PXG: TAKING PERFORMANCE TO THE MAX

In what seems like the blink of an eye, PXG is celebrating ten years in golf this year. I remember hitting the company’s 0311 Gen 1 irons at Urban Golf many moons ago, and despite the high prices knew I had hit something fundamentally different to any equipment on the market at the time.

I also have a very clear memory of getting fitted for a driver by the company’s founder and driving force Bob Parsons, with Bob flying in by helicopter to the fitting session, like a scene from HBO’s hit rich-kid drama Succession. As I said, PXG is fundamentally different to all other golf companies.

Parsons, who made his many millions setting up GoDaddy, the world’s large website domain name registrar, has been a golf nut for many years and he founded his eponymous golf equipment brand, Parsons Xtreme Golf, in 2013 with the single aim of maximising the performance of his golf equipment without the traditional constraints caused by the pressures of time or the cost of materials. At their heart, PXG products would be golf clubs without compromise.

It didn’t take long before Parson’s project, is you can call it that, caught the eyes of the world’s best players, and by 2015 the company had several tour players gaming their clubs, including former Masters champion Zach Johnson and PGA Tour winner Ryan Moore. Pat Perez, Jason Kokrak, Danny Lee, and Luke List soon followed, and Lydia Ko had a set in her bag at one time.

And while the company’s commitment to quality remains largely the same as it was 10 years ago, there is no getting away from the fact PXG clubs are no longer as bank balance breakingly expensive as they once were. In fact, given the hike in costs of the other premium golf brands, PXG clubs are almost in danger of entering the almost affordable’ category, well, in relative terms, at least.

Club fitting has come a long way in the near 20 years I’ve been in the golf industry. We don’t find the secret in the dirt anymore – it’s shown clearly to us on a projector screen. A launch monitor is essential for a proper club fitting. Having the data is one thing, but how to change the equipment to improve those numbers to create better performing golf equipment for a golfer is a whole other thing. The team at PXG understand the importance of personalised club fitting better than most.

PXG has its south-east fitting hub at the stunning new practice facility at The Drift Golf Club, near Leatherhead. With the black padded walls, I felt like I’d finally found the asylum for the golf insane, and in the best possible way, I probably had. Brandon Bassett was my PXG Master Fitter for the session. After enquiring what I wanted from a new set of clubs, and measuring my current equipment, we set to work.

My current irons are hot, but they are on the low side for spin and launch and I’m not consistent with them. Brandon hand me a PXG 0311 GEN6 P 6-iron and performance was night-and-day improved. Ball speed remained close, but launch and spin both went up. The irons had weaker lofts and ultimately didn’t fly as far as my current set, but this was actually a good thing. Raising the launch and spin would allow me to hit and hold greens far more often, and I’d only lost a few yards of total distance. My dispersion was also far tighter. Switching to firmer Aertotech Steelfiber i95s shaft helped me deliver the clubhead far more consistently to the ball. And while we did try other shafts, nothing came close to the performance of this combination.

An advantage PXG has over other brands is its ability to customise the swingweight the set with each iron featuring a large adjustable weight right in the centre of the head. It’s amazing how a tiny weight difference can help you deliver the club to the ball even more consistently.

Firstly, we tried a slightly heavier weight, and it threw off my timing. and when I say heavier, I’m talking just 2g. Next, we tried a lighter weight. Taking the irons down to a D0.6 swing weight, my ball speed went up and my strike got better. Along with adjusting the lie angle and length of the irons, you could hear the difference in the quality of the strike and consistency of the ball flight. With the irons dialled in we moved over to the driver. In theory a longer driver shaft should help generate more clubhead speed. However, more clubhead speed doesn’t automatically translate into more ball speed. After some initial shots, Brandon gave me a 45-inch driver shaft to try, half-an-inch shorter than standard. I started hitting the ball straighter. I was also making better contact. And I actually started swinging the club faster, as I had more confidence.

Switching to a Project X HZRDUS RDX Smoke Blue shaft created even better launch conditions. And while we tried both models of driver head, the lowest spin of the standard 0311 GEN6 driver was better to maximise performance for my game. Some fine tuning of swing weight with an extra 2g in the heel, plus turning the loft down to 8.25° helped tune launch and spin. On average I was hitting the driver 15 yards further than my current driver, while hitting it straighter more consistently. Whether PXG equipment performs better than other brands is totally up for debate. However, the detailed nature of their fitting process definitely allows them to fine tune your custom fit to a much greater degree than most of their competitors. And that is more than half the battle.

One of the other founding principles of PXG is that it won’t launch a new club unless it outperforms what came before. While this commitment puts a lot of pressure on the company’s R&D team, it also gives consumers the added confidence that they are not being sold a pipedream whenever PXG launches new a club.

PXG first burst onto the golf equipment scene with its show-stopping hollow bodied irons. The secret to PXG irons is they have the thinnest face in golf. So thin, in fact, that if they weren’t filled with XCOR2 polymer, the face would collapse on impact with your very first swing.

So, when I tell to you that the company’s new Gen6 irons are 15% thinner than any other iron PXG has created before – measuring just 1.27mm – then you know that they are thin, almost paper-like thin. And while that helps produce super high ball speeds off the face, the XCOR2 material in the head makes them feel as soft as a toasted marshmallow at impact. Power Channel milling in the back of the face helps transfer more energy, as well as raising launch angle and increasing ball speed on miss hits.

The 0311 irons feature a five-times forged body for a tighter grain structure for greater consistency and is also the only way to create the required head shape. While the hollow design helps bring the centre of gravity back for easier launch, PXG’s engineers have also left some mass at the top of the head to help improve MOI up and down the face on an iron design that is already built for forgiveness across the face. Some clever shaping keeps the irons looking slim at address.

While some boutique manufacturers extol the virtues of the craftsman at the grinding wheel, PXG has a very different outlook to the way their clubs are finished. As Mike Nicollete, Senior Club Designer at PXG, and a former PGA Tour winner, says: ‘If you hand polish, you’re at the discretion of how that polisher is feeling that day’. By going with a robotic method every club will be finished exactly the same and feature the same sole geometry.

The finishing touch to PXG irons are the adjustable weights. While tungsten weights in the heel and toe help with lowering the centre of gravity, it’s the adjustable centre weight that allows the fitter to fine tune swing weight. Getting that perfect swing weight for each golfer helps improve their timing and find the sweetspot more often.

Split into two models, the 0311P is for low to mid-handicap golfers looking for more power and forgiveness without sacrificing a classic look at address. The 0311XP is built for mid-to-high handicap golfers who are looking for more forgiveness and extra distance as well. RRP: £209 per club