 Right, I think that is about perfect. 165 to the flag, and I want the most forgiving iron to make sure I get there, no matter what happens in terms of the quality of the center of my strike. So forgiveness, five irons, what are the best that I have seen so far in 2023? Well, I'm gonna kick things off with very much what I consider to be a very unusual iron, a very different looking iron, but certainly one of the most forgiving. Inabundance to be fair, it's from Taylor Made, it's from their new Stealth HD lineup. This whole lineup for me is super forgiving whether you go from the driver through the fairies into the hybrids and then end up with these irons. Super wide sole, real strange body in terms of its profile, it's gonna offend some, it's gonna appeal to others. But once you've tried these things, your one thing you cannot argue about is just how forgiving they are. And how easy they are to launch, how no matter what type of a swing you put on, this ball just seems to go out there. And that's what we're hoping to see on this first shot on the 16th at Hollywood Golf Club. And the sun's come out, right. Easy does it, straight up in the air at the flag, that's a great first swing of the day to be honest with you. That's just landed just a tad short, maybe just a little bit thin off them bottom grooves. And again, what you've heard me say all year and for the last couple is sometimes you really want to judge performance based on off center hits. So to see that ball rise up the way it does from a shot that was clearly struck on the bottom half of this face to say the least, that's a super impressive start. I'm gonna stay in this exact position and I'm gonna switch up to another club which to be honest with you, again, is all about ultra forgiveness this year. And that club is from Strixen and again, super impressive lineup this year, what Strixen have brought out, plenty of videos that I have done in this last few weeks and we're each other surprised to be honest with you at where they've come from. They've always had really good product. Don't get me wrong, but I think this year's lineup from start to finish is so, so good but a real concentration on that. Suppose, leave it at a higher handicapper, but I think what they've done in this Strixen ZX4 iron is really quite unique. Well, what's unique about it? Well, the profile is so different than what I've just seen in that stealth HD but it's also very different to what you'd associate with a super game improvement iron. And perhaps it's not that. Again, it's got a forged face, hollow body with plenty of decent feel, good price points on this thing, that V-soul is really interesting in terms of turf interaction, seen suggestions that that kind of thing is, again, works. But the real thing about this is just how good they look for a super game improvement iron. So when you can stick something like that in your bag in terms of this category of club, I think that's far different than where we've been for many years, this thing looks absolutely superb but this is all about forgiveness. And again, what will this thing do when we put a nice easy swing on it and try and get one to match what we did with that tailor-made HD. Come on, easy. Oh, my word. Now that was a much better strike than I hit with the HD. Similar sort of distance, launch that little bit higher again, which will be appealing to a lot of golfers. I don't think we can fairly judge the HD. Like I said, it's very much off the bottom. That one very much right out the centre of that club face. The difference that this has and the advantage that it has, although I would always say that a forged face is not the same as a fully forged iron in terms of feel, it certainly is better than that of the Stealth HD, in my opinion. So you've got two very, very different clubs in terms of profile and in terms of feel, but the one thing that can't be separated is just how forgiving they are. So that's Strixon ZX4, certainly in my top five most forgiving. Where are we going next? Today's video is brought to you in partnership with HotGolf, the online golf mega store, bringing you the hottest deals in golf, and of course, the clubs featured in today's video. Find the link to the HotGolf website in the description below and check out some incredible giveaways and offers. Right, it really is just a case of picking which one up next because if I'm honest with you, this isn't a top five because I would really struggle to separate them to be quite honest with you. And the kind of things that I would choose to separate them on are personal preferences and very subjective. So the kind of looks, the feel, they're all the kind of things that separate and the price points would separate these five. But in terms of performance, I would say they're all equally as forgiving and that's why I really don't want to put these in any kind of order. So if you're wondering which one I'm grabbing next, it's the first one that comes to hand and that happens to be the Callaway Paradigm X. Again, what Callaway have done really well this year. And I think all brands have done similar, is packaged up a super game improvement iron into a really neat profile, far different than what we used to see in this kind of category. And that's the first thing that they've all done so, so well. And it's been a shift. This has been, don't forget, this has been slowly happening over the last few years. These clubs, this category has become better and better looking. It's become more and more compact. And what that means is that the tech inside, in my opinion, is just improving all the time and we're getting better performance and we're able to do it in that smaller head profile which a lot of players will want. Right. I would say about the Paradigm X is there's a bit of a thicker top line, if you like, at a dress certainly than that of the ZX4, but then from heel to toe, it's very compact. With it two good swings so far, let's see if we can keep that going for number three. And that's interesting. Really interesting and that ball's still going. Okay, so I said it wasn't third time lucky, got a little bit of turf before ball. Ball came out of the middle. Let's see if we can just pick up on that in terms of focus. So it was very much out the middle but a little bit of turf before ball. And that again just shows to me really in some ways rather than meeting five pure strikes with these irons, that little bit of a heavier strike this time just again demonstrates how forgiving these things are. But again, super great feel, forged face again, hollow body down with a little bit of magic packed inside this time from Paradigm X, from Callaway that is, and a real super job in terms of the way these have been put together. Think from memory, probably on the higher price point out of the five that you're gonna see today. But either way, super forgiving iron. Right, time for a quick chat. And I think the question that I want answering in the comments section below in tonight's video is what are your thoughts in this style of club in this genre, if you like, right now as to what's happened? Do you agree with me in the sense that there has been huge progression made in this style of iron? Do you believe that forgiveness is a thing that's increased in this type of iron? Or in fact, do you think it's all a myth and perhaps all wrapped up in the head game? As always, I'd appreciate your feedback. Right, okay, let's stick in this same position. I want five shots from the exact same place. And I'm gonna pull up a club that is featured on a number of occasions on this channel. It's not, it's the only product that wasn't released in 2023, but it's very much a current model and it was released the latter part of 2022. It's from PXG and it's their 0211 X-Core. X-Core 2. Now I think there's many reasons why this could be included in this list, but ultimately it's about forgiveness and it is a super forgiving iron. But the other thing again, we can't dismiss and go past the fact another real good looking iron. Profile again, nothing like what I expect from this category. But the thing that puts this arguably in the top spot would be the price point. What we've seen from PXG in recent years with this lineup, the 0211, is prices that are really defying what else is going on in the marketplace. And I've got to applaud PXG for that. And that's no good if you're buying inferior product, but to me, the whole 0211 lineup is super valuable but performs incredibly well. And the irons are no exception. Right, let's get back with a good one. Okay, nice shot. Maybe pushed out a little tad to the right hand side, coming in a bit, making a bit of effort, but again, decency enough strike, ball flight, distance traveled, almost sort of peak height looks very similar to what we hit with the other good strike that we made, which is the ZX4, probably similar in every way in the sense that feel is very comparable as well. Cast, club and body and very much got an enhanced feel that I wouldn't expect from this type of club. Number four in, see if you can guess what the last one of the five is. Now that last club is of course from Ping, no forgiving irons list would ever be complete without including a Ping iron in that list. This is what they do so, so well. Their whole lineup is about forgiveness for me. The majority of the lineups are aimed at the average golfer and they do so, so well in this department. And this time around the G430 iron is no exception. The change looks quite significantly I think from G425, again for me, visually really good. It's very different again in terms of, so you're walking through the pro shop, retail store, whatever it is. You've got five irons on the shelf that we've just mentioned. They all look completely different in my opinion, so that's like I said to you, that's something that's gonna play a major part in your decision. I like the way it looks. Very much clear that it is this cavity back, quite a deep cavity. Classic Ping in its looks, again, everything you'd expect from it. And in the one thing they've enhanced this year is the feel and sound. We talked about this quite a lot. It's something that Ping, I think, have struggled with in recent iterations of this iron. Right, come on, let's see if we can do just this and put another one somewhere in and around that green. Ah, solid strike. That's again, pushed out a little bit to the right. Obviously my swing, and I don't know about my alignment, is maybe just a little bit off to that right-hand side on this hole, because them last few have just drifted out a little bit. But again, what we're really trying to look at here is, for me, ball flight is key. You know, I'm talking about launch, and they launch the ball extremely high. I've really tried to make a considerable effort in all the swings that I've made today are sort of really low in terms of club head speed and my tempo, hopefully, has been visible in terms of very much relaxed and slow and effortless. Because I think they're aimed very much at people who perhaps got slower swing speeds and that assistance in launch is key without losing out in terms of those ball speeds and travel distances. Without going into detail on each one of these, the likelihood is they're all stronger lofted. We appreciate that, but the loft, coupled with the ball flight, doesn't necessarily mean these are just all about distance because they're not. It's the combination of all those bits that put these irons together that mainly have to be strongly lofted. Otherwise, we'd have some serious compromises to make. And honestly, they don't travel that greatly different than when you're talking about a 28 degree, 29 degree, seven iron, to what I would play in my sort of 32. So no major differences, they just get the ball there or travel at distance in a slightly different way. But yet again, ping, come up with the goods year in and year out or every other year in the case of this lineup, they just never fail to deliver. Right, as ever, we're going to make this short and sweet because there's not a great deal more I can do. Seeing me continue to hit balls on camera won't tell you much more, you need to go out and try them yourself. But I did hit five more shots and it's worth hanging around just to see these because for the first four, things went incredibly well and pretty much a decent spread of balls to be honest with you. And you're going to see very shortly, all traveled at very, very similar distance, but the final ball or final shot rather was with the Callaway Paradigm X. And if you ever want to see what forgiveness means or at least my interpretation of it in terms of golf club performance, then watch this because as you can see, it's a pretty awful strike, pretty awful swing. Ball flight was considerably lower than the others, but have a look at this pan now across the fairway and you'll see it finished up in exactly the same position as the other four balls. Need I say any more because if you get forgiveness from that type of swing and that type of strike, then I don't know what else you could ask for to be quite honest with you. Right, that's me done the sun as well and truly came out here at Hollywood Golf Club. That much so that I think I'm going to enjoy a leisurely afternoon and play nine holes of golf myself, continuing with these game improvement for giving Irons a 20-23. Right, as ever, thank you for watching and I'll see you tomorrow night.