Will keep everyone posted when we get them in stock which should be shortly-have anxiously been waiting for this one!!!

The initial prototypes of Ping’s new S55 irons were made about one-eighth of an inch larger than their predecessors.

That small of a change would likely go unnoticed in any other Ping iron line: the G-Series, I-Series or Anser irons. But it didn’t cut it for an S-Series iron, which has to fit the eye of a very particular group of testers – tour players.

“The [tour] players noticed immediately,” said Mike Nicolette, senior design engineer for Ping. “They all said, ‘I would almost prefer that it would be a little smaller.’”

Such is the crux of creating a “players iron,” whose target audience includes everyone from the best golfers in the world to single-digit handicappers. But unlike most golfers, that audience isn’t looking for more forgiveness, although Nicolette said that it wouldn’t hurt them. They place more value on an iron’s look, feel and workability.

That’s why there weren’t a lot of changes made to the S55 irons – their predecessors, the S56 irons, were already thought of as one of the best looking, best feeling irons Ping had ever produced. And for their size, the S56’s were extremely forgiving, and offered enough workability to find their way into the bags of countless professionals. But we’re talking about Ping, a company that prides itself on engineering, so of course there were some improvements that could be made.

In the playing position, the S55 and S56 irons look nearly identical, but as Hunter Mahan noticed when he tested them in the days before The Barclays, the S55’s feel different. That’s because Ping swapped the thermoplastic urethane (TPU) insert that was used on the company’s S56 irons for a thermoplastic elastomer (TPE) insert, which Nicolette said is a more flexible material that is able to absorb more vibration at impact. For most golfers, that will translate into a softer feel.