Callaway Apex Ti Fusion irons

Gear: Callaway Apex Ti Fusion irons
Price: $300 each with True Temper Dynamic Gold Mid Gunmetal steel shafts or Mitsubishi MMT graphite shafts and Golf Pride Z grips
Specs: Forged 1020 stainless steel body with brazed titanium face, internal urethane microspheres, adjustable back weight, and diamond-like coating
Available:  Aug. 15 (pre-sale); Aug. 23 (in stores)

Who it’s for:  Low- to mid-handicap golfers who want more distance, feel, and consistency.

What you should know: Callaway Apex Ti Fusion irons blend a soft stainless steel body with a titanium face designed using artificial intelligence and internal urethane material to create more ball speed, a softer feel, and more consistency.

The deep dive: “Ladies and gentlemen, have fun.” Something like that must have been said to the club designers and engineers at Callaway before they created the new Apex Ti Fusion irons.

While the new Apex Ai200 and Ai300 are game-improvement clubs for the masses, the materials and technologies packed into the Apex Ti Fusion enabled Callaway’s club makers to elevate their design approach for a slightly-better set of players.

The Apex Ti Fusion has a titanium face attached to a stainless steel body. (David Dusek/Golfweek)

The story with the Apex Ti Fusion irons is all about the hitting area. The forged stainless steel body is similar in design to the new Ai200, although it is slightly smaller. However, the cup face given to the Apex Ti Fusion irons is very different. While the new Ai200 and Ai300 have forged stainless steel faces, the Apex Ti Fusion irons feature titanium faces.

Callaway is not claiming that the Apex Ti Fusion irons are the first titanium irons in golf, but the Carlsbad, California-based company developed a new way to bond titanium to stainless steel, a process that typically is not possible. The new manufacturing process allows the thin, titanium cup face to flex more efficiently at the moment of impact for increased ball speed instead of being slowed by the stiffer stainless steel that holds it.

To maximize the titanium face’s performance, Callaway designers used artificial intelligence to simulate and test different face patterns and designs, then determined which would produce the best performance for each club in the set. As a result, the long iron faces were optimized to enhance distance and forgiveness on mishits, while the short irons and scoring clubs feature more spin consistency for better distance control and accuracy.

The Apex…