It seems to me that the Titleist designers who work on the AP line of irons subscribe to the theory that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. The AP2 irons have been extremely popular irons for Titleist since their release in 2010. Although the design has not changed dramatically the designers at Titleist still find ways to improve upon these very popular irons.
The 2014 version of the AP2, the 714, had already won a major before they were made available to all of us regular golfers. Jason Dufner had them in the bag during his win at Oak Hill in the PGA Championship last September. There are a number of other professionals who have put them in the bag as well. They are and have been very popular with the touring pros all the way to mid-handicap golfers.
My first thought when I saw the irons was to ask what is different from these irons versus the model they released in 2012 (the 712)? The differences are subtle but according to Titleist they will help golfers of all skill levels. I took the 714 AP2s for a spin and got an up-close and personal chance to see how they play. With that lets take a look at my thoughts.
Hello fans of golf, and welcome to this week’s Hittin’ the Links. We take a look at the PGA Tour’s first great finish at 2014 at the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship, then meander our way from Michael Sam to Miguel Angel.
Like most things, the golf equipment market tends to follow certain trends and this is no different with regards to golf balls. One of the trends that we’ve seen over the last handful of years is the development of “tour” quality balls built for the amateur. There are a lot of us that want to play the absolute best that we can get our hands on, but truth be told, many times balls in that upper echelon just don’t fit our games properly. New from TaylorMade this golf season are three new balls. For those at the very top of the game, they have their new Tour Preferred and Tour Preferred X balls. According to the company, these balls have over a decade of research in them and they believe that these are the best balls that they’ve created to date. In addition to the new Tour Preferred balls, the company has also released the Project (a). As you probably could have guessed, the (a) stands for amateur and TaylorMade says that these balls will give amateurs help where they need it the most.
Golf, like any leisure activity, is very closely tied with the ups and downs of the economy. The economy in its current state appears to be making headway in the right direction; golf on the other hand has continued its decline. Mostly it is a decline of participation, more directly it is not attracting as many new golfers as it is losing. For us golfers, this is going to be a bad thing. More and more courses are going to be forced to close because they just do not get enough play to remain open.
2014 is going to be an interesting year. We’ve got Rory McIlroy trying to recapture his pre-2013 form; Phil Mickelson giving the career grand slam another go at Pinehurst; Jordan Spieth and a number a young players looking to make the leap; and of course Tiger Woods six years removed from his last major championship win.