Gear: Mizuno JPX Forged irons

Price: $200 per club with KBS Tour C-Taper Lite shaft and Golf Pride MCC grips

Specs: Grain flow forged 4120 Chromoly with stainless steel back piece (4-7), forged 1025E mild carbon steel (8-PW). Available in satin chrome and black finishes.

Available: Feb. 6

Who it’s for: Golfers with a handicap between five and 12 who want a better-player’s distance iron that delivers enhanced feel along with more distance.

What you should know: The latest JPX Forged is designed to be a better-player’s distance iron that blends enhanced ball speed with the look and feel that accomplished players want, similar to the Hot Metal irons.

The deep dive: Brooks Koepka won the 2017 and 2018 U.S. Opens and the 2018 and 2019 PGA Championships with Mizuno JPX Tour irons — not one of Mizuno’s MP muscleback blades. Those clubs were added to the JPX family rather than the MP series to broaden awareness of the JPX line, and it worked. While the MP and Mizuno Pro blades are coveted by accomplished players and aspirational golfers alike, the JPX lineup offers more game-improvement technologies while retaining better-player aesthetics.

Historically, the JPX Forged has bridged both worlds, marketed as a distance-enhancing club like other JPX models, yet designed for golfers who prefer the looks and feel of the Mizuno Pro series. With the 2025 update to the JPX Forged, Mizuno has shifted more toward the JPX side, creating a blended set of distance-boosting long and mid-irons paired with feel-enhancing scoring clubs.

As with the Mizuno Pro 241 and 243 irons released in 2024, the chassis of the JPX 925 4-iron through 7-iron is forged from a single billet of 4120 Chromoly, an exceptionally hard alloy. The forging process elongates the alloy’s grain structure to improve feel.

However, Mizuno invested in a new forging press, and because Chromoly is so hard, designers could make an elliptical portion of the hitting area as thin as 1.5 millimeters — Mizuno’s thinnest forged face to date. This advancement broadens the sweet spot and enhances ball speed.

On the back of the 4- through 7-irons, Mizuno has welded a 431 stainless steel piece behind the lower portion of the hitting area. This piece doesn’t touch the face due to an undercut cavity separating the two, but it lowers the center of gravity (CG) to encourage a higher ball flight, providing a steeper descent angle for improved stopping power on greens.

An added benefit of the 431 stainless steel back piece is an expanded chamber behind the leading edge, allowing the lower hitting area to flex more on thin shots.

While adding distance and height to long irons can benefit players, the scoring clubs serve a different purpose. For the JPX 925 Forged’s 8-iron through pitching wedge, Mizuno opted for 1025 mild carbon steel for softer feel and kept them solid. They lack the Cortech face and feature a slightly higher CG, promoting a lower, controlled trajectory in scoring situations.

To ensure a consistent feel across the set, Mizuno incorporated a stiffened topline and a sound bar in the back of the heads, allowing designers to “tune” the clubs. Through acoustic analysis and adjustments, Mizuno made the transition between the two materials virtually unnoticeable to players.

To help golfers maintain club speed through impact and improve turf interaction, Mizuno gave the JPX 925 Forged a Triple Cut Sole design, with a beveled leading and trailing edge. This design reduces the likelihood of digging when players aggressively strike down on the ball or make slight turf contact behind it.

In addition to a standard chrome-finished set, Mizuno is making the JPX 925 Forged irons available in a Black Out version that features a dark ion finish. The Black Out version is not a limited-edition offering, it will be available as a custom order option going forward and will come with a True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue Mid 115 shaft in a gunmetal finish.

The lofts of the JPX 925 Forged irons are strong, with a 5-iron at 24 degrees, a 9-iron at 38 degrees, and a pitching wedge at 43 degrees. A 48-degree gap wedge is also available, but players are advised to work with a custom fitter to assess whether the JPX 925 Forged is right for them and whether wedge loft adjustments are needed.

This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Mizuno JPX Forged irons are made for enhanced feel and more distance.