Ben Hogan Icon irons

I wanted to give any members interested in the new Ben Hogan Icon irons some information and opinions on them. I have been demoing the 6 and 9 iron in a KBS Tour V 120x shaft. Here are some images.

Just a beautiful iron. A friend replied as he looked down at it in address position, “I could hit this all day”. Exactly.

Ferrule has such a classic design, hosel flows well into the head as well.

Below are some images of the grip, nice custom appearance and unique design.

A few more pictures in address position.

In the first picture, you can see the ball marks from the first three balls I hit with the 9i. Hogan Golf says the sweet spot is engineered to be slightly offset to the hosel to increase workability. From the feeling, I can attest to it being just about right there!

First impressions of the irons were on a 173 uphill par 3 into a steady breeze. I hit three balls into the green with the 6 iron. All were a slight draw and landed pin high to 15 feet past. The strike felt like a very solid thunk, with the sensation of the ball compressing and dwelling on the face just a bit longer than my current irons. I was impressed at the trajectory, height and the way the ball really drove through the wind and held its line. The shots had decent spin as they stopped well on the green.

Another hole was also an uphill par three playing 165 into a stronger headwind, I estimated it would play 195-200. This is not a normal 6 iron shot for me, especially since the hole generally seems to play longer. As expected, all shots came up short, from 10-20 yards short. These shots were not as squarely struck and I noticed some distance loss, but feel was not too harsh. The mishits seemed to augment the miss, in this case a draw into a pull hook.

I used the 9 iron on a downhill approach playing 152 into a moderate right to left wind, slightly against. I struck these three shots well trying to draw the ball into the left pin, getting a little help from the cross wind. All shots drew more than expected, probably due to more wind than I felt and ended up in a grouping just a few ,feet off the edge of the green about pin high, and all within a few yards of each other. The shots had very similar trajectory, flight and curve. And the feel was still that solid, but soft thud.

Overall, the feel is wonderful off these irons, and distance is equal to or a little better than my current 714 AP2s. Mishits are more noticeable as expected, not sure how much of this is the shaft. I play X100 in my irons.

Below are some numbers off my launch monitor with a 9 iron from the AP2s, shots 1-8, Hogan Icon, shots 9-16, and lastly Callaway Apex Pro Dot 9 iron with a True Temper Elevate VSS Pro stiff shaft. Balls were Pro V1x and Taylormade Tp5x.

The highlighted shot was the best struck shot. I am not sure the monitor was picking up spin numbers well as I typically have about 3000 more rpms. These balls did not have a sticker on them, so that may explain some of it. Or maybe my compression stinks.

Ben Hogan Icon 9i. Noticed a higher swing and therefore ball speed with increased distance. Spin was lower, comparatively. Better dispersion especially taking away the most wayward shot. Though you cannot see it, height was about 5 yards higher with these irons, possibly the softer shaft which is stated to give a higher launch and ball flight. Again, the highlighted shot felt the best.

Callaway Apex Pro Dot 9 I. Similar distances to the Hogan Icon iron. Maybe a bit more dispersion in distance. Not visible, but height is similar to Icon irons. The green highlighted shot is an intentional draw and the yellow highlighted shot is an intentional fade. These irons feel great as well. I just wanted to display the similar distances between a tour player’s iron and the Icon blades. I was impressed with the Icon’s distance compared to the more forgiving AP2s and Apex Pro Dots.

Hopefully this gives interested members some insight into the Hogan Icon irons. It would be interesting to try these in different shafts to see if it would affect feel, flight or playability. From my perspective they are really stunning appearing irons, with a great blade feel but some forgiveness. Hope this helps.

(And yes, the tables were edited a little. I am an 8 hcp!)

Great report, thanks....

Clubs are absolute lookers.