Today, our expert Lou is comparing 5 different generations of TaylorMade Game-Improvement iron sets! ⛳
We’re taking a trip back in time with this one as we try to determine which set offers the best performance and we’re looking to see how much game-improvement technology has evolved through the years! 📈💥
To take a look at the iron sets featured in this video, visit the links below: 👀
– TaylorMade Qi Irons – https://bit.ly/490h5UK
– TaylorMade M4 2021 Irons – https://bit.ly/43dBO3J
– TaylorMade M2 Irons – https://bit.ly/490ksem
– TaylorMade Burner ’09 Irons – https://bit.ly/4oXrjtQ
– TaylorMade RAC HT Irons – https://bit.ly/43kgIki
Need some help to find the right set for you? Be sure to consult our Club Finder tool: https://bit.ly/47rYiR3
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Chapters:
0:00 Intro
0:36 Qi First Impressions
1:59 M4 2021 First Impressions
3:41 M2 First Impressions
4:48 Burner ’09 First Impressions
6:26 RAC HT First Impressions
8:30 Data Analysis
12:09 Summary
13:38 Conclusion
What’s up, guys? L here for Golf Avenue, and we’re back with another comparison test. This week, we’re taking a look at tailor made game improvement irons from the last 20 years. In our most recent video, we took a look at 10 years of Mizuno irons, but today we’re going back to game improvement irons, and we’re looking at Tailor Made, which is probably the most world-renowned brand in golf. So, let’s not waste any more time and let’s start testing our clubs. All right, so let’s kick things off with the most recent set in our list, the Tailor Made Qi, which were released in 2024. We’re going to start with those ones so we can sort of set a standard that we’re trying to attain with the other clubs in this test. So, right off the bat, let’s talk about the pitching wedge. The pitching wedge was outstanding. Honestly, the ball flies off the club face. It really feels smooth. Really great feel for the ball despite it being a game improvement iron. I will say there is still some room for error when you have bad strikes, but the biggest penalty will be in terms of distance rather than offline strikes that would go wildly to the right or to the left. And it’s more of the same when it comes to the 7 iron. Honestly, very easy to hit. The ball flies off the club face. Smooth smooth feel which is really surprising for a game improvement iron. So for the Qi, so far we’re two out of two after testing the pitching wedge and the seven iron. And moving on to the five iron, we also have very, very good performance. The ball flies up the club face here. Again, my only knock would be that it’s a little wild in terms of distance. Was a little harder to control, but that’s your typical five iron from the game improvement. You’ll get a lot of distance, but a little more wild in terms of dispersion. So, overall, very, very impressed with the QY irons. It’s a great game improvement set. No wonder it’s so popular. It really delivers in all the aspects you would expect a game improvement iron set to deliver. But now that we’ve set the standard with the newest model, it’s time to look at the older ones and see how they perform. For the second set in our test, we have the Tailor Made M4, but the 2021 version. That’s right. The M4s were originally released in 2017, but Tailor Made came out with a re-release in 2021. They did the same with the 2017 M2s, which they re-released in 2020. um of this strength of tailor made, you tend to see slight improvements from the original models. So, we’re going to see what the M4 delivered. Uh right away with the pitching wedge, if we start there, I felt like the club head was massive. I felt like I was hitting a hockey stick every single time since the club head felt so large at impact. However, this didn’t translate to forgiveness or even longer distance at all. It was really disappointing in terms of not only forgiveness, but it was consistency as well. Some strikes would go far right, some go far left, some would go far, some would go short. It was really disappointing. It was hard to find my comfort with that one. And it was the same story with the seven iron. It was a bit wild, really hard to control, really hard to find a center of the club face, but the club head feels so large. It feels so forgiving. It feels so comfortable, but the results are just not there. It’s really, really disappointing to see that. And honestly, it’s a little more of the same with the 5iron. Uh, it did make some good decent strikes that went on for a good distance, but the consistency just wasn’t there. It was such a problem with this one, especially with the 5iron. I was expecting this large club head to act as sort of a forgiving zone or super easy to hit um target. It just made things way worse and really hard to control. So, overall, this set is definitely forgiving. It’s just not as good as I thought it was going to be. And if I was to pick that set, I would definitely replace the five iron with something like a five hybrid. Just something that is definitely more um consistent of the club face. Going further back in time, this time we’re looking at the original M2s released in 2016. This set was one of the most beloved released by Tailor Made. And I have to say that I do understand why. It was incredible from top to bottom. It felt great, performed great, and honestly, I would feel good about putting that set in my bag if I was in the market for a game for my irons. Honestly, the pitching wedge, small little pull on the first one, then I was able to put all the other balls in the straight line and just gain distance more and more with every strike. With the seven iron, same story. Tightest dispersion zone of all the seven irons I tried out today. Definitely my favorite. And when it comes to the 5iron, the story goes on. Again, by far my favorite. It felt like the best one. It delivered the smallest dispersion zone and the performance was outstanding. Honestly, this set is really, really good. It’s hard to believe that it was released 10 years ago. It will probably be lacking behind the Qi by this much in terms of all distance categories, but aside from that, this is an incredible set. I was really happily surprised and I’m looking forward to see how good the sets are as we go further back in time. Going back around 15 years in time now, we’re looking at the original tailor made burners which were released in 2009. This set again has a lot of the M2. It reminds me a lot of what M2 had to offer. And of course, you can definitely see the lineage of how this ended up becoming the F2 at some point. Um, but that means that I had a lot of expectation from this set and it sort of delivered honestly. The pitching wedge very respectable, much more of the same that we’ve seen so far. The dispersion zone was pretty tight. Nothing too far off line. Um, consistency in terms of distance was the main issue. Some were longer, some strikes were shorter, but really nothing too out of the ordinary when it comes to especially game improvement pitching wedge. When it comes to the seven iron, sort of the same story here again, tight dispersion zone. I do have to say that it was really impressive, but in terms of distance consistency, some issues here and there if you’re missing the sweet spot. The five iron is the real problem here. Um the consistency was really not there. Some strikes were short, some strikes were long, left, right. Uh it was really harder to control than the two other ones, which is really disappointing cuz so far this one was two out of two, much like uh our Qi irons would have been. Um but the in this case, the burner since it’s such an affordable set and it’s much older, what I would simply do is swap out the five iron for a five hybrid. Like I was saying with the M4, uh the M4, I probably would stay away from that set. It wasn’t that great for me personally. The burners, I would have no problem putting them in the bag if I need a little more forgiveness. As I said, I would simply swap to five for an hybrid just to have something really consistent and easy to hit with the longer irons. All right, last but not least, we’re going all the way back to 2003 for the Tailor Made Rack HD. Obviously, HD stands for high trajectory, so I was expecting very high launching balls with this one, and it did not disappoint. It was a really, really, really good game improvement set, but it was released over 20 years ago. So, that’s really what impressed me most, honestly. The pitching wedge, it was outstanding. It the ball launched easy, flew easy. Um, like I said, more of the same of all the other ones, but it was really, really surprising for such an older club to be performing exactly like the other ones. Distance- wise, I’m guessing it might be just a bit shorter just because of the higher launch angles. But aside from that, it really felt easy to hit nice off the club face. And the same the same goes for the seven iron. Honestly, smooth smooth off the club face. Very surprising for a club that has a cavity back like the rack here at the back. You see, um there’s an opening behind the club head. Um this is to help with higher launch angle, more spin and impact. It’s really designed for game improvement iron. So, this is a telltale sign. But the fact that it matches up so well with the more recent model, that’s what really blew me away right there. When it comes to the 5iron, it’s even better than two other ones. Honestly, the seven iron had some consistency issues with the distances here and there. The 5iron, it was flat out the best one I hit so far. I did hit one uh more to the left, let’s say about 10 yards to the left, and another one about 10 yards to the right. But overall, it was really accurate and the distance was pinpoint every single time. So, I really appreciate the consistency there and any beginner golfers or high kneecap golfers in the case of game improvement iron will appreciate this distance consistency. So, as I said for some of the other ones and I will say again for this one, if you’re in the market for a budget game improvement set, you really need to consider those older models like the Rack HD. It still performs great. It’s very affordable and you won’t be disappointed by putting those in the bag. But now that I’ve given you my first impression all the sets, let’s take a closer look at the data and see which one really came out on top. All right, guys. We’ve made it to your favorite part of the video. It’s time to look at the data. Let’s start off with our pitching wedges. And one thing that will jump out the most people’s eyes is the discrepancy between the longest and the shortest pitching wedge. Usually, we’re looking about two or three yards at most from the long between the longest and the shortest. Today, we have six yards between our longest and shortest pitching wedge. Both in terms of carry and total distance. This is a massive gap that we don’t usually see. On the other hand, I will point out that older clubs usually have the higher spin rates, but in the case of today’s test, the Qi really shown it didn’t get the highest spin rate. The highest spin rates were attributed to the M2, but it was right right behind the M2. So, almost identical. So, really kudos to the Qi for this high-end performance, really high spin from such a new game improvement iron with strong ws. It’s really outstanding. And of course, we have to give the Crown to both the M2 and the Qi in terms of the pitching wedges. They deliver great distance, great accuracy, and of course, spin rates that will allow you to hold the green when you’re attacking on your pro shots. Moving on to the seven irons, the distance column will definitely draw your eye. Of course, if you look at the top, we have our Qi, which of course ended up on top with the strongest distance by far. It generated the highest ball speed of all the ones in the test. And we have to mention its very impressive spin rates, which is a plus for again those strong lofted new game improvement irons. But speaking of spin rates, discrepancy here is not as massive, but the older models get to shine this time around. So my only disappointment from the 7 irons has to do with the M2. It didn’t convert the highest swing speed of all the 7 irons into the highest ball speed. Actually, it was one of the lower ball speed of all of all the 7 irons in this test, which is really disappointing, especially when you consider that big thick club head profile of the M2s. I was expecting the ball to fly right off of it. Not so much. Again, personally, I love the M2. Thought it felt great, but the distance showed that maybe it wasn’t the best at transferring energy into the golf ball. Last but not least, we have our Fire. And I’m going to give you one guess as to which club ended up on top. Obviously, the Qi here again showed its true power. It was the only club to break the 180 mark in terms of carry distance and the only one to break the 200 marks in terms of total distance. Again, it show its ability to transfer the energy into the golf ball at impact turning long strikes for golfers who uses them. And again, spin rates here have to be respected. They are pretty high and very respectable for a 5iron. although it’s not the main thing you’re looking at if you’re looking at the performance of a five iron, especially if you’re in the market for game improvement sets. Also, on the subject of five irons, we have to mention that the older models did shine here with their spin rates. Yes, it’s not the main contributor key. Uh, but it’s still something to point out, except for the burner, they really showed their might in terms of spin rate. And the one other thing I’d like to point out is that although I really love this set, the Rack HT did show its age in terms of distance carry uh and total distance for the 5iron. So, in that case, again, maybe something to consider to swapping out the five iron and if there’s a 4 iron, swapping that one out as well for a couple of hybrids that will allow you to hit the ball just as long, but with much more confidence and much less of a strainuous swing every single time you’re trying to push the ball with those longer arms. All right. Now that I’ve given you my personal opinion on each one of these sets and that we’ve looked at the data that we’ve gathered from our test, there’s one more thing to do, and it’s to summarize all of it and see what observations we can take away from this. First off, I think we can all agree that Tailor Made did an amazing job with the QIS. They are outstanding in terms of game improvement irons. They’ve aggregated 20 years of innovation to come up with this incredible set of irons. uh they launch the ball along, they are forgiving, they’ll provide you with decent spin. Honestly, it’s all you could ever want from a game improvement iron. Second, I usually like to claim that decade old models will match the performance of brand new ones. It’s not always the case, honestly. In the Mizuno video we last did, it really wasn’t the case. The older model was struggling to keep up with the new one. And I think in today’s video, we can all agree that the Qi is in a class of its own. But if you’re looking at the M2, it really offers decent performance and it’s really nothing to sneeze at in the case of the Rack HD if you’re going all the way back to 03. Well, it’s really a respectable club that outperforms some of the ones we looked at today. And last but not least, we have a third point, which is that you can always find an option suited to your budget. If you want to go all out and spend on the Qi, where you’re going to get that high-end performance, but you’re also going to pay for it. On the other hand, if you want to have similar performance, but on a tighter budget, the M2 will offer you almost exact same performance for a fraction of what you’d paid for the Qi’s. And if you’re really tight and really don’t care so much about looks or having the latest and the greatest or even something from the last 10 years, well, you can look at the Rack HT, put those in the bag for very, very minimal sum. And as I’ve said earlier, swap out that five iron for a new five hybrid that will also help you on the course. And as always, before we let you go, I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to watch this video. We really love making those comparison tests for you. So, if you’ve got any feedback, feel free to share it down in the comments. And if you enjoyed today’s video, make sure to leave a like. And while you’re at it, why don’t you subscribe to Golf Avenue’s channel to help us grow this beautiful community. And as always, for Golf Avenue, I’ve been Lou. Until next time, see you. [Music]
2 Comments
Really surprised Stealth was not included
I would like to see the Qi vs the Sim 2 vs the Sim.