There’s also that growing demographic of players who still have some game but for whom the sweet bird of youth is beginning to flutter. “They may aspire to play Hogans but the legacy, the history, was that Hogan was for the better player.” “This is meant to be a club for players who just felt Hogan wasn’t for them,” says White. For its part, Hogan is hoping the Edge EX will open up Hogan to people who thought the brand was for better players only.
With no tech or distance stories to tell, it’s fair to ask why you should pay attention to the Edge EX. But if you’re looking to launch missiles, this ain’t the iron set for you. Hogan has strengthened the Edge EX lofts by two degrees compared to the 2018 version to at least give it a fighting chance. It predictably finished near the bottom in all the distance categories. The previous-generation Edge last appeared in Most Wanted back in 2018, right after it was released. You’ll have three or four clubs that you hit virtually the same distance.”
“But people are really starting to understand that compressing all the lofts at one end of the set just doesn’t make sense. “If you compare our 7-iron to a jacked-up loft 7-iron, we’ll lose that fight every single time,” says White. The 32-degree Edge EX 7-iron is going to get its ass kicked in the demo bay all day long. Given a weaker loft structure and Hogan’s signature four-degree loft gap between clubs, it’s probably a good thing the Hogan Edge EX isn’t in retail stores. Also, compared to virtually every other game improvement iron, the Edge EX loft structure is relatively traditional. If you want ball speed, thin is good while thick is a serious buzz kill. There’s one huge drawback to a 1025 forged face-it can’t be made as thin as, say, HT1770 and still maintain tensile strength. The reason? The never-ending quest for ball speed and launch monitor supremacy. And as mentioned, we’re seeing premium entries with forged bodies and ultra-thin, high-strength steel faces. The game improvement category is where OEMs pack in all their distance technology. “So why add tungsten if it only adds cost? Given our direct-to-consumer business model, it’s a pretty good deal for someone who wants forged game improvement irons for 800 bucks.” “Some prototypes had some low tungsten but we found it didn’t dramatically increase spin rates or anything like that,” says White. Or you could say the new Edge EX is quintessentially Hogan. You could just yawn and file it all under “remarkably uninspired” or you could call it refreshingly candid. In fact, White admits the EX doesn’t really mean anything. Hogan isn’t touting any technological breakthroughs with the new Edge EX nor is it making any distance claims (more on that later, too). Mid-handicap players tell us they don’t have to work to get the ball up in the air.” “The ball really feels like it springs off the face. “There’s so much perimeter weighting with nothing behind the face, it almost looks like the face is floating,” says White. That’s essential for good game improvement design. While not particularly innovative or unique, an open cavity effectively frees up mass for extreme perimeter weighting. That open cavity is the defining feature of the Hogan Edge EX and is the biggest change from the 2018 Edge. “We looked at those and the Edge EX irons are an optimized version of those. “There were some Hogan irons back in the Spalding days that had this open-cavity look,” says Hogan CEO Scott White. Either way, it brings back memories of Hogan’s Spalding era.
#2018 ben hogan irons plus#
Whether that, plus a price tag 40 percent lower than comparable sorta-forged game improvement irons, makes any difference to you is an even better one.īen Hogan Edge EX Irons – Facts and Figuresįor any hardcore Hoganista, the new Edge EX branding, open cavity and iconic sunburst logo will make you want to party like it’s 1999. Whether that makes any difference to you is a good question. The face and hosel is a single 1025 forging while the frame is investment-cast. The new Hogan Edge EX, however, is bass-ackwards. There’s a reason for that (which we’ll discuss later) but semantics are semantics. The face, which actually hits the ball, is high-strength HT1770 steel or something similar. There’s a growing trend in the GI category of calling an iron “forged” when, in fact, only the body is forged.
The new Ben Hogan Edge EX irons are something of a unicorn in the game improvement arena.