Mizuno JPX-800 irons are for game improvement

• By Ryan Ballengee
• Jun 11, 2011 4:57 PM ET

Mizuno is known in the golf industry as the makers of some of the best irons in the business. Their MP line is the Holy Grail for the aspiring player. But for the weekend player, a set of MPs is probably not in the cards. With that in mind, Mizuno released the JPX-800 series this year as a statement set into the game improvement market.

“We were thinking about maximum distance when we designed this iron,” said Chuck Couch, director of marketing for Mizuno USA. “Similar to the coefficient of restitution on a driver [the amount of energy transferred from club to ball at impact], we concerned ourselves with the same thing in these irons.

Marketing a club that promises more distance – particularly an iron – requires some body of proof for theconsumer. So Mizuno tested 100 consumers’ own clubs against their JPX-800 line.

“We said, ‘Let’s go to Arizona, get in front of 100 consumers and test our JPX-800 6-iron against their gamer 6-iron, on a Trackman and collect the data.’”

In 99 cases out of 100 during the 'Mizuno Challenge,' Couch says the JPX-800 went further – 12.8 yards further.

“That makes people stop and turn their heads,” he said.

The JPX-800 rounds out Mizuno’s offerings in a way that has them very excited. But, they’re not running from what makes their name stand out on the rack.

“We feel like we have a very core competency [in the MP line] that we’re never going to leave, but to be a better iron brand, we wanted to focus on the game improvement side,” said Couch. “We can reach out to that 80 percent who the JPX-800 is made for.”