Striking the greens is usually an issue particularly since the holes seem to get longer. All of us, obviously, want to hit longer with our irons but in addition, we want our strikes to go straighter, so as to create more of the desired pars and birdies.
And So, with this article, I am hoping to put the spotlight on some of the finest golf irons for mid handicappers below.
Quick Answer: List of the Best Golf Irons for Mid Handicappers in 2019
- Callaway XR Irons (this has the easiest sweet spot to hit)
- Taylormade M2 Irons (this is best for practically and mid handicapper)
- Cobra F7 Irons (this is best for only 15+ mid handicappers)
- Taylormade M4 Irons (this is an excellent upgrade to the M2)
- Mizuno JPX EZ Forged Irons (it is the best forged irons for mid handicappers)
- Cleveland Launcher CBX Irons (great for handicappers from mid to high)
WHAT EXACTLY IS A MID HANDICAPPER?
A mid handicapper is a golfer who plays off a handicap between 7, 8 or 10 to as much as about 17 or 18. This means that you are able to generally break 90 from time to time or are able to shoot in the 80’s every round. It is a wide selection, but the target is definitely exactly the same. There is really no hard and fast rule on the classification of low, mid and high but all of us know roughly where we belong.
Now, let us give you the differences between the irons for mid handicappers and low handicaps.
Generally, the mid-handicappers should:
- Have an offset hosel that will be aimed at promoting a straighter ball flight
- Be cavity backed so as for it to have a wider sweet spot on the face
- Have four irons, and continue to the pitching wedge, or perhaps, if it can, to the sand wedge
- Lastly, have perimeter weighting, so that the strike zone can be increased.
These days, most sets do not come with either a three or four iron because most times, they are difficult to hit, and oftentimes, they are replaced by hybrids and fairway woods that would complete what naturally should be the best gold clubs for mid handicappers.
Low handicappers, on the other hand, most times get the feeling that they need to upgrade to a professional style golf club. And this takes us to the next point of this article.
What Golf Clubs Should You Avoid?
In this bid to upgrade their golf clubs by low handicappers, because they feel like they need something with a more professional touch to it, they switch to getting a set of blades and musclebacks. If you are in the market to buy a gold club, and you see a golf club with the following names on them: Blade, MB, Muscle back, Tour, Players Iron, or pro, you should do well to stay away from them.
Those are the ones that you should avoid by all means. The only people who should concern themselves with professional clubs are golfers who play off a three handicap or even less.
When you seek to get golf clubs for mid handicappers, here are the things to look out for:
- Their hosel is not offset because these golfers usually shape it both ways
- They contain 2 and sometimes 3 irons.
- Their weight, most of it, is usually found behind a tiny sweet spot
- They have no cavity back and they are mostly solid metal on the back of the club.
Best Golf Irons for Mid Handicappers 2019 Review
Callaway XR Irons
This club has a great super distance and, also it has the look of professional golfing.
The Callaway XR Irons are designed for mid handicappers, and these irons have been made so they are as close to true point-and-shoot as you will ever find.
This iron’s face flexes and rebounds, which makes it better than the previously released model, and with these new capabilities, that are enabled by the 360 Face Cup Technology, it is able to have a much longer ball. The club, ones stricken, gives off a crisp and clean sound.
It is usually a problem trying to tell the difference between a mishit and a sweet strike, but when you get what you want from the strike, I guess there can be no complaining. The Callaway iron gives, effortlessly smooth strikes from the entire club face combined with a high and straight ball flight.
This is good news to every golfer who is looking for more accuracy and greens in regulation. Of course these clubs are not miracle performing clubs, but when you a smooth swing and you are a well-grooved and consistent mid handicapper, these clubs are perfect to help get you closer to the number 79.
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- It looks very executive
- Best value for money mid handicap clubs
- Point and shoot straight hitters
- It is specifically designed for mid handicappers
- Its distance increases after an upgrade.
- It is hard to gauge your mishits from feedback on the club face
- It isn’t for fast swingers (95+ mph with driver)
Cobra F7 Irons
Clubs best For 15 to 18 handicap mid handicappers
These irons have a mid-sized club head but are definitely an improvement game irons. When you touch the golf ball, the top line is not as heavy as other improvement game irons.
But like most of the irons that fall under this category, they have made the face of the clubs thinner so as to aid more ball speed off the flexible face so as for it to hit longer.
The irons’ progressive hollow design gets shallower further into the set
In the set, the longer irons have a more hybrid appearance with a hollow area behind the entire face and as you further go through the short irons and wedge, the cavity reduces in size.
You should expect to improve those mid irons greatly with the design of the cavity back. These irons are way more forgiving than the other golf clubs. The lightweight nature of the irons helps your swing speed enough to prevent you from moving to softer shafts.
- It is very light, and it allows for an increased swing speed
- It has a progressive cavity back design for forgiveness
- It is one of the highest flying irons
- Its mid-sized club head is more efficient than most game improvement irons.
- Its hybrid look might need some getting used to as time passes.
- You won’t be able to shape much because you just want to go dead straight.
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Taylormade M2 Irons
Easy to hit for any level of mid handicap
The Taylormade irons makers have the gone the extra length with the design of the M2 game improvement irons. They have been able to create a hollow Speed Pocket behind the face so as to make the face flex and give you, the golfer, more distance anywhere you hit on the face.
This iron has a wide sweet spot; and it extends over almost the entire groove area, so that when you mishit the ball, it would still go a long way and straight like you would want it to go.
The Taylormade’s M2 set has been made specifically to increase the height of your shots. The short irons are able to get back up quickly, while the mid irons are easily forgiving, that you will think that they are wedges. And with this increase in height, the ball would come down soft and lay on the green to give you more birdie and par putts.
Easy to hit and the ball flies high
Striking a ball with this iron causes it to fly high, and their wide soles help to get under the ball particularly in deep rough to get your golf ball toward the green and out of the weeds. Its heavy perimeter weighting makes it so that you can swing it and trust the club to do the rest of the work for you.
You don’t have to bother your head as to what will happen next.
The designers of this club designed the M2 iron set with forgiveness in mind. They come with hosel offsets and are extremely accurate irons, they also have the cavity back design, basically everything you’d want in a golf club. These clubs are one of the best mid handicap clubs you will find on the market.
- The mishits go an unusually long way
- Massive sweet spot to hit it pure every time
- Easy to launch the ball high in the air
- You can trust on every shot you take as it gives you no reasons to worry.
- They are pricey
- They look too busy and less classic.
Mizuno JPX EZ Irons
Japanese forged irons of superior quality
The Mizuno JPX EZ Irons are beautifully designed, just like all other Mizuno sets are, and they are created with care and precision. The makers of this clubs have shifted their focus from designing irons for better players only, and now, they make irons that are aimed at the mid handicap players.
The clubs have a deep cavity back that helps to shift the center of gravity lower and move the sweet spot down in the face to get a crispier contact on the ball. And the soles of these clubs are formidable and not chunky.
Although these clubs are precision made and they also feel amazing, there is a red flag: when you try addressing the ball, they look quite bulky. Its top line is thick, and while this does infuse some confidence in some golfers, others remain ambivalent toward it, and do not find it appealing.
With its chunkiness comes a large sweet spot and up to 10 yards more distance on a 6 iron as compared to the previous model.
Something you have in mind with this set is that the sand wedge is 55 degrees. It doesn’t have so much bounce, but if you do prefer a big bounce sand wedge, you will definitely want to replace it with your own. All in all, this is one of the best made sets for high handicappers.
- It is light and easy to swing
- It has a consistent performance across the face
- It has a low center of gravity and sweet spot for an easier, crisp contact.
- Its distance improvement isn’t easily noticed by some golfers, but they experience increased accuracy.
- It has a chunky top line when addressing the ball.
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Taylormade M4 Irons
They are the best for mid to high handicappers
This iron is an upgrade of the M2 irons, and it is much sleeker and it has a more professional golfer look.
Don’t go thinking that this is a club used only by the pros. With this club, it is almost without any effort that you get to launch the ball into the air and on target. With the M4’s, it is difficult to hit a ball that is far off target, and this brings the real meaning to the game improvement iron in the truest sense of the word.
The longer irons in the set possess a deeper cavity back with a small hollowing behind the face to get more forgiveness and distance on center and mishit strikes. Despite the club’s aggressive thick top line, they swing easily with their standard fitted light weight shaft.
The lofts in this set are far stronger and the SW is 54 degrees, this is useful knowledge when picking your wedges to go with the set.
You will most likely see a distance increase, and this will be mostly due to the more upright lofts and less to do with the variables.
They have the ability to decrease lofts on the clubs because they have been designed so well that they can come out higher and are easier to get off the ground. This is some cool tech that was absent on the golfing scene some decades back.
- It is a versatile iron especially for golfers looking to break 80 or 90
- It doesn’t require much effort to hit high and on target
- It has light weight shafts flightweightg speed.
- Strikes low in the face perform close to standard strikes.
- The longer irons are easier to hit while the shorter irons are made for more finesse.
- It is not for finesse, it is for more power and accuracy
If you already are in possession of a wedge set, you should consider that the PW in the set is 43.5 degrees; AW is 49 degrees, and the SW is 54 degrees.
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Cleveland Launcher CBX Irons
A game improvement iron to forgive mid handicappers
The manufacturers of this iron are known to make high-quality irons for mid to low handicappers, they have designed a set of irons that are aimed at the average mid handicapper to boost distance while at the same time giving out enough forgiveness. The Launcher CBX gives you the best of both worlds, and it does this by making it easier to hit longer irons and to give you more control over the shorter clubs.
Although it is not massive on Tour as much as when the big leagues played for them, this has remained a favorite among other golfers especially the easy to hit drivers.
The top line of the golf is heavy, but the offset in the longer irons look small, and this should hardly turn the better player off. It has a V-shaped sole that does well to promote them from moving through the turf to give good hits even when you do hit it a little fat.
When accompanied by the Tour Zip grooves, the Launcher CBX irons easily get the ball in the air and make it stop quicker on the greens.
Golfers usually notice an increase in the distance anywhere from half a club to a full club with this set, and it could go down to the stronger lofts. Cleveland ingenuously engraves the degrees of the loft on the sole of the club.
The Cleveland CBX Irons have a much larger cavity back in the long irons, to aid more forgiveness and a larger sweet spot and as you make advancement toward the shorter irons, the cavity back reduces for a more control-based feel.
- Soft sound at contact
- The ball flies straight, and sometimes it reduces hot shapes to baby fades and draws.
- It is very good for players who hit it toward the toe.
- It launches the ball high into the air and glides through the turf
- The lofts of the club are imprinted on the sole to enable you buy the right wedges and hybrids.
What makes the best mid handicapper irons?
The benefits of mid handicapper irons
When you are able to hit more greens, your love for going to the course will grow. Once you are sure of where the ball will go, you will aim your target with confidence. And when you can hit closer, you will make more pars and birdies and in the end drop that mid handicap into the single digits.
To achieve this, a good handicap iron needs to:
- Land softly on the greens
- Be very forgiving especially on mishit shots
- Get the ball into the air finely with little effort
It is expected of you to get better with time so there is no need for you to go get a “player’s iron set” or a blade club or muscleback.
Buying a set of irons is quite a huge investment in yourself and the improvement in your game with a set of mid handicapper Game improvement irons will be a tad dramatic. There is no need to weigh yourself down with smaller more concentrated sweet spot unless you are sure that you will be playing 5 days a week.
What makes a set of irons forgiving for mid handicappers?
There are two things: the shafts and the club head design will define the best golf irons for mid handicappers.
Shafts
There are two types of shafts for your irons: steel and graphite. The latter is popular in drivers and hybrids. For irons, the extra weight that steel provides makes gives golfers a better feel than graphite.
Graphite can help with distance, and if your swing speed is very low, you should look into buying this. Its reduced weight can help your pick up a few more miles per hour in swing speed and coming with that, more distance.
Steel shafts are the best option for the majority of golfers and a regular flex will be the best for golfers and this is usually based on their swing speeds.
Tips for shaft flex based 6 iron swing speed and carry distance
- A Flex -60-70 mph and 130 – 155 yards
- X Flex – 6 iron swing speed 90 mph and carry 175 yards
- Stiff (S) Flex – 6 iron swing 80 – 90 mph and carry 155 – 175 yards
- Regular (R) Flex – 70 – 80 mph and 130 – 155 yards
- L Flex – Less than 60 mph and carry under 100 yards
It is recommended that you get a test and get good advice and guidance from a fitter or a local so as for them to show you how to maximize your purchase to your requirements.
Club Head Design
There are two types of club head designs.
We have the:
- Muscle Back/Blade irons: These are exclusively used by low single digit handicappers and professionals.
- Cavity back irons: This is the most forgiving irons ever and all of them have been cavity back.
The mechanics of how cavity back gives you extra performance to mid handicap over ‘players’ irons.
Perimeter Weighting
Most cavity irons usually have perimeter weighting, and this is just a slang that refers to the fact that they have a hollow out the back of a muscle back iron and put that spare metal around the border of the back of the club.
The perimeter weighting adds more weight behind the ball on all off-center strikes.
The muscle back iron mostly used by the pros have their weight behind the tiny sweet spot. If you miss the sweet spot on a tiny muscle back, you will get a bolt of pain that will shoot up your fingers.
The cavity back iron with perimeter weighting has a huge amount of sweet spot because the face is enclosed with reinforcement through the perimeter weight.
A moderately wide sole
The wider the sole, the lower the center of gravity of the club which means that more weight can get under and behind the golf ball on your shots. This creates an arching high ball flight even on mishits.
The extra beef on the sole improves shots where you hit the ground before the ball, too. The extra weight bounces off the ground instead of it digging into the ground just like a thinner sole would.
For the newbie golfers, it is always advised that they have a really fat sole, but for those mid handicappers, they only need a moderately fat sole. The Super Max Game improvement don’t exactly work as efficiently because of the skill of mid handicappers who are able to get the ball easily in the air.
Offset Hosel
Like a club designer, Tom Wishon, said “Offset is a design in clubheads in which the neck or hosel of {the head is positioned in front of the face of the clubhead, so that the clubface appears to be set back a little from the neck of the club.”
“The more offset, the farther the head’s center of gravity is back from the shaft. And the farther the CG is back from the shaft, the higher the trajectory will be for any given loft on the face. More offset can help increase the height of the shot for golfers who have a difficult time getting the ball well up in the air.”
The most forgiving irons you will find on the market will almost certainly have offset hosels. Low handicappers who play blades or musclebacks have such skill to square the clubface at impact, they really are not in need of offset. The offset stimulates a draw, and it also reduces workability of the club to hit fades. Highly skilled players want to hit the ball both ways.
Stay away from irons with the names: Tour Preferred, Tour, or Pro
These are designed only for low handicap and professional players. Its like skipping the “easy” part of a video game, and you just scroll right down to “hard.” These Tour clubs are not the most forgiving irons for your level of skill.