3balls Golf
When you hear the name TaylorMade, the first thought that pops into your head is probably the R1 or Rocketballz drivers. Or if you’re a bit, ahem, older, it might be the famous Burner driver.
But don’t forget that they make the irons, too.
When TaylorMade introduced its Burner 1.0 Irons in 2009, they were a huge hit. According to Sports Illustrated, the Burner was the top-selling iron in the U.S. that year.
Hundreds of professional golfers on the PGA and European Tour use TaylorMade/adidas products, as do many amateur and casual golfers. TaylorMade has such a large following because they are constantly innovating and coming up with new game enhancement elements on their products.
The Burner 1.0 Irons are a good example. They were designed for players who want to maximize forgiveness (mid- and high-handicappers) by incorporating a bunch of different features to increase performance.
When making a set of irons, the process typically starts with a 6-iron, but with the Burner 1.0, the TaylorMade design team built the 4-iron first.
Sean Toulon, TaylorMade’s executive vice president of innovation, said the idea was to make the 4-iron have the playing qualities of a wood. When compared with the 4-iron of the previous Burner irons, the head was larger, which helped the club resist twisting on off-center hits.
A large, thin “unsupported” face and deep undercut cavity contributed to an increased COR (for more ball speed and distance). For those of you who don’t remember, the measurement of how much energy between the collision of two objects, like a ball and a clubhead, is called COR. The .810 COR of the Burner Irons (the USGA legal limit is .830) marked the first time that a mass-market iron exceeded .800.
The irons also have a backing made of a carbon composite material: aluminum and a polymer that the company said enhanced the feel and improved the sound at impact.
The shaft of the new Burner 4-iron was also extended by a quarter of an inch. Theoretically this would help increase swing speed and therefore add distance to your shots. But because the irons have a bigger head, TaylorMade assured golfers that the extra shaft length would be imperceptible.
On the back of the clubs is a circular disk with an X-shape extending from its edges. That’s TaylorMade’s “Inverted Cone,” a technology first used in TaylorMade’s drivers. It puts more mass behind the sweet spot and, according to the company, helps to maintain distance control on off-center hits.
The design team built the 3- and 5-irons with similar qualities. The mid-irons were created around an easy-to-hit 7-iron. Again, the heads were made larger, the soles were widened, and the face was made thinner.
Golf.com testers certainly liked them. As reported on the website:
One of the highest-rated irons; these babies are long, as much as five to ten yards longer than testers’ own sets; short irons hit it straight and accurate; shots get airborne with ease, even with less-than-solid contact; gorgeous look inspires confidence; Burner is a good choice for all abilities.
But the only way to tell if they’re a good choice for your abilities is if you go out and hit them.
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