Light Is Right (and Long) With These Reimagined Woods and Irons

Cobra's Air-X clubs deliver on a promise of more speed, which Gary Van Sickle found translates to more distance.

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This is a fact: The ball does not go “too far” when I hit it.

This is also a fact: Every senior golfer I know is a bit of a malcontent and with good reason. We lived through the Golden Age of Distance—the mid-1990s and oversized driver heads to the mid-2000s with the Pro V1 and other balls that impossibly delivered more distance, more feel AND flew straighter.

We aren’t malcontents as much as we are spoiled because we are now trapped in an unfamiliar glass-ceiling world. We aren’t getting better, we’re getting, ugh, shorter.

The recent USGA ball rollback means technology probably won’t save me this time. Unless it’s those bionic parts I was promised decades ago. (Don’t just fix me, make me better! Don’t make me move up to the shorter tees yet.)

My problem in a nutshell: Kong hungry. Kong need more distance.

Simmer down, Kong. Cobra Golf has a potential solution—lighter shafts.

Lighter shafts equals more swing speed equals more distance. (At this point, I like any sentence with the word “more” in it.)

Cobra's Air-X clubs offer lighter shafts for smooth swingers to produce more distance / Courtesy Cobra Golf

I should have thought of this sooner. I’ve been using a South Korean AutoFlex shaft in my driver for two years that weighs only 40 grams and immediately picked up 12-15 yards of carry. Last summer, I put one of those shafts in my 3-wood, too, and it was a game-changer.

So why not go light in the irons? Cobra has been offering just such an option for a number of years. Its Air-X irons and Air-X OS drivers deliver on a promise of more speed, although convincing seniors of anything is never easy.

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“Not believing something new is better is a tough thing to overcome but we often find people saying, 'Gee, I wish I’d done that sooner,'” said Tom Olsavsky, Cobra’s vice president of research and development. “It’s like hip replacement. Everyone I know who’s had a hip replaced said, ‘Gee, I wish I’d done that sooner.’ Go try some clubs. You might see a big difference.”

Cobra’s Air-X irons ($699 suggested retail) are one option. Cobra’s Air-X OS driver ($349) is another. They are built to be light to help golfers “with smooth tempos,” the Cobra website says, generate increased clubhead speed and distance. The irons have Cobra’s proprietary H.O.T. Face inserts, designed by artificial intelligence, to improve performance on mis-hits.

I secured a trio of Air-X irons (6, 8 and pitching wedge) for testing purposes to see if I could go deeper with the Air-X models than my current set, which happens to be Cobra Tour irons, with heavier, KBS $-Taper 12 stiff-flex steel shafts.

I went to my favorite indoor golf simulator facility, No Off-Season in Mars, Pa., to get Trackman launch monitor data for a comparison. Keep in mind that it was late November, the golf season in greater Pittsburgh was over unless you’re dedicated (or, as some say, nuts) and my game wasn’t honed to the “fine edge” it was in August. (Note sarcasm.)

With the Cobra Air-X pitching wedge, I picked up an average of 3 mph clubhead speed, 5 mph ball speed and about 6.5 yards of carry distance (from 116.0 to 122.7).

With the 8-iron, my clubhead speed increased nearly 3 mph, ballspeed about 5 mph and 7 yards of carry. I like this trend.

It was about the same with the 6-iron. I gained 3.5 mph of ballspeed, 4.1 mph clubhead speed and 6.8 yards of carry.

Overall, the path of my shots with the Air-X were no different than my regular irons. They were just as accurate, if I may misuse that word to to describe my spray-shooting.

I didn’t expect the Cobra Air-X driver to match my super-expensive South Korean-shafted driver but it was close. My gamer, which has 9 degrees of loft, carried 231 yards, the Cobra, with 10.5 degrees 225. My clubhead speed and ball speed were about the same with both models, from 90.8 to 92.1 mph and 137 to 139.4, respectively. The carry distance on the Cobra Air-X was 228 yards, total rollout 245 yards. My regular driver was 229 yards with rollout of 255 yards, thanks to some special secret sauce spin that the South Korean shaft imparts.

Olsavsky said the results of my unscientific testing were within reason. “We know that when you have a well-grooved swing, as you must have with your lower handicap, you do better with lighter weight,” he said. “If your swing isn’t well-grooved or it’s a little erratic, heavier and stiffer is better. Light weight gets you better speed and more control.

“A lot of older golfers with slower swing speeds hit the ball fairly straight because they don’t hit it far enough to get into trouble. Those are the players who benefit most from Air-X’s lighter weight and higher-launched shots.”

The Air-X line is geared toward game improvement. Toward that end, the irons have slightly more loft than what is currently considered standard.

“We’ve got a 9.0-degree head, we sent you a driver with a 10.5-degree loft, our lofts tend to be on the weak side,” Olsavsky said. “That could be a spin issue for you. On the irons, a typical game improvement loft would be 27 or 28 degrees for a 7-iron. Our Air-X 7-iron’s loft is 30 degrees. These are definitely an easy-up design for irons.”

Factoring in the different iron lofts and the fact that my knees get creaky after a certain number of swings, my testing isn’t likely to appear in The Scientific Review. Still, I’m looking forward to doing more of it because I’m onto something with this lighter shaft concept. All I have to do is push that ego out of the way and admit that maybe I don’t have the power to swing stiff steel shafts anymore.

“In golf, it’s always been the stiffer the shaft, the more accurate you’re going to be because the head doesn’t deflect as much,” Olsavsky said. “Softer flex gets you more speed, stiffer gets you more control. Everybody wants everything. It’s hard to sell accuracy because it’s not a popular story with the public. It’s basically giving people what they want. They should eat fiber and vegetables but they want cake and chocolate and starches.”

Kong like cake, mmmm, and chocolate. Kong also like more distance.

Entering the new Rollback Era, I don’t think my shots will ever go “too far” but at least Cobra has my back while I keep striving to play my best golf.

By “play my best golf,” of course, I mean “hit it farther.”

But you already knew that.