Srixon ZXiR and ZXiR HL: Expanding Performance to Every Golfer

[BigMac]

Eff it. I ordered the rest of the set this morning, I'm going all in. I don't want to mess around and have them go out of stock and have to wait 2 or 3 months for the rest of the bag, and the gapping is going to be weird if I mix them with my current irons anyways. Fingers crossed that these are as good as I hope they are.

 

[Tywithay]

Eff it. I ordered the rest of the set this morning, I'm going all in. I don't want to mess around and have them go out of stock and have to wait 2 or 3 months for the rest of the bag, and the gapping is going to be weird if I mix them with my current irons anyways. Fingers crossed that these are as good as I hope they are.

Looking forward to your thoughts!

 

[BigMac]

Looking forward to your thoughts!

Can't wait to see what you end up with, and following along as you use them at Ballyhack! Do you have your bag order worked out yet?

 

[Tywithay]

Can't wait to see what you end up with, and following along as you use them at Ballyhack! Do you have your bag order worked out yet?

I have a rough draft. Feel pretty solid about woods and putter. Waffling on irons and wedges.

 

[mantan]

OK, finally made the long drive back to DFW today and got a chance to unbox the ZXIRs and get them to the sim tonight.

First off, hats off to Srixon to really keeping the Srixon DNA in these. Some people have wondered if this was just a rebadged Cleveland XL. Thankfully they aren't. They really hide thier size well, especially 9-AW where they look almost identical in blade length at address to my MKii ZX5s.

You can see their GI size a bit more in the 6 and 7 (insert gif) but they still seem more svelte at address than Mizuno Hot Metals or PING G440s.

The main things I was hoping from with the ZXIRs were a 5-8 yards more distance and good forgiveness/dispersion. The difference in loft should account for that. I did get the 6 and 7 iron 1* weak to help reign in gapping just a bit.

My total distances with my MKii ZX5 according to Garmin (which normalizes for bad shots)

6i -170
7i- 158
8-147
9- 130
PW-118
AW - 100

I hit a few warm up shots with my ZX5s 9-irons to get loose and jumped right in with the ZXIR 9-iron. From the first swing it felt fantastic. As others have said, they feel great for a cast club and were easy to hit. At this point I was getting a little giddy....I couldn't have asked for more out of the box.

I eagerly jumped the the 7-iron. The results were a bit more mixed. I think because they were stronger lofted, I was really concerned about peak height. I normally try to get between 90-100 with anything 6-PW. I was hitting some ropey draws with it. For whatever reason I just didn't trust the loft to do the work. Dispersion wasn't as good.

I moved down to the AW. That's my favorite 'go to' distance. I get right around 100 with my current set and was hoping for 110. They worked out great.

I jumped up to the 6 to see what it was like. The shafts progression is a little longer going to the 6. It was a flat out rocket launcher. I actually hit it better than the 7. So much so that is was getting distances that were too close to my 5h. I need to hit it outside to validate...but it'll be interesting to see.

Overall it was a good shakedown. It's warmed up this week, so I'll get them out on a grass range on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and as of now, think I'll bag them for a two day 2-man tourney this weekend....

 

[Scooby45]

OK, finally made the long drive back to DFW today and got a chance to unbox the ZXIRs and get them to the sim tonight.

First off, hats off to Srixon to really keeping the Srixon DNA in these. Some people have wondered if this was just a rebadged Cleveland XL. Thankfully they aren't. They really hide thier size well, especially 9-AW where they look almost identical in blade length at address to my MKii ZX5s.

You can see their GI size a bit more in the 6 and 7 (insert gif) but they still seem more svelte at address than Mizuno Hot Metals or PING G440s.

The main things I was hoping from with the ZXIRs were a 5-8 yards more distance and good forgiveness/dispersion. The difference in loft should account for that. I did get the 6 and 7 iron 1* weak to help reign in gapping just a bit.

My total distances with my MKii ZX5 according to Garmin (which normalizes for bad shots)

6i -170
7i- 158
8-147
9- 130
PW-118
AW - 100

I hit a few warm up shots with my ZX5s 9-irons to get loose and jumped right in with the ZXIR 9-iron. From the first swing it felt fantastic. As others have said, they feel great for a cast club and were easy to hit. At this point I was getting a little giddy....I couldn't have asked for more out of the box.


View attachment 9409969

View attachment 9409970
I eagerly jumped the the 7-iron. The results were a bit more mixed. I think because they were stronger lofted, I was really concerned about peak height. I normally try to get between 90-100 with anything 6-PW. I was hitting some ropey draws with it. For whatever reason I just didn't trust the loft to do the work. Dispersion wasn't as good.


View attachment 9409971
View attachment 9409972
I moved down to the AW. That's my favorite 'go to' distance. I get right around 100 with my current set and was hoping for 110. They worked out great.


View attachment 9409973
View attachment 9409974
I jumped up to the 6 to see what it was like. The shafts progression is a little longer going to the 6. It was a flat out rocket launcher. I actually hit it better than the 7. So much so that is was getting distances that were too close to my 5h. I need to hit it outside to validate...but it'll be interesting to see.

View attachment 9409975
Overall it was a good shakedown. It's warmed up this week, so I'll get them out on a grass range on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and as of now, think I'll bag them for a two day 2-man tourney this weekend....

Noting sample size, how were the heights in those compared to the 5’s?

 

[BigMac]

OK, finally made the long drive back to DFW today and got a chance to unbox the ZXIRs and get them to the sim tonight.

First off, hats off to Srixon to really keeping the Srixon DNA in these. Some people have wondered if this was just a rebadged Cleveland XL. Thankfully they aren't. They really hide thier size well, especially 9-AW where they look almost identical in blade length at address to my MKii ZX5s.

You can see their GI size a bit more in the 6 and 7 (insert gif) but they still seem more svelte at address than Mizuno Hot Metals or PING G440s.

The main things I was hoping from with the ZXIRs were a 5-8 yards more distance and good forgiveness/dispersion. The difference in loft should account for that. I did get the 6 and 7 iron 1* weak to help reign in gapping just a bit.

My total distances with my MKii ZX5 according to Garmin (which normalizes for bad shots)

6i -170
7i- 158
8-147
9- 130
PW-118
AW - 100

I hit a few warm up shots with my ZX5s 9-irons to get loose and jumped right in with the ZXIR 9-iron. From the first swing it felt fantastic. As others have said, they feel great for a cast club and were easy to hit. At this point I was getting a little giddy....I couldn't have asked for more out of the box.


View attachment 9409969

View attachment 9409970
I eagerly jumped the the 7-iron. The results were a bit more mixed. I think because they were stronger lofted, I was really concerned about peak height. I normally try to get between 90-100 with anything 6-PW. I was hitting some ropey draws with it. For whatever reason I just didn't trust the loft to do the work. Dispersion wasn't as good.


View attachment 9409971
View attachment 9409972
I moved down to the AW. That's my favorite 'go to' distance. I get right around 100 with my current set and was hoping for 110. They worked out great.


View attachment 9409973
View attachment 9409974
I jumped up to the 6 to see what it was like. The shafts progression is a little longer going to the 6. It was a flat out rocket launcher. I actually hit it better than the 7. So much so that is was getting distances that were too close to my 5h. I need to hit it outside to validate...but it'll be interesting to see.

View attachment 9409975
Overall it was a good shakedown. It's warmed up this week, so I'll get them out on a grass range on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and as of now, think I'll bag them for a two day 2-man tourney this weekend....

How did your launch angles with the ZXiR compare to the ZX5?

 

[mantan]

Noting sample size, how were the heights in those compared to the 5’s?

Honestly, I hit these a bit lower. I typically tend to have a good number of shots over 100 feet. I didn't have very many tonight.

But I was also hitting from 8:30-9:30 after working all morning and a 6 hour drive....so I'll admit I was dragging a bit tonight.

It's definitely something I want to keep an eye on. I hit the ZX5s to stop pretty quickly, even with my 6-iron.

 

[BigMac]

Granted it's a robot test and we're not robots, but look at the dispersion circles for the HL. I didn't expect it to have the tightest dispersion, and certainly didn't expect it to have tighter front/back dispersion than the ZXi5. Pretty promising from a forgiveness standpoint:

 

[V14_Heels]

I'm headed to GG today. Got an appointment to try the two heads with various shaft offerings in an attempt to dial in on my bag order for the Srixon Experience.

 

[Tywithay]

OK, finally made the long drive back to DFW today and got a chance to unbox the ZXIRs and get them to the sim tonight.

First off, hats off to Srixon to really keeping the Srixon DNA in these. Some people have wondered if this was just a rebadged Cleveland XL. Thankfully they aren't. They really hide thier size well, especially 9-AW where they look almost identical in blade length at address to my MKii ZX5s.

You can see their GI size a bit more in the 6 and 7 (insert gif) but they still seem more svelte at address than Mizuno Hot Metals or PING G440s.

The main things I was hoping from with the ZXIRs were a 5-8 yards more distance and good forgiveness/dispersion. The difference in loft should account for that. I did get the 6 and 7 iron 1* weak to help reign in gapping just a bit.

My total distances with my MKii ZX5 according to Garmin (which normalizes for bad shots)

6i -170
7i- 158
8-147
9- 130
PW-118
AW - 100

I hit a few warm up shots with my ZX5s 9-irons to get loose and jumped right in with the ZXIR 9-iron. From the first swing it felt fantastic. As others have said, they feel great for a cast club and were easy to hit. At this point I was getting a little giddy....I couldn't have asked for more out of the box.


View attachment 9409969

View attachment 9409970
I eagerly jumped the the 7-iron. The results were a bit more mixed. I think because they were stronger lofted, I was really concerned about peak height. I normally try to get between 90-100 with anything 6-PW. I was hitting some ropey draws with it. For whatever reason I just didn't trust the loft to do the work. Dispersion wasn't as good.


View attachment 9409971
View attachment 9409972
I moved down to the AW. That's my favorite 'go to' distance. I get right around 100 with my current set and was hoping for 110. They worked out great.


View attachment 9409973
View attachment 9409974
I jumped up to the 6 to see what it was like. The shafts progression is a little longer going to the 6. It was a flat out rocket launcher. I actually hit it better than the 7. So much so that is was getting distances that were too close to my 5h. I need to hit it outside to validate...but it'll be interesting to see.

View attachment 9409975
Overall it was a good shakedown. It's warmed up this week, so I'll get them out on a grass range on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and as of now, think I'll bag them for a two day 2-man tourney this weekend....

Looks like a pretty good first outing. Excited to hear how they work for you going forward.

Is the feel noticeably different from the ZX5s?

 

[Hawk]

OK, finally made the long drive back to DFW today and got a chance to unbox the ZXIRs and get them to the sim tonight.

First off, hats off to Srixon to really keeping the Srixon DNA in these. Some people have wondered if this was just a rebadged Cleveland XL. Thankfully they aren't. They really hide thier size well, especially 9-AW where they look almost identical in blade length at address to my MKii ZX5s.

You can see their GI size a bit more in the 6 and 7 (insert gif) but they still seem more svelte at address than Mizuno Hot Metals or PING G440s.

The main things I was hoping from with the ZXIRs were a 5-8 yards more distance and good forgiveness/dispersion. The difference in loft should account for that. I did get the 6 and 7 iron 1* weak to help reign in gapping just a bit.

My total distances with my MKii ZX5 according to Garmin (which normalizes for bad shots)

6i -170
7i- 158
8-147
9- 130
PW-118
AW - 100

I hit a few warm up shots with my ZX5s 9-irons to get loose and jumped right in with the ZXIR 9-iron. From the first swing it felt fantastic. As others have said, they feel great for a cast club and were easy to hit. At this point I was getting a little giddy....I couldn't have asked for more out of the box.


View attachment 9409969

View attachment 9409970
I eagerly jumped the the 7-iron. The results were a bit more mixed. I think because they were stronger lofted, I was really concerned about peak height. I normally try to get between 90-100 with anything 6-PW. I was hitting some ropey draws with it. For whatever reason I just didn't trust the loft to do the work. Dispersion wasn't as good.


View attachment 9409971
View attachment 9409972
I moved down to the AW. That's my favorite 'go to' distance. I get right around 100 with my current set and was hoping for 110. They worked out great.


View attachment 9409973
View attachment 9409974
I jumped up to the 6 to see what it was like. The shafts progression is a little longer going to the 6. It was a flat out rocket launcher. I actually hit it better than the 7. So much so that is was getting distances that were too close to my 5h. I need to hit it outside to validate...but it'll be interesting to see.

View attachment 9409975
Overall it was a good shakedown. It's warmed up this week, so I'll get them out on a grass range on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and as of now, think I'll bag them for a two day 2-man tourney this weekend....

Those numbers look absolutely dialed in to me. Great distance, stopping power, etc. Seeing some of that forgiveness at play too. Looks like these Srixons are going to treat you well.

 

[mantan]

Looks like a pretty good first outing. Excited to hear how they work for you going forward.

Is the feel noticeably different from the ZX5s?

I wouldn't say noticably. They have a related feel but not quite the same, if that makes sense. I had a short experience with some P790s late last year. They felt noticably harder/clickier at impact. Not harsh or bad...just different. You can tell they were going for the same feel in the ZXIR and did a good enough job that I didn't even think about the sound/feel being different when hitting them.

 

[mantan]

Granted it's a robot test and we're not robots, but look at the dispersion circles for the HL. I didn't expect it to have the tightest dispersion, and certainly didn't expect it to have tighter front/back dispersion than the ZXi5. Pretty promising from a forgiveness standpoint:

View attachment 9409984

I went back and forth between the ZXIR and the HL. From most reports, the HL plays a distance very close to the ZXi5 just even with a slightly weaker loft.

If I didn't have the ZX5s, I probably would have. But as I hit a pretty high ball, I wanted to try something more distance oriented. And I liked the look/size of the ZXIR a bit better.

But honestly, think I could have gotten along with either one.

 

[Scooby45]

I went back and forth between the ZXIR and the HL. From most reports, the HL plays a distance very close to the ZXi5 just even with a slightly weaker loft.

If I didn't have the ZX5s, I probably would have. But as I hit a pretty high ball, I wanted to try something more distance oriented. And I liked the look/size of the ZXIR a bit better.

But honestly, think I could have gotten along with either one.

appreciate the feedback that you already play a pretty high ball.

 

[Chow]

I went back and forth between the ZXIR and the HL. From most reports, the HL plays a distance very close to the ZXi5 just even with a slightly weaker loft.

If I didn't have the ZX5s, I probably would have. But as I hit a pretty high ball, I wanted to try something more distance oriented. And I liked the look/size of the ZXIR a bit better.

But honestly, think I could have gotten along with either one.

Unless I'm going crazy, those spin numbers on the sim are extremely high.

 

[BigMac]

appreciate the feedback that you already play a pretty high ball.

It's gonna be interesting to see what the ZXiR HLs do to my ball flight. When I was playing Mavrik irons (27° 7i), I hit low piss missiles all day long. With the Ai Smoke HL (30° 7i), it got noticeably better. The ZXiR HLs have a 32.5° 7i, so I'm anticipating a higher ball flight and steeper landing angle.

I'm not a high ball hitter, so I need the help. My swing is on the slower side - during my ECPC fitting in '23 (the most recent LM numbers I have), my swing speed with a 7i was 76-77 mph, ball speed right around 100, with a 15° launch angle and 6900 spin (I don't have numbers for apex height or descent angle).

 

[mantan]

Had a reguarly scheduled lesson today with my instructor in my winter swing retool. I had a mixed bag of both old and new irons. I warmed up with a ZXIR and was hitting the 9-iron for the first part of the lesson. He asked me to hit the ball with my old irons. After a few shots, he laughed and said are you sure you want to switch?

I was hitting the ZX5s well...and getting a more natural height out of them and the best distance from them since we started working together.

We've done some really good work this winter to get my swing more efficient. I was swinigng a bit better than yesterday after the long drive. After the lesson, I booked some more sim time later to hit both irons again.

It's a bit of a coin flip.With the changes we've made, I've picked up some clubhead speed. My miss is slightly thin. Both handle thin shots well, the difference is mid-iron height. I'm getting 100+ on well struck shots and 85-90 yards with thin ZX5. The ZXIRs are 90-94 but thin shots are 75-80. With the 6-7, there are some long low shots that I'm just not sure how if they will stop. I love the ZXIR 8-AW....it's just the 6 and 7 that give me a slight concern. The lofts make it hard to frankenstein a ZX5/ZXIR combo.

But with the loft differences, my 7 is now the distance of my 6-iron...so not sure how much it'll be an issue. If my 6 is going the distance of my 5h, I may just go to that as I know it'll give me a good decent angle. I really need to get them outside on Thursday to see what real world ball flight looks like off grass.

Srixon definitely has a winner. The ballspeeds with the ZXIR are hot with every club as well as the forgiveness. Perfect world, I wish they would have split the lofts between the ZXIR and HL.

Be honest with yourself about your ball flight. I've always been a high ball hitter...and I'm not quite sure I the ZXIR was the right choice. But outside will tell me a lot.

 

[V14_Heels]

I went back and forth between the ZXIR and the HL. From most reports, the HL plays a distance very close to the ZXi5 just even with a slightly weaker loft.

If I didn't have the ZX5s, I probably would have. But as I hit a pretty high ball, I wanted to try something more distance oriented. And I liked the look/size of the ZXIR a bit better.

But honestly, think I could have gotten along with either one.

This is EXACTLY how I'm feeling in my session at Golf Galaxy as I'm trying to solidify my bag choices for the Srixon Challenge.

It's kind of a HL with a Mid Launch Graphite Shaft
or
Regular with Mid to High Launch Graphite Shaft
And I can see advantages both ways...

I need to go back for another session though.

 

[V14_Heels]

Bringing this chart over to this thread as well because I think it's pretty interesting...

Interesting trade off to be had here for sure.

KBS TGI - Felt more stout through mid section, bit more steelfiber MMT like
KBS PGI - Not a stout, I'd say it's more Recoil feel.

 

[Scooby45]

Bringing this chart over to this thread as well because I think it's pretty interesting...

Interesting trade off to be had here for sure.

KBS TGI - Felt more stout through mid section, bit more steelfiber MMT like
KBS PGI - Not a stout, I'd say it's more Recoil feel.

View attachment 9410182

To me it looks like you get along better with the TGI. Just about all of the standard deviation winners were with that shaft.

 

[V14_Heels]

To me it looks like you get along better with the TGI. Just about all of the standard deviation winners were with that shaft.

I agree and I think I like this better because I can actually get this in 90 if I want or 95 a little bit which I have a feeling with help even more with dispersion. Tough to tell and I havent been able to find the 90 in any of the stores. But PGi comes max at 80g.

 

[Hawk]

Bringing this chart over to this thread as well because I think it's pretty interesting...

Interesting trade off to be had here for sure.

KBS TGI - Felt more stout through mid section, bit more steelfiber MMT like
KBS PGI - Not a stout, I'd say it's more Recoil feel.

View attachment 9410182

Pretty interesting stuff here. Did you have a gut feeling favorite of these four combos? I think I know which one I'd pick.

 

[Scooby45]

Pretty interesting stuff here. Did you have a gut feeling favorite of these four combos? I think I know which one I'd pick.

Good question. I have my favorite but I’m not the one on the other side of the clubhead

 

[V14_Heels]

Pretty interesting stuff here. Did you have a gut feeling favorite of these four combos? I think I know which one I'd pick.

I liked the 80g PGI w/Regular Xzri's. It just felt the best, and I don't mean necessarily from a SOUND perspective I mean from a tempo and control perspective. I just felt like I could swing the club smoothly, and I could feel the head the best.

But I knew the Xzri with the stouter TGI 80g was performing. I felt like I was just hitting the ball well...i didn't like it as much but...

There's just some crazy potential here in the PGI, the dispersion definitely worries me

There's a couple close to 185-190 in here that are getting a height of 100' and ramping to 5500 or so spin, but i definitely worry about dispersion...