When Bryson DeChambeau turned professional in 2017, he made a prediction. After winning the John Deere Classic — the first PGA Tour winner ever to use single-length irons — he called it “the day the game changed.”
He was wrong, in one sense. The game did not change. Tour players did not rush to adopt one-length sets. The major manufacturers largely held back. Golf instruction did not pivot to accommodate the new philosophy. Seven years later, Bryson remains almost alone among professional golfers in using irons all built to the same shaft length.
And yet he has won two US Open titles, nine PGA Tour events, and produced some of the most remarkable iron play in professional golf using a concept that most of his contemporaries dismissed as eccentricity.
So is Bryson right? Should you be playing one-length irons?
The honest answer is: it depends on exactly who you are. And the honest version of that answer is more nuanced than either the believers or the sceptics tend to admit.
What One-Length Irons Actually Are
A standard set of irons increases in shaft length as you go from short irons to long irons. Your pitching wedge is typically around 35.5 inches. Your 5-iron is around 38 inches. Your 4-iron is around 38.5 inches. Each club requires a slightly different stance, ball position and swing shape — which is why most golfers find their short irons reliable and their long irons something to actively avoid.
One-length irons are exactly what they sound like. Every iron in the set is built to the same shaft length — typically the equivalent of a 6-iron or 7-iron, in Bryson’s case 37.5 inches. The 4-iron is the same length as the pitching wedge. The setup is identical for every club. In theory, one swing fits all.
The idea is not new. Tommy Armour Golf tried it in 1989 with a set called EQL irons. They sold poorly and disappeared. The technology to support the concept — the ability to engineer consistent distance gaps and launch angles across a set of uniformly-lengthed irons — simply did not exist yet.
Bryson picked up the idea from a book called The Golfing Machine, adopted it as an amateur, built his first set by cutting shafts from old Nike irons and adding lead tape to compensate, won the NCAA individual championship and the US Amateur with it, and has used it ever since.
What Bryson’s Irons Actually Look Like
Bryson’s current irons are not something you can buy.
His Avoda prototype irons — which he returned to in 2025 after a brief experiment with LA Golf — are 3D-printed, one-of-two sets in the world. They are hollow-bodied, feature bulge and curvature on the face (a technology normally reserved for drivers), have lofts of 18/22/26/30/35/40 degrees, and are built to a swing weight that would feel alien to any normal golfer. His grips alone weigh 123 grams — heavier than most shafts.
One journalist from Golf Monthly was given access to Bryson’s actual backup set and reported that swinging one felt like nothing she’d ever experienced. Every iron from 5-iron to lob wedge was 37.5 inches. Every one had the same grip — a Jumbo Max Tour Series XL at 1.46 inches diameter, compared to the 1 inch butt diameter on a standard grip. The total weight of the club was around 525 grams, when a heavy standard 7-iron barely reaches 450.
This is equipment built for a man who generates 130mph swing speed, needs bulge and roll on his iron faces to manage mishits at those speeds, and has spent years engineering every variable in his bag to accommodate a physics-based approach to the game that nobody else on tour shares.
The point: Bryson’s one-length irons are not the same proposition as buying a set of Cobra King One Length irons off the shelf. They are the extreme, bespoke end of a concept that has more practical versions available to amateur golfers.
The Case For
The central argument for one-length irons is consistency, and it’s a real argument.
In a standard set, you are effectively learning 8-10 different setups and swing shapes. The ball position, spine tilt, and distance from the ball all change as you move through the bag. Good players manage this through years of repetition. Most amateur golfers — particularly 15-25 handicappers — never fully internalise it. The result is that their 9-iron is dependable and their 5-iron is a liability.
With one-length irons, you establish one setup, one posture, one swing. You practice it with your 7-iron — the club most golfers hit best — and the same swing applies to every iron in the bag. When you work on a flaw in your 4-iron, you’ve fixed every club simultaneously.
The long iron problem is where this becomes genuinely compelling. Testing published by Golf Magazine found that high handicappers struck the centre of the face significantly more often with single-length 4- and 5-irons than with standard length clubs. The tighter dispersion on long iron approach shots was measurable. For the golfer whose 4-iron and 5-iron go exactly the same distance because they can’t consistently find the sweet spot with the longer club, one-length irons address the actual problem.
As one instructor put it: “How many of us can say our 4-iron consistently goes further than our 5-iron? If the majority of club golfers hit 20 shots on a launch monitor with each, they’d be surprised how minimal the yardage gap actually was.”
The Case Against
The arguments against are real too, and the hype often obscures them.
The short iron problem. Making the pitching wedge the same length as a 5-iron means the pitching wedge is longer than it would be in a standard set. Longer short irons launch the ball higher and longer — which sounds good until you consider that your scoring clubs need precision above all else. Several testers in the Golf Magazine study hit their single-length 9-iron and pitching wedge heavy more often than their standard equivalents. Longer short irons are harder to control, not easier.
Lower long iron ball flight. Single-length 4- and 5-irons launch lower than their standard equivalents because shorter shafts generate less dynamic loft at impact. Lower ball flight into greens means less stopping power. For a 15-handicapper on a firm course, that’s a genuine problem.
Distance gapping. The same shaft length across the set means the manufacturer has to work harder to create consistent 10-yard gaps between clubs through loft engineering rather than the combined effect of loft and length. Modern single-length sets have improved significantly in this area, but testing still shows gapping can be less predictable than in a well-fitted standard set.
They won’t fix your swing. This is the most important caveat of all. One-length irons make the same swing more repeatable. They do not make a bad swing better. If your ball-striking problems come from swing mechanics rather than inconsistent setup, single-length irons change nothing except what the clubs look like in your bag.
Who Should Actually Try Them
The golfer most likely to benefit from one-length irons is specific: mid-to-high handicapper, reasonably consistent with their short irons, but suffering genuine inconsistency with their 4-iron and 5-iron to the point where they’d rather not use those clubs at all.
If you already hit your long irons reasonably well, you are unlikely to gain much and may lose some ball flight and control in your short irons.
If your 4-iron and 5-iron are in your bag purely out of tradition — because you never actually choose to hit them on the course — one-length irons offer a genuine case for trial. You may find that a 5-iron at 7-iron length becomes a club you’re actually comfortable reaching for.
The fitting caveat applies firmly here. One-length irons require proper fitting to establish the right shaft length for your swing, the right lie angles, and the right loft gaps. Buying off the shelf and hoping for the best is the wrong approach. The concept rewards commitment and customisation.
What to Actually Buy
If you want to explore one-length irons, Cobra remains the only major manufacturer offering a commercially available set. Their King line has been through several iterations and represents the most accessible and well-tested entry point into the concept.
Wishon Golf and Edel (the company that made Bryson’s original sets) offer fitted options for golfers prepared to invest in a proper build.
Do not simply cut your existing shafts to the same length. This throws off swing weight, lie angles and loft gaps in ways that are unlikely to produce the benefits the concept offers.
The Verdict
Bryson’s one-length irons are not a gimmick. The concept has genuine merit for specific golfers, and two US Open titles are not nothing.
But they are not a revolution, either. The tour did not follow Bryson. The game did not change. One-length irons remain a niche solution that works brilliantly for some golfers and changes nothing for others.
If you genuinely struggle with your long irons to the point where they’ve become dead weight in your bag, they are worth a fitting and a proper test. If your iron play is reasonably consistent and your problems lie elsewhere — putting, around the greens, course management — a set of one-length irons will not fix any of that.
Bryson is a genius with equipment. He’s also a complete one-off. The concept he champions is real. Whether it’s right for you depends on an honest assessment of where your game actually breaks down.
And that, in golf, is always where the right answer lives.
