KZG Forged Evolution Irons

In Survival-of-the-Fittest Industry, Evolution Set Helping KZG Thrive

KZG Golf has been called one of the industry's "best-kept secrets." Well, the secret is starting to get out.

Offering a huge line of diverse products that includes numerous drivers, multiple sets of irons, various forged wedges, accessories and even the proprietary NovaTech graphite shaft, KZG keeps gaining traction with golfers.

The year 2004 was a good one for KZG with the release of two products in particular that helped familiarize more golfers with the company: the Gemini driver and the Forged Evolution Irons.

Readers of About.com Golf know how we feel about the Gemini (see review) - we named it one of the Top 2 drivers of 2004. Nor were we alone in our estimation of the Gemini; it was one of the best-reviewed clubs of 2004.

We hadn't played any KZG forged irons prior to checking out the Evolution set, but we knew of their reputation from the buzz that had built around them. KZG Forged Irons have earned praise from many corners of the golf industry.

In 2003, for example, Nick Price used a set of KZG Forged Irons at the Presidents Cup. Price is not a paid endorser nor a member of a "tour staff" with KZG. When asked why he chose to play KZG during the event, Price gave a straightforward answer. To paraphrase, Price said that KZG's forgings are simply the best.

A few months later, in February of 2004, the industry group International Network of Golf (ING) awarded industry honors to KZG's Forged Irons in the category "Product Ingenuity - Emerging Companies."

"This is a landmark in the history of KZG," company president Jennifer King said at the time. "This award confirms that our belief in the quality and performance of our products is strongly shared by others. We have definitely emerged as one of the top manufacturers in the industry."

At the time of the ING award, KZG had just introduced the Forged Evolution irons, its sixth set of forged irons. Evolution joined the KZG Blades, ZO Blades, Cavity Back, Cavity Back II and Cavity Back II-M in the KZG lineup of forged irons.

So we were excited to finally get a set of KZG forgings into our hands. We spent about two months playing them ourselves and introducing other golfers to the Evolution set, to prepare for this article. But the eventual conclusion was evident from the first shot: these irons were worth the wait.

The first thing you noticed about the Evolution irons is how, well, pretty they are. This is one very handsome set of irons.

The Evolution is a blended set, with a mix of blade and cavity back irons. The long irons are perimeter-weighted cavity backs, offering more forgiveness and greater accuracy on longer shots. The short irons are blades, providing greater control on the scoring shots. And the middle irons are a mix of the two styles. The clubhead of each iron is engineered to be exactly 10 percent different from its preceding and following irons in the set. The small amount of offset decreases throughout the set, more in the long irons and less in the short irons.

"This is the perfect blended iron set, and it is unlike any other because each head is individually designed," KZG president King said. "We named the irons 'Evolution' because it suggests the progressive change in design from one iron to the next."

The secret to KZG's irons is found in the company's forging process. Like all of the company's forgings, the KZG Forged Evolution Irons are double-forged and handcrafted in Japan. The KZG website points out that the company is "... are the only company now providing true double forgings entirely handcrafted in Japan (save one major OEM serving the Japanese market)."

What does "double-forged" mean? Here is how KZG describes its forging process: