If you look at the types of clubs you find in a golf bag, it’s the irons that provide the biggest number of clubs. Indeed, unlike all the other clubs, they’re normally sold as a complete set, rather than individually.
These are the clubs you use when you’re anything less than around 200 yards from the hole.
Normally this means these are the clubs you’re using to pitch the golf ball onto the green from somewhere on (or, if you’re unfortunate, off) the fairway.
Sometimes the hole you’re playing is a short one, so you can even use an iron to play the first shot of the hole off the tee.
Nomenclature
There are nine different standard irons, and they are described numerically. So there is a one iron, two iron, three iron, etc…all the way up to the nine iron.
The difference between each iron is mainly in terms of loft and length.
Loft (described in detail here) is a measure of the angle of the clubhead. The higher the loft, the more the face of the club faces up when it hits the golf ball.
Length is exactly that - how physically long is the club. In fact, you’ll often find the irons split into three sub-categories to reflect changing lengths; the short irons (8-9), mid-irons (5-7) and long-irons (1-4).
The lower the number of the iron, the lower the loft and the greater its length. So the iron with the most loft is the 9-iron, while the 1-iron has the least. And the longest iron is the 1-iron, and the shortest the 9-iron.
What that all translates to on the golf course is two things, the lower the number of the iron, the further the ball goes and the flatter its trajectory. So a ball hit with a 1-iron travels low and far, while one hit with a 9-iron travels high and short.
As you can guess, by choosing which number iron to hit the ball, you can control both the distance you achieve and the trajectory of the ball. So you can choose the club best suited to the position of the ball in relation to the green and any surrounding hazards.
The closer you are to the destination, the higher the iron number you pick.
The iron set
There’s no room - or need - for all nine irons in your golf bag, as you’d have little space left for your other club needs.
Most sets sold start with the three iron and go up to the nine iron, plus a wedge. So what happened to the one and two irons?
Those missing irons are the hardest to hit in golf. So much so that very few golfers (even touring professionals) use them today. Hybrid clubs, and to some extent fairway woods, have replaced them. Indeed, the current trend is to see hybrids or woods replace the 3- and 4-iron, too.
The difficulties associated with the 1-iron are the stuff of golfing legend.
Clubhead shapes and grooves
If you pick up the manufacturer’s blurb for an iron, you’ll find various clubhead characteristics described fulsomely. To understand what they mean and why they’re important, read the clubhead article.
In brief, irons traditionally take a blade form. Which looks like it sounds - a thin blade-like clubhead. Sometimes you’ll also see references to a muscle-back design. This is a blade design with the weight concentrated behind the center of the club - for added oomph when the ball meets the dead center of the clubhead.
Blades are relatively difficult to control. Which means there’s only a limited area of the clubhead you can hit if you want a true and straight shot. That’s also the advantage; the accomplished golfer has more creative flexibility. They can use blades to shape and cultivate a wider variety of shots.
In recent times, manufacturers have created a fatter shape, often with a hollowed-out center, so that the clubhead weight is concentrated around the perimeter of the clubhead (so-called cavity-back irons). This increases the size of the sweetspot in the clubface.
The trend toward cavity-back irons is to give less accomplished golfers (most of us) an iron that is easier to hit and which gets the ball up and out and straight more often, even if that means you’ve less flexibility in terms of what you can do with the club.
Whatever the clubhead shape, you’ll also notice that the face of each iron has grooves in it. Their presence imparts spin on the ball and makes it easier to control the ball.
Materials
Just as “woods” are made of metal, “irons” are predominately made of steel. Obvious, isn’t it?
In recent times, new materials have crept into use in iron clubheads, such as titanium and tungsten. Titanium, for example, is lighter and stronger than steel, so if the clubface is made lighter, that frees up some weight to use elswhere in adjusting one or more clubhead characteristics.
Manufacture
Another difference you’ll see in irons is between forged and (investment) cast irons.
Forging is where the clubhead is hammered or beaten into shape from a single piece of material. The casting process involves pouring molten metal into a preformed mold.
Casting gives club engineers more design flexibility and is better suited to production of the modern, more complex, cavity-back designs.
You might wonder why forged irons persist, then. The answer is that some golfers prefer the feel they get when using the club. They find they can better control and shape shots using a forged, rather than cast, iron.
Much of that difference may be more due to the fact that blades are more usually forged than cavity-back irons.
Prices
The price of a set of irons varies from around $149 for a quality non-branded set through to over $1200 for a top-of-the-range brand with a top shaft.
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