FIELDREPORT
Breaking new ground
New turf-gliding soles feature strongly in Titleist’s 714 irons range, launching in November. The brand’s golf product and fitting manager Richard Temple explains that though the four models may be the same as the outgoing 712s, the products are certainly not. Duncan Lennard reports…
W
hile the European Tour’s three-week August hiatus was generally cursed and
condemned, it did at least create a window of opportunity for the folks at Titleist. The brand brings new irons to
market on a two-year cycle, launching in November – on the face of it a curious time of the year to champion fresh product, though it arguably allows them to steal a march on their competitors. This year however, the extended mid-season layoff gave the brand the perfect chance to put the class of 2014 into the hands of their tour staff. “We actually have around 20
players using the 714 models now because they’ve had time to try them and compare them to their existing products,” reveals Richard Temple, Titleist’s golf product and fitting
manager. Meanwhile, in America, Jason Dufner was already putting one of the four new models – the AP2 – to rather good use at the US PGA. As a brand, Titleist prefers evolution
to revolution. Their iron line-up for 2014 mirrors that of the 712s of 2012 – a cruelly beautiful forged muscle-back (MB), an elegant forged player’s cavity- back (CB), plus the broader-appeal AP1 and forged AP2 which, while still relatively compact, show considerably more interest in aspects like launch-assist and forgiveness. We should not, however, confuse the same names with the same clubs. All four show thoughtful updates, especially the Advanced Performance duo which, Temple estimates, make up around 85% of the company’s irons business. “Our customers are not looking for large, game-improvement heads in
their irons,” Temple insists. “They still want to look down on a reasonably compact head. So the challenge for our engineers has been to boost forgiveness and stability without altering the club’s chassis.” For the forged AP2 they found an
“Our customers are not looking for large, game- improvement heads in their irons,”
innovative solution – positioning weight inside the hosel itself to increase the iron’s moment of inertia (MOI). “The 712 AP2 had tungsten in the heel and toe to aid stability,” Temple continues. “But with the 714, the iron is actually pulled out during the forging process. Ahole is drilled in the hosel, tungsten is forged into the hole, and then thesteel forging process is completed. “We call it co-forging. It gets the
weight as far from the toe as possible, boosting the head’s MOI without increasing its footprint.” However, perhaps the key changes
in the APs 1 and 2 have targeted flight control. Building on the theme that every iron in the bag has its own job to do – and so needs individual optimising – both ranges have undergone subtle but important tweaks to help the longer irons fly higher, and the loſted irons lower. The AP1 now has an undercut beneath the top edge, while the AP2’s longer irons parade a thinner upper face. Both lower their respective face’s centre of gravity, promoting easier long-iron launch. Those CGs have also been nudged closer to the face to promote a more solid feel. Progressive weighting brings the launch down as the loſt increases. “If you asked a golfer which club
flies higher, wedge or 3-iron, most would plump for the wedge,” says
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