Honma TR21 X Iron

In this Honma TR21 X iron review, Joel Tadman tests out this hollow-headed game improvement iron to assess how it plays out on the golf course

Honma TR21 X Iron Review

The Honma TR21 X is a hollow-headed distance iron that looks like a blade but is in fact aimed at the mid handicapper.

Much like the impressive XP-1 iron, which we would say is comfortably one of the best distance irons on the market, the TR21 X provides a healthy amount of firepower in a relatively sleek, compact package.

At address, this more traditional profile and size with a mid-to-thin topline certainly suited our eye and while that wasn’t as much the case with the significant offset, we know this feature is there to help the target audience produce straighter iron shots.

The heads of the longer irons (4-7) are filled with a foam material and as a result have a very different feel to most other game-improvement irons.

The sound off the face is very quiet and understated to the point where it was actually difficult to tell the difference between centred hits and slight mishits. You could class this as a good thing - the performance certainly seemed to be very uniform - although some golfers may want more feedback on the strike.

The 7-iron has a loft of 30°, so not super strong, and the average carry we achieved of 177 yards was the least we would expect from an iron specced this way.

A pleasing combination of very high launch and low spin provided the carry distance, but not to the detriment of stopping power. A descent angle of 47.5° would suggest these are very playable irons, even for the slower swing speed player, producing a strong flight without the ball getting away from you when it lands.

Forgiveness is undoubtedly one of this irons strengths - the head generally felt very stable - you’d have to put an especially bad swing on the ball to miss the green short.