Titleist Brand Ambassador Søren Hansen made a brief detour as he traveled from his home in Monaco to this week's World Golf Championships - Bridgestone Invitational. Søren and Titleist Tour Leadership representative for the PGA European Tour Mattias Jelver paid a visit to Acushnet Company's World Headquarters in Fairhaven, Mass. In addition to saying hello and spreading some goodwill among Titleist and FootJoy employees, Søren and Mattias booked an appointment to visit the Acushnet Company Testing Facility where a set each of Titleist's new MB and CB irons, built to Søren's specifications, awaited him. Click the photo gallery below for an insider's look at Søren's fitting and the new MB and CB irons.

Søren Hansen tests the new MB and CB irons

Søren has played a set of 670 irons for many years and has been reluctant to switch out of the traditional blades. Søren is a wonderful iron player and he relies greatly on his ability to properly flight and work his iron shots. The feel and feedback that the muscle back 670 irons have provided is also something that Søren can't sacrifice. Mattias, however, having seen prototypes of the new MB and CB irons, knew that the time was right to get Søren back on the proving grounds.

Several players in the U.S. have already put the new irons in the bag, including Titleist Brand Ambassador Greg Chalmers, who used a full set of CB irons en route to his best performance of the season, a runner-up finish at last week's Buick Open. At the Acushnet Test Facility, Søren compared the new irons to his own and against one another, utilizing a Trackman Launch Monitor and the expertise of Acushnet U.S. Player Research representatives Karen Gray, Jeff Beyers, Alex Stimpson and James Kroeger.

At the end of his session, Søren fit beautifully into the new irons, but he was left with two difficult decisions. The first dilemma was whether to mix 3- and 4- CB irons into his set, or 3-, 4- and 5- (he hit the MB 5-iron nearly identically to the CB 5-iron, but the CB moved through the turf a little easier for him). The second (and more difficult) question in Søren's mind was whether to put the new irons straight in the bag for the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational (Mattias has promised us an update from Akron).