Fernando H. Green Blog: Results: The 2016 Iron Buying Study

A couple of weeks ago we asked you about the clubs in your bag and whether or not you were considering purchasing new irons in the near future. We also asked about what you've bought recently, why you bought it, and most importantly, what might entice you to buy a new set of irons.

What you shared with is us is definitely interesting, and we're going to share all of that today.

Before we get to the meat of your responses, let's spend a couple of questions worth of time reviewing some of the demographic data you shared. This data should help you learn a bit more about your fellow readers, and it helps us to better know our audience as well.

Your Handicap

Over 46% of you fit somewhere between scratch and a 10 index. Another 27.50% currently play to an index between 11 and 15. Simple math tells us that nearly ¾ (73.77% to be precise) of you have handicaps of 15 or below.

Interestingly, or perhaps humorously, .07% of respondents don’t even play golf.

Your Age

We found a fairly even distribution between 25 and 74 years old with a slightly larger distribution of 55 to 64-year-olds. That's really cool. While some talk of golf as a dying game, the numbers in the 24-34 and 35-44 demographics give us reason to be encouraged.

What Clubs are In Your Bag?

Both the chart and the data table are too big to try and squeeze in this space, but let me share some interesting notes:

13.68% of you still carry a 3-iron, while 52.66% carry a 3-hybrid. Not that you asked, but I currently carry neither.
Mercifully, only 3.8% of you still carry a two iron.
The 9 iron (99.09%) is the most popular single choice among all clubs followed by the driver (98.95%).
Only 87.25% of you report carrying a putter, which I think speaks more to attention spans and options at the bottom of long lists, rather than the reality of what’s in your bag.

Have you purchased irons in the last year?

37.25% of you say you have. I believe this speaks to the gearhead nature of this site. Based on typical replacement cycles, that number would typically be between 20% and 25%.

What Brand of Iron Did You Purchase?

Callaway (18.15%) was the most popular choice among our prepopulated selections. Mizuno was second at 16.66%. The Other category as a whole equaled the Callaway number with popular choices (as seen in the word cloud below) including Srixon, Wishon, PXG, and Ben Hogan among others.

What Iron Model Did You Purchase?

We left our iron model question open-ended. That means tallying answers requires a bit of sorting and some spell-checking (DEFINITELY no judgment here), so let’s again default to the text analysis (word cloud) to determine the most popular choices.

It's easy to see the strength of the Callaway brand with Apex, Big Bertha, Steelhead, and XR Pro all visibile on this list.

Cobra (KING, Fly), PING (G Max, G30, S55), Titleist (AP1, AP2), TaylorMade (Rsi, PSi), Mizuno (MP-25, MP5), and Srixon (Z745, Z755) and Nike (Pro Combo, Fly) were also well-represented.

Why Did You Purchase New Irons?

Looks and Feel were the most popular responses (65.09% and 55.81% respectively). When we look at quantifiable performance characteristics, Forgiveness (48.18%) and Accuracy (43.57%) were the most popular choices.

Somewhat surprisingly, distance was selected by only 35.05% of respondents.

Are you in the market for new Irons?

Wow…72.25% of you said you would consider buying new irons. 27.75% won't. What's particularly interesting here is that 37.35% purchased irons within the last year, which means some of you are considering buying for the second year in a row.

What would compel you to buy new irons?

Among the 72.25% of you that say you’re considering purchasing new irons, 74.38% of listed Feel as a reason why you might buy a new set. Among this group, Looks was listed by 58.17% of respondents. Accuracy (68.34%) was the performance category listed most often, followed by Forgiveness at 58.89%.

Somewhat surprisingly (again - given the marketing focus), distance was only listed by 48.1% of respondents.

Speaking to the pyramid of influence, I suppose; only 5.55% said you’d buy based on a sales person or a local pro’s recommendation.

Of note, those responding Other mentioned consistency, high ball flight, fitting, and single length as reasons they might buy.

Why Won’t You Buy New Irons?

Among those of you not considering new irons, liking your current irons (77.26%) was the most popular reason stated for not being in the market (that never stopped me).

Nearly 25% of you said you don’t feel like spending the money, while another 5.65% said they don’t play enough golf.

Among those selecting Other, comments included sets being only a few years old, leaning towards lessons instead of gear, electing to buy used, and the perception that there haven’t been any technology breakthroughs that justify a purchase.

Stay Tuned

We have some new polls planned in the future and we're really looking forward to having you share your thoughts about the clubs in your bags and the companies that make them.