By Michael Cooney
G’DAY golfers! It’s been my absolute pleasure this month to review the new Mizuno JPX923 Tour and Forged irons.
It’ll come as no surprise that I love Mizuno and everything they release, so I was very excited to be one of the first in Australia to get my hands on these irons.
Let’s get into it, starting with the JPX923 Tour irons.
If you’ve read a few of my reviews you’ll know that I love a matte finish, and these irons are truly beautiful. They’ve got a smaller and compact head with a thin top line, and aesthetically these clubs hit the spot.
After hitting a few balls at an indoor Trackman simulator, I can say the Tour irons have a beautifully constructed head which is really impressive. Speaking of impressive, even my mis-hits were better than normal.
The tour model head is designed for a better golfer wanting to shape more of their iron shots but to my surprise I found the mis-hits are so close to my good hits it’s frightening.
If we do a comparison to previous models the head design looks very similar and, to be fair, why would you change something that isn’t broken?
To the naked eye, I can’t see much difference at all which I love as I’m also a big fan of Mizuno’s previous models.
Looking at the numbers on Trackman, I have a preference that I’m trying to launch the ball in certain areas depending on the shot I’m trying to hit and these irons did exactly what I needed them to do.
If I wanted to launch it higher or lower I could – and if I wanted to move the direction left or right they certainly accommodated.
Now let’s talk about the forged model.
When I arrived at Mizuno to pick up the irons I was somewhat taken aback when I saw this model. Straight away as a preconceived idea I thought the forged model would be a “game improvement” club. Wow, did I have egg all over my face.
These irons are fabulous. Talk about appealing. To be honest they are so similar to the tour model it’s not funny. If you put the two models down together you have to do a double take to make sure you know which is which.
The only difference I noticed was the slightly bigger top line but that’s where it starts and ends.
This iron is fantastic, and I can’t stress how nice they were to look at and how little difference to me they looked comparing them to the Tour. As with the Tour model, I was able to launch the ball the way I wanted to and my good shots were good but my bad shots were so much closer to the good ones.
When looking for new clubs that’s what we want to see.
From a performance point of view, you know the new clubs are right for you
when you get your bad shots closer to your good shots.
Jumping onto Trackman I was excited to see how they performed and they didn’t let me down.
I went through the entire bag and hit roughly four to five shots with each club and I didn’t want to stop. From the four-iron to the gap wedge, these were just so easy and enjoyable to use.
We’ve always known that Mizuno are great at making clubs (especially irons), and the new JPX 923 Tour and Forged models are no different. From design to performance they hit the spot and you should be considering making a play for these irons.
Happy golfing!
JPX923 TOUR – RRP: $339
JPX923 FORGED – RRP: $349
mizunogolf.com/au
Michael Cooney is a teaching professional at the PGA Centre for Learning and Performance at the Sandhurst Golf Club in Melbourne and is always on the hunt for the latest and greatest in golf products.