What Are the Mid-Irons in Golf?
But that definition has always been a bit fluid, and throughout golf's history it hasn't been all that rare for a golfer here or there to think of his mid-irons as the 4-, 5- and 6-irons, or the 4- through 7-irons, or even the 5- through 8-irons.
However, most commonly the mid-irons are thought of as comprising the 5-iron, 6-iron and 7-iron.
When we talk about "traditional" sets of irons, we're talking about iron sets as they existed before hybrid clubs came along. Traditional irons are usually thought of as running from the 3-iron through the pitching wedge, for eight clubs; or 3-iron through sand wedge, for nine clubs. (Going back a little farther, it was once common for a 2-iron to be included in basic iron sets.)
So in that traditional set of irons, the 3- and 4-iron were usually called the long irons, the 5-, 6- and 7-irons were known as the mid-irons, and the 8- and 9-iron plus the pitching wedge were called the short irons. Those names still are used today, but today many golfers have replaced long irons with hybrids. And some golfers even replace their mid-irons with hybrids — 5-, 6- and 7-hybrids, rather than irons.
Golf clubs have steadily evolved throughout golf history, which means that set composition (the arrangement of clubs carried by any given golfer) has also evolved. But, back to the original question: What are the mid-irons? When that term is used, it is most likely being applied to the 5-, 6- and 7-irons.
(Speaking of the evolution of golf clubs, in the years before the advent of numbered golf clubs, back when clubs went by names, there was an individual club named "mid-iron." It was equivalent to a 2-iron and fell between the driving iron and mid-mashie in a golfer's set.)
Related definitions:
