COBRA’s latest irons, RADSPEED, utilize a breakthrough engineering feat to deliver game-improvement irons with exceptional feel, forgiveness and distance—the trinity of performance. The new irons will be available for pre-order January 22, 2021 and will be available in stores and online February 8, 2021.

How do you make a game-improvement iron that’s forgiving, consistent and playable without compromising speed and distance? Oh, yeah, it also has to look sleek. It’s a tough ask and a tall order, just pose the question to any club manufacturer. But COBRA believes they’ve figured it out with the help of their intrepid engineers.

RADSPEED, which is named after radial weighting, works by pushing as much discretionary weight as possible to the extreme ends of the club—in the case of an iron, to the heel and toe—to leverage the “radial gyration formula’ (say it 10 times fast). In doing so, COBRA believes they’ve uncovered untapped potential to create an iron that performs on all fronts, without compromising in any department.

“If you can re-engineer structure and move weights further apart, you’ll get better performance. At the same time, you’re trying to maintain low CG,” explains Tom Olsavsky, COBRA’s VP of R&D. “That low CG is what’s going to give us great performance to launch the ball quickly and maximize distance, as well as provide great feel. Radial weighting is the key to success.”

How it exactly works is less complicated to an engineer but, at its core, radial weighting pushes strategic weight to the toe and heel—the furthest locations from the clubhead’s centre of gravity to generate more inertia. RADSPEED drivers and fairway woods use a similar approach, the difference being the weight is moved to the back and the front of the metals, while an iron’s CG is more centrally located. COBRA’s put a standard 10-gram screw in the toe and three additional grams in the heel. The relational weight dispersion between the two ends of the clubhead help promote greater stability at impact—similar to how a tightrope walker uses the weight and tension of a long bar to help them stabilize.

In RADSPEEED, it results in greater consistency and tremendously low CG for a high launch angle. For those that need more weight in the toe to help square the club, or want less weight to prevent a hook, RADSPEED’s weighting system toe screw is adjustable, available in two-gram increments from four to 16 grams. Versatility through innovation—that’s what RADSPEED has sought to achieve.

COBRA’s latest irons differ from their predecessor, SPEEDZONE, in a variety of ways but most noticeably with their sleeker profile and more rounded trailing edge. To lighten the iron, COBRA partnered with Hewlett-Packard to create a 3D-printed medallion at the back of the clubhead, providing engineers with more options to optimize newfound discretionary weight.

In fact, RADSPEED irons are the first to employ this type of 3D printing in golf, another first for a company that hangs around the cutting edge of club manufacturing technology. But the 3D medallion doesn’t just weigh less, it also dampens unwanted vibration at impact and gives endless opportunity to experiment with unlimited shapes and designs, something Olsavsky believes will become a new frontier for the industry.

“3D printing is a huge technology that’s showing up more and more in the world today, and this is one of the first products you’ll be able to buy that has a 3D-printed component in it in a mainstream way,” explains Olsavsky. “We’ve been studying it for a number of years. It’s a new technology that obsoletes things and allows us to make product that we’ve never been able to make before.”

In addition to radial weighting, COBRA continues to use their tried and proven PWRSHELL technology—an ultra-thin forged face model— in their RADSPEED irons. “The key here is all the flexibility of the design, in terms of saving weight and adding flexibility,” Olsavsky adds. By cutting weight and thinning out the face, COBRA’s been able to deepen the clubhead’s sole to produce more flex at impact, resulting in a higher launch angle.

RADSPEED also has a more refined aesthetic than the previous SPEEDZONE model, donning a sleek carbon fibre topline that both looks great and saves weight. COBRA says a lot of the feedback they received about SPEEDZONE boiled down to it looking too large, and not quite having the right presentation at address. COBRA has more than remedied the problem, with RADSPEED irons having noticeably leaner edges and a more slender profile. It doesn’t quite look like a “tour” iron but it’s close, and it’s also full of game-improvement tech that we all could really use—so does it really matter?

RADSPEED comes standard with either a KBS Tour 90 shaft or a UST Recoil 460 EST, as well as a Lamkin Crossline Connect Grip.

ARCCOS

In addition, each COBRA club comes with COBRA CONNECT and a 90-day free trial to ARCCOS, an innovative app that provides players with detailed analysis of their play. With everyone playing with a phone, it now sort of makes sense to have an app to track data like strokes gained, scoring averages and whatnot.

Are they for me?

These are game-improvement irons, meaning if you’re game needs improving, they’re for you. Of course, low handicap players would likely play something a little more player preferred, but if you’re in the mid- to high-handicap range, these will surely help you hit it further and straighter.

In addition to the release of the RADSPEED irons, COBRA’S 2021 lineup also includes the RADSPEED drivers and RADSPEED fairway woods and hybrids.

Available for pre-order on January 22, 2021 and in stores/online February 8, 2021.