I know it’s subjective but if looks alone sells golf clubs, the Ben Hogan Golf Company better stock up on its new Legend player’s distance irons.
“We’ve certainly tried to maintain Mr. Hogan’s view that golf clubs should be like a fine piece of jewelry,” says Simon Millington, the man who brought Hogan back from the dead (again) in late 2023. “We hope we’ve kept that spirit in these clubs.”
As a journalist, I know it’s my obligation to be dispassionate, objective and cynical. After spending some time alone with the Ben Hogan Legend irons, I can dispassionately, objectively and cynically state the following:
Sweet Savannah Jane, these are some fine-looking sticks.
Do they perform as good as they look? We’ll get to that a little further down the page. First, we need to find out how these babies came to be.
Ben Hogan Legend: The backstory
The Ben Hogan Legend irons, along with the new Fort Worth MB and CB irons, are the first originals to be released by this newly resurrected Ben Hogan Company. Millington is an expert at resurrecting old golf companies through his Golf Brands, Inc. Millington has brought back classics such as MacGregor, Ram, Teardrop and Zebra in the past three years. He owns those brands and worked with Hogan brand owner Perry Ellis to license the Hogan name.
“When we started the Ben Hogan project, we were very aware of Mr. Hogan’s legacy for precise detail,” Millington tells MyGolfSpy. “We put some of the most talented club designers with some of the leading golf factories in the world and then, most importantly, we took our time to make sure they were perfect.”
The new Hogan Legend offers something the most recent iterations of Hogan haven’t: a true, hollow-body, gel-filled player’s distance iron. When discussing anything from a direct-to-consumer company, the natural suspicion is to say it’s a knock-off, copy of or, even worse, an open mold with a logo slapped on it.
That’s not the case with the Hogan Legend. It’s the work of Millington’s on-staff club designer, Gavin Wallin. Wallin made his bones in golf as a senior club designer with Adams Golf in the pre-TaylorMade days.
“The body of the Legend is a single piece, 1025 carbon steel forging,” he tells MyGolfSpy. “The face is also 1025 forged and is welded onto the face. The score lines are then CNC milled.”
Legend-ary hollowness
The new Hogan Legend is typical of the player’s distance genre. Its hollow body allows the face to flex which creates more ball speed than a single-piece forging might. The fact the face is also forged from 1025 carbon steel is interesting. Face construction is where OEMs tend to get creative with materials. They’ll forge the body but then go with an exotic material for the face. That material is touted as lighter and stronger, allowing OEMs to make the face even thinner and more flexible.
In theory, that creates more potential ball speed. The problem is that the part of the club that actually hits the ball isn’t technically forged. What you gain in potential ball speed, you may lose in feel.
However, forging both pieces is problematic as well. Designers learned early on that hollow-body irons without gel, foam, microspheres (or whatever) run the risk of feeling harsh and clanky. The injected material softens the sounds, dampens bad vibrations and picks up good vibrations. The trick is injecting the correct material so it does its job without impeding face flex.
The Legend’s loft matrix is typical of the player’s distance category, based off a 30.5-degree seven iron. Wallin and Millington tried to maintain a four-degree separation between lofts, something Hogan himself insisted on back in 1953. Millington fretted over the loft structure but finally conceded to the demands of modern design.
“We have strengthened the lofts a little bit. We tried to keep Mr. Hogan’s four degrees of separation but you also have to be mindful of where the industry is now.”
Blade-like with a V-Sole
Player’s distance irons bridge the gap between game-improvement forgiveness and a player’s cavity-back compact workability. The loft structure gives those of us who’ve lost a few yards in the autumn of our lives a renewed feeling of springtime. The larger footprint isn’t shovel-like but provides enough forgiveness to make our ball-striking sins more venial and less mortal.
‘When you put it down, it looks like a beautiful golf club,” says Millington. “It’s not too offset so it fits in that low- to mid-handicap range. I’m a three-handicap and my miss is a bit slappy off the toe. I get away with it with these and even get to do an occasional club twirl.”
The look is classic Hogan, albeit with a player’s distance twist. The topline isn’t butterknife thin (it can’t be to support the low CG) but the upper portion gives the illusion of a blade. The low CG is obvious at the midpoint transition but the transition gives off a muscle-back vibe.
At first glance, the Legend irons look to have a substantial offset. During our demo, however, we did not find them to be hook machines.
Since returning to the scene in 2015, Hogan irons have featured the useful V-Sole®. Srixon gets a lot of credit, and rightfully so, for its Tour VT Sole but the V-Sole® is former Hogan CEO Terry Koehler’s gift to golf. The design dates back to Koehler’s time with the Reid Lockhart company and he has used a version of it in his own companies including Eidelon, SCOR and Edison.
The V-Sole® features a high-bounce leading edge with a low-bounce trailing edge. The goal is to improve turf interaction and make slight chunks less penal. I’ve used the Cleveland and Hogan versions and both perform as advertised.
Do the Ben Hogan Legend irons perform?
It’s February here in New Hampshire so I couldn’t get the Hogan Legends on the course. Instead, they went head-to-head with my PING i530 gamers at Golftec in Danvers, Mass.
I had the Hogan Legend 7-iron bent strong to match the i530 loft. The following averages are certainly intruiging:
185 yards total 166 yards carry 4760 RPM spin115 mph ball speed41-degree descent angle
Averages with the PING were similar:
185 yards total 164 yards carry4536 RPM spin113 mph ball speed41-degree descent angle
Player’s distance irons all fit a similar profile: low CG with strong lofts deliver ball speed with relatively low spin. It’s a recipe for distance, as long as descent angle is at least 40 degrees with a 7-iron. That tends to be enough to hold a green.
Given the small sample size, plus the fact the best shots with both irons were virtually identical, we’re looking at very similar performance. One could play good golf with either set. The main difference is the price. My six-piece PING i530 irons retail for $1,116. A similarly spec’d set of Hogan Legends will run $849.99.
That kind of performance for $266 less is tempting. Some may complain about potential resale or trade-in value. It’s a valid point. However, basing an iron purchase on resale value is like starting a divorce fund on your wedding day. If that’s your plan, we recommend keeping what you have, skipping the new sticks and working on your commitment issues.
A single-piece sidekick
If a multi-piece, gel-filled, 1025 forged player’s distance iron isn’t your cup of tea, Hogan is giving you a little wrinkle for 2025. The new Hogan M50-01 irons do fall into the player’s distance category, at least from a loft and CG standpoint. The wrinkle is they’re a single-piece, 1020 forging.
The lofts on the M50-01 irons are slightly weaker than the Legends but they do feature Hogan’s signature V-Sole. As a single-piece forging, it won’t have the same mass properties as a two-piece model, nor will it have the same face flexibility. But what you give up in ball speed, you gain in feel and, presumably, workability (if you have that in your tool kit).
The Hogan M50-01 irons are available in right- and left-handed models and run $799.99 for a six-piece set and $899.99 for a seven-piece set.
Ben Hogan Legend: Final thoughts
As we’ve reported before, direct-to-consumer is changing. We now have “tiered” DTC companies. Sub 70 and Ben Hogan occupy the top tier and can be considered legit OEMs that do their own club designs. As a result, both companies can be considered “premium” DTC and will carry higher prices compared to lower tiers.
Sub 70 works with well-known designers such as Bob Renegar while Hogan has Wallin on staff. Golf Brands, Inc. also works with independent designers such as Larry Tang, a former Callaway/Odyssey club designer whose portfolio includes the classic Odyssey Two-Ball putter and Big Bertha irons.
Millington’s other club brands, MacGregor and Ram, are tweeners, offering a mix of self-designed or self-refined products. Both offer fairly deep customization options and are usually at lower price points than Hogan or Sub 70. Other DTC brands, such as Takomo and Caley, offer mostly open-mold or self-refined products with minimal customization options. They come in at the lowest price points.
The question of custom fitting always comes up when considering DTC brands. It’s not an easy question to answer. You can’t, for instance, do an in-person fitting for Hogan (although the company is looking to develop a fitter network). You can, for $50, demo a sample 7-iron for two weeks or you can buy a custom-built 7-iron for $150.
However, any good fitter will tell you that specs are transferable from one brand to another, provided the iron category is the same. For example, if you’ve been fitted for the new TaylorMade P-790 irons (which retail for $1,399.99, by the way), the shaft, grip and length, loft and lie specs should apply to the Hogan Legend or any other DTC player’s distance iron.
Ben Hogan Legend irons: Specs, price and availability
The fitting question aside, you can have any Ben Hogan iron made to whatever specs you wish with a variety of in-stock shafts available. Standard, no-upcharge offerings include usual suspects such as the True Temper Dynamic Golf and KBS Tour. The Dynamic Golf 105 and KBS Tour V, Tour Lite and Tour 90 are also no-upcharge as is the graphite UST Recoil with Smacwrap.
Upcharge options include the KBS C-Taper, C-Taper Lite, $-Taper, $-Taper Lite, Nippon N.S. PRO Modus3 Tour 120 and 105, N.S. PRO 950GH and Zelus, all at $20 to $30 per stick. The Project X Catalyst comes with a $40 per club upcharge.
Hogan Branded Lamkin Z5 grips are standard. The Lamkin Crossline, Crossline Genesis full cord, Golf Pride Tour Velvet 360, CP2 wrap, Z-Grip cord, MCC Plus 4 and Winn Dri-Tac are available at up-charges ranging from $5 to $12.99 per grip.
If you want a shaft or grip from off the menu, Hogan will get it for you. Length adjustments are at no charge. Loft and lie adjustments are $25 per club for the set. All custom options are available by clicking the Customize link on the Legend page on the Hogan website.
The new Ben Hogan Legend irons with standard components sell for $849.99 for a six-piece set (5-PW) and $949.99 for a seven-piece set (4-PW). Hogan also offers a heads-only option.
They’re available now at benhogangolf.com.
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