Srixon ZX Mk II Fairways and Hybrids

Srixon ZX Mk II Fairways and Hybrids – Key Takeaways

Invisible engineering tweaks to 2021’s Most Wanted Fairway Wood CG and shaping updates for hybrids, designed for a skilled player’s eye Fairways $279.99; hybrids $249.99 Available at retail Jan 20

The new Srixon ZX Mk II Fairways and hybrids follow two fundamental rules of modern golf club design. If you have a winner of a club that’s due for an update, the first rule is simple: Do no harm. And the second? If you have a meh performer, find a way to make it fly higher and, hopefully, longer.

Rule One applies to Srixon’s high-performing fairways woods while Rule Two sits squarely on the company’s surprisingly underwhelming hybrids. Can Srixon do no harm to the fairways while giving its hybrids a boost? Let’s take a look.

Srixon ZX Mk Fairways and Hybrids

Srixon’s last two fairway wood iterations were winners, literally. The 2019 ZF85 was the longest fairway wood tested in that year’s Most Wanted shootout. It also had the highest ball speed of any fairway club tested and was second in forgiveness.

In 2021, the updated ZX fairway copped top overall Most Wanted honors. It was still the distance champion and testers loved the looks.

The hybrids? Both the 2021 ZX and the 2019 ZH85 were bottom-third performers in Most Wanted. That’s surprising as hybrids from corporate stablemates Cleveland and XXIO were both top-half performers.

“These are really sleeper products in the marketplace,” says Srixon R&D VP Jeff Brunski. “This has definitely been a challenge in R&D. We definitely wanted to see incremental improvements and not mess up what was already working well.”

As mentioned in our piece on the new Srixon ZX Mk II drivers, Srixon is a believer in corporate Kaizen. “Kaizen” is a Japanese business philosophy of continuous improvement. Because of it, don’t expect flashy new technology or features. That’s not the Srixon way.

“The benefit is consistency. The consumer knows what they’re getting when they buy a Srixon product,” says Brunski. “Maybe you’re not first to market but you’re also not jumping around.”

Do No Harm

Fairway woods and hybrids are always the red-headed stepchildren of metalwoods launches. But 2023 promises to be a fascinating year for fairways. It’ll be interesting to see how Srixon’s “incremental improvements” stack up.

What are those improvements? Primarily, it’s further optimization of Srixon’s signature Rebound Frame technology. We discussed Rebound Frame in the aforementioned driver article. It’s Srixon’s way of maximizing face deflection for better ball speed. A flexible face is backed up by alternating stiff, flexible and stiff sections to create a double-trampoline effect.

As Most Wanted testing tells us, it’s pretty effective. Srixon thinks it can make it better.

“It’s not visible but the radii of how we transition into the face perimeter—that spec has changed by 60 to 90 percent,” says Brunski, “It’s substantially different from a geometry standpoint (from the previous model). To the naked eye and from a layman’s standpoint, it looks like it hasn’t evolved much but the spec has changed dramatically.”

Srixon says the new geometry is producing nearly a full mile-per-hour faster ball speed compared to the previous ZX fairway wood. That may not excite you much but it does qualify as an “incremental improvement.”

And it does no harm.

Carbon Crowns and Cannon Soles

While Srixon abandoned carbon fiber crowns in the ZX Mk II driver line, you’ll still see carbon crowns in the fairways, at least in the 13.5- and 15-degree 3-woods. When combined with Cannon Sole (a floating weight pad in the sole) and Srixon’s signature Crown Step, the goal is to get the CG as low as possible. That helps those of us who aren’t blessed with the Tour-level club head speed needed to get 3-woods up in the air.

The higher lofted 5- and 7-woods are still using steel crowns as the weight differences in the smaller heads don’t make all that much difference.

And, as with previous models, the ZX Mk II fairways are not adjustable.

“Once you’re fit and actually playing, we don’t see a lot of adjustments going on with fairway woods,” says Brunski. “We’re trying to use mass as effectively as possible.”

Fitters, however, will be equipped with swappable heads so golfers can easily try different shafts.

If there’s one thing our testers didn’t like about the Srixon fairways woods, it was the acoustics. This iteration is noticeably better, but there’s still room for improvement. We’ve been testing the 18-degree 5-wood and while it is easy to launch and performs as expected, the sound is, shall we say, less than optimum.

You can call it feedback if you want but it’s one area for Srixon to get its Kaizen on.

Srixon ZX Mk II Hybrids

As mentioned, the last two Srixon hybrid iterations have been mediocre performers, at best. Those are head-scratching results as both XXIO and Cleveland hybrids have been solid.

For 2023, the new Srixon ZX Mk II hybrids are getting a bit more of a makeover than the fairways. Based on Tour input, the shaping is more compact. It’s a smaller profile with a more neutral face angle. Srixon says the new shaping should be better suited to a skilled player’s eye.

And part of the new shaping is a redesigned Rebound Frame and a thinner face.

“It’s three-percent thinner. That’s not a big number but it’s something,” says Brunski. “And the radius coming off the leading edge near the turf is 52 degrees larger. That’s a big increase in providing both flexibility and stiffness so we can create that two-trampoline effect.”

Previous Srixon hybrids were distance-challenged in our testing but they were among the most accurate. Srixon says the new Rebound Frame geometry, as well as the slightly thinner face, should provide more dependable distance and more consistent spin on shots struck high or low on the face.

That should translate to faster ball speeds. Srixon says its own testing shows a 1.6-mph uptick over the 2021 models.

Srixon ZX Mk II Fairways and Hybrids: Specs, Price, Availability

The new Srixon ZX Mk II fairways will be available in the standard 3-, 5- and 7-woods (15-, 18- and 21-degrees, respectively), as well as a 13.5-degree 3+ wood. The Project X HZRDUS Smoke Red RDX is the stock shaft. Srixon classifies it as a mid-launch, mid-spin option and it will be available with a 50-gram A-flex and 60-gram R-, S- and X-flexes.

The 3- and 5-woods are available for both lefties and righties. The 3+ and 7-woods are right-handed only.

The Srixon ZX Mk II hybrids are available in five lofts (17, 19, 22, 25- and 28 degrees) The 19-degree 3- and 22-degree 4-hybrids are available in right- and left-handed models. The rest are righty only.

The same HZRDUS Smoke Red RDX shaft is stock, in 70-gram (A- and R-flexes) and 80-gram (S- and X-flexes) models.

The Golf Pride Tour Velvet 360 is the stock grip for both the hybrids and fairways.

The fairways will retail for $279.99 each while the hybrids will go for $249.99. They’ll be in stores Jan. 20.

For more information, visit Srixon.com.

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