This Club Will Help 90% Of Mid Handicap Golfers

Srixon has just released its first-ever game improvement and super game improvement irons, adding the Srixon ZXiR irons and Srixon ZXiR HL irons to its ZXi iron line-up.

The clubs aim to offer the looks and feel of a player’s iron but the distance and forgiveness of a game improvement club. So have they delivered on that promise? I got my hands on both sets of golf clubs and took them to Alcanada Golf Club to find out…

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Have Stricken just brought out the most forgiving irons ever? Let’s go find out. So, you’re looking at Stricken’s first ever game improvement iron and first ever super game improvement iron. Now, it’s pretty mad to think a company like Stricken has never had a game improvement iron before. In the current ZX range, there’s currently three models. A players iron, a player’s distance iron, and something that Strickson call a players development iron. Now, Stricksen is saying they’re going to give you the distance and forgiveness that the players looking in the game improvement category want, but without getting rid of that feel that people love from a player’s iron. So, let’s go put these two irons head to head. See what the differences are and see if these are just as forgiving and feel just as good as claim they do. Right, we’re going to start at the bottom of the bag. I’ve got 9 iron, 7 iron, and five iron to hit. So, we’re going to nine first with both models. Currently got the ZXR in my hands. And actually, I really like the shaping of this. Obviously, this is the nine iron, so it’s the smallest model in the range, but I think it sits really nicely behind the golf ball. I really like the shape and sizing. Obviously, if you compare it to the other irons in the rest of the Stricten ZXi range, they are a little bit bigger. Probably most noticeably, the top line’s a little bit thicker, but I think for people in this category, that’s going to inspire a little bit of confidence and remind them that there’s some club there to help them out. So, let’s see how much help it does give us. About 130 to the middle of the green here. Kind of my usual n iron distance. See if this gives me any more than that. Oh, pure. The ball flight on that was insane. I always forget just how much like bigger clubs help you in terms of ball flight. That was really nice. Also, did you hear the sound on that? That felt super soft for this kind of club. Now, that’s kind of the whole thing behind the ZXI range. The I literally comes from the alloy. So, the steel they’ve used for this club. It’s called a eye alloy and it’s designed to be a lot softer than the traditional steel that would be used in these irons. It’s softer but also a little bit less dense. So that’s why you get that nicer sound and feel. And honestly that’s felt so soft for a club in the game improvement category. Okay, so in terms of numbers there, we’re looking at 125 yards in terms of carry, 8,000 spin, which I think is really good from this kind of construction head. That was from 75 club head speed. So perhaps not my quickest, but we’ll warm up. And the apex or height of that was at 70 ft. It actually looked higher than that to me. Both looked good almost identical shotship and it’s pitched right next to the other one. You can also get consistency from this kind of club. People don’t think it. They think game improvement and think like flyers, fast, forgiving. But I mean those two shots were so consistent and that’s not often a word people associate with game improvement clubs. Numbers almost identical there. 124 carry, 8,219 spin, club speed 77, ball speed 96, height 69 feet. Doesn’t get much more consistent than that. It is pretty chilly here this morning and I’m hitting off a slight ball above my feet lie, which usually knocks a few yards off. So that probably accounts for like the 5 yard distance between what I see with my nine and this. I also just think generally nines don’t really go that far. Like they’re not a distance club, are they? They’re like a consistency club. So I think whatever nine I test from like any brand, any model, like a Blade, a CB, a game improvement club, they all seem to go the same distance. And then it’s much more when you get to like the sevens and the fives that you see the differences in tech. Love the feel though. I actually just can’t believe how similar those shots have been. Like the ball flies have just been identical. I did flush that to be fair and it’s flown a bit further. 133.4. That’s good. I think that’s like where I would want my 99 to be. But again, 8,000 spin. Club speed popped a bit then more. 79.5. I’ve got a few jumpers on this one. It’s a bit chilly. And the height jumped up to 71 ft. Super impressed with the consistency there. Let’s see what the difference is if we move into the HL model. Okay, so in terms of specs, this is 3° weaker. So, we would expect a higher ball fly. So, this club is all about high launch, more stopping power, more spin, more control. We know there’s that group of golfers who have a slightly slower club head speed. They can’t get enough height on the shots, which means when the ball bets to the green, it’s not stopping quickly. It’s running through the back and that can be really frustrating, especially on courses where there’s bunker short and you have to get it over and then you don’t have much green space to stop the ball. It’s a little bit easier if you’re somewhere linksy where you have the ability to run it up. So hopefully this is going to give golfers more stopping power, more control, which is going to help with scoring. Looks pretty identical over the ball. Top line maybe slightly slightly thicker. That looked visually like it went higher. But to be honest, both clubs had such a nice ball. I can’t take either. Pretty similar for numbers there. So 123 in terms of carry distance, spin rate 8,100, my club speed was 77, my ball speed was 95, the height was 71 feet. So very similar to what we saw with the other IM, but as I said before, like I always feel like that kind of happens with 99, but it it feels like you can’t just start your testing at 79. That feels like too far up the bag. Now, as well as the change in lofts, there obviously is some difference in terms of construction. The sole’s a little bit wider here. I can feel it didn’t feel quite as soft as just the standard ZXIR model. But what I would say about both of these, they have the really nicely shamfered sole. They call it a to VT sole. And I guess the V to me looks like the shaping you get here. It’s kind of pointed in the middle. And also the heel and toe are like shampered off as well, which I think means it moves through the turf really nicely, despite it being a slightly bigger sole than maybe what I’d normally use. Still feels really nice though. But maybe a slight difference, but not massive. Tell you what, that is hitting the green and checking up and back spinning. Like there’s some serious spin and control with this height. Got up to 74 ft there. So my highest so far, but again carry very similar. 1 2 3 spin 8,200. These clubs are making me look quite robotic actually, which is a change. Tell you what, it’s just a lovely ball flight. So, I would say that was my best data wise with this club so far. My longest carry 126.2. My most spin 8,571. Club head speed is still the same at 77 mph. And we got to an apex of 74 ft. So, there is a suggestion here that we’ll get a little bit more height and a little bit more spin with this club. Let’s go see how it works with the rest of the bag. I think that’s where we’re going to see the biggest differences. But, looking good so far and just true to stricken. feel amazing, look great, which I think is something that’s often missing from the game improvement category and it doesn’t seem to be missing here. Just pausing for a second to give you a chance to hit that subscribe button. Go on, it’s right there. You know you want to. And while you’re there, you might as well drop this video a like and drop us a comment about which of these two Iron models you prefer or what else you want to see on the channel. Right, back to it. Right, 79 time. Back to the ZX IR model first. Again, really like the shape in here. I think the biggest difference between like these and the models I might choose to use as a more players iron player is just the top line. And honestly, I really think you can easily get used to that, especially when you remember the amount of forgiveness that’s going to be in this head. Realize I forgot to tell you what specs these are in. So, I’ve actually got the shaft that I use in my irons, which is the dynamic gold mid shaft S300, except I usually use the 100 g shaft. We’ve got a 115 in this. So, that is a little bit heavier and it probably affect like the maximum distance as we get to the longer clubs, but at least the shaft and the flex are something that I’m used to using. Lovely high ball fly again. Feel like I may have caught a tad towy, but pitched right by the pin, so that’s nice. 143.8 yards. Probably about right given how I struck it. Wasn’t my best strike. 5769 spin. Yeah, my club tube is only 79 there. So, not definitely not full out for a 79. I think we can hit one a bit better than that. Hopefully, sometimes you can’t blame the club. It was just you. Oh, that sounds fast. Yeah, that’s pitched straight over the back of the green. Oops. That was a much better strike. 155 yards carry, which is pretty much exactly where I’d expect a 79 to be. 5,500 spin. Ball speed 109. The height up at 62 feet. It kind of looked like it was flying higher than that to be honest, but not massively dissimilar to what we saw with the nine, which is good. That’s coming off like a rocket. That was definitely a tad bomb groovy. So, it came out a little low, but for a like not middle strike, it still carried 153, which I really like. So, you can see there’s a little added forgiveness and ball speed boost on those low off the face strikes. And again, 5,700 spin, which I think is really good for a club head of this construction. Let’s hit one more. I feel like my strikes didn’t do the club justice there. Sometimes the hard thing when you’re testing like not perfectly in your spec. Oh, that was so much better. So that was 155.8 5,000 spin rear again from 79 club head speed. I think that’s probably down a little bit. I would usually be in like the low 80s with my 7 iron. But obviously this is 10 g heavier which is quite a lot of weight. But I do really like the ball for like the consistency. I feel like even if I catch it a little bottom groovy I still get that full distance. So for me that wasn’t a perfect strike and that’s still that kind of max distance I would get out of my 7. So there’s definitely a little bit extra in there. Apex at 75 ft. So really consistent in terms of distance from 9 to 7, which is what we want. We want ideally the same apex through the set of irons. Just moved location because I was hitting every shot over the back of the green. Back into the HL offering. Now be interesting to see the differences now at this point in the bag. This is probably where I’d say you see a more noticeable difference in terms of size. There’s definitely a little bit more offset. There’s definitely a bit more topline. Now, what offset means is like the huzzle comes out a little bit more here. And that aims to help the face close down more. So, if you’re someone who loses the ball out to the right, that can really help in terms of straightening out your shot shape. That’s flown so high. Definitely drew a little bit more as well, didn’t it? So, interesting for me, that’s not flown as far there. 143 carry, which actually it felt like a really nice strike. But what is interesting is the spins jumped up. So the spin’s over 6,000 there. So if you’re someone who needs that extra spin, that’s going to really help for control. Club head speed pretty much identical. 79 again, ball speed 105, but the height has jumped up to 75 ft. So about an extra 5 ft compared to what we saw with the other model. Don’t know if I might have expected it to go a bit higher than that. Tell you what, it’s a super stable ball flight though. Definitely sounds a tad different. I don’t know if you can hear it. What I’m actually loving about this so far is how well it goes through the turf. Usually I really struggle, especially with a game improvement iron because I have the type of swing where I back off for it a bit and the club spends like a lot of time touching the ground. So sometimes a thicker sole just doesn’t feel nice going through the turf. But the shape in here is so good. It just feels like it goes in and out of the grass really well. And actually like this is performing just as well for me through the turf as like basically any blade or CB has done. Helps we’re hitting off really pure turf here at Alanada Golf Club. But turf interaction full marks again. Loads of spin there. 6,500 only 139 yards of carry which is a bit short for me. And you can see the difference between the two irons in terms of the carry distance. But I think probably some of that is I’ve got a lot more spin and a lot more height. So it’s not necessarily carrying as far. But that differs for different types of golfers. So for me, cuz I already hit the ball high, like I don’t necessarily need the extra height and that extra spin, so it’s not necessarily benefiting my total distance. But for someone who doesn’t have the height or the spin, it’s going to keep the ball in the air longer and allow more hang time. So it’s quite funny when testing clubs because you have to like look at the data and then analyze like which bits would help certain golfers but maybe not others. And that’s why brands have like five irons in their offering because it would be silly to think that every single golfer is going to play well with the same club. You know, we all have different club head speeds. We all have different attack angles. We all hit at different heights. So, we all need different clubs. Definitely feel a little bit more draw by too. 140 carry there. 2,282 spin. I would say for a club in this category, like this feels like the easiest to hit super game improvement club I’ve hit, which I guess is kind of the point. Like if you’re buying a super game improvement club, you want something that’s just really nice and easy to use. Okay, that’s carried 140, but over 6,000 spin. So, I’m really pleased with that number. The ball also had an apex of 75 ft, which is the same or a little bit more than what we saw in the N, which is really nice. And that’s what we want, consistency through the bag. Obviously, I’m not getting all out distance here, but I think what I am getting is a shot that’s really nice and controlled, high, landing soft on the green, and that’s exactly what this club is designed to do. So, you can’t really tell Stricks off with that, can you? I just want to try and kind of hit one hard, see if I can get any more distance because like I really like the forgiveness of these, the height it’s given me, the spin, like the all the variables that it says it’s going to deliver to you. But for me, it’s obviously a little short on character. So, I want to just see if I can get everything cuz golfers, we always want everything, don’t we? We want max systems and forgiveness and height and spin. We’re picky. We’re picky beings. Nah, thinned it. Tind it. You know what? 62 spin on a thin. That’s nice, isn’t it? Tick for forgiveness. But you know what? That still carried 135 yards, which isn’t far off the others at all. and it’s still got over 6,000 spin. So, I think when we’re talking about forgiveness, that’s what we want. We want to not hit perfect shot, but still have something that’s playable. And yes, the height has dropped down to 54 feet, but I literally hit it like the bottom groove on the face, and it was still a playable, controlled shot that stopped on the green. Oh, that was flush. What have we got? It’s a little bit further. It’s gone further up the green. 146. So that was definitely my best shot, 146 yards. But I do think sometimes we can get too stuck up on like this is the number my seven iron needs to go. And we know like the story of this iron isn’t full out distance. What it is is it’s extra height, extra spin, extra control. Now I know when I watch a lot of golfers when I’m playing with them in like club competitions is that they don’t get enough height and then they can’t control the ball on the green. And actually instead of saying my seven iron has to go 140 or 150 or 130 or whatever your number is, we should kind of just lose that idea and think well at what like distance and what height does my seven iron stop on the green. So at what point can I hit this club? It’ll fly over a front bunker and it will stop within the depth of maybe a 30 yard green because actually that’s a seven iron that is a playable golf club. And it might be that if you say using this set, you might have to switch your clubs around. Ones would go different distances. Maybe we would have more shorter clubs to get the right gap in and less longer clubs. And I think sometimes for a lot of club golfers, that’s a really good option to think about because I see people carrying a full set of 14 clubs and you don’t always need that because like four or five of the clubs are going the same distance. And actually, much better having specific clubs that go certain distances but are controlled and have gaps between them. And it might be that you end up with more at the bottom end of the bag. At the top end of the bag, you don’t need as many clubs because you find like a sevenwood, a fivewood, a threewood, maybe all go very similar distances. So, for me, there’s a lot of big ticks for this iron here. Performs exceptionally well through the turf. Really good in terms of forgiveness. Even like my bottom strikes were very close to what my good strikes were. Really good for spin, like exceptionally good for spin at this like construction of club head. And definitely going to give people a lot more height and control. Okay, last up we have got five iron. Obviously, as we move up the set, this isn’t the biggest club head in the range, but still slits nice behind the ball. I do think it is kind of just that top line that kind of gives away that this isn’t one of the smaller ZXi irions. Looks a long way to that bar three right now. See how much help this gives us. Oh, that felt flush. There is quite a big difference between the two in terms of feel, I would say. But I really, really love the feel of these ZXR irons. You know what? That’s taken the right slip on the green and run up really nicely. Okay, we’re tied into the wind on this hole if you can’t tell by my hair. So, I’m just going to pop normalizer on full swing cuz I think it’ll make a little bit of difference. Yeah. So, it’s saying there’s about a 7 yard headwind. So, we’ve gone from 168.6 with how far that actually flew to it’s saying it would have gone 175 if there was no wind. 175 is literally my exact fire. So, kind of nailed it on the head there. 3,89 spin. That was off 81 club head speed, 118 ball speed. The apex on that was 87 feet, which is really nice. So, it’s probably the first one. Obviously, we’re on a T- box where I’ve hit off a perfectly flat lie. Some of the others I’ve been off slight cross slope, so maybe that’s why we’ve got a bit more height, but really nice to get max height in the long irons because that’s very rare. That’s usually where it starts dropping down and like dipping and you get a problem. I did trap that a little bit and knock it down so it didn’t fly quite as high, but spun 6,000. Some serious control. Why has it just got so windy? I want to hit five ir straight into the wind. Tell you what, that was so towy, but it’s gone dead straight. I mean, I struck that abysmally. Absolutely awful. And it still carried 153 yards, had 3 and a half th000 spin and made the front of the green. But was most impressive is that it was an offc center strike. Like a lot of center strike this far out the door. And it’s pretty much flown dead straight and on the front edge of the green. So, I’ll take that. Oh, flush. That sounded fast. 177.2. We like that. I like the fact that even when I get like my longest carry distance, my spin stays up. That’s spun at just under 4,000. So 3,858. That’s going to give me really good control. So I think what you want with these irons is like your long shot still spin. So even if they fly a bit further, they stop and stay on the green. 120 ball speed on that, but still at 80 ft. And I could see on the green that like just pitched and stopped really nicely. Left the face a bit open, but still a real nice strike and good for distance. That got 89 ft of height, obviously, cuz I left the face a little bit open, pushed it right, but still carried 179 yards. We like a club where our high rights still get really good distance. I mean, the strike did feel flush. Again, 3,846 spin. That spin number is being pretty stable on like the consistent strikes and 120 ball speed. Again, I’m telling you, I could game these irons. I really like the performance. They’re kind of like performing just how I want my irons to especially this five iron cuz I feel like like I know I’m off plus three, but even when I get to the top end of my irons, feel like they’re not quite as forgiving. I don’t always get the ball speed I want. So, my driver speed is like 95 to 100, depends on how hard I go it, which is fairly quick, but it’s obviously not like the club head speeds that we’re seeing with tour pros who are really easily getting the height and the flight with those long irons. So, I think for me, there’s always room for improvement in that top end of the bag to make sure the gapping’s good, that I’m keeping a good height and flight and getting like the control but and the speed that I need. Remember, this is also 10 g heavier than my gamer shaft. So, I probably get another five yards out of this. Okay, that’s a hard draw. So, that’s going to be long for carry. Yeah. 182 182 yards. It didn’t spin much. 2,800. Really enjoying the performance of these, though. Really consistent fast distance when I’m striking these. Good. Obviously, there was that fat. That’s kind of my fault. But I liked how it performed on that like bad strike. Definitely a lot of speed here, forgiveness, but actually also high control and spin, which I really like. Let’s go hit the high loft now before I just stand here hitting these five eyes forever. Okay, so we’re in the HL offering now. So this we’ve gone from 22° in the just standard ZXIR model to 24 and a half in this in the five iron. So 2 1/2° weaker. Let’s see what that does to the numbers. Definitely a little bit more offset when you put this one down. It’s really hard for me to look down at more offset and try not to counteract it. Like I felt like I really wanted to swing out to the right then. It’s really hard to try to keep the same swing and do the same thing as the clubs are changing. So I feel like a decent strike. Probably not my all out best but pretty good. And there’s a little bit of difference in terms of the numbers. So that was at 162.9 yards, but 3,896 spin. My club speed was down a tad compared to the other model. So about a mile and a half. Maybe that’s just a confidence and a size thing. Looking down at the club, it’s very different for what I would use. That definitely looked like it flew higher. Okay, so that was a better strike and much better numbers. Kind of what I’d expect. So 170 carry. I think that’s probably about right for me. Like maybe 5 to 10 yards shorter than the other model given the changes in loft. Spin at 4,477. So remember this model is about more height, more spin, hopefully more stopping power and consistency. And then the apex there was at 87 ft. So we’re nearly at 90 ft there. It’s going to give you loads of control. Oh, flush. You can see how when I don’t fight it, that draws really nicely. Again, I’m just finding it amazing how easy I’m finding it to hit this. How well it moves through the turf, how easy these are to hit, like how good and consistent the numbers are. I’m not going to lie, a lot of the time I really struggle to review these bigger clubs because they just don’t suit me and my like delivery pattern. But, you know, restrictions are doing a cracking job because I’m just not having that problem at all with these. I mean, that was a tad towing and it’s still just fast and a lovely ball flight and three foot from the pin. So, that’s what I like. That was a little off center, like a little off toe, but I’ve lost 5 yards. It still flowing 165 yards. It was still a really nice stable ball flight. it still spun at 3,738 and the height stayed up at 75 ft. For me, if I hit that with a smaller iron, the shape would be affected a lot more and I wouldn’t keep as much of that control. So, great on good shots, also really helpful on bad shots. And see how these are really going to help a lot of golfers. Okay, let’s do a quick comparison of the numbers between the two models and then give you my final thoughts. I think what is nice is there’s clear differences through the bag and it’s definitely two irons that are for different golfers. So, you’re picking between two different performances, but not necessarily two different looks. They’re very similar in terms of shape and styling. I think the big story here is the difference in kind of height and spin. That’s what that HL is all about. It’s in its name. It’s all about high launch. And if we look at 7 iron, which sits in the middle of the range, it was flying about 10 yards higher. On average, it was also spinning about 700 RPM more. So, near a,000 extra spin. And actually, although there was a three to two and a half degree difference in terms of loft throughout the set with the 7 iron, my launch angle was actually four degrees higher with the HL model. So that’s quite a significant difference. Now, the standard ZXIR model flew about 9 yards further on average with the 7 iron. I say that was pretty similar with what I saw with the 5iron. Probably not quite as big a gap in the 9 iron. So there is a difference in terms of carry distance, but I’ve spoken about this throughout the video. I don’t think all out carry distance is the most important thing. The most important thing is having a 7 iron or a 5 iron that works in that gap in the bag, hits the right flight window, and can control and be stopped on the green. Otherwise, there’s no point your five iron going 160 or 170 or 180 if it just keeps running through the back of the green into trouble. If you’re someone who needs to hit the ball higher, you want more spin, you want more control, you want a club that you can carry over a front bunker and stop on the green, you need to look at that HL model. And I think this is going to suit so many golfers. It’s interesting because there’s a golfer at kind of 9 to5 mph club head speed that is considered pretty quick for like a club golfer, but there’s so many golfers that are under that club head speed and really should be looking at something that helps their height, launch, and the spin over just all out carry distance. Having said that, also love the performance of the ZXIR. These suited my game really well actually. The distance was great. It gave me a little bit extra on my five iron they would see from my clubs probably like half a club more but still like really nice height control. I would say another big difference between the two is that especially in the long irons it felt like the HL model was a little bit more draw bias which I think will also help a lot of golfers because typically we see that people miss as a left to right shot shape. Overall a pretty impressive debut into the game improvement range for Shrixen here. Let me know if you’re planning on testing these out and which model you think would suit you the most. I’ve been super impressed with these. I’m not going to lie. I usually really struggle sometimes with game improvement clubs. These have performed incredibly well. I mean, that five I might be sneaking in my bag from the ZXR range because it was just so easy to hit and golf’s hard. Like, we just need to make it a little bit easier. So, if you’re looking for new irons, definitely worth testing these out. But also remember, what is it you want from new clubs? So, make sure you’re looking for that when you go test these out, not just kind of focusing on one variable like distance because distance isn’t