RSi 1 iron

Nobody's perfect and mis-hits happen, even for the TaylorMade Tour pros like Justin Rose and Sergio Garcia. With that in mind, the new TaylorMade RSi irons have been designed to help manage your misses. In essence, the golfer who misses less frequent will score better.

Video Review: TaylorMade RSi 1 and RSi 2 irons review

Utilising Face Slot Technology for the first ever time in an iron, RSi 1 represents TaylorMade's longest ever iron, and that's even when missing the sweet spot.

Two slots are located near the heel and toe of the clubface to provide uniform flexion across the face, and this also helps protect ball speed and generates more consistent distance on off-centre hits.

An improved Speed Pocket with ThruSlot Technology (3- to 7-iron) provides ball speed protection on shots below the centre of the face, as well as increasing launch angle and ball speed on all shots.

Placing clubhead down at address, it’s not a million miles off the look of a better player iron. I love the gun-metal finish, making it almost forged-like.

Targeted towards the game improvement player and acting as a direct replacement to the former SpeedBlade iron, you cannot miss the sweetspot with the RSi 1. It’s huge and the largest TaylorMade has ever made.

RSi 1 is a particularly long iron but that's hardly surprising given it's replacing the powerful SpeedBlade iron of 2013 with the 6-iron once again set to 26.5-degree. During SpeedBlade testing, my 6-iron average reached a 170-yard carry but even the RSi 1 pipped that by two yards.

It's also incredibly easy to get airborne particularly with a long iron and dispersion appeared very tight throughout testing, testament to the new Face Slot Technology and improved Speed Pocket on off-centre hits.

I also found the face slots aided a really nice alignment at address, almost locking you like when putting.

These irons felt pretty soft off the face and sounded much nicer than the former SpeedBlade thanks to the advanced construction.

Not particularly easy to work, again like the SpeedBlade, but this is a game improvement iron after all.

A new Reax 90 steel shaft from True Temper will also help to optimise ball flight for ultimate distance and performance.

Most importantly, however, these irons are very forgiving and that's exactly the road TaylorMade has gone down for the new season. Yes, distance is still an important factor and you get that in abundance with these irons here, but limiting a golfer's mis-hit is really the biggest incentive this time around.

Verdict

Thanks to the new Face Slot Technology and improved Speed Pocket with Thru Slot Technology, there’s now forgiveness across the entire face of the iron as opposed to just on the bottom when catching the ball thin. For someone like myself who tends to catch a long iron on the thin side more often than not, that’s a huge bonus knowing you've got all the technology down there to help you catch the ball cleaner than ever.

Not exactly cheap at £699 but given the better ball striking and distance you'll obtain from these irons, it's fair to say you can't put a price on lower scores.