TaylorMade Golf introduced the first version of its P790 irons in 2017, and as well-received as those clubs were, company technicians continued to work on ways to improve them.
The most significant advance in the latest iteration of the P790s is a component the company calls SpeedFoam Air, which is a light, urethane foam located inside the forged hollow body of the iron. The foam in the new P790s is 69 percent less dense than what was used in the prior generation. Saving that weight enabled those engineers to redistribute “substantial mass” to lower the center of gravity and by extension improve launch. The move also allowed them to thin out the forged 4140 steel L-face, in hopes of promoting greater flexibility and faster ball speeds.
Research also made it possible for the team that designed these irons to determine exactly where golfers hit most of their shots on an iron face and then use that data to create “an intelligent sweet spot.”
According to Matt Bovee, director of product creation for irons at TaylorMade Golf, SpeedFoam Air is the “heartbeat” of the new P790s.
“The development of this lightweight urethane material allowed us to strategically reconstruct the iron head to promote optimal launch conditions and a sweet spot that covers the most common strike points on the face,” he said.
While there is plenty new about these clubs, they contain much of the DNA of the original P790, Bovee said. That includes heavy tungsten weighting that is strategically positioned with the goal of delivering both stability and forgiveness. And the patented Thru-Slot Speed Pocket continues to provide increased face flexibility while preserving ball speed and distance on low-face strikes, he said.