Premium versus Budget sets of Irons

There is a wide range of pricing between sets of irons available to the golfer. There are sets in the thousand-dollar range and those in the $200 to $300 range.  What’s the difference? The old saying: “You get what you pay for” holds very true in the golf industry. 

Although many of the less expensive sets look great and sometimes are hard to distinguish in looks from premium sets, this is only a skin-deep comparison. To truly evaluate a set of irons you must dive deeper into the manufacturing process. First, you must look at the quality of the steel used in the casting of the iron clubheads. A premium set of irons incorporates the highest-grade quality steel which produces a clubhead that is extremely strong and will not go out of spec through normal play. This grade of steel is very expensive but ensures the highest level of solid ball striking year after year. Frankly, if you purchase a premium set of irons you will never need to replace them as they will last and produce superior performance for a lifetime. 

On the other hand, budget sets typically incorporate the cheapest, low-quality steel that results in the clubs going out of spec after just a few rounds. This weak steel will not produce the solid ball striking feel that you want in a set of irons – in other words, they will feel dead at impact.

As far as shafting goes, premium sets incorporate the highest grade of shafts on the market, which results in consistent play throughout the set, whereas budget sets utilize the cheapest shafts available with no consistency throughout the set whatsoever. This difference in the quality of shafting produces a huge difference in overall consistent solid ball contact and precision shot making. And as a side note, if you find a set of graphite shafted irons in the $200 to $400 range – run away as fast as you can.

Manufacturing tolerances play a huge role in clubhead production. Clubheads are not produced individually in a laboratory where the specifications can be exact.  Consequently, there are going to be variances from the stated specifications. One of the most expensive costs in clubhead manufacturing is the amount of tolerance a brand allows in production. For instance, in the component industry it is usual to find a +/- 2º tolerance for loft and lie angles, and that is why component clubheads are inexpensive. Conversely, a premium brand typically insists on a +/- 0.5º tolerance for loft/lie. This amount of reduction in tolerance exponentially increases the cost of the clubhead. The same holds true for clubhead weight, bounce angle, face and sole grinding, etc. Therefore, the cost to produce a premium clubhead can be 5 to 10 times more than the cost to produce a clubhead with very loose manufacturing tolerances. The clubheads used in the making of budget sets of irons can have tolerances of +/- 4º for loft/lie and very loose tolerances for weight, etc, and incorporate virtually no face or sole grinding whatsoever. Realistically, in a set of budget irons an #8 iron could have a stronger loft angle than a #7 iron, and the rest of the irons within a set could be hit or miss in both loft and lie angles.

Then there is the cost of assembly. Companies that produce premium irons buy their clubheads from one place, their shafts from another, and their grips from still another. All of these components are then shipped to a location within the USA for quality control inspection and club assembly by experienced club builders who thoroughly know their trade. This is why the vast majority of companies that produce premium irons can offer a custom fitting option. On the other hand, budget irons are typically produced on an assembly line overseas by unskilled workers with little or no quality control at all. Since they arrive in the USA as completed sets, the companies who sell them cannot offer custom fitting. And as I have said many times, if your irons are not custom fitted you are wasting your time and money.

At the end of the day, you get what you pay for. We all like to play our best and have fun doing it; however, if you constantly have to second-guess your equipment not knowing if a bad shot was your fault or the fault of your clubs, you will definitely not enjoy the game. If your irons are a premium set, you can at least eliminate that possibility and recognize that your swing is at fault and then work on correcting it. Conversely, you will never know if your swing or your equipment is the culprit if you play a budget set of irons.

Our lines of single-length irons are of the premium variety, although they are less expensive than the major brands. We do not pay professional golfers to play our clubs for millions of dollars per year, nor do we have a 50 million dollar advertising budget which we need to recoup through increased pricing. Consequently, you get a premium set of irons that we would put up against any brand on the market for a reduced cost to you. Some golfers may say: “I can’t afford that much for a set of irons;” however, they are not taking into account that they will be playing these irons for the next 20 years and enjoying their highest level of play. Figure that you will spend around $1,000 per year playing golf and another $100 per year in lost golf balls and the price of a premium set of irons over a budget set becomes insignificant.

A pet peeve of mine is that for 25+ years, ever since we re-introduced the concept and advantages of single-length play to the golf industry, we have prided ourselves on providing the finest, custom-fitted single-length golf equipment on the market. Unfortunately, there have been numerous companies offering their “so-called” single-length irons pop-up over the years that produce only budget and less than budget sets of irons at very low prices. The result is that the customers of these budget irons become frustrated at the lack of playability of these sets and mistakenly blame it on the single-length concept instead of the unplayable irons they purchased. Believe me, I wish I had a nickel for every customer we have had over the past 10 years who initially purchased one of these budget sets of single-length irons and realized after a few rounds that they had made a mistake. They then came to us and discovered the true advantages of single-length play through our premium irons. I’m just sorry for those golfers who gave up on single-length play simply because they tried the concept while playing inferior budget irons.