Fernando H. Green Blog: First Look: 2017 PING G400 Irons & Crossovers

Golf is a game, and games are supposed to be fun, right?

But what a low single-digit handicapper considers fun is very different from what your typical weekend warrior considers fun. The Bubba-wannabes find fun in buttery soft forgings with a topline so thin you could shave with it.

The weekend warrior, however, simply wants to get the ball in the air in the general direction of the green and maybe smack the ball a little farther than his buddies, because rubbing their noses in it is really fun.

If you’re a party of the first part, you may want to skip down a bit. But if you’re a party of the second part, or if you’re a golfer who sees no reason in making this game harder than it already is, you may very well be interested in what PING has wrought with the new G400 irons.

The Fun Factor

You can trace the whole concept of cavity-back, perimeter-weighted, super-forgiving Game Improvement clubs back to the late 60’s, Karsten Solheim and the original Karsten I irons. The new G400 is the latest in a long line of what PING-folk call Game Enjoyment clubs, sharing DNA with such classics as the Eye 2, the Zing and others. But DNA aside, there’s enough new tech in the G400 that PING says you'll be hitting it higher, farther and straighter - a recipe PING calls the Fun Factor.

“There are a lot of firsts in this design, and we’re pushing the boundaries of some of the technologies. You’re getting added distance for a lot of players in a trajectory window they’re just not used to. Think of getting 6-iron distance with a 7-iron, but with an 8-iron trajectory.” - Ryan Stokke, Senior Design Engineer - PING

Spend a day with PING product engineers, and you’ll leave with the impression that PING R&D is playing 3-D chess while everyone else is playing Chutes and Ladders. They'll wax poetic about ways to measure and evaluate the relative friction of different iron finishes, and they'll discuss tungsten, elastomers, and metallurgy in much the same way Romeo discussed Juliet. The resulting upgrades from the 18-month old G to the G400 may not merit a Shakespearean love sonnet, but they do warrant your attention. The two most obvious - but not the only - are PING’s now standard Hydropearl finish, and a new aluminum and elastomer full-cavity badge.

We discussed PING’s obsession with hydrophobicity often enough, but in a nutshell, the Hydropearl finish not only gives the G400’s a satiny look, but it's also so low friction that it glides through the turf better the other finishes (and yes, PING does test these things).

We’ve also discussed COR-Eye technology, which is PING’s take on creating a thinner, more flexible face for greater ball speed and, by extension, greater distance. The problem with a face that thin is you often sacrifice sound and feel. PING thinks it has licked that problem by adding an elastomer - called Santoprene - and aluminum badge to the COR-Eye.

“Santoprene has really good vibration enhancement properties,” says Stokke. “It’s molded into the badge, essentially high heel, high toe and around the COR-Eye to enhance the feel.” Santoprene is commonly used in the automotive industry for vibration dampening, but Stokke says it does have an energy-return quality to it.

“It’s definitely not something that’s there just eating energy. It’s a material that enhances feel and is energy-neutral, so we can preserve ball speed and enhance feel at the same time."

About That Top Rail...

The G400 face, like that of the G, is made of PING’s unique Hyper 17-4 stainless steel, a super-strong yet highly ductile material that allows the face to flex more, which results in greater ball speed. PING has figured out a way to get even more flex out of the face by filing some mass from the top rail. PING says this top rail undercut results in 18% more face bending than the G, which essentially increases the face’s catapult effect.

“That allows the whole center of the face to relax and return at impact,” says Stokke. “We’re seeing more flexing from the face, and that delivers more ball speed and higher trajectory.”

“What that means is we see 4% higher max-height in trajectory and about 5 yards more carry distance. That’s in the mid- to long-irons. The shorter irons and wedges tend to go about the same distance. It’s also straighter - we get 4% higher MOI in this design - a big part of that is taking the mass out of there top rail and moving it down to a more optimal location from a perimeter weighting standpoint.” — Ryan Stokke, PING

If you look at the G400 at address, you’ll also notice something else: it sure doesn’t look like a Game Improvement iron.

“You can see right away the top rail visually has a different look and feel to it,” says Stokke. “We put a chamfer across the back of the topline so that while it’s still the same width as the G, it’s visually downplayed, so it looks more like our iBlade our i200 irons.”

PING has refined the head shape and hosel transition of the G400 to give it what amounts to the look of a player’s iron, but with a tad more offset. Here you can see how the G400 compares to Srixon's Z 765 iron at address.

“We recognize the need for offset,” says Stokke. "But we’ve designed it in such a way that it’s visually pleasing. It’s there, but the Hydropearl finish, the shaping of the hosel transition and a little bit sharper radius around the face give you elements you’d traditionally see in player’s irons, but in a game improvement iron.”

Specs, Shafts And Such

G400 lofts are standard for the Game Improvement category, with the 7-iron clocking in at 30 degrees, same as Cally’s Steelheads and Cobra’s F7's (TaylorMade’s M1 7-iron is 30.5 degrees, Titleist’s AP1 is 31 degrees). PING’s Power-Spec option - which basically strengthens lofts 1.5 to 2 degrees throughout the set - is also available for the G400, but PING says that’s primarily for aging golfers trying to stay ahead of Father Time.

PING’s AWT 2.0 is the stock steel shaft for the G400. AWT stands for ascending weight technology, which means as the irons get longer, the shafts get lighter, easier to swing and can launch the ball higher. AWT 2.0 debuted in the original G, but what’s new is that PING is now offering that same ascending weight technology in its stock graphite shaft, the Alta CB.

“These are all individual sku’s, individually designed for each club head by loft. We’ve basically flighted the entire graphite set. It’s a premium design and you have to build every single shaft to the right weight, so there’s no butt-cutting of these shafts or anything. Each loft has its own design.” Ryan Stokke - PING

Dynamic Gold, True Temper XP95, Project X, Nippon Pro Modus3 105 and KBS Tour are no-upcharge shaft options, while Golf Pride’s Tour Velvet is the stock grip. Tour Velvet 360 is a no-upcharge option.

MSRP is $125 per iron in steel, $137.50 per iron in graphite. You can get fit and pre-order the G400 starting today. It'll be in stores July 27th.

A Makeover for the Crossover

While the G400 irons have what you might call evolutionary changes, the G400 Crossover can be considered a major overhaul of the original.

When PING introduced the G Crossover, they were adamant: this is NOT a driving iron. It still isn't a driving iron, but the new Crossover certainly isn't what the old Crossover was.

It was intended to be a club to transition from your irons to your hybrids or fairway woods. It wasn’t an iron, and it wasn’t a hybrid. It was a little of both. The original looked more like a hybrid, but it had the turf integration of an iron and, on off-center hits, would have the shot bend of a hybrid - meaning the shot could bend. A lot.

The new G400 Crossover is still a transition club, but this iteration is noticeably more iron-like, and from the top down it’s about 1/8th of an inch slimmer. The sole, however, is a bit more hybrid-ish despite being a little narrower than the original.

“The sole has more camber, heal to toe,” says Stokke. “And then less bounce height overall when combined with the Hydropearl finish, creates a little more hybrid-like glide through the turf.”

So if you’re scoring at home, the new G400 Crossover now looks more like an iron but glides through the turf like a hybrid. The original was the opposite. On top of that, the original had a CG that was more hybrid-ish, meaning towards the back, which created some bend-it-like-Bubba moments.

“Now we’re positioning (the CG) more like an iron,” says Stokke. “Moving the CG forward naturally comes with slimming up the sole width.”

The final touch comes in the form on a tungsten toe weight, but as you’d expect with PING, even that’s not run of the mill.

Clap for the Wolfram

Through the magic of Wikipedia, we can flash back to 9th-grade chemistry and learn that tungsten has the highest melting point, highest tensile strength and lowest thermal expansion of all known metals and is about twice as dense as lead, with a specific gravity of around 17.

Tungsten literally means “heavy stone” in Swedish, and was discovered by Swedish pharmacist Carl Wilhelm Scheele in 1781. Oddly, in Sweden - and in most of Europe - Tungsten is known as Wolfram and carries the symbol W on the Periodic Table.

“Pure tungsten is super heavy, but it just doesn’t play nicely,” says Paul Wood, PING’s VP of Engineering. "When the golf industry talks about tungsten weights, it's usually talking about an alloy that’s mostly steel with just a wee bit of tungsten, with a resulting specific gravity of around 10."

PING has figured out a way to create a weight that’s mostly pure tungsten, but with just enough alloy on the outside to make it weldable. Believe it or not, it makes a difference.

“We can weld a composite, 17 specific gravity tungsten to the outside section of a clubbed in its optimal location. That’s a very hard thing to do. A lot of times you either have to epoxy that in place or swedge it in. You’ll see a lot of competitors out there putting that tungsten weight on the inside of the design, and it’s just not as efficient. By using this method we’re able to put the high density tungsten as far out on the toe as possible to maximize the positioning.” - Paul Wood, PING

So what’s it all mean? The positioning and the density of the tungsten weight near the toe helps MOI, and it makes sure the CG is forward enough to be optimal. “Having the CG closer to the face means the face gets more motion front and back,” adds Stokke. “You’ll see less spin generation. That helps up reduce the level of curvature from a shot bend standpoint.”

Numbers-wise, PING says the iron-like gearing effect of the new G400 Crossover delivers 40% more overall spin than the original, but 45% less shot bend and a 20% higher launch. PING says that combination of higher launch and more spin equates to 30% more stopping power on the green.

To sum up, the new G400 Crossover officially crosses over all over the place. It looks like an iron, glides through the turf like a hybrid, has the CG of an iron, produces the ball speeds of a hybrid (thanks to a maraging steel face), but with the gearing, spin, ball flight and stopping power of an iron.

Piece of cake.

Tale of the Tape

The G400 Crossover is available in 3 lofts - 19, 22 and 25 degrees - and can be adjusted for lie angle 3 degrees (or PING color codes) upright and 1 degree (or color code) flat to match your irons. Golf Pride’s Tour Velvet grip is stock.

Stocks shafts are PING’s Alta CB 70 in graphite, AWT 2.0 in steel. PING’s Tour 85 graphite shaft is available at an upcharge. In addition, the G400 Crossover head is a .370 parallel tip, allowing for more aftermarket shaft options.

MSRP is $247.50.