Review: Air Force One AFX Pro Irons

Great Performance That's Flying Under Your Radar
When a big brand OEM comes out with a new set everyone hears about and sees it on TV and in magazine ads.  They proclaim it’s greatness and tout all of the advances made in design and technology.  While those improvements might be nice to enjoy in our bag, spending over 1k on a new set of irons might now be in our budget.  Air Force One sells a really solid set of “players” irons for $399.  These offer great performance, even if the are flying under your radar.

When the AFO AFX Pro irons arrived, I was impressed by what I found.  While their logoing and badging aren’t “wow” the actual headshape and design is really good.  They fit into a category that many companies don’t really have, a game improvement iron with player’s iron looks.  These have a big undercut cavity in 5-pw and hollow heads in the 3-4 iron, yet maintain one of the thinner toplines I’ve seen in such an iron and minimal offset for such a big head.  Even the sole grind is on the sharper side which isn’t often found in game-improvement irons.

AFO is famous for Nitrogen charged(filled) heads.  Mainly this is metalwood technology and seems to have some validity for supporting the face without adding weight.  They used Nitrogen in the 3 and 4-iron heads in this iron set.  The hollow design is slightly bigger than the other heads, but done in a way that blend nicely with the 5-iron and lower.  Still fairly thin topline and still sharpish leading edge but just a touch more offset.  I was impressed on the pop off these irons.  The long irons launch the ball easily and hit with fairly low spin for some pretty impressive distance.  The hollow feel was better than expected too.  They still felt pretty solid at impact.

The 5-PW of the AFO AFX Pro iron set are a cavity back with a deep undercut sole.  They have a plastic shield in the back which offers minimal vibration dampening.  These didn’t do anything out of the ordinary, but simply performed very well like one would want out of their scoring irons.  Distances were right in the normal window for my swing, they did hit slightly higher than normal, but nothing that ballooned out of control.  What I really liked was their look at address and their turf interaction.  They have a fairly sharp leading edge as I mentioned before, but they have a really nice sole grind which keeps the club from digging too much.

The AFO AFX Pro irons come stock with Apollo 105 steel shafts and AFO “velvet” grips.  These might not be the “high-end” shaft, but don’t look down on them, they offer great control and feel.  They might be just a touch soft to flex, but don’t worry about overpower these shafts in your proper flex.  The soft feel of these shafts were a nice touch to the cast irons heads which are “clickier” than a forged “players” iron head.

Flightscope X2 Launch Monitor

  • AFO AFX Pro Irons – 8-iron
    • Spin: 5755 rpms
    • Launch Angle: 26.8*
    • Dispersion: 3.3 yds
    • Club Head Speed: 78.5 mph
    • Ball Speed: 101.8 mph
    • Total Distance:  156.3 yds
    • Carry Distance:  145.1 yds

You’ve maybe never heard of AFO AFX Pro irons, but don’t overlook them just because they fly under the “big OEM marketing” radar.  These offer very solid performance and will fit a wide range of handicaps.  The design is very much “game-improvement” but they have many nice “players” irons features.  At $399 you won’t find a nicer brand new set of irons.  The AFO AFX Pro irons offer great performance; you might just want to put them on your radar if your golf budget is a major concern.

For more information: http://afogolf.com/

Quick Hits:
+Game-Improvement design
+Players iron looks
+Thin top lines
+Easy to hit long irons
+High launching
+Great price

–Not in golf stores