For those of you familiar with the AP2 712 irons you will probably not notice many changes to the 714 series Titleist AP2 irons apart from the new shiny look with the Titleist logo mirrored in the back of the cavity. Designed to give it more shelf appeal, we like the polished chrome head combined with the matt chrome bar across the back of the cavity and the logo reflected in the cavity is a nice touch.
The 714 AP2 features more meaningful changes under the skin, but not so major that they change the characteristics of the AP2 chassis that has been so successful. Each iron has been designed to match the loft so the long irons have thinner faces than the short irons with the upper cavity face being only 2.1mm thick.
This allows it to flex a little more and also creates some extra weight to move lower in the head to lower the centre of gravity for more forgiveness. In each corner of the longer irons high density tungsten, which is very heavy for its size, is placed further out towards the heel and toe of the iron to increase the MOI and this makes the long irons much more forgiving than previous versions.
The 4-iron starts the set now at 23 degrees and there is a 3-iron available as an extra, but no 2-iron. However the 4-iron is so easy to hit that you may want the 3. The sound and feel is excellent and it retains the characteritics of a mid-sized forged iron whilst playing like an oversized cavity back.
Moving down through the set the 5-iron plays just the same and when you reach the 6-iron, things change as the lofts from here on down are 1 degree stronger than the 712 AP2 irons with the P wedge now 46 degrees. To plug this gap to the real wedges Titleist also offer a W1 wedge at 50 degrees or you can go for a 50 degree Vokey SM4 wedge, which is probably a better call.
Each iron has been designed with different sized cavities depending on the loft and some like the 8 and 9 irons do not feature any tungsten at all, whereas the pitching wedge gas 12.5 grams of the stuff. Obviously you can’t see this and the swing weight is still D2 throughout the set so from a feel perspective nothing changes.
The forgiveness is excellent all the way through so you would have to say that the boffins at Titleist have got it right. Again for the blade length, the 714 AP2 is one of the highest MOI irons in the market and even for low single figure players this is going to give benefits.
In the 8 to P irons the height of the iron beside the hosel, known as the PAR height has also been reduced to give it a better look at address. There is a progressive offset that reduces as you go through the set and the extra blending around the hosel means that you notice this even less.
Like the other irons in the 714 series the AP2s feature a pre-worn leading edge and extra camber on the sole to improve the turf interaction so that the club does not bury itself into the ground as much. This is a good change and you can really feel this, especially in the shorter irons.
Compared to the forged 714 CB irons, the 714 AP2 irons will not give you as much feedback or be as easy to shape. However if you are low single figure player who does not shape this then having the set or even 4-7 iron in AP2s and the rest in CBs could create a wonderful set. Put a full set of AP2s in the bag and you will have a quality, mid-sized iron that will suit everyone who plays in single figures.
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