Cobra Golf introduces first commercially available 3D printed Irons

Ground-breaking innovation using additive manufacturing unlocks game improvement performance in a blade-like profile with exceptional feel.

Johnny Percival

15 May 2024

Cobra Golf, a leader in golf club innovation and 3D printing technology, introduces the new LIMIT3D irons, the world’s first set of commercially available 3D printed steel irons.

After becoming the first golf company to introduce a 3D printed steel putter in 2020 and then following it up with a full line of KING 3D printed multi-material putters in 2021, engineers at Cobra set out to be the first to apply the new technology to iron design.

GolfMagic looks forward to testing these irons very soon to see if they can find a place in our best irons guide.

Cobra partnered with nTop, a leader in computational design software whose namesake product helps companies create better-performing, state-of-the-art designs that leverage the benefits of additive manufacturing.

Leveraging their partnership with nTop, Cobra embarked on an ambitious goal to create a compact player’s blade profile that offers a similar level of forgiveness as an oversized, game-improvement club with the feel of a forged iron.

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The LIMIT3D irons are the product of these innovative advancements and are an industry first in performance and manufacturing.

Cobra is always looking for meaningful ways to use new technology to create superior products and performance," said Mike Yagley, Vice President of Innovation & AI, Cobra Golf.

"nTop's computational design tools integrated with 3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, allowed us to create an incredible new design that looks and feels like a forged blade but performs like a larger, game-improvement iron. No one has done this before, and we're excited to introduce these unique irons to the world," he added.

Traditionally, to design an iron with more forgiveness meant sacrificing the look and feel of the iron by making it larger in profile. Cobra’s mission was to design an iron that had the shape and feel of a compact blade desired by better players, with the forgiveness that the aspirational player needs.

Before now, an iron like this has never existed or been achievable due to design and manufacturing constraints with traditional methods like casting and forging.

Designed using nTop’s software and manufactured with 3D printing technology, Cobra’S LIMIT3D 3D printed irons feature a compact shape (slightly smaller in size than the Cobra KING Tour iron).

The fully 3D printed 316L stainless steel body features an innovative internal lattice structure that allows 33% of the overall clubhead weight to be repositioned without sacrificing strength.

This unique design, which is only possible using 3D printing, allows for up to 100g of tungsten to be placed in the heel and toe areas of the clubhead, creating a low CG and an exceptionally high moment of inertia (MOI) relative to the shape and size of the club.

The result is a compact blade shape with a low CG location, high forgiveness, and distance comparable to that of a player’s distance or game improvement model like Cobra’s KING TEC or TEC-X irons.

An additional benefit of nTop’s design software coupled with the use of additive manufacturing is the speed at which Cobra engineers were able to create and test prototypes.

nTop’s software capabilities allowed Cobra to automate the design exploration process and make iterations two times faster to speed up the development process significantly.

The faster process also allowed Cobras R&D team to test a variety of lattice designs to optimise internal mass distribution and acoustics, resulting in a final product that exceeded expectations in looks, performance, and soft feel to appeal to the most discerning players.

“Our new Limited-Edition 3D Printed irons represent Cobra’s dedication to pushing performance and technology to the limits,” said Jose Miraflor, Vice President of Product Architecture, Cobra Golf. “These incredible new irons are the most significant technological advancement to happen to the category in the past 20 years and offer a look into the future of golf club design and performance.”

There are only 500 sets available worldwide of the new LIMIT3D 3D printed irons (350 in US and Canada). Each of the first run 500 sets are marked with 1/500 which truly make them the “first” of their kind.

Beginning on June 7th, these ultra-premium limited-edition irons will be available for custom order only in the US and Canada.

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