Walking up to the best players in the world and handing them a prototype iron you’ve been working on for years can be a nerve-wracking experience. Everyone has their likes and dislikes, so there’s no guarantee the creation is going to satisfy all parties. Not to mention iron testing usually takes time before a final decision is made.
Unsure how Rory McIlroy would react to TaylorMade’s P7CB, Matt Bovee, the manufacturer’s director of iron creation, came armed with several different sole geometries he’d ground by hand. Knowing how important turf interaction is to McIlroy, Bovee hoped one of the options would be deemed sufficient for further testing at home.
Standing beside McIlroy on The Kingdom practice range, Bovee settled in for what he expected would be a lengthy feedback session with a P7CB 4-iron. Four swings later, McIlroy stopped the session, turned to Bovee and uttered two words that floored him: “We’re good.”
As in, we’re done testing. The club is good to go.
“It took four swings and the test session was over,” Bovee said on GOLF’s Fully Equipped podcast. “This never happens. I had different sole geometries that I’d ground by hand, fully expecting I’d have to get into that with him. Then he says, ‘We’re good.’ OK, cool. When you get the answer you want, you walk away. I figured that was a one-off.”
McIlroy’s affinity for TaylorMade’s P760 long irons led Bovee to assume it’d be difficult to bounce the clubs from the bag, but what ultimately ended up selling him on P7CB was the higher trajectory and similar spin rate that moved his launch window slightly higher.
Six weeks after McIlroy put the 4-iron in play, he found the winner’s circle in Charlotte at the Wells Fargo Championship. At the time, the club was still labeled as a “Proto,” meaning it hadn’t even been released to the general public. Before TaylorMade could blink, the iron was already gaining traction on Tour.
It didn’t take Bovee long to realize Rory’s immediate adoption wasn’t a fluke. At the RBC Heritage, he watched Collin Morikawa and Tommy Fleetwood follow Rory’s lead and put P7CB in play after only a handful of swings. (Morikawa ended up putting a full set of P7CBs in the bag at the Genesis Scottish Open.)
“Collin was a guy who went from P770 to P7CB,” Bovee recalled. “He loved the feel, but in the 4-iron specifically, he’s been on the cusp of wanting more spin, more control and the ability to work the ball a little more. But he won’t sacrifice feel or that higher launch angle to get there. The CB gave him that. His peak height was slightly lower than 770, but his spin rate was up. He was a yard or two shorter, but he was fine with the distance change because he got extra spin. And it was in his usual launch window. And he was able to get there in less than 5 swings. It’s mindblowing. I’ve never been part of an iron that’s been adopted so quickly by so many players.”
While this particular story centers around McIlroy and Morikawa’s experiences testing P7CB, Bovee was quick to point out the iron is anything but a Tour-only product geared for the best golfers in the world. Yes, TaylorMade’s latest cavity-back iron is designed for single-digit handicaps. But it’s not simple reheat of the one-piece P7MC.
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“When you’re looking at a product like P7CB, we wanted it to be playable for a larger portion of golfers out there than P7MC was,” he said. “We’ve got to incorporate more than just Tour. Yes, we work with the best of the best. What’s been beautiful about this is how fast Rory, Collin and Tommy have gone into P7CB after we got to the final embodiment. They were falling in love with it after five swings.”
Better players who don’t possess a Tour card might not be able to make a final determination after five swings, but TaylorMade’s still banking on the feel, tech and consistency to seal the deal in head-to-head testing with all comers.
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