We covered the Mizuno JPX 923 Hot Metal lineup here. The forged half of the lineup (technically, it’s the other 40 percent)—the JPX 923 Forged and JPX 923 Tour—won’t launch until February.
Bummer. Come on, Mizuno.
It’s not lost on Mizuno that five months is a hell of a long time to keep golfers waiting but, with photos already floating around the interwebs, there isn’t much point in trying to keep the irons a secret—not that you couldn’t have guessed new JPX were coming anyway.
Why wait?
The idea behind the delay is to reestablish the cadence with the Mizuno Pro line such that every forged model in the lineup gets one year on the shelf before the next one launches.
Yes, JPX and Mizuno Pro are different but, as more technology like the hollow-body Mizuno Pro 225, has crept into Mizuno Pro irons and more beauty has worked its way into the JPX line (nothing here is ugly), there is arguably more overlap than ever.
Long story short: Every forged Mizuno iron gets 12 months alone in the sun.
JPX 923 Forged
The more forgiving of Mizuno’s two forged models, the JPX 923 Forged, is an outlier of sorts in the player’s distance category. It’s still a single-piece forging (no foam fillers, no plasma welded L-faces, etc.). That’s typically not a recipe for distance which is kind of the thing in the player’s distance category.
Fortunately for fans of Mizuno forgings who are also fans of more distance, Mizuno has found ways to engineer speed into what is typically not a speed-favoring construction.
That starts with the forging material Mizuno used in the JPX 923 Forged. As with the JPX 921 Forged, Mizuno is using Grain Flow Forged HD 4120 Chromoly in the 4- to 7-irons. Before Nickel Chromoly, it was the same material Mizuno used in casting the Hot Metal family.
The Chromoly long irons are paired with Mizuno traditional forging material (1025E) in 8-iron to gap wedge.
Why Forged Chromoly?
Simply, Chromoly allows for thinner faces than Mizuno can make with 1025E. As we’ve repeated countless times, a thinner face is a faster face. Chromoly is one of the levers Mizuno pulls to keep pace with other irons in the category.
The downside of Chromoly is that it’s more difficult to forge than 1025E. That adds complexity to the forging process. To achieve the complex geometries of the JPX932 Forged from a single billet of steel, Mizuno had to add another forging step.
Another step in the process adds significant cost (both in terms of time and money) but it’s necessary to achieve the desired performance without sacrificing feel.
Micro-slots
Chromoly is only part of the JPX 923 Forged speed story. While the faces are thinner than they were with JPX 921, even with Chromoly it’s not possible to make faces as thin as they are in multi-piece constructions.
So to bump speed in line with what golfers expect from the player’s distance category, Mizuno milled a micro-slot behind the face of the JPX 923 Forged 4- to 7-irons which allows the face to flex more than it would without a slot.
The slot is 4.2 millimeters thick in the 4- to 6-iron and 3.7 millimeters thick in the 7-iron.
I’m guessing those particulars probably aren’t that important to you but the idea is that Mizuno is trying to create maximum flex (speed) in the long irons before dialing it back as you transition into shorter clubs.
Mizuno doesn’t mill the scoring irons because the COR benefit provided by the micro-slot diminishes at higher lofts.
You’ll find it’s typical across the industry that once you hit 8-iron lofts, whatever the speed-boosting tech happens to be, it disappears.
(As I think this through … nobody charges less for their short irons than their long irons but they probably should.)
Anyway, the Mizuno JPX 923 Forged isn’t Hot Metal fast but the COR (speed) is exceptional for a single-piece forging.
Mizuno JPX 923 Forged Shaping
It’s a preference thing but I’ve always found the JPX Forged irons to be just a little too big for my taste. Perhaps that’s changed this time around.
Having reduced the overall footprint of the JPX 923 Hot Metal Pro, Mizuno had an opportunity to shrink the JPX 923 Forged as well. The new model should be noticeably smaller than its predecessor. It also offers a thinner, more cambered topline which Mizuno says looks as thin as the previous JPX Tour
V-Chassis
As with every other model in the JPX 923 lineup, the JPX 923 forged has a V-Chassis design. Fundamentally, V-Chassis is a bit of clever structural reinforcement that ultimately serves to enhance the feel of the iron.
I’m going to borrow directly from Mizuno’s JPX 923 presentation so you get a better sense of how much engineering (and the resulting geometries) contribute to the feel of an iron.
“By reinforcing the upper portion of the cavity frame, sound pressure between 6000-10000 HZ is reducing, providing a more solid impact sound, closer to JPX Tour.”
Yeah … sound pressure won’t be on the quiz. The point is that exceptional feel doesn’t happen by accident. Achieving it takes a lot of work which is maybe why some irons feel like hot trash.
JPX 923 Forged Specs
JPX 923 Forged lofts are stronger than the previous model. The 7-iron is now 30 degrees while the pitching wedge has dropped to 44 degrees.
Frankly, the JPX 923 Forged is stronger than I thought I’d ever see in a Mizuno forging and the company concedes it’s simply reacting to the market. We can talk about fitting all day but the majority of iron purchases are still driven by distance.
Mizuno has made up for some of the loft-jacking with center-of-gravity locations that are a touch deeper and it’s also emphasizing that JPX Forged is not intended for a low swing speed player.
It’s also important to remember that loft is a fitting variable. If the irons are too strong for your taste, bend them weaker. That’s totally cool.
As with the Hot Metal line, Mizuno has increased bounce by a couple of degrees based on data collected from its Shaft Optimizer
Your JPX 923 Forged summary from Mizuno’s Chris Voshall: “Better feel, faster, better looking.”
I should also mention the Mizuno JPX 923 Forged is available in left-handed as well.
JPX 923 TOUR
It wasn’t all that long ago that Mizuno talked about maintaining clear separation between JPX and MP but time passes, lines blur and, well, what you get is a JPX 923 that Voshall describes as the most MP-ish JPX iron ever.
In some ways, you can think of the JPX 923 Tour as the reimagination of MP-64. It’s a true player’s cavity-back that wouldn’t be the least bit out of place in the Mizuno Pro line.
Tour Shaping
It should go without saying that the JPX 923 is the most compact iron in the JPX lineup. Blade lengths are shorter than they were with JPX 921 with the biggest differences to be found in the scoring irons.
For the sake of clarity, with the JPX 923 Tour, the scoring irons begin with the 6-iron.
As that stuff about the JPX 923 Tour being MP-ish suggests, the new model offers a thinner, more cambered topline. To put that in context, Voshall says it looks thinner than Mizuno’s current MB (even if it technically isn’t).
Because Mizuno added bounce to the JPX 923 Tour sole design, the trailing edge is a bit more rounded and there’s a bit of heel relief as well. The result is a slightly narrower, more versatile sole, presumably with better turf interaction.
More What You’d Expect
As far as the total package is concerned, one might argue the new JPX l923 Tour looks a bit more refined than the previous iteration. I’m not alone when I say that I felt like the JPX 921 was a step back, at least cosmetically, from the 919. A good bit of that might be traceable to the cosmetics where the 921’s cavity badge made the iron look a bit bigger than it really was.
If nothing else, it probably wasn’t what the JPX Tour wheelhouse player wanted to see.
With the badge gone, the shape tweaked slightly, the JPX 923 Forged just looks cleaner. That’s my two cents, anyway.
The idea was to create something that’s really going to resonate with the target player. My hunch is Mizuno has succeeded.
V-Chassis Design
Like the other JPX 923 Irons, the JPX 932 Tour includes the V-Chassis design. Once again, V-Chassis serves to reinforce the topline and toe sections of the iron for the purposes of tuning sound and feel of the iron.
Copper Underlay
Speaking again to the importance of feel to the JPX 923 Tour story, the new model features a soft copper underlay—a layer of copper applied between the forged 1025E head and the finish material. Mizuno has used copper in the two most recent iterations of the MP/Mizuno Pro line but this is the first time copper has been used in a JPX iron.
Voshall says the copper “turns down the volume” which golfers should experience as softer feel. In testing with Tour players, about 90 percent noticed a difference between the JPX Tour with copper and one without.
JPX 923 Tour Specs
While Mizuno has added a bit of bounce, key specs—primarily loft and lie—are unchanged from the previous model and mirror those of the Mizuno Pro 221.
It’s not something that’s discussed often but, if you wanted to blend your set across Mizuno Pro and JPX lines, it can absolutely be done.
Sorry, lefties. The Mizuno JPX 923 Tour is available in right-handed only.
No Putts Given Bonus Edition
Be sure to check out this special bonus edition of No Putts Given where we discuss the new JPX 923 lineup and so much more with Mizuno’s Chris Voshall.
JPX 923 Forged and Tour Specs, Pricing and Availability
The Mizuno JPX 923 Forged and JPX 923 Tour will be available in early February 2023. Retail price is $187.50 per club.
For more information, visit Mizunogolf.com.
JPX 923 Hot Metal Irons
Mizuno has also released a new lineup of JPX 923 Hot Metal irons.
Our story on the Mizuno JPX 923 Hot Metal family can be found here.
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