TaylorMade Burner XD Irons

TaylorMade’s new Burner XD Irons follow on the heels of their successful Burner Drivers and Fairway Woods.

The Burner Irons feature a titanium face welded to a hollow, stainless steel body. The titanium face is supposed to offer several benefits. First, because it’s so thin, it offers a high coefficient of restitution (rebound effect) to deliver a higher ball speed. Second, the light face allows the redistribution of weight to encourage clubhead stability and a higher ball flight. And finally, the face is designed with TaylorMade’s Inverted Cone Technology, to increase forgiveness.

The clubs will be available both in steel and RE*AX Superfast graphite shafts. The lighter graphite shafts should promote a faster swing for more distance.

“The phenomenal distance and overall performance of the Burner family of metalwoods, especially the Burner driver, has had golfers clamoring for a Burner iron,” said Sean Toulon, TaylorMade executive vice president. “That’s because Burner metalwoods are so compelling, from both a performance and personality standpoint. We believed that if we applied that same Burner formula to an iron, we can deliver incredible performance. Great news. The wait is over. The new Burner XD iron is here.”

They’ll be available Sept. 30.

I’d love to get my hands on a set of these.

I think that this would be the perfect set for the GolfBlogger. A set with no iron longer than a five. Instead, the three and four have been replaced by equivalent hybrids. There’s no shame in admitting it. I can’t hit the long irons anyway.

These clubs also have a lot of game improvement features. They’re draw weighted, which means that the weight is shifted toward the heel of the club (this helps to close the clubface; weight toward the toe would cause the clubface to open more). A large clubhead allows an increase in moment of inertia (resistance to twisting) and a t-haped sole is designed to reduce turf friction. best of all, they’ve got the Inverted Cone design that makes TaylorMade the GolfBlogger’s favorite clubs.

I had a chance to try one of these during a group golf lesson that I was taking at a local course. The pro brought out a bag of clubs when we were warming up and offered them for us to try.

The Burner TP has got sort of a different look about it—almost as if they took one of their more traditional pear shaped drivers and squashed it. But I hit it well. The thing I liked best about it is that the ball flight was relatively low. Since I hit the ball high—often too high—that was a real boon.

The TP version of TaylorMade’s Burner driver is sold as the same club that TaylorMade’s pros use. To this end, it’s got the same swing weight and launch conditions and Fujikura shaft. Normally, I would say that pro ine clubs are too much for a mid handicapper like me to handle, but my TaylorMAde TP 3 wood is my favorite club, and the Burner TP Driver I tried

The driver uses what TaylorMade calls its SuperFast club technology. That’s supposed to offer a lighter weight and longer clublength for higher clubhead speed. And, of course, it has TaylorMade’s Inverted Cone Technology, which is supposed to expand the sweet spot and increase the effective moment of intertia. I’m a big fan of the Inverted Cone Technology; it simply works. I play a TaylorMade Driver, three wood and irons, and on all of them, even off center hits tend to fly in the direction of the target.

The TaylorMade Burner Steel Fairway is the last offering in this spring’s trilogy of Burner clubs.

Due out in late April, the Burner Fairway is said to have the highest Moment of Inertia (resistance to twisting) of any fairway wood in golf (and 30% higher than TaylorMade’s R87 steel). It features TaylorMade’s “SuperFast Club Technology” to give an extremely light total weight combined with a light and long shaft to promote faster swing speed for added power. Faster ball speed also is encouraged by the club’s pull face construction. A shallow design allows TaylorMade to pull the center of gravity lower and farther back from the face.

Shipping in April 2007, the new TaylorMade Burner Rescue employs what TaylorMade calls Superfast Technology: a design that includes a lighter shaft and grip to increase swing sped.

Swing speed, of course, is the key to increasing distance.

Seven percent larger than the previous generation Rescue Dual in volume,a nd with a 13% larger footprint, this club has increased moment of inertia (resistance to twisting), which will result in more forgiveness and straighter shots. TaylorMade says that the pull face constuction gives it a higher COR (coefficient of restitution—rebound) for greater distance. A shallow clubface design lets TaylorMade move the center of gravity back for higher launch angles.

This is the second club that TaylorMade announced in its revival of the “Burner” line of clubs, what at this writing consists of a driver, fairway woods, and hybrids. I’m sure that a Burner line of irons is not far behind. Would it be too much to hope that it’s an integrated, progressive set that moves from fairway woods to more bladelike wedges, like the Adams Ideas.

The second of TaylorMade’s new driver offerings this spring, the Burner eschews the movable weights for another strategy. With a 460cc bullet shaped head, the Burner is designed to promote faster swing speed, faster ball speed, and thus more distance. It accomplishes this wih a longer, lighter shaft, and a lighter grip. Inverted Cone Technology increases effective moment of inertia (the influence on ball speed exerted by a clubs MOI and clubface technology combined) for maximum forgiveness.

It’s interesting that TaylorMade has decided to bring back the “Burner” name, which was attached to a series of clubs some years back. For me, the word “burner” is not a positive one when associated with golf, as in “that shot was a worm burner.”

The SuperQuad is the latest incarnation of the clubs with TaylorMade’s now-famous movable weight technology. The four weight screws offer 26 grams of adjustable weights and six different launch conditions. With a 460cc head, the Superquad also features TaylorMade’s inverted cone technology, of which I can personally testify offers amazing forgiveness on off-center hits.