Gear: PXG 0317 T irons
Price: $169.99 each
Specs: Hollow-bodied construction with forged, 8620 carbon steel body and HT1770 stainless steel face, internal tungsten weight and vibration-absorbing polymer. Available in Chrome and Xtreme Dark finish.
Who It’s For: Accomplished players who love the look and feel of muscleback blades but now want more forgiveness.
The Skinny: This is the first hollow-body PXG iron designed for elite ball strikers, with an internal polymer that helps to improve the spin consistency.
The Deep Dive: PXG has used United States Marine Corp Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) numbers to name its clubs in the past, and that tradition continues with its newest offering for high-level ball strikers, the 0317 T. That number, 0317, designates scout snipers, which should tell you precisely what PXG is trying to do with this iron.
The 0317 T irons are triple forged using 8620 carbon steel, for a softer feel at impact, but after the forging process is complete, the hitting area of each head is then milled to ensure it is perfectly flat before the grooves are milled into the face. The back of each head is also milled, leaving behind a series of small, thin lines created as the high-speed, computer-controlled bit passes back and forth and shaves off tiny pieces of metal until the desired shape is achieved.
The PXG 0317 T has a thin topline, minimal offset and a thin sole. (David Dusek/Golfweek)
The 0317 T has a thin topline, narrow sole and only a touch of offset, like the previously-released 0317 ST blades and the 0317 CB irons. However, the 0317 T irons are different from those solid-metal clubs because the 0317 T is hollow.
Historically, PXG has designed its game-improvement and max game-improvement 0311 irons with hollow heads filled with a vibration-dampening polymer supporting an extremely thin face. In the most recent offering, the 0311 GEN6 irons, the X COR polymer also helps to protect ball speed on mishits and expand the sweet spot. The 0317 T irons are filled with a different material, S COR, a polymer that is less elastic, so not as fast as X COR, but helps produce a lower launch angle and higher spin rates, which should give accomplished golfers more control and enhanced shot-making abilities.
In many better-player irons, the ideal hitting area is slightly to the toe-side of the middle of the face, so to pull the sweet spot into the center and offset the weight of the hosel, PXG designers added an internal 15-gram tungsten weight in the toe area.
An internal piece of tungsten in the toe pulls the ideal hitting area into the middle of the face. (David Dusek/Golfweek)
PXG designers also gave the 0317 T a large back weight in the center of the head that can be swapped during the fitting process so players and fitters can quickly test different swing weights while golfers are testing clubs.
The PXG 0317 T irons are fairly traditional lofts, with the 5 iron at 25 degrees, 9 iron at 41 degrees and pitching wedge at 46 degrees, but they are being touted as PXG’s most-forgiving, better-player irons. The company claims they have a moment of inertia (MOI) that is 14 percent higher than the 0317 ST and 11 percent higher than the 0317 CB. They also have a slightly longer blade length and thicker topline, but the offset is about the same. However, these clubs are noticeably slimmer than 0311 P GEN6 irons, which had been PXG’s previous better-player’s distance iron.
Below are several close-up looks at the new PXG 0317 T irons: