Help, my new irons are broken!

I tried out some upgrade Irons this weekend. I have been playing a set of Callaway XHot for the past 3 years and wanted to try out some new GI irons (Titleist AP1). I appeared to make decent contact, good flight, however I have lost yardage.. not like 5 or 8 yards..but like 25 yards!!

Is this due to missing the "sweet spot" and never knowing it before, and focusing on better swing? I don't even know what to do with that kind of yardage drop.

For Reference my Cally 7 Iron was 155 Yards, and 8 was 145 Yards.

XHot is more SGI than GI iron and has a larger sweet spot thanks to the larger head compared to the AP1.  There are a lot of reasons why you're hitting them shorter, but until you go for a fitting I wouldn't worry too much.  It's likely the shaft on the AP1 wasn't a good fit for you.  Did you notice a difference in trajectory?

The XHot 7i has 30* loft while the AP1 7i has 32* loft and both use the same shaft length (37") so you might see a 3-5 yard difference between the two on well hit shots once you're fit properly.

Ok so I went to a fitting and here are the results.

7 Iron

Callaway Xhot Regular standard with Step 85 shaft

Vs

Titleist 714 AP1 Regular Standard with XP 95 shaft

He checked the length, and lie of my swing. Both are standard.

Results for BOTH clubs using the same exact swing on both:

Spin 5800

Peak Height 30 yards

Mid-high face strike

Callaway speed = 72 mph for a distance of 152 yards carry

Titleist speed = 62 mph for a distance of 132 yard carry

Questions:

WTH!! I lost 10 mph in ss?

Or - Does the ball strike being high on the face impact my distance that much?

I played the original AP1s for years until switching to the x hots a couple of years ago - with the switch my consistency and distance both improved greatly. I got greedy and switched to the x2 hots last year and like them even more.

You may think you used the same swing but your swing speed indicates otherwise.  Club head and shaft weight could account for some loss in speed but it's more likely you made great contact with the Xhot and less than great contact with the AP1.  As for distance, the lofts on the Xhot are a few degrees stronger than the AP1 so that will account for some of the difference in distance.

Trade in the AP1 and try some XHot Pros  (still forgiving) or  X2Hot series on a simulator.

Seems strange that your swing speed is so much lower with the AP1 but I suspect that is the problem. Just dividing the yardage by the swing speed indicates that if both clubs were swung at the same speed the difference would be minimal. I switched from a graphite Callaway X ? to a steel shafted TM Burner 2.0 back in 2011 and my distance changed a bit, but only until I got more comfortable with the new clubs.