First Look: Mizuno JPX 900 Fairway Woods and Hybrids

By: John Barba

Just how seriously do you take your Fairway Wood?

Is it primarily an off-the-tee option for scary narrow holes or do you, you know, actually hit it off the fairway?

Mizuno has been busy today, announcing its new JPX 900 line of drivers, hybrids and fairway woods to go along with its already announced JPX 900 series of irons. It’s always a given that Mizuno’s irons are serious clubs for serious players regardless of handicap. With the new metalwood lineup, it’s pretty clear Mizuno wants to be a serious player in that game, as well.

And the JPX 900 is one serious fairway wood.

The Spin Cycle

Spin is as important to fairway wood performance as it is to driver performance. A low spinning fairway wood in the hands of a high swing speed player can be a dangerous weapon. A low swing speed player, however, is going to have serious issues with lift and carry.

Mizuno is adding a slightly modified Fast Track Technology – a 15-gram sliding tungsten weight in the sole – to the JPX 900 fairway woods. While the driver features two sliding 8 gram tungsten weights, the fairway woods have a single sliding weight to allow a player to dial in more or less spin. Unlike the lighter weights in the JPX 900 driver, the fairway wood weight is not removable. But by sliding it back and forth you can move the sweet spot by a full millimeter and adjust the club’s center of gravity of 2.3 millimeters, which is significant.

“Our testing shows moving the weight can cause a spin rate variance of about 450 RPM on average,” says Chris Voshall, club engineer at Mizuno. “For some players it’ll be more, for some it’s less, but it’s a large variance. It helps make this fairway wood fit for a wide range of players.”

Adjusting the Fast Track is pretty simple, just loosen the screw and slide the weight where you want it. For more MOI, move the weight back – the further back the weight is the higher sweet spot will be, and a high sweet spot means high spin. The more you move the weight forward, the lower the sweet spot and the more forward the CG will be and, therefore, the lower the spin.

Head Size, Waffles & Shock Waves

The JPX 900 certainly isn’t a game improvement fairway wood. While the 3 wood’s head size is a fairly compact 167cc, it’s a bit larger than the M1 or even Callaway’s XR 16 Pro.

To keep the center of gravity as low as possible, Mizuno is giving the JPX 900 a Waffle Crown. The underside of the crown actually looks like a waffle, with thickness varying from .55 to .35 millimeters. The weight saved there is redistributed lower in the clubhead.

The JPX 900 also features Mizuno’s distinctive Shock Wave Sole. It’s designed to allow the face to flex more at impact and maintain a higher COR, especially on low impact, to promote faster ball speeds, but in the case of the JPX 900 it’s also designed to keep spin down. The 900’s Shock Wave is very different from the Shock Wave Sole in Mizuno’s ultra-forgiving JPX EZ fairway wood.

The JPX EZ’s Shock Wave Sole is ultra thin and light, allowing Mizuno to move as much weight as possible toward the rear of the club for higher launch and more MOI. In the JPX 900, the Shock Wave Sole is much thicker, providing more mass toward the front of the club to lower spin.

Quick Switch Adjustability

Mizuno has redesigned its Quick Switch adapter for the JPX 900 line. The 850 series adapters were labeled with specific lofts, but the new 900 adapters for the fairways woods (and hybrids) are simply labeled STD and then +/- . The JPX 900’s are adjustable 2⁰ up or down, meaning the 15-degree 3 wood can be adjusted anywhere from 13⁰ up to 17⁰. The lie is also adjustable, but if you set it to the upright position, loft is adjustable only 1⁰ up or down.

The new adapters are backwards compatible to the JPX 850 and EZ models, but the new ones are left and right hand specific and are clearly labeled as such.

As with the JPX 900 driver, the stock shaft for the fairway wood is the real deal, made in Japan Fujikura Speeder Evolution II. In fact, it’s the same shaft that’s used in the driver, just cut down to fairway wood length.

Specs, Pricing, and Availability

The JPX 900 will be offered in 3, 5 and 7 woods (15, 18 and 21 degrees, respectively) for righties and in the 3 and 5 for lefties. Golf Pride’s M31 grip is standard.

The JPX 900 fairway will be $299.99 when it hits stores September 16^th.

JPX 900 Hybrids

When it comes to hybrids, there’s your mini-fairway wood type (Callaway’s recent Steelhead XR release, for example), and there’s the Tour-inspired long iron replacement type for better players (Callaway Apex, Hogan VKTR, TaylorMade M1, for example).

But what about something that’s kinda, sorta, maybe somewhere in the middle? That seems to be where Mizuno is aiming with its new JPX 900 hybrid, and it’s a bit of a departure from how Mizuno has looked at hybrids in the past.

A Better Player’s Hybrid? 

Mizuno’s hybrids have traditionally leaned more towards the mini-fairway wood end of the spectrum – Mizuno admits they’ve been a tad stubborn about that – with an emphasis on high MOI and distance. That requires a deeper front-to-back look and a longer heel-to-toe look. Forgiving, but spinnier than the better player may be looking for.

The head of the JPX 900 is noticeably more compact the previous Mizuno hybrids, but it’s still a tad larger when compared to the Apex, M1 and others. It’s a tweener, but definitely aimed at the better player with a low and shallow center of gravity to reduce spin when compared to Mizuno’s previous better player hybrid, the JPX 850.

The JPX 900 features Mizuno’s Shock Wave Sole technology, which is designed to improve COR (essentially face flex at impact), particularly low on the face. If you compare the Shock Wave Sole on the 900 to previous models, you’ll find the waves noticeably less aggressive compared to both the JPX EZ and JPX 850. Mizuno says the 900’s waves are smaller but the sole is thicker, designed to move more mass low and forward for less spin but still allowing you to get the ball up in the air. The waves on the EZ (and, to a lesser extent, on the 850), while covering more of the sole, have much less mass and are designed to get the ball up in the air easier, but with much more spin.

Flatter, Shorter

The smaller head isn’t the only change Mizuno has made to appeal to better players. Mizuno has also equipped the new 900 with a slightly shorter shaft and a flatter lie angle (it’s loft & lie adjustable – a first for Mizuno hybrids) than its previous offerings.

“We’ve seen that the world of hybrids has gotten so upright,” says Mizuno Golf Club Engineer Chris Voshall. “We wanted to address that, especially for the better player who struggles with left pulls or hooks with hybrids. We wanted to make sure this was shorter in shaft length and flatter, with the ability to adjust from there.”

The JPX 900’s standard lie is a full degree flatter than those of the non-adjustable JPX 850 and JPX EZ. What’s more, the JPX 900 can be adjusted 1 degree flatter or 2 degrees more upright.

Shaftwise, the 16⁰ 2 hybrid and the 19⁰ 3 hybrid are ½” and ¼” shorter, respectively, compared to the 850 and EZ. The 4 hybrid is the same length while the 5 hybrid is actually ¼” longer. Mizuno says better players are more likely to carry the lower lofted hybrids in their bags, while higher handicappers are more likely to carry the 4 and 5. The shorter shaft length, combined with what Mizuno calls Face Progression Technology is intended to make the 2 or 3 hybrid more versatile for the better player.

“With Face Progression on the 2, the face is settled further back, meaning a more penetrating ball flight. The stronger player who usually carries the 2 or 3 hybrid wants to be able to do stuff with his hybrid. You’re able to hit knockdowns and throw it up in the air if you need to.” – Chris Voshall

Mizuno compared the JPX 900 to the TaylorMade M1 (which has shafts ¼” longer across the line) and found the 900 provided roughly 1 MPH more ball speed and a few hundred RPM more spin. That higher spin, according to Mizuno, produced a steeper landing angle.

Pricing, Specifications, and Availability

The stock shaft for the JPX 900 hybrids is the real deal Fujikura Pro Hybrid. Mizuno says they wanted the best performing hybrid shaft they could find, but it’s a nice coincidence that the Fuji’s blue/black graphics match the blue/black clubhead perfectly.

The JPX 900 is available in 16, 19, 22 and 25-degree lofts for righties, and 19 and 22-degree lofts for lefties. Each loft is adjustable 2 degrees up or down. The stock grip is the Golf Pride M31.

List price for the JPX 900 is $249.99. They’ll be in stores September 16^th.