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McLaren, the legendary supercar and F1 brand, has officially entered the golf world. Staff writer Joe Ferguson gets his hands on their very first release, the Series 3 irons, to see if the performance can justify the eye-watering price tag.
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00:02Right in case you've missed all the sneaky social media teasers like these
00:12McLaren and now in the golf space that's right McLaren famous for things like this this and
00:18this are now fully entering the golf club equipment manufacturing space so as an equipment test that
00:24I have been brimming with excitement about this release we've got some of the best R&D departments
00:29we've got some of the best tech people we've got knowledge coming out of every orifice here so I
00:34was really excited to see what they are going to come up with so I've got my grubby little mitts
00:38on their first release the series 3 irons so let's take a look and see what they're all about but
00:42before we get into the review itself in terms of hitting these and giving you all the feedback
00:45there I just want to start on a slightly disappointed note I've been looking forward to this launch for
00:50so long as I said as a tester and I was hoping for and this is through no fault with
00:56McLarens they've
00:56not promised anything but what I was expecting was a full product range 14 clubs driver all the way
01:02down to putters that's what I had in my head and what we've got although that's coming I'm sure that
01:07is coming from McLaren what we've got for now is just an iron release but we haven't even got a
01:13full
01:13iron release what we've got is the series 3 irons I've got here which are a game improvement iron
01:17and we've got a series 1 iron which is more of a muscle back blade and that's been designed in
01:23collaboration with Justin Rose, Ian Poulter, Michelle Wee-West pros really know what they're
01:29doing know what they're talking about so it's very much a better player iron but we haven't got a
01:32series 2 so the iron that bridges the gap between the game improver and the blade doesn't exist yet
01:37and furthermore the series 1 I haven't been given to test that's going to be on its way McLaren are
01:42saying they're trying to stagger the release to to kind of maintain the interest and maintain the
01:48intrigue so for this massive launch that I've been all excited about for all intents and purposes what
01:53I've got is one game improvement iron now just to address the elephant in the room here that I'm sure
01:58you're all probably wondering the price tag of these irons is £360 or $375 per iron so we're looking
02:08at around £2,600 for a seven iron set let's put that into context that's more expensive than the
02:14Cobra 3DP range than most sets of Muras just let all that sink in for a minute
02:26so on to the tech story now this is the bit where McLaren for me we're going to claw back
02:30all these
02:30brownie points and create some never-before-seen technology that was going to absolutely blow my
02:36mind so what is that technology well there kind of isn't any of that never-before-seen stuff what
02:42we've got the main tech stories are metal injection moldings it's not forged it's not cast but that's
02:48been done before by companies like Callaway Cobra and irons and wedges we've got this structural mesh
02:53in the back here which has been designed to save weight so you can redistribute that around the
02:56club head to optimize CG and MOI and all those good things but we've kind of seen that very recently
03:02in
03:02the Cobra 3DP lineup we've also got a lot of tungsten behind strike here which for those of you know
03:08your golf clubs will know the Callaway Apex range for example that's been a mainstay of the tech
03:12in the apex range for some time finally we've got tungsten in the toe section and again I won't
03:17bore you but there's numerous irons that utilize that technology within their setup to increase
03:22that MOI so leaves me thinking you know what's the point as I said we're coming into this space with
03:28all of the best tech people aerodynamics wind tunnels whatever you can imagine I would think
03:33at McLaren so I was expecting to see something incredibly new but essentially from a tech point of
03:38you at least what we've got is amalgamation of other technologies we've already seen so I'll
03:43be really interested to see how they perform. Right so performance now truth be told this isn't my
03:53first look this isn't my first session I didn't want to make this video without feeling like I had
03:57a good grasp of what these irons were so I think I've already kind of formulated my opinion so what
04:04we've
04:04got as I said in the intro is essentially it's game improvement this iron is designed to help you
04:09it's designed to put maximum MOI increase the hitting area help you get the ball up in the air
04:15it's everything you expect from a game improvement iron and quite frankly it does a really good job
04:20now I'm going to get on to some more positive stuff now because the feel of the clubface is very
04:25very good it's really premium it's very soft you can't always say that in the game improvement market
04:31sometimes you get those kind of clicky irons sort of really hollow feeling irons but
04:38while I said the sort of metal injection molding process has been done
04:42what it has done here is created a real refinement to strike a real depth of strike the ball feels
04:48like
04:48it's on the clubface for a long time and it's a nice muted hit it's not kind of that brash
04:54strike
04:55you often get in the game improvement market so from a feel point of view that's really good the other
05:00thing and you can probably see it here I'll get that zoomed in in a little while the turf interaction
05:04is really good so the heel cut sole that they've gone with it's helping the club slip through nicely
05:11enters the turf really easily but more importantly exits the turf really easily so from the sort of
05:17unquantifiable standpoint of feel and turf interaction all that kind of stuff it's really
05:22very good so in terms of specifications we've got they're not the strongest game improvement irons
05:30you'll see quite often we see things like 28 29 degrees seven irons they've gone a bit more modest
05:37in lofting here with a series three so this seven iron comes in at 31 degrees so it's kind of
05:42equivalent
05:42to a tailor-made p790 srixon zx i5 and interesting that it is very similar in loft to that srixon
05:50zx i5
05:51because when i was comparing my average numbers with some other models to see kind of give you a
05:58decent comp of what these irons are the best i could come up with was frixon zx i5 the numbers
06:06were almost identical in terms of launch carry spin and consistency of spin which is really key which
06:12i'll pop that up on there as well because the standard deviation is really tight so from a performance
06:16point of view these actually stack up really nicely they're not going to blow your mind with
06:21explosive distance but they are going to give you a good level of forgiveness and they're going to give
06:25you a much more refined strike than you might be used to in this game improvement department
06:31right sorry twins we're up to hope you're enjoying this video and learning all about these mclaren irons
06:35but if you are enjoying the video please hit the like button subscribe to the channel for more of
06:39these videos it really helps us out and let's know what you think about them in the comments down below
06:43right so let's get on to the looks now i've deliberately left this one till last because i
06:48think this is going to be a very marmite sort of a topic and i wanted to give you lots
06:52of b-roll lots
06:53of shots throughout the video so you could begin to get your kind of impressions before i gave you
06:58mine now we all know these look sections are so subjective what one man or one woman thinks looks
07:04gorgeous the other one will think looks terrible now this has never been demonstrated better than
07:09between myself and dan behind the camera there dan pulled them out straight away and said smart
07:14looking iron these sadly for me i'm a little bit on the other end of the bandwagon i think mclaren
07:19had an opportunity here to create something really sleek refined and minimal what's come out in my
07:26opinion is just a little bit busy and brash we've got an awful lot going on with the look of
07:32the heads
07:32here so we've got the the structural mesh as i've spoken about already we've got the to me orange mclaren
07:38logo there the tungsten weighting the carbon there's there's quite a lot going on now a lot
07:44of you'll be screaming well that's mclaren mclaren is bold and brash look at the cars look at the tech
07:49that's going on in there they wanted to show that off and i get that i totally get it it's
07:53just not my
07:54cup of tea and that's why it's always subjective the other thing i don't love again some people probably
08:00will is the numbering we've got this kind of digital alarm clock style numbering now for me that
08:07doesn't belong on a golf club it doesn't look great for some of you out there you're probably
08:10looking at i'm thinking brilliant that gives me all of the the technical connotations and thoughts
08:15that i want to see that might be exactly what you want to see it just doesn't do it for
08:20me and then
08:21in behind the ball well that's again kind of a mixed section for me there's some really good points
08:26and there's some stuff that i would definitely change the longer irons i think look really good
08:30there's plenty of blade length there's plenty of substance behind the ball and the shaping's okay at
08:35the top end of the bag as you go down to the mid and short irons again just for me
08:40this is all
08:40subjective they have the appearance of being a bit more upright than they actually are and what i mean
08:46by that is the heel comes in quite low in terms of the shaping and the toe is very very
08:51high so when
08:51you're looking down on the golf ball it feels like the club's pretty much tilted back at you so it
08:56gives the appearance of more upright than it actually is and i think that's a look that might put a
09:02few
09:02people off but it's also a look that some people might absolutely love so again a little bit marmite
09:08for me in this whole aesthetics of this release so i think you can probably tell from the tone of
09:14what
09:14i've gone through there i'm not quite all in on this first iron release from mclaren there's plenty
09:20of good stuff to talk about the performance was reassuringly solid but i would expect that it was a
09:25a really nice depth of strike refined soft the turf interaction was great and the numbers were good
09:31and very very consistent but on the negative side of things for me and again for me this is all
09:38personal
09:39the looks just didn't quite do it for me just a little bit too brash and out there for me
09:43the lack
09:44of innovation was a little bit disappointing to me now mclaren might argue with that but i think a lot
09:49of this technology i've seen before and obviously the price tag is going to be quite prohibitive for
09:55some i was hoping for a full all-encompassing range we haven't quite got that yet i just need
10:00to be patient again that's not mclaren's fault but what i think we potentially have got maybe from
10:05this first iron release is a bit more of a status purchase than i was hoping for i was hoping
10:10that this
10:11set of irons will be backed up by some really good high-end technology that i've not seen before that
10:16give me a reason to go out and spend an awful lot of money on a set of clubs but
10:20what i think we
10:21might have ended up with is something we've kind of seen before where these could end up just as a
10:26bit of a status purchase for your your players that maybe own a mclaren or fans of the formula one
10:32brand that are willing to pay over the odds for a product just to be associated with that brand but
10:37in my eyes in this game improvement department which is a very competitive iron sector there's a number
10:43of irons that i would play that cost around half the price that would give you very similar
10:49performance but in fairness that is literally mclaren's first ever release into the golf space
10:55and it is far from bad and i can tell you i'm very very much looking forward to getting my
11:00hands on the
11:00series one irons i'll pop those up on the screen for you now they look a lot better they look
11:05a lot
11:05more refined they're a bit more in my wheelhouse as kind of a better player iron as well and the
11:10likes
11:10of justin rose ian poulter michelle we west they've had their hands on that product and they've had
11:14their input so i've got really high hopes and i'm looking forward to bringing that review to you let
11:19me know what you think of these in the comments down below is this release what you were expecting
11:24or were you looking for something a little different thanks for watching and we'll see you next time
11:41so
11:43you
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