Gear: TaylorMade P•770 irons (2023)
Price: $1,299 with KBS Tour steel shafts and Golf Pride Z-Grip 360 grips
Specs: Forged 4140 stainless steel face with a forged, hollow-bodied 8620 carbon steel body, internal tungsten weight and foam
Available: January 20, 2023
Who It’s For: Accomplished golfers who want a compact club that delivers extra distance and a soft feel.
The Skinny: The 2023 version of the P•770 irons have tipped more toward the better-player category, but they still deliver more distance than you might expect from a club of this size, along with a soft feel.
The Deep Dive: Last season, Tiger Woods and Collin Morikawa blended in a TaylorMade P•770 long iron, or two, with their other irons because the clubs delivered more ball speed and a higher launch angle. However, TaylorMade encouraged recreational and club players to think of the P•770 as a slightly smaller version of the P•790, one of the most popular irons the company has ever produced. If you liked what the P•790 could do but wanted a shorter blade length, then the P•770 was for you.
Golfers who have a repeatable swing and who like to shape shots around the course but want more distance made it clear to TaylorMade that they liked the P•770. So with the 2023 upgrade of the P•770, TaylorMade has opted not to overhaul the club drastically, but instead, the company refined it.
Construction
From a construction standpoint, the P•770 is still a hollow-bodied construction, with a forged 8620 carbon steel body attached to a forged 4140 stainless steel face that wraps under the club’s leading edge. TaylorMade also designed the P•770 with a Speed Pocket slot in the sole, which works with the L-shaped face to improve performance on low-struck shots.
SpeedFoam Air, a vibration-damping material that debuted in the 2021 version of the P•790, is injected inside each head to soak up excessive vibrations and enhance feel. It also helps to improve the sound that is created at impact. However, it does not inhibit the face from flexing, so it does not reduce ball speed or distance.
Flighted center of gravity
Another advantage of SpeedFoam Air is it is 69 percent lighter than the original SpeedFoam found in the previous P•770 irons, which saves weight, allowing TaylorMade designers to add up to 45 grams of tungsten inside the heads as well. The tungsten helps lower the center of gravity (CG) location in the long irons, creating a higher initial launch angle and steep descent for better stopping power on the greens. TaylorMade’s designs “flight” the CG location, however, elevating it slightly as you progress from the 3-iron, which has the lowest, through the mid-irons and into the 9-iron and pitching wedge, which has the highest CG location. As loft increases, the need for a low center of gravity to get the ball to launch higher diminishes. In the previous version of the P770 iron, the 7-iron actually had a lower CG location than the 3-iron.
The looks
Cosmetically, the 2023 TaylorMade P•770 integrates with the updated P•7MB and P•MC irons so that low-handicap golfers can add an individual as a driving iron. However, the P•770 will be available in 3-iron through attack (gap) wedge.
2023 P-770 irons - $1,299
