Bettinardi Bombshell

Bettinardi’s launch of two new irons was a very welcome surprise

By Tony Dear

If you were to picture what a set of irons designed by Robert J. Bettinardi, maker of elegant, exclusive, sophisticated, milled, premium, coveted, and not inexpensive putters might look like, it’s a fair bet the club you imagined would be pretty close to reality. It probably wouldn’t have a deep, ungainly cavity with cluttered lines and primitive, ‘look-at-me’ styling. There’d be no orange/purple/flame-colored graphics, and little, or no, offset. Both the sole and top line, meanwhile, would be on the narrow side.
As we’ve highlighted on this page in the past, manufacturers have gotten very good at disguising most of the Game Improvement iron’s less-fetching qualities, but some do still scream their raison d’etre and make no secret of why they were made and who for.

Furthermore, the Bettinardi iron would, no doubt, be made for better players who appreciated fine craftsmanship and who purchased a club based largely on its looks and feel rather than distance and forgiveness. Just like the wedges Bettinardi introduced in 2014.
Last Friday, Bettinardi launched not one, but two, sets of irons for better players – a muscle back called the MB24 for low-handicappers or players without any handicap at all, and a cavity-back, not surprisingly labeled, the CB24 for similarly good ball–strikers who like to have just a little forgiveness.
Both are forged from 1025 Carbon-Steel which is pretty much what you’d expect of a club aimed at this type of golfer and priced above your typical set.
Besides the 1025 Carbon-Steel though, each multi-material iron contains tungsten and ceramic matrix composite (CMC) which is used in industries where materials need to be reliable and maintain their integrity at very high temperatures while displaying excellent resistance to corrosion and wear–fields such as aviation and space exploration, power, and the manufacture of slide bearing plates.
The position of the tungsten and CMC in each head, allows Bettinardi to shift the Center of Gravity (CG) according to each club’s purpose – lower in the long irons to help you get the ball off the ground; higher in the short irons to prevent the ball from ballooning and making it easier to control.
The sole and top lines of the CB24 are a little wider than on the MBs, but the difference is barely noticeable. And, naturally, the cavity is far from deep. Both sets feature Bettinardi’s familiar Honeycomb milling on the back, and the grooves are, likewise, milled.

MB24
$1,600
Lofts – 4-23˚, 7-33˚, PW-45˚
Shafts – KBS Tour and True Temper Dynamic Gold MID 100 (steel); SteelFiber i70CW, i95CW and i110CW (graphite)

Right-hand only

CB24
$1,600
Lofts – 4-23˚, 7-33˚, PW-45˚
Shafts – KBS Tour and True Temper Dynamic Gold MID 100 (steel); SteelFiber i70CW, i95CW and i110CW (graphite)
Right and left-hand
bettinardi.com

 

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