Is This The Future Of Golf Iron Design?

Edel SMS Iron Review

Everyone has heard of adjustable drivers but adjustable irons are far less commonplace. We’ve seen PXG irons with precision weighting that can be tweaked during a fitting but now there’s another player in the game from Edel Golf. We’ve seen Edel’s SMS (Swing Match System) at play in its impressive wedges and the concept has now been expanded into irons.

Watch Joel Tadman test the Edel SMS iron on the course in this video review

The Edel SMS is a hollow body, players distance iron constructed from a forged 1025 carbon steel body and a harder plasma welded maraging steel face cup. This is said to aid with distance, while a high-density urethane foam fill creates a forged like feel. Each iron has three weights, two 2-gram weights and a heavier 8-gram weight denoted by a red circle. Edel says the interchangeable weight system enables total clubface control. By moving the heaviest weight on the iron to its optimal position for your profile, it will work complementary to your swing and release motion to optimize your iron game. That can mean eliminating your miss right or left, improving face impact position, more distance, more accuracy, and optimized performance all around.

These are some big claims we were keen to put to the test on the range using the Full Swing Kit launch monitor and then hitting shots into a par three green at Burghley Park Golf Club. Behind the ball, the Edel SMS iron looks inviting without being chunky. The topline is generous and there's a hint of offset at play but it strikes a nice overall balance that should appeal to a wide range of handicaps and overall it has a clean, premium look to it. The Edel SMS 7-iron has a loft of 32° and so I decided to test it up against a competitor iron of a similar loft and size in the Mizuno Pro 223 iron.

My first impression was that the Edel SMS feels quite firm off the face. It’s not as lively or responsive as the best golf irons I’ve tested this year so far and the launch monitor numbers backed this up in that versus the Mizuno Pro 223, it was slightly slower off the face and around five yards shorter on average with the heavier eight gram weight in the central position.

I then started tinkering around with the weight positions to see what impact it would have on ball flight, dispersion and distance. My strike pattern tends to be slightly out towards the toe and so perhaps unsurprisingly my dispersion was the tightest when I moved the heavy weight into that toe position. I have a natural draw shape but in this setting, shots flew straighter and sometimes curved a yard or two to the right. I could still draw shots when I needed to but overall the flight was more stable. With the weight in the middle, my draw shape came back and I missed left more and then with the weight in the heel my shot pattern became erratic. I hit some bigger hooks and some blocks - even when feeling in the groove with my swing I struggled to control the club face with any consistency.

Interestingly, the launch angle, peak height and carry distance across all three settings was very similar, it was only a difference in the shot shape that was noticeable. This was despite there being a healthy difference in spin across the weight settings ranging from 5400rpm with the weight in the toe to 6700 rpm with the weight in the heel.

In summary, there is definitely some merit in the concept of moving weight around behind the face in order to provide more control over direction. This is something you could enhance by altering shaft profile and lie angle during a fitting with Edel, as well as utilising the custom weight options that are available. In this case, the technology looks to have come to the detriment of ball speed and distance. Golfers looking at compact distance irons will likely be able to find models that offer similar levels of forgiveness but with more distance. That said, there is lots to like about what the Edel SMS irons have to offer and could well provide the answer for golfers looking for more accuracy at a mere $250 per club.