FIELDREPORT Steel mettle
Titleist’s class of 2016 brings the brand’s hybrids into line with its irons, and sees increased use of tungsten to boost forgiveness, assist launch and add distance. Product and fitting manager Richard Temple takes us through the new hardware
weapon of escape; but as the genre has developed and flourished, golf brands have increasingly seen the hybrid as a club not so muchto get you out of a hole, as to help get you into one. “The hybrid has become more of a scoring
T
club than a trouble club,” asserts Titleist’s golf club product and fitting manager Richard Temple. “They are increasingly being used to replace long irons, especially for slower swing speeds; and the more fitting we do, the more we are told it makes sense to fit irons and hybrids at the same time. This is about looking at the long end of the set, assessing where you start to see a drop-off in a golfer’s performance and how can it be addressed.” Such thinking explains why Titleist have
reassessed their biennial launching policies – woods in the odd years, irons in the even – and decided to move hybrids from the first camp into the second.
his year marks the 40th anniversary of the hybrid or utility club. Cobra’s 1975 Baffler was invented and intended as a
Consequently the brand’s latest 716
generation of AP1, AP2, CB and MB irons, plus the T-MB utility iron, will be joined by the 816 H1 and H2 hybrids. “H1 has the larger, more confidence-inspiring
footprint and is more for the hybrid sweeper, while H2 is sleeker, has more offset and will suit the golfer who prefers an iron-like descending strike,” Temple explains. “They share a lot of the technologies of the previous 915, such as the Active Recoil Channel, but we’ve improved the launch and also the sole shape to enhance turf interaction. “But the focus has really been on the fitting
side. We’ve gone from three-degree increments to two, to help golfers find the four-degree gaps that help effective distance coverage. A golfer could, for example, choose the 19º and 23º models, or the 23º and 27º. “The SureFit hosel has also been adapted to
create a smoother blend with the mid-to-long irons, with one degree increments in loſt and lie. So now, when retailers are working on a club- fitting for a set of irons, it will be a lot easier for them to work down into the hybrids too.” This connection of hybrids to irons even
extends to colour coordination; H1 has a red number to match that of the AP1 iron, and H2 matches the AP2’s grey. Ultimately, the hybrids have been shaped and
styled to blend in with the new quartet of irons, now in their fiſth generation, that have seen their own upgrades on the previous 714 iteration – thanks mostly to strategic use of tungsten. Titleist’s most game-improver oriented iron – AP1 – has perennially suffered at the hands of the brand’s elite-player image. But the 716 version – sleeker, shinier and with 50% more tungsten than the prior generation – represents a serious attempt to broaden its appeal. “We’ve gone from 431 steel to 17-4, a stronger
metal that allows us to create a thinner face to boost forgiveness and power,” Temple continues. “Instead of supporting the face centrally, it is unsupported in a cavity surrounded by a 360º deep undercut. Weight saved there has allowed us to use tungsten to push head weight further down and into the perimeters, boosting the MOI and lowering the CG.”
12 SGBGOLF “That creates a higher launch, and because of
that we’ve been able to strengthen the loſt by a degree. We are calling the AP1 our longest and most forgiving iron ever. And we’ve done it the right way, through engineering rather than simply lengthening shaſts and reducing loſts.” Meanwhile the forged AP2 – the series used by
Jordan Spieth and Zach Johnson, though they’ve not yet moved out of the 714, – has also had a tungsten fix. A mandate to give this iron the forgiveness properties of the outgoing 714 AP1 has seen some 25% added to a head which – like all four irons – has the same blade length and top line width as its predecessor. Titleist’s co-forging process sees the head forged with two gaps in the low heel and toe. The club is pulled out, chunks of tungsten are inserted into the gaps, and then the head is reforged to secure them in place.
With the 714
generation, AP1 and AP2 constituted around 85% of the brand’s iron sales, and Titleist do not expect 716 to be much different.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56