Gear: Cobra King TEC Utility irons
Price: $299 each with KBS $-Taper 120 steel shaft and Lamkin Crossline grip. $249 with Mitsubishi MMT 80 graphite shaft.
Specs: Hollow-body construction with a forged ST-118 stainless steel face, internal vibration-dampening foam and tungsten weight.
Available: Feb. 3
Who It’s For: Golfers who want hybrid-like distance from a long iron.
The Skinny: Designed as a hybrid alternative for golfers looking for more distance, the King TEC Utility irons have a powerful face, internal tungsten weight to make it easier to get shots airborne and a vibration-dampening foam to enhance sound and feel.
The Deep Dive: For several seasons, Cobra has offered accomplished golfers utility irons that try to blend the distance of hybrid clubs with the control of long irons. Why? A sizeable number of golfers who score in the 70s want to be able to shape the ball, and flat-faced irons do an excellent job of that. Still, hollow-bodied hybrid clubs often provide more distance, forgiveness and versatility.
For 2023, Cobra has an updated offering, the King TEC Utility irons, and they have hidden technologies to provide golfers with more pop along with better sound and feel.
On the outside, the King TEC Utility irons look like a muscleback blade. Yes, the topline is thicker, there is more offset and the sole is wider than you see in an elite golfer’s iron, but accomplished golfers expect to see that in driving irons and utility clubs. What they do not want to see are visual distractions. The King TEC Utility irons are clean.
They also have a cast stainless steel body welded to a thin, forged ST-118 stainless steel face. The outside of the hitting area is perfectly flat, aside from the grooves, but the inner-facing side is covered with thin areas and thicker regions. Cobra refers to it as a H.O.T. face, which stands for highly optimized topography. The variable-thickness face broadens the sweet spot, so shots hit in the heel and toe areas are not penalized as much and fly nearly as far as center-struck shots.
The face plate is shaped like an L, which Cobra calls PWRShell, and it allows the hitting area to flex more efficiently on thin shots.
To lower the center of gravity and make it easier to hit higher-flying shots, Cobra added a 56-gram tungsten bar inside the head of the King TEC Utility 2-iron and a 61-gram tungsten bar inside the King TEC Utility 3- through 5-iron.
To enhance sound and feel, designers injected the hollow chamber of the King TEC Utility irons with a polymer called Expancel 920 DU 40. After heating, the polymer expands to fill the inside of the head. The material is unique because it is very light and filled with microscopic air bubbles. When a golfer hits a shot, the face flexes back at impact and the polymer soaks up excessive vibrations. However, it does not inhibit the face from bending, so improved sound and feel do not come at the expense of ball speed and distance.
