An exciting thought indeed. A billionaire entrepreneur and fanatical golfer deciding to start his own equipment company. The ethos of the company? Make the best golf equipment possible with out the constraints of price point or market pressures. That’s what Bob Parsons has decided to do with Parson’s Extreme Golf.
Urban Custom Clubs have been selected as one of only two UK stockists for PXG. I have over the past couple of weeks done pretty extensive testing with the PXG 0311 irons and some with the drivers. Given that the driver market is completely tapped out in performance terms and has been for the past ten years I was less excited to test the driver. As expected its a lovely product and suits the mid to low ball flight/spin guy very well. The irons however have far more potential to achieve. Simply put they are a hollow head design similar to many of the long iron designs seen over the past couple of years, think Mizuno H5. However the designers have come up with something quite interesting. The irons have a forged body and a thin maraging steel face. Normally this would be hot but feel really harsh and hard off the face. However the designers at PXG have injected the head with a material called TPE (plasticky stuff) and as a result the heads have a moorish feel, its clicky yet soft. I’ve been using the three iron and its very hot off the face but feels great. That’s the achievement of these irons and that’s the blessing of PXG, its not groundbreaking but it is genuine performance and problem solving in a stagnant market.
The sole design is reminiscent of the original Ping Eye 2, a great sole design copied in the recent Callaway PM grind wedges. Ben Hogan said club heads should be designed from the ground up, sole design for me is a bigger factor than a cavity back in determining how forgiving a club is and whilst this sole design is not new it is reminiscent of the best one ever! The 0311 offset is very progressive, the short irons really do look like a players club and the offset increases steadily through the set so the long irons are quite offset. The long irons for my eye are a little too offset but these irons are not aimed at me. For a golfer looking for a club that helps the PXG 0311 out performs every iron out there. I for one am excited to see what comes next…..