Nike CPR Mixed set

CPR sand wedge

Price: £529 (graphite shaft), £449 (steel)

Nike certainly came up with a mouthful when they introduced their Clubs for Prevention and Recovery (CPR) mixed set. Someone in marketing must have been having a snappy title by-pass that week!

But don’t be deceived by the unwieldy name. This is as versatile a set of clubs as you’ll ever lay your hands on.

It comprises two CPR scooped profile woods (22 and 26 degrees and equivalent to a 7- and 9-wood, respectively), and six irons (5-iron to PW). Buy the distinctive graphite shafts and Nike will throw in a 56-degree sand wedge, too.

As I have already described in my review of the 22-degree

CPR wood, these magenta-headed clubs are sexy and stylish, with all the forgiveness of a feather bed.

The irons feature a wide sole and a distinctive plum-coloured cavity creating a low centre of gravity to help get the ball airborne.

Because of the wide sole, the mid-irons are almost impossible to hit ‘fat’ which is a real confidence booster. The 9-iron delivered a high soft-landing arc and the pitching wedge performed superbly when hit full out. The heavier wider sole made control on chips not quite as easy, however.

CPR iron and wood

As for the 56-degree sand wedge, results were self-consciously outstanding – from soft flops to aggressive, biting greenside sand escapes. It quickly relegated my regular sand wedge to the subs bench in the boot of the car.

Much credit for the performance of the irons must go to the lightweight soft tip profile, lightweight (70 gram) R-flex graphite shafts which added to the overall feel-good factor.

"The CPR Mixed Set takes the guessing and the apprehension out of golf and replaces them with confidence and a new game plan, much the way the original CPR clubs replaced long irons," said Nike’s Mike Kelly.

And I would have to agree with ‘Nike Mike’. These clubs were very playable, and relatively easy to control, with a high flight and good spin. I usually favour a steel-shaft in my irons, but these convinced me otherwise. A bit pricey for the graphite shaft models, but there’s an extra sand wedge incentive and they’re so forgiving.