Last week, Titleist finally officially announced the long-awaited 905R driver. At the same time, the company let the cat out of the bag on some new irons as well.
While Titleist still hasn’t officially announced the new irons, information on the 660, 695MB, 695CB and 775.CB forged irons is available on the company’s website. Let’s take a quick look at these new irons, which join the 735.CM irons in this year’s irons lineup from Titleist.
Let’s start with the Forged 660 irons, which are available by custom order only. These musclebacks are true blades – forged from 1025 carbon steel with miniscule offset and no perimeter weighting. In other words, only the lowest of low handicaps need ever think about these irons. The 660s are for a very specific audience. And they’re beautiful, with a satin finish and their classic shapes. The concave shape of the muscleback portion of the irons is a nice design tweak, moving weight lower in the long irons and higher in the short irons.
The new Forged 695MB irons are also for the highly skilled set. Like the 660s, the 695MBs are forged from 1025 carbon steel and are true muscleback blades. The 695MBs add a new Z-Muscle design, which shifts weight away from the heel toward the center of the club. Titleist says this improves feel and energy transfer. Again, these irons are for people who hit the ball on the center of the clubface nearly every time. If your handicap is much above scratch, you’ll want to look at something more forgiving.
Which leads us to the Forged 695CB irons, the cavity-backed companions to the 695MB. The 695CBs have a Z-Cavity design which serves the same purpose as the Z-Muscle in the 695MBs. The cavity back design of the 695CB set lowers the center of gravity, but the lofts are stronger to keep the ball flight similar to the 695MB irons. With the two 695 designs, Titleist has given strong golfers who like blades two excellent options. If you’re not sure which is right for you, take the time to have a custom fitting session to get the design that best suits your game.
The final new member of the Titleist forged irons family is the 775.CB iron set. These irons replace the 704.CB and 804.OS that were in last year’s line, and are Titleist’s latest attempt at connecting with the higher-handicap crowd. Despite the brand’s reputation as a clubmaker for “serious golfers,” I think the DCI Gold irons of the mid-90s are one of the best game-improvement irons of the last 10 years. Will the 775.CB bring Titlest back into the game-improvement limelight?
Titleist Forged 775.CB features an aluminum bar on the back to redistribute weight and to “hide” an undercut channel that lowers the center of gravity to get the ball flight up for higher handicappers.
In an attempt to make sure it does, Titleist has given the Forged 775.CB set some forward-thinking technology. As stately and unadorned as the other Titleist irons are, the 775.CBs have some interesting wrinkles. The 3-, 4- and 5-irons are multimaterial designs, with a thin face insert and a red forged aluminum bar across the center of the cavity to dampen vibration. The 3- and 4-irons also have shafts that are longer than standard to help launch the ball higher, and the entire set has stronger lofts than other Titleist irons – including a 45° pitching wedge and a 50° gap wedge. Unlike the other Titliest irons, the 775.CB irons are forged from 410 stainless steel, which is likely to have a firmer feel than carbon steel.
These new irons, combined with the combo design of the 735.CM irons, give Titleist a good variety of options to offer golfers of nearly every skill level. Scratch golfers have the 660 and 695s to choose from, while low-handicappers have the 735.CM and aspirational golfers (read: serious golfers with not-so-serious handicaps) have the 775.CB. It’s a lineup to make any Titlest fan drool – at least until the next round of prototypes hit the tour.
Quick Notes
Callaway has quietly rolled out a blogfrom Morgan Pressel. Some interesting stuff in there about her trip to Carlsbad to be fitted at the Callaway test center, where she was “hoping to pick up a few extra yards.” See, the pros are just like us…
Nice weather in the northern part of the country made this a big weekend for early season demo days. I stopped by one major off-course golf shop and saw golfers waiting up to 20 minutes for an open spot on the range. A good sign for sales this year.