TaylorMade’s Matt Bovee gives us a look under the hood a the brand new Qi and Qi HL irons. Each iron face and head are designed around the kind of shots and face contact each iron sees. This engineering provides the ultimate in tightening dispersion and adding distance.
All right here we are today tailor made launch event I’m here with Matt bie and Matt every time we get together we can talk about some irons and today the irons we have on your hand here they may look cosmetically maybe a little familiar to people but under the hood
There’s a whole lot going on yes sir so let’s take a look at the QI irons because there’s a ton that’s exciting about them so let’s talk about kind of where do we start I mean we had a Stealth Iron that’s done did really really well had a lot of technology in
That you guys have a lot of kind of pushes and or advancements now you move to Qi what was kind of like kind of that process of getting to this next Iron well I mean look we we learn from every iron that we launch and we build on that
Innovation on that technology um and that’s really how we get to the QI iron and there’s a lot happening in here you mentioned some similarities it’s beautiful from the outside sticking with the monochromatic more aspirational sort of look so it’s got a serious tone to it
But there’s a lot of forgiveness a lot of distance built in these and uh the theme for 2024 with the QI iron is straight distance Y and we can get into that there’s a couple technologies that delivered that but really we set out to make these the most accurate game
Improvement irons on the market yeah and it’s interesting because you talk about when we we first talked about them the biggest thing or I think technology wise is the face brand new face kind of a new construction and it was a kind of a a problem that you guys kind of saw
Through research and development and I I I think a lot of us think about you we hear about these fast faces and everything’s you know all kind of distance but you guys kind of need to control that distance a little more for that accuracy and I think a lot of us
Don’t put those two things together you know it’s like Fast face and then do something else to make them forgiving or accurate you guys are kind of not two birds with one stone but you guys are kind of found that helping that face kind of helps distance or accuracy as
Well yeah for sure so with great speed comes great responsibility love it some might say um look what happens anytime you have a a very fast face a flexible face uh the way that the face rebounds at the point of impact is uh unique for irons because irons are asymmetric Y and
We really took a deep dive into that to ensure that we can control the way the ball comes off the club face cuz this is something not many people know it’s not something that a lot of people talk about but the fast face irons unless you specifically design a technology to
Prevent it will come off the face with cut spin which is yeah I mean I I would have never thought that and it has to do with the face uh the way the face wants to rebound so the toe uh span taller than the heel and the longer that span
Is the more flexible it is right so the toe side flexes more at impact than the heel the heel wants to rebound first and if you imagine that heel rebounding faster than the toe that’s where you get this cut spin coming off now where the game improvement iron players or all
Players what’s the my that they typically struggle with typically a fade or a slice exactly so why would you ever compound the problem specifically for players looking for as much forgiveness as possible so again we want to take that variable out we want to minimize
The right Miss as much as we can and make these straight throughout the entire set so that’s really the mission with Qi irons straight distance from the back top to bottom so these can be your most consistent most accurate game improvement irons in the market and it
Was it like you just took like a seven iron and just said oh how do we fix it here every single iron has a different kind of you went through and kind of modeled where strikes on these faces were and each iron has its own properties its own design to ensure that
Cuz the the the way you strike a seven iron a little different than the way you strike the four iron so each head has a different kind of face in a sense to control that that spin it’s more than just a face honestly it’s the entire
Body so we’re we’re building off of what we’ve debuted in 790 in this individual head optimization process and we brought that into the core game improvement iron for the first time so it’s the face interacting with the speed pocket there’s a brand new speed pocket and the long irons those two things work
Together to give you higher launch in the long irons as well as that straight distance and then as you migrate more toward the middle of the set like we’ll use a seven iron for example completely different face geometry which is really designed to maximize that sweet spot and
Build consistency really give you ball speed large uh amount of forgiveness and then when you work into the short irons that face thickness changes again because we want to control the ball flight and add more spin so that you have again that control and these are
Your scoring clubs you want to be able to attack pins hold greens so you just have to think about each one differently and it’s not an easy thing to do but that’s really where we’re at when it comes to iron technology and we want to give golfers uh irons that are designed
For that unique purpose in the bag to your point you don’t hit a four iron the way you hit a seven the way you hit a wedge you have to think about each one individually if you’re going to do it right yep and then also too I mean you
Can pack all that technology into it if they don’t feel and sound good that’s right then then players aren’t going to want to play them and these I’ve had the privilege of hitting them they do sound and feel good but we’ve got some some magic sauce inside as well that you
Don’t see that enhances sound and feel as well I I mean so there’s different ways that we tune the frequency and and we all know at this point that sound is feel so the structure inside the top line where we support that but also the echo damping system which lives inside
This hollow body construction me multiple contact points across the face from the heel to the toe so whether you hit it in the center or you mishit it a little bit you’re going to damp out those vibrations and give you that soft yet solid feel um even though again this
Is like the fastest iron face we have so pretty incredible wrap that in a Chrome plated package which I think is just beautiful it’s a great change um so a lot of tech and then there’s two ways to really get there and again we should talk about law fitting more for players
But there’s the QI iron that’s going to be our longest iron fastest ball speed in the portfolio and we have the QI HL HL standing for higher and lighter so a lighter Club mass lighter head lighter shaft lighter grip overall package is noticeably lighter and two degrees
Weaker so it’s got really a design that’s going to promote more Club head speed and higher launch which a lot of players can benefit from yeah I mean I actually hit both up on the Range here just a little bit ago and it was amazing when you say HL everybody just thinks oh
High launch both of them are extremely easy to elevate and both of them are very fast I was hitting the four iron off the T and it goes forever which is pretty crazy but again they sound and feel good they look good it’s just overall a really good package and I love
The kind of carbon fiber accents on the back it just gives it that little pop a little bit of technical Elegance exactly you know with these Qi irons there is something a little different with CG throughout the set yep and little bit of shaping as well so let’s discuss a
Little bit about CG why do we need to change CG and irons well so if I’m going to ask you this low CG gives you what higher ball flight higher ball flight which irons do you struggle getting in the air the most long irons so your long
Iron should probably have the lowest CG right makes sense it’s not a common attribute in a long iron and we have the flighted CG not just in the QI irons it is in the Q irons it’s being debuting there for the first time in our core game improvement products but it’s also
In p790 as well um but again the concept here goes back to the individual head optimization and how you hit each Club you want help launching that long iron make it easier to play and in the short irons we strategically start to position that CG higher and higher in the club
Face uh to really bring that flight down and add spin into your scoring clubs so uh in addition to the flighted CG we have some other shaping changes here that’s driving more forgiveness so we have a New Soul geometry in the long and mid irons it gets the Leading Edge a
Little bit lower to the ground that’s going to again help you launch the ball in the air again individual Club optimization and we also have a little bit longer blade length that makes it more stable these are more forgiving than stealth stealth was an incredible iron but more forgiving with a 14%
Larger Sweet Spot really what that means for golfers is you’re going to hit your numbers more often there’s more consistency there um and really that’s what these irons is all about more successful shots more often and I feel like 14% is a lot when you look at and
You know from Iron to iron that’s a big change I mean I know a lot of people look at changes in golf clubs and they look at these little percentages 14% on a on something that size is pretty significant oh absolutely and then you think about how that compounds year on
Year and that the average golfer is replacing their irons every 5 to six years those changes add up to where you see massive differences when you come in with a product that’s in the 5 to six year old like sort of range yeah no it’s it’s impressive when you kind of had
That graphic and all that it’s it’s when you can visualize it it’s it’s pretty impressive so those are the brand new Qi irons from tailor made go to tailormade golf.com check out more but uh they’re definitely worth hitting if you’re looking for new irons Matt thank you very much appreciate it always a
Pleasure my friend
