What Are the Best Rated Irons in Golf?

Replacing your irons can be a costly proposition, so it makes sense that you’d want to look for the best rated irons in golf when you’re shopping, but ratings aren’t everything. Even the highest rated irons won’t help if you’ve chosen the wrong style for your game — so let’s talk about irons a little bit. There are two main types of irons: cavity-back or game improvement irons and blade or players irons. These two types of clubs are designed for very different players, so before you so much as swing a new iron, take a realistic look at your game.

Game Improvement Irons

These clubs are designed with the casual or beginning golfer in mind. They’ve got longer faces and wider soles to increase forgiveness, lower centers of gravity for better trajectory, better offset aids to help line your shot up and a lighter weight to compensate for slower swings.

Players Irons

If you’re at the top of your game and hitting the course every few days, you may be a good enough player to really utilize players irons — but even players who can play them often don’t, since game improvement irons are so much more forgiving. Players irons feature shorter blades, solid-backed heads, reduced offsets and narrow soles for better control of tight shots.

High ratings are important, but there are other factors to consider when you’re looking for a new set of irons. Affordability and availability are vital, especially if you’re mostly a weekend golfer — it can be hard to justify spending thousands on irons you’re not going to use a lot. This is where trying out some highly-rated, popular irons helps. Visit your local pro shop to swing some game improvement irons like the TaylorMade Rocketballz, TaylorMade RocketBladez, Titleist AP1 710, or the Titleist AP1 712; more advanced golfers may find they love the feel of the player irons in the Titleist AP2 712 series.

Get a feel for these clubs, and decide which you like best — then when you’re ready to buy, you can save a ton of money by choosing used golf clubs. Many golfers trade in their clubs every year or two in order to take advantage of the newest technology, but lightly used golf clubs play the same as new just with some minor wear and tear. Not to mention you can save hundreds when buying used. By buying used irons from a retailer that specializes in reselling golf clubs, you’ll not only save money, but you can be confident that your new (at least new to you) irons were carefully checked and will be in the exact condition represented, sometimes even better.