PING i530 Irons: Distance PING’s Way

The new PING i530 irons, along with their stablemates, the new G730s, round out a near-complete 2024 revamp of PING’s irons lineup.

So much so that when you consider the new PING G430 MK 10K driver and PING Blueprint irons, plus a boatload of new PING putters, you could call this The Spring of PING.

Hey, if nothing else, it rhymes.

The new PING i530 irons replace the two-year-old i525 irons as PING’s entry in the player’s distance category. Compared to its predecessor, the i530 has a much more compact, almost blade-like, appearance.  

And if you’re a pitchfork-carrying member of the Anti-Loft Jacking Police, the PING i530 irons will give you something new to squawk about.

But maybe you’re a decent ball striker who’d like to hit the ball a little farther. Or maybe you’d like to recapture some of the distance Father Time has taken away. In those cases, the PING i530 irons might give you something to smile about.

Same iron. It just depends on your point of view.

PING i530 Irons: Player’s Distance With Compact Shaping

The player’s distance iron category features several key characteristics. First, while they’re not strictly “better player” irons, they’re not game-improvement. They fit players graduating from game-improvement but aren’t ready for prime time. And they also fit good ball strikers who might no longer be prime time. They want some distance back.

Player’s distance irons are generally more compact than game-improvement irons but larger than player’s cavity-backs, with a little more offset. They’re also usually multi-piece hollow-body construction with plenty of face-flexing technology. There’s often, but not always, some sort of sound-dampening material in the hollow body to make them sound and feel less harsh. Often, but not always, the multi-piece construction includes a forged face.

Lofts are stronger than player’s irons but weaker than GI irons.

Specifically, the i530 irons are part of an ongoing trend at PING. Ever since Karsten first put pencil to graph paper and designed the 1A putter, PING has had a function-first design philosophy, without concern over form. When the PING Eye 2 came out in 1982, it was called one of the ugliest irons ever made. That didn’t stop it from also becoming the best-selling iron in history.

The PING i530 irons have plenty of function. But, as with the Blueprint irons that came out in January and the S159 wedges last month, PING threw some form into the mix as well.

Built For Ball Speed

“The i530 is the antithesis of our Blueprint T irons,” says PING Design Engineering Manager Travis Milleman. “The golfer playing this club is in search of more distance. It’s designed for ball speed.”

Everything about the PING i530 irons screams ball speed. The forged maraging steel face is the same technology PING uses in its metalwoods. The CG is 10 percent lower, the machined rear wall is 40 percent thinner and the lofts are 1.5 to two degrees stronger across the board than the i525.

Yep, stronger-lofted. But don’t light those loft-jacking torches without a quick history lesson.

Karsten and, before him, Toney Penna with MacGregor, found that lowering the CG and adding perimeter weighting made a golf club more forgiving. The problem was that combination would launch the ball to too high, spin it too much and balloon it all over the place. The solution was to strengthen lofts, loft-jacking if you will. But understand loft-jacking without low CG and perimeter weighting creates a club that’s borderline unplayable.

“Going stronger helps us get more ball speed,” says Milleman. “We’re trying to be industry-competitive but the big factor here is ensuring playability. For us, that’s a max height. We want to make sure that when you’re on the course you’ll maintain the same peak height because that equates to stopping power.”

So, yes, these lofts are strengthened. The 7-iron, for example, is 29 degrees. The i525 7-iron was 30.5 degrees as are the 7-irons in most player’s distance sets.

“We realize we need to be competitive in the fitting bay,” says Milleman. “But, at the same time, we don’t want to lose sight of the fact you need to be able to play these on the course.”

Subterranean CG Blues

As mentioned, the CG on the PING i530 irons is about 10 percent lower per club than on the i525 irons. That’s a massive migration downward.

“We’re trying to get as much mass as possible as low as possible,” explains Milleman. “We learned from our previous designs that moving CG lower and lower is going improve Strokes Gained performance faster than a higher MOI would.”

Specifically, what PING learned is there’s a tradeoff between MOI and CG. Higher MOI always performs better than lower MOI but driving the CG lower promotes ball speed. That promotes distance and that’s a bigger Strokes Gained factor.

Specifically, PING has re-engineered the internal cavity to push the CG down. The upper rear wall of the iron is precision machined to save roughly 10 grams of mass.  And that mass is repositioned lower into a larger overhanging mass pad in the sole.

“In these hollow-body designs, you have a front wall and a rear wall,” says Milleman. “The rear wall needs a certain amount of mass to cast it properly. To save mass, we individually machine each i530 head to the exact thickness of 30/1000ths of an inch.”

That’s the thickness of 10 pieces of paper.

“We’re individually scanning each head to machine them,” he adds. “It’s not just a generic program and you throw the head in and let it run. It’s functional but the milling makes it aesthetically pleasing, as well.”

PING is adding internal stabilizing ribs to make sure the back wall is durable as well as thin.

Sound, Feel and Polymers

OEMs will tell you sound and feel go hand in hand. But, in their unguarded moments, most will tell you that what you perceive as “feel” is more “sound” than anything else. Materials matter, of course, but with hollow-body construction, geometry is just as important, if not more so.

On the geometry front, the PING i530 internal cavity is smaller than the i525 and those internal ribs are strategically placed, based on acoustic simulations. Additionally, the internal polymer injected into that cavity is precisely placed to improve sound and feel while having a minimal effect on face flex.

“Sound can be determined by how surfaces vibrate,” explains Milleman. “but CG also impacts feel. You can feel it if you hit it thin or hit it high on the face. Lowering CG helps you feel a more centered impact and we’re trying to influence the sound through shaping, the polymer and the ribs.”

It’s important to note the entire cavity isn’t filled with polymer. That can negatively impact face flexing and, in turn, ball speed.

“We want to create areas where the polymer can dampen sound but not restrict face flex,” says Milleman.

As mentioned, geometry plays a big role in moving the CG lower. And as also mentioned, low CG and high MOI don’t usually go hand in hand in an iron.

“But through the shaping changes, the internal mass pad buildup and the precision-machined back wall, we’re able to negate a lot of the MOI losses you’d traditionally see by lowering the CG,” says Milleman. “The i530 MOI is basically the same as the i525.”

PING i530 Irons: Loft-Jacking the PING Way

Yes, the PING i530 irons feature stronger lofts. But don’t make the mistake of saying PING is simply putting a “7” on a 6-iron and calling it a day.

“The number on the club doesn’t matter,” says Milleman. “Even though we have an aggressively lofted set, we don’t want to lose sight of gapping. For this consumer, we’re targeting a 13-yard gap across the set.”

Not surprisingly, PING’s player testing gives the i530 7-iron an additional three yards’ worth of carry over i525. That equates to 1.4 mph more ball speed but with a half-a-degree lower launch and around 200 fewer rpm worth of spin. Most importantly, PING showed a consistent peak height and steep enough descent angle to hold greens.

And to keep spin consistent, PING is keeping its unique MicroMax grooves on i530. MicroMax features more grooves on the face, closer together, to enhance spin in all conditions, particularly from the rough.

“Our data shows people who play these clubs are in the rough a lot,” admits Milleman. “They need help everywhere they can get it.”

Do those three more yards mean you should dump your i525 irons and run right out and buy the i530? That depends on how much you value nine feet but I doubt even PING would tell you to ditch the i525 irons for that. But what that number does represent is a generation-over-generation improvement. Yes, the three yards come almost exclusively as the result of stronger lofts. That’s not hard to do. But the value mostly lies with preserving gapping, peak height and descent angle, not to mention what PING is describing as “enhanced feel.”

“The big thing is player satisfaction ratings compared to i525,” says Milleman. “Not only did the ball go farther, I530 was perceived to be a more pleasing club.”

PING i530 Irons: Specs, Price, Availability

Just in case the standard loft matrix for the PING i530 irons isn’t strong enough for you, PING will offer its Power Spec loft structure with each club lofted one to 1.5 degrees stronger. Conversely, if you don’t need the distance but want a higher trajectory for more stopping power, you can try Retro Spec, with lofts ranging from one to two degrees weaker. Bounce will vary if you choose either one.

The True Temper Dynamic Gold Mid 100 is the stock steel shaft in regular and stiff flex. The PING ALTA CB Black is the stock graphite shaft. There is a variety of no-upcharge options, including the Dynamic Gold Mid 115 and the PING AWT (Ascending Weight Technology) 2.0.

The Golf Pride 360 Tour Velvet is the stock grip.

The PING i530 irons will be available in both left- and right-handed models in 4-iron through U-wedge.

They’ll list at $205 per club in steel, and $220 per club in graphite.

They’re available for fitting and pre-order today and will hit retail on April 4.

For more information, visit PING.com.