Key Takeaways
- Sub 70 TAIII forged blades are co-designed by Sub 70 owner Jason Hiland and PGA TOUR pro Tommy Armour III.
- Armour will play the TAIII irons on the PGA TOUR Champions this season.
- 4-PW $990; a la carte options are available. Check Sub 70’s website for details.
The new Sub 70 TAIII irons are the answer to a question you maybe never knew you had.
As in: “What happens when you cross an innovative club designer with a gear-head pro who held the PGA TOUR scoring record for 14 years and whose namesake grandfather won three majors and is in the World Golf Hall of Fame? And had his name on one of the top-selling irons of all time?”
Oh, and don’t forget big assists from Darren Clarke’s caddie and a former Purdue Boilermaker.
C’mon, aren’t you just the slightest bit intrigued?
The new Sub 70 TAIII irons are the progeny of Tommy Armour III and Sub 70’s Jason Hiland. And the story of what they are and how they came about might just be the highlight of your day.
Sub 70 TAIII Irons: A Chance Meeting
Just so we’re all starting from the same place, please make a mental note that the Sub 70 TAIII irons have absolutely nothing—zero, zip, nada—to do with the DICK’S/Golf Galaxy Tommy Armour line. These irons are the organic co-creation of Sub 70 owner, designer and resident shaman Jason Hiland and Tommy Armour III, PGA TOUR pro and grandson of the legendary Silver Scot.
“Tommy really knows his stuff,” says Hiland. “He’s a real gear head.”
So how did these two crazy kids get together and how did the Sub 70 TAIII irons come about? Well, it all started in the late ’80s with a father-son trip to see some big-time professional golf.
“When I was a kid, my dad would take me to the Western Open,” Hiland recalls. “I was 12, 13, and I just liked the way he (Tommy Armour III) carried himself. He gave us a little fan acknowledgment when my dad and I were walking with him and he seemed like a cool dude. I can root for that guy.”
“There’s a lot of dead time when you’re out there,” says Armour. “A kid follows you for a couple of holes so you toss ‘em a ball or something. The expression on that kid’s face is pure delight.”
“He had a vibe about him, an aura,” adds Hiland. “I remember he had this staff bag that just had the Roman numeral III on it. That’s pretty badass when you just put a Roman numeral on your bag.”
Fast-forward a few decades and that 12-year-old kid now owns his own golf club company. And another chance encounter sets the wheels in motion.
A Family Affair
If you believe good fortune finds the right home, then this part of the story won’t surprise you one bit. In June of 2019, Tommy’s brother Sandy, a former Tour pro and current caddie for Darren Clarke, was a guest on Hiland’s Sub 70 podcast.
“We were supposed to talk for one hour; we wound up talking for two,” says Hiland. “I stayed in touch with Sandy and wound up sending him a set of irons. And Tom saw them and really liked them.”
That led to Hiland and Armour talking about club design, specifically a set of blades Hiland was working on.
“Each iron would have its own center of gravity,” says Hiland. “The long irons would be easy to get up in the air and the short irons would be more flightable. I sent pictures to Tom and we started swapping ideas.
“Finally, I said to him, ‘What if we teamed up and co-branded these? It’d be like doing small-batch bourbon together.’ And that’s how it started.”
“I’ve been a blade guy my whole career,” says Armour. “I just wanted a nice-looking blade with a little offset and a little sexy to it. That’s what we’ve created.”
Sub 70 TAIII Irons – CG Specifics
The Sub 70 TAIII irons feature low-tungsten weighting in the 3-, 4- and 5-irons. The purpose? Get the center of gravity as low as it can go in a blade.
“Tom wants to get those long irons up in the air but still keep the profile classic,” says Hiland. “From the top down, it looks like a player’s blade. It’s clean and fairly compact but we do have the CG down low in the long irons. The modern ball doesn’t spin as much and you need that low CG to get the ball up.”
“That’s one of the reasons Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods are the two greatest golfers of all time,” adds Armour. “They hit their long irons so high. That’s where they beat people, from 190 to 240 yards out. Reaching par-5s in two and being close enough to come away with an eagle or at least a birdie, that’s where you beat people.”
Armour knows a thing or two about going low. In his 2003 victory at the Valero Texas Open, Tommy set the 72-hole Tour scoring record of 254. That record stood for 14 years. He’ll be gaming these irons this year once the Champions tour gets in full swing.
The Sub 70 TAIII irons are forged from DT-4, as are all Sub 70 forged irons. DT-4 is low carbon, low sulfur and low phosphorus and is a touch or two softer than your normal 1020 carbon steel. They’ll be available in traditional Tour Satin and unplated Raw. But there’s also a new finish that may change the way you think about black irons.
And it came from a Sub 70 customer.
QPQ is the New Black
Physical Vapor Deposition, known as PVD, is the most commonly used black finish in golf. Sub 70 has been using PVD since Day 1 and also since Day 1 has been searching for something better. That search led Sub 70 to something called Quench-Polish-Quench or QPQ.
“I think QPQ is the best finish out there,” says Hiland. “But the problem is we couldn’t bend it without getting microcracks. We customize everything so we needed to find a solution so we could still use QPQ.”
Ultimately, that QPQ solution presented itself in the most Sub 70 way you can imagine. It came from a customer who already knew a thing or two about QPQ.
“We just couldn’t make it work,” says Hiland. “And one day one of our customers called and asked me if we were playing around with a QPQ finish. I said, ‘yeah.’ He asked, ‘Are you struggling with it?’ And I go, ‘yeah.’ And he says, ‘microcracks, right?’ And I go, ‘yeah.'”
Turns out this customer, Joel Pera, is the Director of Sales, Marketing and Sales Engineering at Tech Nickel, Inc., a leading metal-plating company in Michigan. Pera is a Purdue-educated engineer and a former collegiate golfer. He’d been working on his own to find a QPQ process that wouldn’t microcrack, sort of as a hobby.
“I’d done a couple of my old clubs just to see how our processes would hold up,” Pera says. “I’d seen PVD on some Titleist irons and had a set of P790 irons in black. The PVD just didn’t hold up.”
Tech Nickel is part of HEF USA which owns the patent for Melonite, a heat-treating process used on gun barrels and automotive parts. It hardens the material without adding another layer.
“Our QPQ solution is an offshoot of that,” says Pera. “We’ve come up with a proprietary QPQ process so we’ll get a good, lasting black finish without microcracking.”
Minding Your QPQs
As the name suggests, QPQ is a three-step process. An iron head is first quenched in a nearly 1,300-degree molten salt-nitrogen-carbon solution for about two hours. After rinsing and cooling, the piece is polished to reduce surface roughness before being quenched again in a new oxidizing salt bath. The process leaves the iron with a smooth, black finish infused into the surface of the metal.
“We’ve done a lot of expensive changes to a standard QPQ process,” says Pera. “Our processes hold up really well. I did some old Cleveland 588 wedges from college. One of them has 5,500 to 6,000 shots on it. It’s a little worn but not very much.”
“Joel is a golfer and he knew exactly where I was going for a black finish,” says Hiland. “What are the odds? It was like he was reading my mind. I presented it to Tom and told him we had a better black finish. He really wanted to wait for it to be done, even if we had to delay the irons. It’s that good of a finish.”
Many consider Diamond Black Metal—DBM—to be the premium black finish for golf clubs. DBM actually impregnates the steel rather than just serving as a coating. Pera says his QPQ does the same thing.
Sub 70 will, over time, transfer all of its black finished irons to the new QPQ.
Sub 70 TAIII Irons: A Different Kind of Sexy
Like all Sub 70 sticks, the Sub 70 TAIII irons have a unique look. It wouldn’t be surprising if your first reaction is a huh? or a whaa? While some design elements may look familiar, the total package is distinctly Sub 70.
“I don’t want the club to look like other people’s clubs so I use other things for inspiration,” says Hiland. “Other clubs may have a softer line to them. Ours is a little bit different.”
Specifically, the Sub 70 TAIII irons have an angular, minimalist and almost industrial look. They’d look very much at home in one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Usonian homes. Blades, however, are often the crown jewels of an OEM’s irons line. And in that case, the TAIII is more Hublot and less Rolex.
“If you look at Hublot, they use carbon fiber and the lines aren’t as soft as a Rolex,” says Hiland. “If you look at a Hublot Big Bang watch, it looks nothing like a Rolex but it’s still a watch.”
Beauty, of course, is in the eye of the beholder. But once you get past the fact the Sub 70 TAIII irons are just plain different looking, the more this beholder started thinking damn, those are pretty sweet.
“That’s what everybody who has seen them in person says,” says Armour. “There’s some pretty nice detail on the millwork. They’re sexy, I think.”
Sexy? I can see that. But I told Armour I didn’t think they were sexy in the classic, Raquel Welch sense. We’re both about the same age so I figured he’d get the reference.
“Hey, I’ve had dinner with Raquel Welch before,” he told me. “It was about two years ago. She’s 80 now and I tell you what, she’s still a classic beauty.”
That’s when I knew I was out of my league.
More Special Touches
The Sub 70 TAIII irons are a big deal to Hiland and he wants to make sure the entire experience is something you’ll remember. “It’s a unique experience with what Tom brings to the table so we want it to be awesome. We want this to feel really special when you get it.”
He won’t give away too many details but he hopes customers will even think the box is memorable and will hang on to it as a keepsake. “It’s like when you get a really nice bottle of scotch, you definitely keep the box it came in and it makes the scotch feel special. And when you open our box, there will be a couple of cool things inside that’ll come with it, stuff you can’t buy. We want you to go, ‘Wow, that is really cool!’
“Tom’s hands have really been in this project. It’s not like we just gave him a club and a sponsorship deal. He really worked to develop this thing and that’s what makes it really, really special.”
The Armour Mystique
While the Armour name may not carry the same glamour as a Palmer, Nicklaus or Hogan, there is a certain fascination to it. The original Tommy Armour won 25 tournaments in his Hall of Fame career, including the 1927 U.S. Open, the 1930 PGA Championship and the 1931 Open Championship. His book How To Play Your Best Golf All The Time was published in 1953 and remains one of the best-selling golf instruction books ever.
“I’ve always been connected with him since I’m the third and he was the original,” says Armour, who was only nine when his grandfather died in 1968. “It’s always been a plus for me, never a burden or anything. It opened a lot of doors for me that might not have opened otherwise.”
And even though there was no connection other than the name, he still hears stories about the legendary irons that bore his grandfather’s name. “I can’t tell you how many people tell me their first set of irons were the Tommy Armour 845s.”
Armour has eight professional wins including two on the PGA TOUR (1990 Phoenix Open, 2003 Valero Texas Open). He’s been on and off the Champions tour since 2010 and, at age 61, is definitely enjoying his back nine.
“You only get one trip around life,” he’s been quoted as saying. “Golf is just something I love to do. I don’t play for the money. I never have. I’ve made a lot of good friends playing golf professionally.”
Specs, Price and Availability
The Sub 70 TAIII irons are true blades so you won’t find any game-improvement lofts here. There’s also minimal offset, so you better bring your ball-striking chops to the tee.
“They’re definitely for the better player,” says Armour. “But there’s certainly enough forgiveness for a high single-digit handicapper.”
The Sub 70 TAIII irons are available now in the Raw finish on the Sub 70 website. The company says the Black and Tour Satin options should be available by late April or early May. The standard set (4-PW) will sell for $990 with the True Temper Dynamic Gold shaft and Golf Pride Tour Velvet grip stock. An optional gap wedge is available and you can custom order any setup you want. For example, if you only want a 5-PW set or a 6-AW set, you can order a la carte.
A wide variety of upcharge and no-upcharge shaft and grip options is also available.
As with all Sub 70 irons, the TAIII’s are custom assembled at the company’s Sycamore, Ill., headquarters. Loft, length and lie adjustments, as well as hard- or soft-stepping, are no extra charge.
For more information, visit the Sub 70 website.
*We may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site.
Burke Lake Pro
1 year agoHuh. I had no idea Trent Reznor had started designing golf clubs…
TenBuck
1 year agoNice looking stick..too industrial for me though, not counting the fact that these would be out of my handicap range.
David
1 year agoAny comments on the Top Line? No photos?
Bush
1 year agoCheck the sub 70 website. They have good photos of the top line. That being said, however, this article provides far more pictures of the clubs. If you take a look at this article and the sub 70 website you get a very good idea of what clubs look like.
Andrew
1 year agoSure I missed the obligatory “sorry lefties these are available in right hand only”
BrickHouse
1 year agoThe Silver Scot, golf’s original bad , well you know. Fought in World War 1, rose thru the ranks from private to Sargent Major, wounded in the left arm and head for which metal plates had to be added, was blinded by mustard gas and only regained sight in his right eye , and supposedly killed a German tank commander by strangling him. Then later wins 3 major golf tournaments plus 22 others. Might not be all that surprising when after all he had been thru, what was there to fear in golf. Another one in the next generation was Lloyd Mangrum. Served in WWII and fought and was wounded at both Normandy and in the Battle of the Bulge. Maybe not quite as successful tournament golfer but a fierce competitor nonetheless.
Mark
1 year agoTerrific to see a small American manufacturer having success.
Definitely innovative and may appeal to the golfer that wants a boutique set of irons at a fair price, which Sub 70 is known for.
Don
1 year agoNone of the DTC brands are manufacturers in the literal sense…; they are designers and assemblers, but the manufacturing is in China. Probably farm out some of the design work also……not aware of any US golf manufacturer forging heads in the US anymore.
The big names also have heads manufactured in China..
Mizuno forging is based in Japan.
WYBob
1 year agoEndo still forges irons in Japan, as well as in several other countries. Thailand and Taiwan also do very good iron forgings, so not all forgings are done in China. Bridgestone, some Titleist, some Callaway have been forged by Endo in either Japan or Thailand, The most recent Srixon irons (ZX5/ZX7) are also rumored to be Endo forgings. Chou in Japan does the forging for Mizuno. Of course, Miura is still forged outside Hiroshima.
Scotty
1 year agoNo pictures are the face?
Ryano
1 year agoThe sub70 website has plenty.
foz cycle
1 year agoWow! These are very beautiful and industrial looking as well. Not sure I could bag them as I need all the game improvement I can find.
Kansas King
1 year agoI like the iron and from the sounds of it, they are probably designed to be a little more forgiving based on the low CG and tungsten in the long irons and progressive offset. I generally like the design and I’m sure they will look good in person but the milling is going to have to be good because this design rides on the edge of cheap looking if there are any flaws. Overall, I’ll be curious to see how people like them. My instincts tell me these are going to maybe be slightly more chunky than a traditional blade but that may be what makes these special.
cksurfdude
1 year agoWow those are some seriously cool looking clubs!! Not something that I could *ever* play .. and I can see in a few comments it’s really a love it or hate it look .. but I like the bold and modern design. And possibly, IMHO, the best looking irons yet in black 👍
Hector
1 year agoSurfer – if you want to see cool in black, try to find an old set of the Hogan Ft. Worth Blacks. I am playing Mizuno JPX Hot Metals now, but I won’t be selling my Ft. Worths.. They are the most beautiful irons I have ever owned (over 50+ years of golf), and among the easiest to hit. They have traditional lofts, but the Hogan 7 iron is still longer that the JPX 7 iron.
Burke Lake Pro
1 year agoTalk about a versatile set of irons–play 18 with them in the morning, then hoe your garden with them in the afternoon…
Ian
1 year agoThese look great. Disappointing that they didn’t start the 4-iron at 22* and just go up from there in simple 4* steps all the way to the AW. The way it is now, I suspect most better players will be needing to bend them to get proper gapping. Hogan got it correct.
Hector
1 year agoCall me crazy, but I’ve never purposely hit a ball with the back side of an iron. I want to see what the face looks like before I form any opinion on a golf club. One picture of the back of the club would be plenty to gauge the weighting, but other angles (including the face) would be more helpful in understanding it.
Ryano
1 year agoYou can always follow the links that were provided in the write up to see more photos.
Lewis
1 year agoI think these are good looking sticks; I like them. Unfortunately they are out of my handicap range.
Joseph Shedlock
1 year agoWhy didn’t you show pictures of the iron face?
Chadf
1 year agohttps://www.golfsub70.com/sub-70-taiii-forged-raw-irons.html
Dave Mueller
1 year agoI like the raw look, be fun to try them out somewhere.
MagicMike
1 year agoWell, looks like the same Chinese guy helped Hiland co-copy another iron that was copied from PXG, then B company, then Sub Par, so is this the new improved 3rd gen copy?
Salt bathing is not new either, but yes, very nice finish if done right.
Mike Hook (UK)
1 year agoYep they do hot chemical soaking salt tempering on glass, rather than heat tempering, chemical soak is mainly for laminating glass together as it breaks in larger chunks Chemical salt dipping is certainly stronger than heat tempering, so I presume the same method for steel.
Neal Golyshko
1 year agoI’ve been using Sub70 irons for over a year (639cb/mb in black) and they are everything you’d hope for in an iron set. When I visited Jason and boys in Sycamore a few times the past year, I had a chance to try the prototypes of the TAIII irons – I can only describe them as “innovatively pure.” Innovative for the design and craftsmanship, and pure for the feeling of contact as the ball explodes off of the face.
Clubs are just a small part of what makes Sub70 so great, but their attention to detail and focus on their customers is what I tell all of the golfers that look at the irons in my bag and ask about them. Jason has built a company with midwestern values and now a set of player irons that literally has TAIII’s swagger to them! I can’t wait to get a set in the black finish!
Jeff
1 year agoVery cool. It’s the little touches that make what Sub 70 is doing so special
WYBob
1 year agoI use to see TAIII in and around Las Colinas back in the ’90s. We had a mutual friend so I got to meet him several times. Definitely a very cool dude. These irons reflect his personality perfectly. That said, the most interesting nugget in the article was the development of Pera’s new QPQ process for black finishes. Love the black finish on irons but until now I would only buy a black finished club if it was DBM (ie. Hogan Fort Worth Black). The other black finishes just don’t hold up. The combination of TAIII and the new QPQ finish makes it look like Sub 70 has a real winner on its hands.
MagicMike
1 year agoQPQ is not new, and has been used for hundreds of years..
John Barba
1 year agoMagicMike – Neither Pera nor Hiland is claiming QPQ is a new finish. Rather, the development worth noting is Pera’s process by which a QPQ finished iron could be loft- or lie-adjusted without microcracks appearing in the finish. Since Sub 70 custom builds everything and will adjust irons for specific fitting requirements, Jason did not want to send out anything with microcracks. That’s the salient point.
Kevin
1 year agoProbably not a good fit for me, but they look pretty nice. I don’t know if it’s just coincidence, but it does look fairly similar to New Level’s 623-M irons with some PXG screws thrown in. I suppose all blades tend to look pretty similar though. The new black finish sounds like the most interesting part of all this.
Drew
1 year agoToo industrial looking for my taste.
Milo
1 year agoI just bought their 649 irons, 3-9 in raw. Only been out on the range once this spring but they felt fantastic! I was debating on waiting for these though.
Milo
1 year agoI have their new 649 irons, only hit them on the range once right now but they felt fantastic! I was deciding if I should wait for these or go with the 649. I have 3-9 in raw.
Eric
1 year agoOver/under on how long before PXG sues?
Magicmike
1 year agoTomorrow if they see these?
Ryano
1 year agoWhy would pxg sue? Just because the club has a milled look, it doesn’t mean it’s a pxg copy.
People always seem to jump to the terms “copy” and “clone”, when in reality, it’s an iron; designed by sub70 that simply uses milling in the manufacturing process.
I can just imagine the ridiculous discussion.
Lawyer – “they have copied our irons because they used a milling machine as part of the build process.”
Adjudicator – “so you have a patent on the use of a milling machine?”
Lawyer – “well, no, but our clubs are milled and Milo inferred that they were copies on the MGS comment section”
Adjudicator – “so what have they copied?”
Lawyer – “it’s just the vibe, you know”
Adjudicator – “say no more… Sub70 is to remove the product from sale and will be fined $1M for the use of a milling machine on their irons”
bryan
1 year agoi wasn’t aware that PXG invented screws for golf club weighting. screws have been used forever. I like pxg/ping. i have owned at least 3 sets of pxg’s. these are nowhere close to pxgs. TAIIIs are a great feeling and performing club. look sick in the bag as well.
David
1 year agoLouis Vuitton High Tech Golf Clubs! Too KEWL dude. I would be happy to test.
🙂
Andrew
1 year agoThey look like they’ll cut your hands to shreds every time you pull one out of the bag!
Gerald Foley
1 year agoAs a Mizuno guy I have always been tempted by simple elegant designs. The new Srixon’s look nice but a tad too complex. Cally’s and TM’s and others have nice looking our blades their tour guys hit but us older guys need a little more forgiving stuff. Mizuno offers a nice matching line of mixing heads you can blend from hybrid low irons that truly are easier to hit to cavity back miss to blades for scoring irons. But every so often an evil eye grabber comes along and says “swing me”. I have had a negative feeling towards PXG with all the imbedded weights that don’t seem to make sense but the Sub 70’s don’t overdo it. They kinda remind me of the MacGregor’s I games in high school and college. Simple and edgy.
KC
1 year agoFirst off, let me say that I like Sub70 and have gamed the 699 Pro irons. Their customer service is fantastic. That said, I’m not a fan of these irons. They look like unfinished prototype irons. I expect blades to be a work of art (see Mizuno MP5 or Srixon Z-Forged) and these miss that mark by a mile. Just my opinion and it’s not a knock against Sub70 because I love what they’re doing over there. But if I’m in the blade market I’m giving these a hard pass.
Rob
1 year agoSimply Stunning!
Great read, and leave it to John to work in a Raquel Welch reference !
Geoff Chinn
1 year agoDang…these look pretty awesome. Very PXG and P7 series look. It will be interesting to see how the field test is. Appreciate the info…now to start daydreaming.
TR1PTIK
1 year agoFirst set of Sub70 irons I’ve looked at and said, “Yes, please!”. I’d be curious to see how the lofts (which are a touch stronger than my gamers) would shake out – if I would need or want to have them adjusted. Other than that, a set with the QPQ finish and I’m completely sold on these. Glad Jason and TAIII were able to make these clubs a reality.