Cobra Baffler irons: What you need to know
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: The new Baffler iron set from Cobra combines five different clubhead designs in an effort to elevate trajectory and increase forgiveness in specific ways throughout the bag for beginning golfers and those looking at the super game-improvement category. Those five designs include traditional hybrids in the long irons, hollow hybrid-like irons in the mid-irons, hollow irons in the short irons, one-piece cavity back wedges and a special game-improvement sand wedge. In keeping with the traditional benefit seen in the original Cobra Baffler utility wood first introduced in 1975, this 50th anniversary set again makes use of rails on the sole in all but the short irons and wedges to ease turf interaction and further lower the center of gravity for improved launch potential.
PRICE: $900 (graphite, $800 in steel, custom only), seven clubs. Men’s: 4- and 5-hybrid, 6-iron through pitching wedge (gap and sand wedge also available). Women’s: 5- and 6-hybrid, 7-iron through sand wedge. (gap wedge also available). Available for pre-sale Aug. 19, in-store Sept. 5.
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1. Five easy pieces. Cobra’s lineage since the days of its founder Tom Crow (the developer of the Baffler and its distinctive, turf-gliding twin sole rails) has forged a path toward forgiveness. The company’s sets across the board have found new ways to help beginning golfers and those with moderate swing speeds find higher flight and mitigate mis-hits. This new super game-improvement Baffler set incorporates elements of past designs to specifically target ways to make certain clubs within the set solve problems that average golfers face. This set includes technologies developed for lighter weight irons like the Air-X, hybrid irons like the T-Rail and game-improvement irons and hybrids like the recent DS-Adapt. Indeed, there are five separate head designs from the lowest lofts to the sand wedge, so it’s not merely borrowing general themes and incorporating them into the Baffler set; it’s inserting completely distinct pieces for completely specific jobs.
“We wanted to serve this customer, by providing different constructions for each different shot they would hit, instead of one set with one construction throughout the entire set,” said Bryce Hobbs, who directs iron design for Cobra. Hobbs noted that as an example in the previous T-Rail set the anecdotal feedback from users was the sand wedge wasn’t as versatile as that player wanted, leading to a design free of the trademark rails and more in line with Cobra's King-X oversize game-improvement wedge. “What better way to serve that player than to give them a specific thing that we like to use when we hit out of the sand. That’s just one example, but we kind of took that thought process across the entire set.”
The wood-like hybrids in the lowest-lofted segment provide the off-center hit forgiveness and easy launch that are most needed in this area of the bag, while the widebody hollow irons on the 6- and 7-iron slots benefit from a weight-saving polymer medallion backing to help to further lower the CG for easier launch. That lower CG also allows for the lofts to be a bit stronger but not overly aggressive to create more potential distance.
Meanwhile, the rest of the set takes a progressive approach to forgiveness, transitioning from hollow irons in the 8- and 9-iron to deep undercut in the short irons to provide more precision on these scoring clubs that, because of their lofts, don’t need extensive forgiveness technologies. Specifically, that means the short irons and wedges have less offset than some super game-improvement designs because it actually makes those clubs easier to be more precise with and easier to square the face at impact. That precision is crucial for clubs used in the scoring zone. Still, the deep undercut provides extra launch that allows for slightly stronger lofts to potentially enhance distance potential.
“In the end, we're trying to design sets that are easy to square up for directional consistency, but also back CG for easy up,” said Jose Miraflor, Cobra’s vice president of product architecture.
2. Traditional values. Another Cobra tradition has been the use of rails in utility woods, fairway woods, hybrids and irons over the years. This Baffler set incorporates rails in selective depths and angles throughout, but eliminates them in the sand wedge where they might inhibit versatility. That means taller and steeper rails on the hybrids and long irons but less leading edge bounce on the rails for the 8-, 9-iron and pitching wedge. The more substantial rails on the longer clubs aim to counteract the tendency of these players to come over the top on their downswing, leading to smoother action through the turf on shots hit slightly fat and thus less loss of swing speed for better distance. The soles are generally wide throughout the set, but progressively narrower toward the sand wedge, and the same is true for the amount of offset (more on the lower lofts, less on the highest lofts), a trend the company has displayed on its game-improvement iron sets over the last several years.
3. Light speed. While the set is offered in a lightweight steel as a custom option, the standard models come with a 50-gram lightweight graphite shaft, the lightest Cobra offers and one the company developed specifically for this level of player. Similar versions have been in some past super game-improvement irons from Cobra, including the successful Air-X models. It’s designed to create more potential speed while not sacrificing any stability that this kind of moderate swing might stress on a shaft.
