, etc. Turf interaction is another very important thing to factor in. It’s vital you pay attention to how every club gets through the turf, because that is the key component in the actual strike. If the sole is too big, it’ll feel like you’re hitting driver off the deck all day; too thin and you’ll leave deep holes in your wake. The sole matters…a ton.

Rule No. 4: 12- to 15-yard gaps, same peak height

if you’ve followed Rules 1, 2 and 3, you can begin to put the spin + launch + carry number puzzle together. When I was conducting fittings on Tour, we aimed for 12- to 15-yard gaps, always backing into the loft and not the other way around. You never want to “make” a club go a certain distance. Instead, keep adjusting until it delivers that number, and then move onto the next stick.

My gamer set today

If you’re curious, my set looks like this: 4-hybrid; 5i-7i in players performance irons bent a bit weak (i.e., 770, Ti-Fusion, T200, etc.); and 8i-PW are Tour CBs.

I’m close to getting super-dialed, but I’m still torn on that 4i-7i iron abyss that is costing me shots.

You have 14 clubs in your bag to help you score. The key is getting honest about your needs and goals and getting with a smart fitter who can help you navigate the hundreds of excellent options on the market and build a set that helps you shoot lower scores.

Having a bag full of butter knives is cool, but lowering your handicap by three this summer is way cooler.

Want to find the best irons for your game? Find a club-fitting location near you at True Spec Golf.