PING S55 Better Player Irons Review

Ping’s S family of irons (S56, S57, S58, S59) have enjoyed lots of success on Tour in the hands of players like Bubba Watson, Hunter Mahan and Louis Oosthuizen among others. The new S55s are subtly different – and Mahan is said to be hitting them longer and higher than his S56s.

So what’s new?

1 The cavity insert
At address, the S55 and S56s look almost identical, but as Hunter Mahan says the S55’s “feel” different. That’s because Ping swapped the thermoplastic urethane (TPU) insert that was used on the S56s for a thermoplastic elastomer (TPE) insert, which Nicolette says is a more flexible material which can absorb more vibration at impact. For most golfers, that translates into a softer feel.

2 Larger Custom Tuning Port
The TPE insert, which Ping calls its Custom Tuning Port (CTP), is also larger in the S55s, meaning it takes up more space in the centre of the head. That frees up more weight for Ping engineers to redistribute to the edges, giving them a 0.5% higher moment of inertia (MOI) than the S56s. That doesn’t sound like much, but according to Nicolette, it can make a difference. A 0.5-inch mishit with a 7-iron will fly two yards further with an S55 than a S56; a big deal for better players aiming at a tight pin.

3 A different centre of gravity
Recent irons from Ping have seen progressive sole widths, so the long irons have wider soles than the short irons to help golfers hit them higher. That’s not the case with the S55s. But they do have an element of a progressive design. Nicolette says that the four grams of discretionary weight the larger CTP frees up lets the long irons have a lower, more rearward CG to help you hit them higher, while the short irons have a CG further forwards in the head to make them fly a little lower.

4 Loft conversion
Maybe the biggest change golfers will notice is in the lofts of the short irons, which are strengthened about one degree. That will make them fly a little farther — about four yards, Nicolette said. Though the lofts of the mid- and long irons are relatively unchanged (the S55 6-iron measures 30 degrees, 0.5 degrees stronger, the 4-iron is 0.25 degrees weaker), their lower CG should help them fly a little further.