Ti Fusion generated some questions last week. Let’s dive deeper.

1. Can the performance really be that much better? Yes. Put your thinking cap on here… Why do we use Titanium in drivers? It’s stronger than steel. It’s lighter than steel. Stronger = thinner. This face is made like a driver face – it just happens to be shaped like an iron. You will get driver-like performance out of an iron built like this.
2. Does it conform to the USGA springlike effect tests (read COR tests)? Yes. A couple notes on this. first, they don’t test clubs weaker lofted than about a 5-iron. The threshold is the same for any club, but… these weaker lofted clubs are generally limited by the loft. Add more loft, the efficiency (Smash factor) goes down because the strike is more of a glancing blow. Is the highest efficiency number on a 7-iron 1.35? No. As we’ve seen here and in other models, the spec can be higher. It’s model dependent. With a set like this, the longer irons will be somewhat choked in their efficiency so that they do conform. In English… If we can make a 7-iron that delivers a 1.45 Efficiency, we should be able to produce a 5-iron close to 1.50. Better to limit that one so it does conform.
3. Does it feel like HARD Titanium? No. Does a driver feel hard? Especially not with a softer ball. 😉 It doesn’t feel like the softness of carbon steel either though. We use our Urethane Microspheres to recreate the softer feel of a carbon steel iron. Will it feel exactly like carbon since it’s forged? No. But it will feel pretty good. It’s worth noting that the body is forged out of steel, so the feel will be better – more like a forged iron. The Titanium is only in the club face.
4. Lighter material = lighter weight/ swingweight? No. Thinner + Lighter = WAAAY more room for discretionary weight. We use the weight savings from the Titanium to add more Tungsten. Tungsten is very dense. You can use a little bit in a very specific place inside the head to create a very forgiving end product. If you go through the training videos in Callaway University, you can actually see WHERE the Tungsten is placed in this club head, and that should give you a clue as to WHY this iron is as long as it is.

This one gets no bullet… I had a player ask me “what’s the difference between a cavity back iron and a hollow body design iron?” A very intuitive question!! Cavity back irons, as we all know position weight around the outside of the club head to create more forgiveness. Typically these are only made with one block of steel. Hollow body irons take the cavity back design to the next level. As clubhead designs got more complex, it made sense to cover the back cavity. This left a hollow internal chamber where there was more flexibility in design to reposition weight. Hollow body designs allow for better club face design (using Ai, Variable face thickness, and face cup). This tends to lead to hotter faces, more forgiving heads, or a nice blend of both. It helps a designer significantly in creating a head for a certain player type without altering the external characteristics too much. Consider Rogue ST Max, Max OS and Max OS Lite. All looked pretty similar, but were designed for very different players. The same can be said of the new Apex Pro, Ai 200, and Ai 300.

The bottom line? Hollow body design is like cavity back for the 2020’s.

I hope this helps!!