You Won’t Find Many Forged Irons Like This One

Bridgestone always has an attention-getting booth at the PGA Show, and this year’s was no different. Gorgeous setup, lots of equipment, bags, balls and other gear on display, a way-cool copper pipe golf ball merry-go-round, plus the obligatory Bridgestone ball fitting stall, with long lines of golfers waiting to find out which Bridgestone ball is for them.

Bridgestone is a self-described “challenger” brand – challenging for consumer top-of-mind, challenging for retail space, and challenging for market share. However, divide the Bridgestone booth’s square footage by Bridgestone’s actual equipment market share and you’d find a ratio so out of whack it’d make most CEO’s reach for the beta-blockers and keep Marketing Managers from looking for real estate.

So why does Bridgestone do it?

Well, first and foremost, their equipment is as good as anybody’s. Brandt Snedeker just won the Farmer’s with his new JGR driver, and Bridgestone’s all-in 2015 – 2016 lineup is as solid as there is in the game. And despite closing up shop in the UK, Bridgestone Golf is a powerhouse in Asia and corporate clearly wants a bigger slice of pie in the U.S.

So for 2016 Bridgestone is giving us some new equipment to ponder. The JGR driver is already grabbing headlines with Snedeker’s brilliant early-season play (and the fairways and hybrids look promising, as well). The other new product is a bit of a head scratcher, although it does fill a hole in Bridgestone’s line.

Meet the JGR Forged Hybrid Iron.

Super-DUPER -Game Improvement

Bridgestone’s new JGR Hybrid Iron certainly takes the stage without a single ounce of pretentiousness. It is what it is and it doesn’t pretend to be anything else. The JGR Hybrid Iron is a forged Super Game Improvement iron for people who find that your basic SGI irons feel too harsh and just aren’t quite forgiving enough.

“We wanted to create a whole new category of iron with the JGR Hybrid,” says Josh Kinchen, Bridgestone’s Golf Club & Accessories Marketing Manager. “It has that soft, forged feel that simply doesn’t exist in the SGI category, and it has the lowest and deepest center of gravity of any forged iron on the market.”

And to say the JGR has a wide flange is like saying Donald Trump is just a wee bit outspoken.

Tech Stuff

There are a couple of need-to-know tech items with the JGR Hybrid Iron.

First is the club face, which Bridgestone calls Ultimate Strong Metal 2.0. While it sounds like it came from the planet Krypton with SuperMan, Ultimate Strong Metal 2.0 is Bridgestone’s version of a super-thin, super-strong face that gives maximum flex at impact. We’ve seen this story already with PING’s Cor-Eye and Wilson Staff’s FLX Face – the more the face flexes at impact, the more ball speed and distance you’ll get. For an SGI iron, that’s seldom a bad thing.

There’s also something in the cavity called Turbo Rubber. Bridgestone says it’s for vibration control and to help feel on mishits. For an SGI iron, that’s never a bad thing, either.

Now, About Those Specs

There are a few players in the Super-Duper Game Improvement hybrid-iron market. TaylorMade’s new M2 irons feature a 28.5° 7-iron, while Callaway’s Big Bertha 7-iron is 30°.

The standard JGR set runs from the 6-iron through PW2 (what??). Specologists, prepare to freak the hell out:

I’ll give you a minute to digest all that.

A 26° 7-iron? TWO pitching wedges? Grab the pitchforks and light the torches, it’s time to storm the castle.

The Zombie Apocalypse is surely upon us.

Or not.

More than anything this numbering system shows just how arbitrary and, ultimately, insignificant iron numbers really are. If the irons were exactly the same, but labelled 4 through 9 with a 24°4-iron, a 33° 7-iron and a 50° PW, the outcry would be nonexistent. Same clubs + different numbers = no big deal.

And when you consider the intended market – the high handicapper whose main concern is simply getting the ball in the air in the general direction of the green so he can have some fun – the numbers on the clubs are really meaningless except to the self-appointed “guardians of the game.”

With all that, the question must be asked: why this numbering system?

“That’s the way they’re being sold in Japan,” says Kinchen. “So that’s what we have to do here.”

We ran that though MyGolfSpy’s Automatic Marketing Semantics Interpreter and came up with: When dealing with corporate, you pick your battles carefully.

Price and Availability:

The JGR Hybrid iron set will be available March 4. The stock iron shaft is the 85 gram Nippon NS Pro Zelos 8, while the stock graphite shaft is the UST Mamiya ReCoil, both with Bridgestone’s stock grip. The standard set is 6 iron through PW2, with an optional 5-iron and AW available. Steel shaft sets will retail for $699, graphite for $749.

The JGR’s are available in right-handed only. Sorry lefties.