PXG 0311 Irons Review

You’d need to be a pretty hardcore golf equipment nut to have heard much about Parsons Extreme Golf before January this year. If you’re not then the company was started in late 2014, it was the dream of entrepreneur Bob Parsons who started GoDaddy. His vision was to make the best golf equipment possible irrespective of how much it cost. Plenty raised eyebrows and chuckled at the idea of selling irons at £240 each and drivers for twice as much as the market leader and consequently few took much notice. That was until the company put its money where its mouth was and signed Open Champion Zach Johnson in January 2016 along with 4 other players in the worlds top 100, then the golf world stood up and took notice.   

PXG are fiercely protective over what they’re creating, they use some materials developed exclusively for their own use, and because of this as Bob Parson’s dreamt at the outset they reckon their equipment will out-perform all comers…so long as you’re properly fitted. We put their claims to the test, and hit the clubs to see if PXG’s performance claims could be backed up by data.

PXG 0311 Irons £240 per iron

Tech:

PXG say the 0311’s heads are created as a two-piece hollow head construction. The back, hosel and sole are all forged from a single piece of soft S25C carbon steel which PXG say because of its tighter grain structure resonates differently, improving the “impact experience” (feel). A hollow internal cavity is precisely CNC milled. Removing weight which allows extra mass to be positioned around the perimeter in the form of 11 tungsten weights, raising MOI to levels that will out-perform most game improvement irons say PXG. There’s also an ultra-thin HT1770 steel face which removes ineffective weight behind the face and a thermo-plastic elastomer is injected into the hollow body to dampen vibrations and add stability to the face.       

We say:

Chris was like a kid in a candy store when we told him he’d be testing the PXG’s, he like many gear nuts have heard about them and was really keen to see if they lived up to the hype. From the first shot to the last he cooed over the blade style head, reckoning it was a great size and shape and as soon as he started pinging shots away he reckoned the feel was superb too. Not completely different to a standard forged iron but very solid and very nice which has to say PXG’s construction brings something to the party. Our irons didn’t come with a wrench so we couldn’t tinker with the weights around the heads perimeter. For us it was a good thing, as you’re never going to walk into a shop and buy PXG off the rack, it’s just not their style. We hit the irons as they were designed to be set up, but knowing through a proper PXG fitting your fitter would tinker with ball flight to find your optimum set up. So the million-dollar question is how did they compare to the Callaway Apex CF 16’s which are widely regarded as very long and forgiving? Well on average they added 2 yards to Chris’s carry distance, and 2 mph to his ball speed, which is impressive considering the Callaway is one of the top performers in its category.    

Our verdict:

It’s difficult to put our finger on exactly what makes the 0311’s so desirable but we reckon it’s a combination of things. Just like a Formula One car where performance is wrung out of every conceivable component which looked at alone are very small gains. But put all the gains together and you end up with a greater overall product. The heads look absolutely fantastic, top marks have to go to the two designers PXG poached from Ping, we reckon reasonable golfers will love them if you ever get to hit a set. Thanks to the extreme perimeter weighting technology and construction method they are more forgiving than your typical better player iron, which you don’t hear too often. Plenty of golfers won’t stomach the cost and that’s fine…PXG wasn’t aimed at you. For those already driving a Merc, wearing a Tag Heuer watch and have a wardrobe stacked full of designer gear go ahead fill your boots the 0311’s are a top drawer set of irons.      

Availability: 3-GW

Price: £240 per iron

Standard 7 iron loft and length: 31 deg / 37”