McLaren placed the 3 Series first and left its tour blade in idle. Land inventory at the end of September.
I think there are parallels to be drawn between of McLaren entry into the world of golf equipment and the Freedom 250 IndyCar race in Washington, DC, last month. That is, it was slower and bumpier than advertised.
While there is no iron equivalence to run 20 laps under caution, the Series 1 iron it has been lost since the beginning.
Moving beyond the metaphor, the reality is that, after feedback from fitters and the general inventory that every golf brand deals with from time to time, the company prioritized the Series 3 iron. Market realities being what they are (really, blades account for barely a piece of the iron sales pie), the Series 1… well, I guess you could say that it was, in fact, running under a caution flag, or something like that. similar
However, with McLaren apparently caught up (more or less), Series 1 he finally gets his green flag. It will be available with the 3 Series offering.
The story of McLaren Golf so far
If you missed McLaren’s April launch, here’s a quick recap.
McLaren Golf sits alongside the company’s automotive and racing divisions. The key detail is that McLaren Golf is a real part of the McLaren business. It is not a collaboration. This is not a license agreement. These are not open molds from some nameless Asian factory with a McLaren logo stamped on the heads. That’s how a whole percentage of these “automotive x golf” crossovers have worked but McLaren operates differently. Yes, the company’s roots are firmly in the automotive space, but the ambition is a fully realized golf company with plans to eventually build all 14 clubs.
McLaren first entered the golf conversation with the announcement of two iron models, the Series 1 blade and the more forgiving Series 3, which might just fit in the game improvement or player distance categories. If you wonder about the inconsistency in the name of the model, the Series 2 is penciled in for the beginning of 2027. The rest of the bag is in development which for now is little more than one thing that could be worth knowing.
The part that matters most about the logo is that it designs things. Ryan Badgero, former head of product development at COBRA, manages the operation. JP Harrington, of Titleist and JP Wedges fame, leads the iron and wedge design. Jacob Sanborn, formerly of Wilson and Callaway, is a senior product design engineer. I work with a team of engineers at the McLaren Technology Center in the UK to develop the products that make up the McLaren golf catalogue.
The point is that there’s a legitimate golf resume behind the brand that at the very least suggests McLaren wants to take a serious run at this thing.
In addition to the guys who design the McLaren line, Justin Rose, Michelle Wie West and Ian Poulter are brand ambassadors. All three are also investors which has become a relatively common path for upstart brands looking for instant validation.
Justin Rose is injured for the first time
The day after the official launch of McLaren Golf, Rose put the Series 1 in play at the Cadillac Championship at Trump National Doral. It didn’t go well. He opened with 74.
Analyst Rick Gehman immediately posted that it was Rose’s second-worst tee-to-green round and his worst tee-to-green round of the season. And with that, the internet did what the internet does.
Pictures of Rose’s demo bag have been doing the rounds. Depending on who was counting, he had between four and 700 McLaren prototypes there. (For the record, it was a combo set: a 4-iron cavity-back with Series 1 blades from the 5-iron down.) The fairways were predictable and, frankly, not entirely unfair. Rose was in the midst of what seemed like a real career resurgence before having a disastrous showing with the shiny new things that happen to own a piece.
To his credit, Rose responded to Gehman’s numbers with “Cheers Rick for the stats…will be using DRS tomorrow after this info.” If you’re going to step into the McLaren irons and immediately play like trash, you might as well get a Formula 1 joke.
Rose finished T65 at Doral, then T45 at the Truist Championship the following week. Two departures, two duds, and a lot of noise. Rose’s line throughout was that irons had nothing to do with anything. “The fact that I haven’t been playing well the last two weeks has nothing to do with the irons,” he said heading into the PGA Championship. And the more blunt version: “If you send a poor message, I don’t care what you play.”
Lost in the general negative noise of the interwebs, Rose went on to shoot 65 in the third round at Quail Hollow to take the lead at two under, taking three shots within reach for the day. He finished T10. From there: T12 at the Memorial, T11 at the US Open, T18 at the Tour Championship.
While it’s probably not Player of the Year material, it’s equally a sign of a man who isn’t fighting a losing battle with his irons.
What the Series 1 actually is
With this, we are talking about the McLaren Series 1 iron.
U Series 1 is the McLaren Golf shovel. A little more modern than most, it’s also built for top players who want control, feel and consistency out of a traditional shape. It’s a muscle-back and so you go.
What is perhaps noteworthy about the 1 Series (and the 3 Series, for that matter) is how McLaren makes its irons. They are not forged and they are not cast. McLaren irons are metal injection molded from a proprietary steel blend. The proprietary part is because McLaren doesn’t say exactly what its metal formulation is.
Your quick MIM refresher: fine metal powder is mixed with a polymer binder to create a raw material, the raw material is injected into a mold, and the binder is removed before the part is sintered in an oven. What comes out is a dense, almost finished shape that reflects the mold.
That’s a good part of the point. Casting and forging produce parts that require roughing and polishing passes to reach final dimensions. Every step in the process is an opportunity to produce some inconsistency. Metal injection produces near-finished parts complete with tighter tolerances, less variability and consistency within a set.
The practical translation is that MIM allows McLaren (and others using the same methods) cram technology in a form that traditionally has nothing to put.
Under the hood of the 1 Series
Like most modern irons, Ferri McLaren Series 1 presents a progressive approach to the center of gravity. Internal tungsten bars, each unique in shape and weight (from 16 to 24 grams) to the loft for which they are designed, let McLaren tune the individual CG location of each iron in the set. The centers of gravity are located low in the long irons for an easier launch and a higher flight. When moving in the mid and short irons, the CGs move higher, which works to lower the trajectory and increase the spin.
The visible detail in the rear cavity is what McLaren calls the structural mesh. The honeycomb pattern is not strictly decorative. It works to save weight while maintaining strength and stability. As you would expect, the weight that McLaren saves with the mesh is transferred to a more useful location. It’s also what the McLaren Golf has closest to a signature look that probably matters more than anyone wants to admit.
Included in the design is silicone that dampens vibration. That comes in the form of an injection molded piece that kills unwanted vibration and pulls double duty as part of the weighting story. It’s not a revolutionary concept, but the reason you see it so often is because it works.
Finally, the Series 1 irons they feature a progressive offset design. I would suggest that the implementation is quite aggressive by blade standards. The 3-iron has four millimeters of offset which, combined with some native bias of the heel, helps to obtain the frame of the face that enters the impact. With the 9 iron and pitching wedge, you’re right at 1.2mm, giving you the clean look that players desire best when sitting over a scoring club.
Series 1 Specifications
The lofts are about what you would expect from modern blades. The 3-iron is 20 degrees, the 7-iron is 34 and the pitching wedge is 46. They aren’t your grandpa’s lofts but they aren’t my T-350s either.
Worth a quick mention: Ferri McLaren Series 1 they are available in right and left handed models, which is not something you can say about most blades, let alone blades from a first year brand.
The looks
Full disclosure: I haven’t been playing much golf lately. I’m still not in the camp that believes blades make you a better ball striker. It’s a story we’re telling ourselves somewhere around the bottom of a range bucket.
Putting the analytical side of my brain on timeout for a moment, these make me want to go find a tee time and do some damage. Probably on my scorecard (but I’m pretty sure I’d have fun doing it).
The look is modern without being offensive. There is a history of visible technology in the cavity and somehow it manages not to be obnoxious because of it, which is a harder trick to do than it seems. Blades tend to break one of two ways: hide everything in the name of tradition or print the back cavity raw with everything you can think of that could convey a history of technology.
Series 1 splits the difference. Looks still come down to taste and there will be traditionalists who want nothing to do with a honeycomb in the cavity, but for my money, this is one of the best attempts at a modernized blade aesthetic.
Prices and availability
Ferri McLaren Series 1 they are $375 per club in the US (£360 in the UK, €420 across Europe). The set runs 3-iron through pitching wedge so a seven club 4-PW build lands at $2,625 and adding the 3-iron brings you to an even $3,000 before looking at a shaft or grip upgrade.
The price is what it is and, to McLaren’s credit, the company isn’t dancing around it. The positioning is premium and there is no apparent interest, at least in the near term, in running the business the way the rest of the industry runs theirs.
I’m not trying to sell you on the value proposition. I’m just here to remind you that Ferri McLaren Series 1 they exist and you can finally order them (albeit with a little time).
McLaren says inventory will arrive by the end of September. Direct orders at mclarengolf.com currently show an estimated delivery time of five to six weeks while Fairway Jockey, which also takes pre-orders, lists about two weeks.
McLaren Golf products (including Series 1 irons) are sold directly and through appropriate channels including Club Champion, True Spec and Fairway Jockey in North America, Europe and South Korea.
For more information, visit McLarenGolf.com.
The place McLaren’s 1 Series irons finally get the green flag appeared first MyGolfSpy.
