The Shootout: Sub70 659 CB/TC vs Srixon ZX5/ZX7 Combo Sets
Trackman battle to get some metrics for the irons battling for a spot in my bag
I make no secret of the fact that I am a true club junkie. I LOVE buying, selling, trading, and trying new clubs regularly. For many years it was out of control. I played less back then, so buying and selling REALLY scratched the golf itch for me. It wasn’t out of the question to think I might have at least 1 new club in the bag every single time I played. Talk about NO consistency. Every time out was like a first date…some highs, some lows, and some awkward moments just trying to feel my way around and get to know the clubs in my bag.
I still enjoy the thrill of the chase when it comes to equipment, but I’ve toned things way down. In fact, until recently, my bag had been the least volatile for the longest period of time I can ever remember. I played a Ping G425 LST driver all year without fail, I added a 300 mini driver at the beginning of the season, and it’s firmly cemented in place, and I added a Callaway Apex UW in the spring and it’s not going anywhere anytime soon. Even more impressive was my commitment to my irons….a weak spot in my former club hoing life. I’ve been playing the Srixon ZX5/ZX7 combo irons for more than a year now, and with great success. Over the last 18 months or so, my handicap has dropped from 13.4 to 5.8 at my lowest, and at the moment I am a 6.5. The biggest improvements have definitely been off the tee and around the green, but iron play has been solid too, with my GIR numbers more than doubling in that year and a half. Still…as Arccos and V1 game have made abundantly clear at this point: approach is still the weakest part of my game, and it’s not close.
So…fast forward to the release of the Sub70 659 CB/TC combo iron set. I loved the look the minute I laid eyes on them They have a mix of the old Bridgestone J40 CBs and Srixon 745s to them and they’re gorgeous. I was tempted to buy some right away, but held off, and determined to stick with what was working. I added the Sub70s no less than 100 times to my shopping cart, only to back away and leave without ordering. As a Marketing Director, I can only imagine that their analytics were probably smoking and shooting sparks trying to figure out how to retarget me and get me across the finish line…all it took was Arccos telling me that my Strokes Gained per club was lowest across the board with my irons, and in particular my 7 iron.
I was on the Sub70 site in minutes…CB/TC Combo Set 1” longer than std, 2* upright lie, and Dynamic Gold X100 shafts, please. CPX Midsize grips, too. Thanks! I received the clubs in under a week from the day I ordered them…and they threw in this SWEET Sub70 hat…something they do with all their orders, I’m told. As a marketer, this makes my heart sing. Surprise and Delight is a real thing, and it really works….I was impressed!
I grabbed that beautiful black box, cleared my afternoon, grabbed my son, and headed to the course to see what these new babies could do. I will admit, I was shocked to see the narrow sole width on the Sub70 CB 5i. It appeared to the naked eye to be even narrower than the TC, which is the more ‘players club’ model of the two. I was intimidated and concerned to say the least….keep reading!
I hit the irons OK on the course, but it was a very different feel than my Srixons. There are a lot of variables between the two, so I understand the comparison isn’t apples to apples, but I’m not really reviewing iron heads as much as I am these various setups FOR ME. Your mileage may vary….I need to make that very clear.
At any rate, here are the setups, and then some trackman data from this morning, which seemed pretty clear to me, one stood apart from the other in many ways.
Srixon ZX5 5-7i; ZX7 8-PW; KBS CTaper Lite 115X; 2* Upright; 3/4” over standard; Tour Velvet Midsize Grips.
Sub70 659 CB 5-7i; TC 8i-PW; Dynamic Gold X100; 2* Upright; 1” over standard, CPX Midsize Grips
I rented the Trackman at the local Golf Galaxy as soon as I could, because I am a little nutty and I need external confirmation and validation before I can really buy in and believe something. After my first session on the course, I’ll be honest, I wasn’t totally in love with the Sub70s. I want to reiterate here though….these clubs are longer (which I need), the shafts are 15+g heavier, it’s a stepped shaft vs stepless, and different grips…plus an entirely different clubhead, which appears to the naked eye to be significantly shorter heel to toe (and my miss is on the toe, so that’s gonna take some getting used to). Nevertheless, I wanted to see what the numbers said!
First Up: PITCHING WEDGE!
This wasn’t a hot start for the Sub70s if I’m honest. I don’t fancy myself an incredible ballstriker, but I’ve learned how to play with my swing and get the ball in the hole, so I am not awful either. That said, I do swing down and across it with every club, so I’ll need to get used to the length of the club, length of the blade, swing weight, etc.
As you can see, dispersion with the Sub70 wasn’t great. I will say though that this was the first group of swings of the day, so I was likely not fully loose yet, and still getting a feel for the bottom of my swing. Still a lot to like about the metrics, but dispersion wasn’t tight like it was with the Srixon ZX7 PW. To be fair, PW isn’t one of my strongest suits on the course with my ZX7 PW, so I was surprised to see such a tight grouping. At this point I was thinking….Sub70 may get annihilated in this competition….and I was kind of deflated!! Stay tuned.
Sub 70 659TC PW: Yellow
Srixon ZX7 PW: Blue
Winner: Srixon ZX7 PW
Next up, 9 Iron!
I should stop here and say, I tried to snake my iron transitions so that one brand wasn’t always first and another brand always second. So after finishing with my Srixon PW, I hit my Srixon 9 iron first. For the sake of this blog post, though, I’m going to keep them in the same order in terms of graphics. Sub70 first, Srixon below it.
Pretty tight group here from the Sub70, with lots to like. More ball speed, higher smash, higher peak height, higher carry, higher total, tighter dispersion. I struggled with the Srixon ZX7 9i here. Lots of weak wipey short misses.
Winner: Sub70 9i
Sub70 9 iron: Purple
Srixon ZX7 9iron: Brown
8 Iron
I was starting to feel loose here and felt an immediate difference in the performance of the Sub70, so was interested to see how the rest of the battle would go.
This is an interesting one because neither was AWESOME, but the Sub70s felt like they were hit well. It’s tough to describe the difference, but I’ve always thought my Srixons were the best feeling Irons I’ve ever hit, and to be honest, this was where the Sub70s started to stand out. The ball seemed to just be hammered and felt so good out of the middle of the clubface. I noticed a big difference here with the heavier DG X100 Shafts. Once again Sub70 659TC were 10 yards longer than my Srixons in this round. Being completely honest…I would have bet A LOT of money going into this that it would have been the other way around. Pretty surprised by the results here.
Winner: Sub70 8 iron
Sub70 659 TC 8iron: Orange
Srixon ZX7 8iron: Purple
7 Iron
Another odd round. Sub70s felt like they were really solid and consistent here, and they were except for 2 that I cut a little too much. That said, I dropped 2 basically on the center line, with a perfect tight little cut, and that’s what I like to see. More spin, more height, more ball speed for the Sub70s here, but Srixon did go longer, albeit with more of a right miss. Hard to judge this one. I can say in the moment, totally unbiased, it felt like the Sub70s were much more consistent. I had to delete a good number of shots with the Srixons to try and get 5 well-struck shots with them. One thing to be mindful of here too is that 7i is where both sets transition from more of a players club to a bit more of a deeper cavity back. While it looks like there is more consistency out on the right with the Srixon, those were definitely misses that were not well struck, so it’s not as clear cut as it seems.
Winner: Tie
Sub70 659 CB 7iron: Blue
Srixon ZX5 7 iron: Red
6 Iron
Pretty clear winner here. Tight group with the 6iron that just felt like they were all flushed right out of the middle. Still a cut, which again is my shape, but everything seemed to just be hit hard and a high cut with the Sub70. Not terrible with the Srixon ZX5, but not better than the Sub70 here. Another case of me swinging the Sub70s slower, but hitting the ball as far or longer than the Srixon.
Winner: Sub70 6iron
Sub70 659 CB 6 Iron: Green
Srixon ZX5 6iron: Gray
5 Iron
Again, Sub70 REALLY shined here in the 5 iron. The long clubs is where the Sub70s really seemed to separate themselves. Tighter dispersion, better feel, 9 yds more carry, 8 yds total longer. Ball speed up, club speed up, smash up, carry up, peak height up. The Sub70 659CB 5i felt like a cannon goin off, whereas the usually buttery soft Srixon were kind of dead and harsh feeling. Do with that what you will.
Winner: Sub70 659 CB 5iron
Sub70 659 CB 5iron: Blue
Srixon ZX5 5iron: Yellow
So that’s the iron shootout. If you’re keeping score at home, the battle was won for Sub70 by a score of 4 wins, 1 tie, 1 loss to the Srixon combos. I never saw this coming, to be honest. I thought the Sub70s would be good and nice to look at, but definitely would not outperform the Srixons.
Now again, I feel like I need to reiterate that there are many differences at play here, and maybe the grips, heavier shafts, longer lengths, etc. are a better fit for me….I’m not sure. But today the Sub70s more than held their own. They REALLY shined in the long irons too, even with those narrow sole widths. And I’m still apparently not a great mid-short iron player….the data backs that up. Something to work on for sure.
Another thing I want to point out, and I think is important, is that I LOVE the v-sole on my Srixons as mentioned before, and I think real turf vs mat may produce some different results simply due to turf interaction. But maybe not. I don’t have access to a good LM outdoors, so may just need some real world result-driven data to test that theory. I deleted a lot of shots from the data today so that I could get 5 well-struck shots with each, and without question I deleted 2-3x as many shots w my gamer Srixons than the Sub70s.
I’ve been practicing more lately and dealing with some forearm discomfort that isn’t fun, so I’ve already purchased a set of Recoil Graphite Iron shafts and am going to put those into the Srixon Heads at the longer length with the same CPX midisze grips (incredible!!!) and then will probably be back to re-test.
If the question you came here to answer was “Is Sub70 worth a look?” I’d say absolutely, hands down yes. For less than $700 I received a great looking, great feeling, great performing set of forged irons, and they shipped in less than a week. Goodluck finding anything close to that from the major OEMs.
Few more pics for those of you interested in golf porn: