The most important data point when it comes to your next irons—and it ain't distance

What’s the most important performance metric when you’re looking at new irons? In this era of ubiquitous launch monitors, it’s easy to get excited about things like ball speed or dispersion or even smash factor (ignore that, please) as the readouts flash by. But there’s a number buried in your typical launch monitor report you should be paying attention to because it might be the difference between hitting greens instead of just visiting them.

It's called descent angle, or landing angle, and having a steep enough angle is the key to holding greens. Research from Ping characterizes three potential ranges for what it calls “stopping power” (low, mid and high). For average golfer speeds, their range of landing angles runs from the mid 30s to the high 40s, depending on whether we’re looking at low, mid or high stopping power. But across most speeds, a landing angle nearing the mid-40s will yield shots that stop rolling closer to where they land.

As Chris Broadie, Ping’s head of fitting science, notes on the company’s Proving Grounds blog, “Since players with fast swing speeds naturally generate higher spin, a steep landing angle might not be their highest priority in an iron fitting. However, many slower-swing-speed golfers can benefit from more stopping power.

“The standard loft on a 7-iron plays a critical role in these landing-angle guidelines.”

That raises a curiosity, given the specs of modern irons. The lofts of 7-irons considered for this year’s Hot List ranged from 25 to 34 degrees, and typically those irons with the strongest lofts were designed with thin, flexible faces for more ball speed and less spin, two keys to distance. Those flexible faces also are lighter and can help to lower an iron’s center of gravity, and both of those characteristics can help shots launch higher for ultimately a more green-holding trajectory. Still, when we look at specific player data from this year’s Hot List testing, those landing angles don’t always work out. Calculated by Rapsodo’s MLM2 Pro launch monitor, we see one clear thing: The loft on your 7-iron needs to be dialed into each golfer’s swing, and we’re not talking about just clubhead speed.

You can get some general ideas by looking at the 20 players in our low and middle handicap groups. All of these players hit the same models of irons in the Players and Players Distance categories, two categories where the clubs are similarly compact in look but often significantly different in loft. Players irons often feature weaker lofts (32 degrees and higher) and faces designed not to flex at impact, while Players Distance irons feature stronger lofts (30 degrees and lower) with springier faces. Overall, the data from the MLM2 Pro showed that the lower the loft on a 7-iron, the flatter the landing angle. For 7-irons with lofts of 30 degrees or less, the average landing angle was 3.5 degrees flatter than 7-irons with lofts of 33 degrees or more. Yet, the overall average carry distances weren’t often wildly different, at least not consistently. Short answer: Stronger lofts and flexible faces can produce more ball speed and perhaps more distance, but carry distance is significantly impacted by each player’s given clubhead speed and the way he or she gets the clubface back to impact. (Think of how a better player naturally delofts an iron at impact, or how a less-skilled player tries to help the ball into the air, for example.)

Let’s look at three different players and their data from the MLM2 Pro on selected 7-iron shots:

Robert Shaw, a 2-handicap, hits his 7-iron about 180 yards with a PGA Tour-level launch angle around 16 degrees (meaning he compresses the ball and delofts the club at impact). He gets a much steeper landing angle with weaker-lofted clubs (like most Players irons), but even the strong-lofted Players Distance irons will land at a serviceable 45 degrees, with 5-8 more yards of carry.

David Ilsley is 30 yards shorter and three decades older than Shaw, but his handicap is just two strokes different. That slower speed, coupled with a launch angle that’s more like a PGA Tour player’s 9-iron, means he actually gets not only a better landing angle but also more carry distance with a higher-lofted 7-iron. Example: Ilsley hit the Callaway Apex Ai200 (loft 30 degrees) eight yards shorter than the Callaway Apex CB (loft 34 degrees).

Skylar Frankiewicz, a former college player who now carries a 7-handicap, hits the stronger-lofted 7-irons about half-a-club farther than the weaker-lofted 7-irons. But while the landing angles are better with weaker-lofted 7-irons, the real decider is spin rate. With about 2,000 rpm more spin on the weaker lofted 7-irons, she’s getting more predictable results when her 7-iron comes with more loft, not less. It might be reasonable to suggest that weakening her iron lofts may get her the best of both worlds: better launch, better distance, better landing angle, better spin.

In the end, it is not a universal fact that strong-lofted irons will lead to more distance and more hit greens. Nor is it the case that choosing a weaker-lofted iron without a springy face is going to be the best solution for your game. Still, since golfers purchase relatively stronger lofted irons vs. weaker lofted irons by a margin nearing 20 to 1, it seems obvious that the smart play is to forget distance when searching for new irons, whether your average 7-iron yardage is longer than Rory McIlroy’s or shorter than Lydia Ko’s. You want your shots to stay on the green, too.

So pay attention to what your fitter is saying about landing angle (and if you’re not hearing about landing angle in your iron fitting, go somewhere else). The right new clubs aren’t about 10 more yards. They’re about helping you to play better golf.