Callaway X Forged Irons: Right for YOU in 2025?

Updated for 2025, Callaway has new X Forged irons for low-handicap golfers and elite ballstrikers. You’ll see pros on the PGA Tour and LPGA Tour using Callaway X Forged irons in 2025 because of their soft feel and control, but how did Callaway design them, and are the updated X Forged irons right for you and your game? In this video, I explain everything you need to know about the 2025 Callaway X Forged irons.
00:00 Introduction
00:12 Apex Ai vs. X Forged
00:51 X Forged: Who is it Made For?
01:29 Unique Sole Design
02:33 Feel, Forgiveness
03:30 X Forged Max
04:06 X Forged vs. Apex CB vs. Apex Pro
05:39 X Forged: My Impressions
08:23 Questions & Comments?

Hey everybody, welcome back to the channel. If you have a really powerful, repeatable swing and you emphasize control when you’re looking for new irons, then Callaway thinks that this iron, the updated XForge, could be just the iron that you have been looking for. Now, as you might recall, last summer, Callaway brought out a number of different Apex AI irons. And those clubs are designed to blend forgiveness and ball speed with enhanced feel and control. This year, however, with the release of the updated version of XForge, this now is much more about control and feel, precision. Cali with the XForgge iron is aiming squarely at better players. You will see this iron on the PGA Tour, the LPGA. This is the kind of club at the recreational level that might be in the bag of somebody who is going to win your club championship, who contends and plays in regional tournament play. Collegiate players are going to be looking at XForge because of the way that it’s built and what it’s designed to do. Okay, so let’s get into it. The Callaway X forge for 2025 is made from one single billet of 1020 carbon steel. This is one piece of metal that has been forged into the shape that you’re going to see right here. There are no hidden pieces of tungsten. There’s no hollow body construction. There is no exotic material that’s been put into here. Everything about this iron comes from that one single billet of 1020 carbon steel to enhance the feel and to really amplify the moment of impact and all the sensations that are created by that. It has a very short blade length, a thin top line, a relatively narrow sole that does have some unique features to it, and marginally, you know, really little offset. Now, about that sole, the sole has a little bit of a pre-wear or a buffering um almost like a seat taper kind of thing. If we’re going to talk wedges, that’s designed into the front of the sole and then there is a middle section and then you sort of get into trailing edge relief. This sole construction has become very popular with Callaway and it originated actually in Japan. What you find in a lot of Asian courses is a type of turf that actually perches up the golf ball. And Callaway designed this type of sole long ago to really handle those types of conditions. But they found that it actually works really well, especially for elite ball strikers and elite players in a number of different instances, especially when they’re playing on relatively tight fairways. That leading edge relief and that slight little beveing out right in here in the sole really helps to quicken the the uh the pace and the speed of the club as it works its way through the turf. You hear really accomplished players say it gets in and out of the dirt quickly. This sole is designed to do that. And when you’re talking about a really accomplished, better player cavity back iron, that’s exactly what they’re looking for. Really enhanced turf interaction. Now, yes, there is a some degree of perimeter weighting that you can see right here, this cavity back design. And there’s a large piece of mass that’s been put right back here behind where you’re going to ideally be making impact and contact with the ball in the back of the face. That again is to magnify or enhance the sensation of feel by putting more mass here. It amplifies feel. The more mass you put on the perimeter in the heel and the toe, the more you’re going to be enhancing stability, boosting up the MOI. And as you can see, there’s precious little to be found in this updated version of XForge. But again, you have to remember who this club is designed for. If you add more perimeter weighting and increase the MOI, the ball inherently is going to want to fly straighter. This club is designed for players who want to be able to move the ball from right to left, from left to right, up, down, to control the golf ball using spin, and using their skill. Less accomplished golfers are looking for straight. Really good golfers are looking to try and be able to move the ball the way that they want to with their swing. Now, if all of these player enhancing type features sound a little bit intimidating, if you don’t think that really this is going to be an iron that you’re going to be able to use well out on the golf course, there is an XForge Max that Callaway is also producing that is simply a larger version of this X-Forge model. It has a longer blade length, a little bit thicker topline, a little bit wider sole, but all of the features and benefits that are designed into this are present in X-Forge Max, except it’s just going to be a little bit larger club. It is still forged from a single billet of 1020 carbon steel, however. So, you are going to get the same type of feel with XForge Max that you’re going to get with the standard X forged. So, where in Callie’s lineup does XForge land in terms of playability, in terms of forgiveness related to to other irons that Calli has in its lineup? Well, obviously the MB, the muscle back blade, is going to be the pinnacle, if you will, of the player enhancing feel type irons. It’s going to be the one that again is going to be found in several different um PJ Tour and LPJ Tour level bags, DP World Tour bags. XForge is going to line up actually much more closely to the Apex CB, the cavity back again, which sort of makes sense. This is a cavity back iron. That is going to be a forged product that has a little bit of perimeter weighting, but really again with that blade length and that thin top line and offset, it’s designed for really accomplished golfers. If you want to compare the XForge to something, for example, like Apex Pro, you have to remember Apex Pro is a hollow body construction. So that’s going to mean that it’s going to really be designed to enhance ball speed and provide players with much more distance than something like XForge is going to. You’re really talking about two very different constructions. And while they are potentially aimed at somewhat similar players, the player that’s going to be going for XForge again is all about control, is all about being able to control spin, control flight, control distance using their own skill. Whereas when you get into Apex Pro, it inherently wants to amplify ball speed that much more. The other thing to remember about Apex Pro is it does have urethane microsphheres on the inside of that hollow body head, which are going to dampen vibration and try and enhance sound and feel using a multimaterial construction. You’re not going to get this with XForgged. XForge, again, 100% one-piece 1020 carbon steel. So, while obviously Callaway made this club available to me and I was able to take it out to the range, I will be the first person to admit that me and my 10 handicap are probably not the best match for something like XForge. I would probably be somebody who’s much more towards XForge Max and I didn’t have the opportunity to hit that. I did however give into temptation and did hit the XForge. And what I found was it is to me the softest feeling Callaway iron that I’ve ever hit. This one is absolutely just butter when you make contact with it the right way. the ball just feels like it squishes up almost like a marshmallow against the face of the club and then just catapults right off. If you hit this club well, you’re going to get reward with the type of shot that you are really looking for. The issue for a player like me is going to be I can’t do that as often as I really need to to be able to play a good round of golf with this. I inherently need more forgiveness. I’m not necessarily looking for a lot more ball speed, but I’d like a little bit more ball speed. It’s the forgiveness part that I’m looking for with my 10 handicap that XForge just simply is not designed to deliver. I was able to hit some good shots with it, but I was also hit quite a few lousy shots with this because simply the blade length for me is too short. There is not enough forgiveness. There’s not enough um of an MOI situation here. It’s a little less stable on slightly offc center hits. And because this face is so small, if you do catch it out towards the toe or a little bit into the heel, you immediately know it. And that’s really what better players are looking for is feedback. They want to know when they have misruck a golf shot exactly where they misruck it. How did they misplay it? So when they look up and see the ball going through a window that’s different than what they were anticipating, they know exactly why. Is it the club or is it me? Well, in most cases, it’s probably going to be you. If you’re going to be using something like XForge, I think for golfers who have the skill level, who have that really repeatable, powerful swing, so they’re not looking for distance. They’re looking to be able to carve up a golf course, a club like XForge could be a really compelling thing to try because it is designed to do exactly that. Maximize out the level of control and the level of feel and make you be able to bring everything in your game out. The turf interaction I found was actually surprisingly good. I again am need a little bit more forgiveness, but I did find that this club goes through the turf very very nicely. It was something that you could sort of feel it just slicing off little pieces of of the turf. It didn’t want to dig. I think you really have to give some credit to that leading edge pre-wear and to this sort of scalloped out portion in the very front of the sole. the fact that really the flatter portion of the sole is going to be um really really narrow and there’s a little bit of bounce that’s going to be found just in the front and that little bit of bounce is enough to get the club up and out of the dirt really really quickly. So I think again accomplished players who are looking for a quick in and out of the turf are really going to appreciate that sole. So I think that’s probably just about everything you’re going to need to know about the Callaway X forged iron for 2025. But if you do have some questions or if you do have some comments, please feel free to drop them in the comment area below. I do try and monitor my comment area as well as I can and answer as many questions as I possibly can. And if you have any comments or questions about Callaway irons or irons in general, I’m happy to answer those, too. I’m here to be a good resource for you about all things related to golf equipment and technology. So, it would be really, really helpful if you did get some good information out of this video for you to like and subscribe to my channel. It helps me out tremendously. Thanks very much, and I look forward to seeing you again really soon.