PING’s Crossover Isn’t What It Looks Like

I suspect that many of you will see the PING Crossover for the first time and, as I did, say to yourself, PING has a new driving iron.

You’d be wrong.

Just because it looks like a duck (or a driving iron), doesn’t mean it quacks (or whacks) like one. If you take only one thing away from this story, take this:

The PING Crossover is most definitely not just a driving iron.

What is A Crossover?

Many of us like hybrids because they do what they were designed to do. They go high, and very often they go far. If there’s a knock on the hybrid it’s that they can be difficult to flight on command because of the bulge and roll and because they spin a lot.

In the right or, I suppose, the wrong conditions, hybrids can be difficult to control with the same precision as an iron.

There’s a reason why when the wind blows, like it does at the Open Championship or Harbour Town, some pros will drop their hybrids for driving irons – not that the Crossover is a driving iron.

In creating the Crossover, PING wanted to take all the positives of a hybrid; the ball speed, the distance, the high trajectory, and stopping power, and meld them with all the positives of a flat faced iron; point and shoot accuracy and vertical trajectory workability.

For better players that means a club that gives you the ability to easily flight the ball high or low on a command. For a guy like me it means a club that offers the ability to hit a low hook around a tree without bringing the branches into play.

I need that.

Trajectory workers, tree hookers, excessive spinners, or guys who just don’t like hybrids, the audience for the Crossover is much more expansive than would you’d find for a driving iron, which it definitely isn’t.

Crossover Technology

The Crossover shares some common features with PING’s new G Series fairways and hybrids.

• It’s got a 455 Carpenter Steel variable thickness face
• It has a tiered cascading sole
• …and like the hybrids and fairway woods, the Crossover is not a driving iron.

Unique to the Crossover is a patent pending top rail structure. It thins at the corners to allow the face to give at impact. That additional flex at the top of the face that helps create higher launch.

For those worried about forgiveness, PING’s Marty Jertson says the Crossover is super-high inertia.

While perhaps it’s unfair to compare the Crossover to something that it isn’t, it has 33% higher MOI than PING’s rapture driving iron. By way of comparison, that’s roughly the difference between a PING S-series iron and the G-Max. Continuing along the same theme, the Crossover’s inertia is 10% higher heel-to-toe than a G Iron, and 15% higher than a G hybrid.

From a performance perspective, the Crossover offers ball speeds closer to a hybrid and spin closer to that of an iron.

Finally, the Crossover is bendable, so although lofts start at 19° it’s possible to bend it to create a strong-flighted non-driving iron.

Specs, Pricing, and Availability

MSRP is $247.50. Retail availability begins 2/11, but golfers can get fit and demo the product before that at authorized PING fitting accounts.