A Huge Dose of Iron

Proving again that there’s nothing new under the sun, the latest rage in golf is the driving iron.

Introduced over the last few years by several equipment manufacturers, a driving iron is a hybrid club that promises the playability of a wood and the forgiveness of an iron. The so-called wood-iron replaces long irons, fairway woods or even short irons when golfers face a ball in deep rough or a long approach shot.

Lee Janzen is among the many PGA Tour players carrying one in his bag, and virtually every player on the LPGA Tour does too.

But driving irons aren’t new. They’ve just come full circle.

Indeed, according to the Irish Times, it is possible to buy an antique driving iron dating to the evolution of the game in Scotland more than 500 years ago.

And, the newspaper reports, these collectible clubs are not in short supply.

In more recent times, Taylor Made went m head-first into the production and marketing of driving irons early last year with the introduction of its Rescue series, and was stunned by the results.

The Rescue was conceived by Gary McCord, a Senior PGA Tour player, CBS commentator and Taylor Made staff member, who suggested that the company come up with a utility club that could help golfers out of difficult situations.

Its first incarnation was nicknamed “the Peanut” because, well, it kind of looked like one.

“We had no plan to launch it,” says Dick Rugge, vice president of product creation at Taylor Made, “but the darn thing worked so well that it kind of pushed itself into our product planning.”

By year’s end, PGA Tour players were using the clubs as long irons and the company had shipped more than 100,000.

“It’s been a surprise to us,” Rugge says, “and a pleasant surprise: a bluebird coming in through the window. It’s amazing the interest we get from that club. The word-of-mouth response to it has been spectacular.”

Similarly, Callaway says sales of its driving irons have gone far beyond what the company anticipated. Sales of the clubs first took off after several LPGA players, including Liselotte Neumann, started using them two years ago.

“As a rule, the ladies tend to be more open to new ideas in terms of easy-to-use clubs,” says Richard C. Helmstetter, Callaway’s senior vice president and chief of new products. “And so, when you take a club out and say, ‘Hey, look at this, you can hit it out of the rough or out of a trap,’ they say, ‘OK, let me try.’ ”

Helmstetter, though, laughs at the idea that driving irons and other so-called specialty clubs are anything new.

“If you think there are specialty clubs now,” he says, mentioning such novelties as lob wedges and long-handled putters, “you should check out what was being used 150 years ago. Have you ever heard of a rut iron?”

A rut iron was used on the links courses of Scotland and Ireland, which were built on what were basically public lands and would occasionally be crossed by wagons. When the ground was wet, the wheels left ruts.

“And if your ball got down in a rut, a regular golf club was too big,” says Helmstetter, who designed and developed the original Big Bertha. “You couldn’t hit it out. And so they had a rut iron, which was a little bit narrower than the width of a wagon wheel.”

Helmstetter doesn’t expect rut irons to make a comeback, but neither does he expect manufacturers to stop trotting out specialty products.

“I think the next wave of specialty clubs will be aimed at average and worse golfers,” he says. “Historically, a lot of the specialty clubs have been generated by interest from the pros. I think the next wave is going to be specialty clubs for kids, for beginners, for people--men and women--without a lot of strength.

“You’ll see clubs that are easier to control, that are maybe lighter and easier to swing. Maybe they’re going to have big, wide soles on them so they can slip and slide.”

And maybe the Scots already tried them half a millennium ago.