If you’re a fan of the brand, today’s great news is that Honma’s latest T//World-X irons are finally here, and they retail for $175 each with steel shafts, and $200 each with graphite shafts. What do you get for that kind of money, you asked? Well, the T//World-X irons were developed as a utility tool initially, and they make for an interesting mélange of forgiveness and distance, features associated with game improvement clubs, and a cool muscle back design.
The best of both worlds, right? The T//World-X irons feature a cutting edge forged S25C carbon steel body, and a high quality MS300 stainless steel face steel face. The new model was announced back in January, and the golf market was thrilled at the news that Justin Rose, the 2018 FedEx Cup champion had just signed an endorsement deal with Honma. Justin has been using the Japanese company’s irons, drivers and wedges throughout 2019, and golf-spies spotted an interesting driving iron in his bag, a prototype at the time, which is now available to the general public as the T//World-X (TW-X).
Obviously, prototypes of the T//World-X (TW-X) iron have been developed for elite players initially, but Honma decided to tame the beast and offer it to the general public following the amazing feedback received from Rose and other players. The Japanese company actually decided to offer a full set of clubs aimed at better players and golfers seeking high performance and more distance in a cool-looking (and affordable) set of clubs. The new irons from Honma are available in 3-iron through 11-iron, featuring a body forged from high quality S25C carbon steel, and a very thin face built using MS300 stainless steel, a much harder material. As you can see, there’s nothing exotic about these irons, and thus Honma was able to keep the price down-low, but without sacrificing looks or performance in the process.
The S25C carbon steel face is thinner and smaller than usual compared to most distance enhancing irons out there, but it can flex at impact like no other, thus creating more speed and improved distance. The moment of inertia was increased by using a pair of weights and a hollow-design, hence Honma was able to shift the CoG lower and toward the heel and toe areas. Due to their clever design, Honma’s new irons are capable of delivering higher launch angles, and they’re twisting less when it comes to off center hits. Honma’s vice president of product Chris McGinley said about the new T//World-X (TW-X) that, let me quote:
“Our goals of keeping the CG low and deep through the entire set is accomplished by keeping the sole wide and the hollow construction. Since this set started as long iron utilities, which have a much wider sole than a typical set's long iron, we had a choice to narrow the sole down as the set progressed to the shorter irons. But we decided to keep them wide to keep the CG low to provide high launch and manage spin all the way through.
“The set has a near constant sole width from long down to short. There is always some apprehension with short irons having a wider sole, particularly for a set that better players will use but they have enough camber in them to play beautifully even from tighter lies. The bounce angles are a degree or two less than typical to help manage ground contact.”
