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Honma TR21 Fairway Woods and Hybrids

Monday, 21 September 2020

Honma TR21 Fairways and Hybrids – Key Takeaways

Honma has introduced new fairway woods and hybrids The TR21 FTI Big LB is an oversized 3-wood designed for distance The TR21 F is a compact option designed for distance and control TR21 Hybrids offer stronger lofts and more refined shapes

Within its TR21 lineup, Honma is pairing a big, distance oriented 3-Wood with compact offerings across all available lofts. It’s not an entirely unique approach to the fairway market, but with the majority of major manufacturers playing to the middle, Honma believes it has an opportunity to succeed on either side.

Honma TR21 FTi BIG-LB Fairway Wood

The TR21 FTi BIG-LB Fairway wood is a nod to Honma’s heritage and the age of persimmon drivers. Honma (and the BIG-LB) may be relatively new to you, but the company has been making golf clubs since 1959. It’s not a brand without history.

The original BIG-LB (the LB stands for Low Balance) was an oversized driver. The LB featured a partially hollowed out head. The cavity was injected with a resin composite, and a heavy steel soleplate was anchored to the sole. Even if designers didn’t fully understand the physics at the time, Honma knew that when you concentrated mass in the sole, good things happen.

With the new TR21 FTi BIG-LB fairway, titanium has replaced persimmon, but otherwise, the design isn’t far off from the original concept.

Modern Construction

The face and body of the BIG-LB are constructed from 6-4 titanium. The signature feature is a 90-gram SUS630 steel soleplate. The massive plate is paired with a tunable swing weight port (12g stock). Together they encompass more than half of the clubhead’s total mass. That puts a boatload of mass low in the clubhead, which pushes the center of gravity down and back. The result is high launch, low spin, and plenty of distance.

The bigger head results in higher MOI (more forgiveness) relative to the rest of the Honma fairway lineup. If you’re looking for a big body, distance-oriented fairway, the BIG-LB should have your attention.

Honma TR21 F Fairway Wood

Complementing the BIG-LB is the smaller TR21 F. It’s similar to the approach Cobra took with its SpeedZone Big Tour and compact Speedzone Tour Fairways.

For the most part, the bigger manufacturers have chosen to leave Cobra unchallenged in what is almost certainly the nichiest part of the fairway market.

Nevertheless, Honma believes the market is underserved and believes there’s an opportunity for growth where most of its competitors haven’t ventured.

The TR21 F Fairway is an all steel offering. Honma has thinned the crown to lower the center of gravity. It has added a bit of speed to the face since the last release as well, but the bulk of the story is the compact size.

Unlike the TR21 BIG-LB, the TR21 F offers movable weight technology in the sole. The stock build ships with 12- and 3-gram weights. The default configuration has the 12-gram weight in the back. That produces higher launch and a bit more spin. Moving the heavy weight forward should lower both trajectory and spin.

Honma TR21 Fairway Specs and Pricing

The TR21 BIG-LB is available in a 14-degree 3-Wood only. The TR21 F is available in 3W (15-degrees), 4W (16.5-degrees), 5W (18-degrees), and 7W (18-degrees). Both models feature Honma’s non-rotating adjustable hosel that allows for 1-degree of adjustability up or down.

The stock shaft for both models in the Honma Vizard (65 or 75-grams). The stock grip is Golf Pride’s Tour Velvet +2.

The retail price for the TR21 FTi BIG-LB is $329. The TR21 F is priced at $299.

Honma TR21 H

With the TR21 H (hybrid), Honma admits to borrowing inspiration from compact Adams and Titleist designs. As with the fairway woods, the feeling inside the company is that opportunity lies in servicing a segment of the market that its larger competitors largely ignore.

Clean, compact hybrids are few and far between.

That’s certainly been the case with Honma’s XP lineup. Those are round, kinda bulky, and not at all what better players typically look for. The TR21 H offers a better player preferred shape, which is code for smaller with a squarer address profile.

Under the hood refinements include faster face, thinner crown, and improved center of gravity locations – including some internal weighting to try and take hooks out of the equation.

Despite what the stronger lofts might suggest, the TR21 H takes an accuracy first approach that seeks to provide precision through improved trajectory spin control. If you prefer the weaker lofts, you can get there with the adjustable hosel, which again provides 1-degree of loft adjustability and up to 700 RPM of spin change across the entire range.