Written By: Tony Covey
The bad news for those of you who’ve already read our story on the G30 drivers and have fallen in love with the Turbulators; there aren’t any on the irons.
You probably should have seen that coming.
More bad news too for those of you who aren’t exactly fans of PING’s G-series irons. There’s probably nothing in the G30 iron that’s going to radically change your perceptions.
It’s very much true to PING G-series designs.
The good news for those of you who love the G20, G25, and basically G-anything else, as well as those of you who might have been straddling the fence a bit; PING is offering up a series of subtle refinements that make the G30 a worthy and compelling replacement for the G25.
Control, Forgiveness, and Distance Where it Matters
With the increasing prevalence of distance irons, unsupported faces, which offer more deflection and greater ball speeds, are now among the hottest trends in iron design.
The downside of wholly unsupported faces is that they often negatively impact dispersion. They fly farther, but don’t always put you closer to the pin. That’s not generally the sort of trade-off PING is down with.
Among PING’s goals with the G30 was to better control the bending of the face to create an iron that gives you the distance you need, while also keeping you tighter to the pin.
To than end, the faces on the G30 are slightly thinner (compared to the G25), and while that does create a bit of extra ball speed, the primary purpose for thinning the face was to free up some additional mass, which PING very quickly relocated low and back.
Quite frankly, this movement of discretionary weight, especially to the low/rear portion of the clubhead, isn’t anything we haven’t heard before (lots and lots of times), but it has to be mentioned (again). As low and as far back as they can put it…that’s where PING wants the weight in the G30 irons.
As you can see from the photos, while still very much a game-improvement iron, the G30 is considerably more refined (my opinion anyway) than the G25, but it most certainly still looks every bit a PING iron.
Heads are still large. There’s still a ton of offset too, but the lines are generally softer, and cleaner (aesthetically I thought the G25 was a step backwards for PING). From top to bottom and toe to heel, the steel flows across the eyes just a bit better.
As is usually the case, PING is leveraging a soft, elastomer badge to help improve sound and feel.
An i-Series Sole on a G-Series iron
One of the more significant design changes is the addition of an extra 2° of bounce (average) to the G30’s sole. Effectively PING has borrowed a large portion of the G30’s sole design from the i20 and i25 irons. It’s a design which PING claims works very well for any angle of attack, and serves to further increase the playability of the new model.
The one pronounced difference between the G30’s sole and that of the i25 is that the G25 is wider on the trailing edge. It’s not a portion of the sole that comes into play as far as turf interaction is concerned.
Instead, the extra width allows more mass to be placed…you guessed it, low and rear.
Progressive Loft and Length
When you look at the spec sheet (below) for the irons you’ll no doubt notice some unusual numbers in both the length and loft columns. Rather than the standard 1/2″ difference between irons, PING chose to use a longer 5/8″ progression (same as their Karsten irons). Many would also consider the gaps between lofts to be equally non-standard.
Yeah…it’s weird.
For whatever it’s worth, if you were to strip the numbers of the sole of the clubs, the length to loft ratio of the G30 iron is almost identical to that of PING’s beloved Eye2, so this isn’t exactly a first for PING.
Of course, the 6-iron from an Eye2 set would more or less qualify as an 8-iron today, so there is that.
What can we say? This probably isn’t an iron for the purist.
As a tradeoff for increasing the lengths of the shafts, PING had to reduce head weight throughout the set. Lighter heads usually result in a reduction of MOI (bad). To offset that loss, PING increased blade lengths slightly. That, along with the all of that other weight relocation stuff we covered actually produces a net gain in MOI over the G25 (good).
Seriously…Distance Where It Matters
As you probably guessed, PING created those weird progressions for a reason. The idea is to provide additional distance where it matters (the middle and long irons), while improving gapping throughout the entire set.
For the most part, there’s no practical reason for your new wedge to go any farther than your old one, so PING more or less left wedge performance alone.
What they did do was squeeze another 3 yards on average out of the 7 iron, and 4 yards (again, on average) out of the 4 iron. While there is some strengthening of lofts, what the PING guys are exceptionally proud of is that there were actually able to increase the average max height for both the 7 and 4 irons.
The net result of their efforts is more consistent…let’s just call it better…gapping throughout the set.
Farther, higher, softer, and somehow more forgiving….there’s your takeaway.
G30 Iron Specifications
G30 Iron Stock Shaft Specifications
Specs, Pricing, and Availability
PING G30 Irons will be available in golf shops late July/Early August. Retail price for the irons is $110 each steel, $125 each graphite.
Mitch19
8 years ago
Love My G30s. Played Ping all my life and these are Absolutely Awesome! I trust the manufacturers and won’t play anything else. Even got my first hole in one third time on the course w my new