Ben Hogan Radial Irons Review? Still Good & Forgiving for High Handicappers?

Ben Hogan Radial Irons Review? Still Good & Forgiving for High Handicappers?

“The Ben Hogan company has always been an ambitious one. In fact, their ambition may have been what killed the business.”

If you have followed golf for any amount of years now, you know that Ben Hogan is now a defunct company.

But it’s my personal belief that they went under not because their clubs lacked quality; but because their vision exceeded their funding.

The Ben Hogan Radial irons are a great example of the company’s “aim high and to hell with the budget” attitude.

The Ben Hogan Radial irons must have been expensive to produce. They are forged blades that were not mass-produced.

Instead, they were made by hand. And while it’s a bummer that the company isn’t around to make clubs anymore, it’s cool that you can still get used Ben Hogan clubs secondhand for cheap.

But are the Ben Hogan Radial irons the ones you should look for? Read on to find out what you need to know about these irons.

Are Ben Hogan Radial Irons Still Good?

“I should say so. These are forged, hand-crafted irons that somehow, were made to be very forgiving.”

This isn’t the first time I’ve seen the combination of forging and forgiveness from Ben Hogan.

I recently had the opportunity to test the Ben Hogan Apex irons and I fell in love with them. I was also stunned that anyone could make a forged iron so forgiving.

That was also the feeling I got when I tested the Ben Hogan Radial irons.

The Ben Hogan Radial irons are forged blades but as the name suggests, they have wide, radial soles.

The top line is thin and at address, they look more like bladed irons than game improvement irons. To be honest, I’m not sure what category these irons fall into, myself.

What I do know is that I loved the feel of these irons. They look compact but have a good heft to them.

At impact, the ball launches softly off the face. You can feel the forging at work on every strike.

I loved the fact that I got the same soft feel swing after swing. The only downside is that these irons are so soft, you can’t really feel when you’ve mis-hit.

The Ben Hogan Radial irons have a muscle/cavity hybrid design. The cavity is really shallow and looks more like a muscle back if you’re not paying close attention.

The radial sole glides through the turf beautifully. I saw my divot size shrink considerably with these irons. As a result, I was getting better club head speed than normal through the turf.

So are the Ben Hogan Radial irons still good? Absolutely.

While they may not be as inherently forgiving as the Ben Hogan Apex irons, the Ben Hogan Radials are still fantastic forged blades that can be useful to a wide variety of players.

Are the Ben Hogan Radial Irons Forgiving for High Handicappers?

“The Ben Hogan Radial irons are forgiving enough for 15-22 handicappers.”

It’s going to be a bit hard for most  high handicappers to get over the thin top line and the relatively short blade.

The shallow cavity/muscle design does help to  redistribute some weight along the perimeter of the face though.

I found that my mis-hits weren’t being punished as much as traditional blades.

On mis-hits, I was only losing about 3 MPH of ball speed and the spin rates picked up just a little bit.

As a result, I was getting wider draws; but never a slice or a hook. The overall dispersion isn’t as tight as I would have liked to see.

Overall though the Ben Hogan Radial irons are moderately forgiving.

Possibly the best thing about these irons for high handicappers is that they play really smooth from all lies.

From the cabbage, I was able to pluck the ball clean and launch it high. From the semi rough, I was able to work enough spin onto the ball to land dead on the green.

And from the turf, the launch combined perfectly with the workability to affect different shot shapes.