Finding the right set of irons is about as important as it gets for golfers.
After all, they’re the clubs they’ll swing the most in a typical round, and the biggest golfing investment they’re likely to make.
Like lots of things in the sport, they can come with hefty price tags, and it’s always worth taking care when investing. Premium sets certainly aren’t cheap, but if you find the right ones, they’ll prove invaluable in improving your game and help you make countless memories on the course.
What kind of irons should you buy?
There are endless options out there, but we’ve focused on our picks of the best irons for mid to low-handicappers looking to take their game to the next level and get scores down.
We’ve tried to cover a wide brief here, and there are plenty of choices for players of all abilities to consider in the list below. That said, scratch players looking for their next set of blades might want to check elsewhere.
What else do you need to consider when buying irons?
It might sound obvious, but we’d always recommend booking a custom fitting before you pull the trigger on a new set if you can. It’s not always possible, but getting hands-on with a set of clubs before you splash the cash is always the best way to feel assured the purchase you’re making is the right one.
These are our picks of the best iron sets for mid to low handicappers to buy in 2025.
Best iron sets at a glance:
- Best for ease of launch: Ping i530 - £1,069, Clubhouse Golf
- Best value: Takomo 101s - £499, Takomo
- Best for all ability levels: TaylorMade P790s - £1,029, American Golf
- Best for confidence-boosting head profiles: Titleist T200 - £1,069 Affordable Golf
- Best for traditional looks: Ben Hogan PTx Pro Irons - £749.99, Ben Hogan
- Best for contemporary looks: Callaway Apex Ai300 Best - £1,399 (for 4-PW), Callaway
- Best for combo options: Srixon ZXi5 - from £949, Clubhouse Golf
- Best: for customisation: Vice VGI02 - £97.43 per club, Vice
Best tennis rackets to hit the court with for beginners to advanced players 2025
Best gifts for dad: Unique presents for your father
Best golf umbrellas to keep golfers and gear dry 2025
Best winter golf shoes for keeping your footing on the course in the off season
Best golf shorts for men in 2025: Our top picks for summer rounds
Ping i530
Best for: ease of launch
Many Ping irons – and Ping clubs in general – come with a reputation for being incredibly sturdily made, and being some of the most forgiving you can buy anywhere. The i530s are no different. We found them to be among the most confidence-inspiring behind the ball we tested, and they felt like they were built to last a lifetime.
There’s a nice, slightly industrial style to the looks, and a head profile behind the ball that is considerable, but not cumbersome. Some hollow-body designs can feel clumsy at address, but that’s not the case here. They’re hot off the face too, and will offer great distance to players looking to bump up their yardages without losing much in terms of feel.
Most significantly, of all the irons we tried out, the i530 could well be the easiest to get up in the air. Mid-handicap players will have their own preferences when it comes to distance, feel, and design, but the 1530s strike a nice middle ground between a players’ iron and a game improvement club. After testing these out, it was clear to us that many, many club golfers would be well suited to these irons.
Buy now £1069.00, Clubhouse Golf
Takomo 101
Best: value
The golf market is changing, and there are more direct-to-consumer brands challenging the bigger boys than ever before. One of those doing excellent work is Takomo, which has emerged as a real player since launching a few years back.
Coming out of Finland, the brand makes elegant irons that provide the kinds of performance that would normally come at a much higher price point. They’re gaining real traction in the social media world too with golf content creators like the Bryan Bros. and new shareholder Grant Horvat, so expect to see more and more people play with these.
The 101s are described by Takomo as being for beginners, but that undersells them. They will suit a wide variety of players, and offer the kind of forgiveness that you’d expect from a club with more real estate behind the ball. They’re sleeker than more distance irons, with gorgeous minimalist design, and a price point that can’t be sniffed at.
The 101s were the first irons the brand produced, and while there are other irons in the brand’s portfolio now, including the slightly more compact 101Ts, they’re still some of the best value irons for mid-handicappers and above on the market.
For a club that offers plenty of forgiveness on mishits, the club has a relatively thin top profile that will still appear to better players. Perhaps its biggest selling point is the fact they’re stunning to look at, with incredibly clean looks, as well as a hollow body design with the look of a blade. The only real downside is that players can’t get fitted for the set before they buy, but these are very good clubs from a brand with real hipster appeal that continues to grow in the golf space.
Buy now £499.00, Takomo
TaylorMade P790s
Best for: all ability levels
The TaylorMade P-series are classics of their kind, and there’s a reason golfers of all talent levels choose to invest in them. The TaylorMade P790s have been updated numerous times over the years and remain excellent options. If you’re after a shiny new set in 2025, they’re still one of the sets we’d recommend checking out.
First, there’s the looks. Aesthetically, they’re pretty hard to beat when it comes to players’ irons. The minimalistic design is one of the slickest out there and offers the look of a bladed set. They mix those elegant looks with excellent hollow-body performance, compact feel, a big sweet spot and more forgiveness than most irons of this type.
They feel superb on impact, with a forged steel face that offers buttery contact on good strikes. It’s no surprise that the P790 is the biggest-selling TaylorMade forged iron. They’re modern classics for a reason, and there’s no doubt the P790s will be go-to irons for a wide variety of golfers.
Buy now £1029.00, American Golf
Titleist T200
Best for: confidence-boosting head profiles
Titleist has a wealth of options for all kinds of players, and while picking out an option for mid to higher-handicap players will never be a straightforward task, the T200 will suit a really wide range of them.
First off, the T200 are unfussy and sophisticated-looking clubs, which aren’t always the easiest to find in this category. Importantly for people focused on looks when buying a new set of irons, they're still classy while offering a chunky profile behind the ball.
They offer a robust feel, with a sense of real power off the face – and that’s at least in part to the tech packed into the club. Titleist has incorporated its Max Impact Technology into the forged face, combining it with ‘Ultra-precise CG placement’ in the tungsten insert. It all translates to a very well-rounded club – and all that technology doesn’t impact the looks or the feel. Most importantly, they’re easy to hit, come from a brand with an almost unrivalled pedigree in this category, and will serve players looking for confidence-boosting clubs to take out onto the course.
Buy now £1069.00, Affordable Golf
Ben Hogan PTx Pro Irons
Best for: traditional looks
It’s one of the most iconic names in golf, and after years of finding its place again in the equipment world, the Ben Hogan brand has products to really shout about – including the stunning PTx Pro Irons.
We won’t focus solely on the looks here, but these stunning retro-inspired irons are some of the most aesthetically pleasing on the market. Blending contemporary performance with retro-inspired visuals, they really offer one of the most intriguing irons on the market.
It’s worth saying that they’ll certainly appeal to slightly better ball strikers within the mid-handicap territory, and ones that want to stop balls dead when hitting longer clubs into greens. Having said that, despite the traditional loft of the PTx Pro Irons (the 7 iron is 34˚), the distance was still impressive given just how hot they were off the face. While they’re a little smaller than other options on this list in the face, they do offer the forgiveness that we all require.
They also just have something appealing about them – they’re certainly quirkier than most options you’ll grab off the rack. You’ll look forward to grabbing them out of your bag, and showing them off the next time you’re out on the course with your pals, that’s for sure.
Buy now £749.99, Ben Hogan
Callaway Apex Ai300
Best for: contemporary looks
Callaway has had some of the most compelling options for mid-handicappers in the game for years now – whether it be the Paradym irons or the new Elyte irons which could be the best-looking game improvement-style irons ever made.
However, the Apex might be one of the most rugged, contemporary options money can buy. We love the utilitarian, even slightly industrial look that the Apex offers, with the screws on the back of the head adding something likeably rugged to the design.
There’s a wide array of options within the Apex range itself, too – if you’re feeling brave enough then why not try the muscle back blade irons Callaway Apex 24 MB, or maybe the players distance option in the form of the Callaway Apex Ai200s.
They’re not cheap, costing £1,399 for a 4-PW set, and the price point may put some people off, but if you’re after a premium product offering a long-term investment then the Apex range should be somewhere near the top of your list.
Buy now £1399.00, Callaway
Srixon ZXi5
Best for: combo options
Srixon’s ZXi series offers pretty much everything mid to low handicappers could ask for. The ZXi5 is the Japanese brand’s range aimed at players looking for more forgiveness on off-centre hits, compared to the ZXi7 aimed at lower handicappers. They’ll provide a helping hand when it comes to getting the ball up in the air and around the course.
The ZX7s are aimed at better players looking to place an emphasis on shot shaping and creativity when finding greens. For us, we preferred the reassuring feel of the ZX5. That’s in part down to the ridged Tour VT sole, which helps the club glide through the turf and helps to avoid snagging if you’re off the fairway.
The ZX5s are pretty long, plenty of fun to hit and feel reassuring through impact. They’re also fantastic-looking clubs, which you don’t always get with clubs this forgiving. The sleek looks are some of the best we tried and there’s plenty of shelf appeal here.
Overall, they more than live up to the reputation for quality that you get from Srixon irons. If you can, we’d recommend getting fitted for a set, as the option to swap in ZX7s and ZX4s into the bag to suit your game could work really well for plenty of players.
Buy now £949.00, Clubhouse Golf
Vice VGI02
Best for: customisation
Vice makes some of the most impressive, hipster-friendly golf balls on the market, and in more recent times the German direct-to-consumer brand has decided to branch out and produce some of the most stylish clubs you’ll find anywhere. First came putters and wedges, and now there are irons too, which are handcrafted in Germany and made to order.
The Vice Golf VGI01 might be the best-looking irons we've seen for a long time, with a forged feel, but although these bladed forged clubs feel fantastic, and look superb, they will be well suited to better players. Instead, the VGI02 offers more forgiveness, as well as an impressive feel and eye-catching design. The 2-piece cast head offers fantastic ball speed and distance.
There isn’t the opportunity to get fitted in person for these clubs, but there is an online fitting form to fill out, which will help people find the most suitable clubs for them – and, there are countless options for players to customise and fine-tune them to their specifications. So while you can’t try before you buy, unless you’re in the US and able to test our clubs at Club Champion Studios, the brand offers a 60-Day Trial, which means “If the Vice Golf clubs don’t fit your game as expected, we’re ready to help with a return”.
The customisation is something that sets these clubs out from many others too. The design, which is pretty eye-catching anyway, can be changed into a number of different finishes and colours. While it likely won't appeal to fans of more traditional loft setups, the loft can be weakened or strengthened by up to 1.5 degrees too.
After trying these out, we’re excited to see what this brand does next.
Buy now £97.43, Vice
