The brand new Taylormade Qi irons immediate a slightly apparent query.

If TaylorMade’s new driver is the Qi10, why aren’t their new game-improvement irons additionally Qi10?

We’ll inform you the reply in a bit. However for you non-TaylorMade followers on the market, it’d simply jolt your long-held beliefs.

And jolting long-held beliefs seems to be a theme with 2024 iron releases. After years of utilizing uncooked distance and forgiveness as game-improvement iron speaking factors, OEMs look like pulling within the reins ever so barely. They nonetheless love their distance however messaging is shifting in direction of – gulp – accuracy.  

And TaylorMade, lengthy thought-about by on-line warriors as the important thing wrongdoer in wacky distance claims to the purpose of it turning into a cliché, is definitely main the accuracy cost.

And its battle cry for the brand new Qi irons?

Straight Distance.

Can the TaylorMade Qi irons ship on that promise?

TaylorMade Qi Irons: Following a Legend

Nicely, possibly not a legend however you may’t deny the TaylorMade Qi irons have a fairly powerful act to comply with. The 2022 TaylorMade Stealth irons had been the primary to ever cop back-to-back titles in MyGolfSpy’s game-improvement iron testing.

And the primary rule in product improvement whenever you’re changing a prime performer?

Don’t f**ok it up.

In our 2023 testing, the Stealth was tops in forgiveness (edging out, curiously, the bargain-priced Ram FX77 irons) and fourth in accuracy. You could be shocked to study it completed seventh general (out of 11 fashions examined) for distance.  From a design aim standpoint, when you’re TaylorMade, you need to keep forgiveness and possibly tighten up accuracy whereas giving the irons a bit extra juice in comparison with the sphere.

In TaylorMade’s 2024 universe, it’s known as Straight Distance.

Making Lengthy Irons Straighter

Ask any golfer what the toughest membership to hit constantly is they usually’ll inform you it’s the lengthy iron. Ask any fitter or educating professional they usually’ll inform you an identical factor. I do know, it’s not precisely breaking information, however it’s the hook TaylorMade is hanging its Qi hat on.

And when you ask game-improvement golfers what their frequent lengthy iron miss is, they’ll inform you it’s to the suitable. Once more, that’s not information.

A part of that’s on the golfer however TaylorMade says just about each OEM’s game-improvement iron has a proper bias constructed into it. Particularly the lengthy irons.

“Why construct in a proper tendency that may solely make the commonest miss worse?” wonders Matt Bovee, TaylorMade’s Product Creation Director for irons. “Why make it worse? It doesn’t make any sense.”

You’d suppose that with all of the offset and trendy AI expertise, GI irons would, if something, have a left bias. However in accordance with TaylorMade, geometry and physics say in any other case.

“Have a look at an iron face,” says Bovee. “The toe is longer than the heel from prime to backside. On the level of impression, which facet will flex extra? The lengthy facet.”

So if the toe space flexes extra, logic dictates it would rebound extra. And if the heel is shorter prime to backside, it flexes much less and, subsequently, rebounds much less.

“That rebound sample places lower spin on the golf ball,” says Bovee. “That creates the suitable bias.”

And when you’re an out-to-in long-iron swinger with a leave-the-face-open tendency, that proper bias doesn’t assist one rattling bit. It doesn’t matter how forgiving a membership is.

Only a Soar to the Left …

If all that is true (and it does examine sufficient of the containers), why is it that nobody’s found out easy methods to repair it? 

Nicely, face-flexing in GI irons, a minimum of to the extent they flex now, is a comparatively latest phenomenon. OEMs have been chasing most face flexification (I do know that’s not a phrase. Work with me, of us.) for years prefer it was water within the desert. And this extreme proper bias appears to be merely an unintended consequence.

TaylorMade says it has found out easy methods to mitigate if not right extreme proper bias by controlling the face flexibility profile from heel to toe. The corporate says it’s the results of what it calls its New Built-in System Design.

“Our applied sciences at the moment are capable of speak to 1 one other through the design course of,” says Bovee. “The face expertise can speak to the Velocity Pocket and each can speak to the mass distribution contained in the membership head.”

TaylorMade by no means as soon as uttered the phrases “synthetic intelligence” or “machine studying.” However except these applied sciences are empathic, there should be a supercomputer hiding within the woodshed someplace.

“Once you change one factor, like your face design, your Velocity Pocket might have to carry out otherwise,” explains Bovee. “The place you need to place the mass contained in the clubhead might must be totally different.”

TaylorMade is taking a club-by-club method to face design. The variable-thickness face on these troublesome lengthy irons could have extra mass on the toe space and little much less within the heel to steadiness flex. The brand new face pairs with a brand new Velocity Pocket design that stiffens up the decrease forefront to assist clear up one other long-iron downside – getting the rattling ball up within the air.

And a Step to the Proper …

TaylorMade is fast to say the brand new Qi irons aren’t going to show your common 18-handicapper right into a child draw-shooting machine. The ball should go proper, simply not uncontrolled (or out of play) proper.

As talked about, every membership within the new TaylorMade Qi irons set is designed for optimized efficiency, an idea that TaylorMade began with its new P790 irons. To additional that trigger, TaylorMade is introducing FLTD CG™ to the brand new Qi irons.

As an idea, FLTD CG™ doesn’t sound all that earth-shattering. Because the irons get shorter, the CG will get larger to manage launch and promote spin. The TaylorMade spin, nonetheless, is that they’re strategically putting the CG in live performance with every membership’s distinctive face sample.

“We’re controlling that flight window and including spin the place we’d like it,” says Bovee. “That’s permitting gamers to hit pictures with extra success extra actually because we’ve considered how efficiency could be crafted into every particular person iron.”

The brand new TaylorMade Qi irons are additionally getting a little bit of an extension. The blade itself is one millimeter longer than Stealth. That won’t sound like loads however TaylorMade says that one measly further millimeter will increase the Qi’s candy spot dimension by 14 %, as much as 165 sq. millimeters.

In principle, that ought to make Qi much more forgiving than Stealth, which isn’t any small trick.

TaylorMade Qi Irons: Cap Backs and Toe Wraps

Two key applied sciences that labored so nicely with Stealth are being carried over to the TaylorMade Qi irons. The primary, Cap Again, truly dates again to SIM2. It’s a low-density polymer cap that creates a sort of hole physique. Most GI irons could have a badge of some kind connected to the again of the membership face. It’s not simply there for adornment or branding. It dampens noise and vibration.

It does, nonetheless, come at a price: it limits how a lot the face can flex.

“Anybody bonding a badge to the face is slowing the face down. That’s simply physics,” says Bovee. “(Cap Again) permits us to ship the quickest face we attainable can and in addition the most important candy spot we presumably can.”

The Cap Again polymer can be eight occasions lighter than metal and, in membership design, each gram counts.

Toe Wrap Building can be about mass. That polymer cap extends excessive on the toe, from the place TaylorMade has carved out as much as 10 grams of metal. Toe Wrap pushed down the CG, which once more helps launch within the lengthy irons.

The brand new TaylorMade Qi irons keep the clear, streamlined appears to be like of Stealth. That’s an industry-wide development that’s greater than welcome, as game-improvement irons are getting much less blinged out yearly. One other good little tidbit: the Qi irons are getting a sophisticated chrome end as a substitute of the boring, brushed satin look of years passed by.

Look, game-improvement irons is probably not your cup of tea however you may’t deny they’re getting higher trying.

TaylorMade Qi HL: Increased and Lighter

TaylorMade is following one other {industry} development by providing a lighter, weaker-lofted game-improvement various: the Qi HL. You would possibly suppose HL stands for Excessive Launch. It’s a very good wager in your half.

However it’s flawed.

“HL stands for larger and lighter,” says Bovee. “It’s designed for gamers who want a bit further assist getting the ball within the air.”

Particularly, the TaylorMade Qi HL irons are lighter all the way in which round – within the head, shaft and grip, as much as 26 grams lighter than the usual Qi mannequin. And the lofts are two levels weaker throughout the board. Each OEM, it appears, is doing this with their GI irons as a result of (as we examine our notes) an terrible lot of golfers are getting older and slowing down. And there’s a rising section of golfers who’re ladies who don’t have the identical swing velocity as some males.

It’s a sport, in spite of everything. And video games are speculated to be enjoyable.

Hey, You Had been Gonna Inform Us Why These Aren’t Known as Qi10!

That’s true, I used to be. And, no, I didn’t neglect.

In response to TaylorMade, this was intentional for one superb motive. Beginning with the Stealth iron launch in 2022, TaylorMade has determined to go together with an each two-year life-cycle for its game-improvement irons.

For these on the market parroting that outdated and really tiresome new-club-every-six-weeks nonsense, that’s newsworthy, don’t you suppose?

For years, TaylorMade, together with Callaway and COBRA, have launched GI irons yearly with the identical general branding as their new metalwoods. However Stealth was TaylorMade’s horse for the previous two years and now we’re on to Qi. I’m guessing meaning subsequent yr’s TaylorMade driver might be Qi11 or one thing however the irons will keep present as Qi.

On a sensible stage, it does give Bovee and his group an additional yr to develop expertise that’s going to be a significant enchancment over the earlier technology. Testing will inform, in fact, if that’s the case with the Qis.

TaylorMade Qi Irons: Specs, Value and Availability

The TaylorMade Qi irons might be provided in seven-piece units (5i-AW) with an non-obligatory 4-iron, sand wedge and lob wedge accessible. The lads’s possibility might be accessible for righties and lefties apart from the lob wedge which might be right-handed solely.  

The usual Qi males’s set comes inventory with the KBS Max MT 85 shaft in metal (S- and R-flex) or the Fujikura Ventus Blue in graphite (7S, 6R and 5A). Inventory grip is the 47-gram Lamkin Crossline. The TaylorMade Qi HL comes inventory with the KBS Max Lite shaft in metal and the 40-gram Fujikura Speeder NX TCS in graphite. Inventory grip is the 42-gram Golf Pleasure Tour Velvet.

The ladies’s fashions for each units will are available in right-handed solely. The 40-gram Fujikura Speeder NX TCS is the inventory shaft and the 40-gram Lamkin ST is the inventory grip.

The TaylorMade Qi irons will retail for $1,099 in metal and $1,199 in graphite.

They’re accessible for pre-order beginning in the present day. The usual TaylorMade Qi irons hit retail on Feb. 2 whereas the Qi HL irons might be accessible beginning March 15.

For extra info, hit up the TaylorMade web site.