Ben An carries a 1-iron as a substitute of a 3-wood in his bag.
Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Photographs
Lee Trevino famously mentioned that golfers caught in a thunderstorm ought to maintain up a 1-iron.
Why?
“As a result of even God can’t hit a 1-iron,” he mentioned.
During the last 30 years, amateurs and PGA Tour execs alike have taken notice, as a result of there are a lot easier-to-use alternate options to lengthy irons.
Right this moment, 1-iron utilization is a unicorn on the PGA Tour, changed by 5-woods, 7-woods and hybrids. Even with the appearance of hollow-bodied iron designs and extra particularly designed driving irons which have stored 2- and 3-irons alive, execs appear to attract the road as soon as an iron will get stronger than 17 levels.
However not Ben An.
An received the DP World Tour and Korean PGA Tour’s Genesis Championship over the weekend in a playoff. The win will most likely be greatest remembered for the driver off the deck he drilled on the fifteenth gap from 290 yards to inside 10 ft when he was trailing by two, or his emotional celebration together with his grandmother, who watched him win for the primary time of their homeland.
However gear junkies might need observed one thing else: Not solely is An one of many few execs nonetheless carrying a 1-iron, however it’s additionally the longest membership in his bag, aside from his driver. He doesn’t have a fairway wooden, which explains why he wanted to hit driver into 15.
The 16-degree Titleist U505 driving iron has been in An’s bag because the Valspar Championship in March 2023; including the membership to An’s arsenal was an concept cooked up by An; his swing coach, Sean Foley; and JJ Van Wezenbeeck, Titleist’s senior director of participant promotions. Van Wezenbeeck mentioned they’d been making an attempt all the things to seek out An a secondary choice off the tee from strong-lofted 3-woods to high-lofted fairway woods.
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“We form of had run the gamut with Ben,” Van Wezenbeeck advised GOLF.com. “He’s such an elite iron participant that — the way in which he hits a fairway wooden, he’s actually up on it on a driver. However an iron, he actually does an ideal job of controlling the face and compressing it. So his coach Sean Foley kinda checked out me and mentioned, ‘We want one thing.’”
That’s when Van Wezenbeeck requested the pair in the event that they had been open to “something.”
Like, say, a U505 1-iron.
The U505 just isn’t the daunting blade 1-iron of yesteryear. As Van Wezenbeeck describes it, it’s an iron with extra hybrid-like properties. It has a flat face, like an iron, however like a hybrid, it has a large sole and low middle of gravity. That low CG is helped by heel and toe tungsten weights, creating a better MOI.
Though Van Wezenbeeck mentioned the vary at Valspar runs barely downhill, An and Foley’s consideration was piqued after they noticed 265-yard carries out of the gate. The membership, with a number of tweaks right here and there — together with a swap to 41-inch Graphite Design Tour AD VF 95 X shaft earlier than the Paris Olympics — has been in An’s bag ever since.
“I hit it excessive sufficient, I’ve sufficient pace, I’ve sufficient spin charges,” An mentioned in a Titleist YouTube video earlier this 12 months, “so why not attempt to construct that iron that has actually low loft, so I can hit it straighter off the tee? As a result of that’s the entire goal of utilizing the 3-wood.
“Lots of people are stunned by how excessive I can hit this one, and it’s been an ideal membership off of the tee. I can hit it low, perhaps 20, 30 ft off the bottom as much as like 120 ft off the bottom.”
Titleist U505 Customized Driving Iron
$269.99
An especially versatile, high-launching utility iron that now appears to be like and feels dramatically higher.
U•505 enables you to reclaim your lengthy iron sport. Drawing on Tour enter, the refined design supplies the excessive, explosive launch you count on from a utility, now with a remarkably stable really feel and sound.
U•505 is the last word, high-launching utility. A brand new, cleaner design creates extra confidence at deal with, whereas the refined Max Influence Know-how, reengineered chassis and new Variable Bounce Sole all enhance the texture and total efficiency. All of it provides as much as a flexible utility that performs like an iron.
TOUR-VALIDATED LOOKS
With a shorter blade and shallow face, U•505 units up the way in which Tour Execs really feel a utility ought to. Now with a good cleaner design, there may be nothing to distract you from hitting the precise shot and form your enjoying place calls for.
ENHANCED FEEL
With distance as a precedence for a utility, engineering really feel turns into a novel problem. For U•505, Titleist engineers use a refined Max Influence Know-how with added dampening within the polymer muscle badge to information the frequencies created at impression into the best participant vary.
IMPROVED OFF-CENTER ACCURACY
U•505 encompasses a extra steady, reengineered chassis and a decrease CG place to assist preserve pace and stability on strikes made away from middle. The brand new single taper face improves efficiency in the direction of the heel for tighter total distance dispersion.
EFFORTLESS TURF INTERACTION
Working with Tour Execs and the grind specialists at Vokey Design, our engineers had been capable of additional enhance our Variable Bounce Sole by softening the trailing edge to permit the membership to stream sooner by the turf, even after contact. A scoring iron refinement for one of many longest golf equipment in your bag.
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Surprisingly, An’s 1-iron mannequin isn’t reserved just for the sport’s elite or those that have entry. The U505 1-iron is definitely a retail providing from Titleist.
“Throughout the testing with Tour gamers had been like, Hey, that is that is form of stepping over that threshold for that participant that basically doesn’t — or has scar tissue from enjoying a hybrid 10 years in the past after they didn’t have the CG adjustability that we do in the present day, and mentioned I’m on the lookout for one thing extra iron-like,” Van Wezenbeeck mentioned. “Ought to we make this all the way down to 16 levels? And as we take a look at the loft progressions, we had been like, ‘That’s a 1-iron.’
