hat you need to know: Ping’s i230 irons replace the company’s venerable i210 model with updates to foster forgiveness while slimming down the long irons. The iCrossover utility irons are long-iron replacements with a fast maraging-steel face.
Price: The i230 irons cost $205 per club with stock steel shaft and $220 per club with stock graphite shaft. The iCrossover is available in 18, 20 and 22.5 degrees at a cost of $275 each.
The deep dive: Ping’s i-series irons have undergone many updates and upgrades over the years, but one thing has remained constant: the irons are designed to appeal to the better player seeking a touch more forgiveness than a traditional blade-like iron while still having plenty of appeal in the bag and at address.
Ping’s latest iteration, the i230, checks all those boxes. The follow-up to the venerable i210, which had a four-year run in Ping’s line, was largely driven by tour in terms of shape, but Ping has always been a brand driven to offer forgiveness in its clubs, a fact not lost on the company’s leadership when it came to the i230.
“In the i230 iron, we’ve engineered a lot of performance into one design,” said Ping CEO and president John K. Solheim. “It has the precise control and consistency of a players iron with an amazing feel while offering the forgiveness of a game improvement iron. It reminds me a lot of the iconic Ping Eye2 iron in that it will appeal to so many player types, from the tour pros to everyday golfers.”
The cleaner look is readily apparent with more compact long irons than the i210 and a more rounded leading edge, but some things (such as size of the mid and short irons) remain the same.
The cast 431 stainless-steel head has a number of pieces. “It’s a pretty complex design,” said Ryan Stokke, director of product design for Ping. “The head is a five-piece construction that includes tungsten toe and tip weights that raise the moment of inertia for more ball speed on off-center hits.
However, the hidden hero of the iron is an elastomer placed inside the clubhead that allowed the company to save 21 grams of weight that was positioned elsewhere to help position the center of gravity lower. The elastomer also helps reinforce the variable-thickness face, providing more consistent face flex and energy transfer across the entire face, resulting in not only a few more yards, but consistent distance.
Consistent spin also was a priority. For that Ping turned to its MicroMax grooves—where the grooves are tighter spaced to help maintain and produce consistent spin, while the hydropearl 2.0 chrome finish provides an assist in damp conditions to keep short iron shots from getting too high while still supplying plenty of green-grabbing spin.