Apex pro21 is hollow?

[jomatty]

This seems so strange from the apex line.  Maybe they feel they need to differentiate them from the x forged but it seems like a radical shift from clubs that have always felt like a nice progression from one iteration to the next.  I just got a set of apex 19’s and probably won’t change again until next spring or so, but Had been kind of toying with the idea of seeing what the apex21’s looked like.  When I first saw them I thought, “wow those look good” but I didn’t realize they were hollow.  I’m surprised they chose to make the pros hollow instead of the third version...I suppose there was a lot of overlap between some of callaway’s irons so maybe they just felt like the x forged and apex pros needed more to differentiate them from one another.
im a little over sensitive though as I’ve been playing the i500’s and the feel/sound started to bother me more,  performance wise they were great, which probably should be enough, but the feel just wasn’t there, similar to how I felt about the p790’s when I hit them.  I haven’t hit the p770’s yet, and am curious about if the feel is the same as 790’s.

It will be interesting to see what the reviews of these irons look like.  What do you guys think about a hollow apex pro?

[third-times-a-charm]

Apex line has ALWAYS been hollow - with speedfoam and face cup since those techs were introduced.

 

 

Edited January 13, 2021 by third-times-a-charm

[MtlJeff]

24 minutes ago, third-times-a-charm said:

Apex line has ALWAYS been hollow - with speedfoam and face cup since those techs were introduced.

 

 

 

Yup, I own the Apex Pro 16s and i have seen them cut open. So i can vouch for that with my own eyes!

[BostonWRX]

2014 Apex Pros were the best

[BirdieBob]

Technically Cally uses "urethane microspheres" for their filling, but yes hollow filled front cavity.

Much like the TM P770/P790 and PXG irons.

Edited January 13, 2021 by BirdieBob

[Gsea]

oops, kool-aid drank

 

[Ivyguy]

The funny thing is, compare them (visually) to Maltby TS-1 irons. 
 

strikingly similar.  

[jomatty]

19 hours ago, BirdieBob said:

Technically Cally uses "urethane microspheres" for their filling, but yes hollow filled front cavity.

Much like the TM P770/P790 and PXG irons.

That’s embarrassing that I e owned two sets of apex (cf16’s and now apex 19 pro) and didn’t know they were hollow.  The feel is so different than the p790 and i500 irons to me.  They both have a distinct click that is very hollow feeling (I’m not against it and don’t hate it the way some do but it is evident and not my preference).  I don’t get that the same in the apex’s, perhaps the cavity doesn’t leave as much space...perhaps I just can’t feel anything and it is all in my head.  It is interesting that when you read reviews of the apex and apex pro from before the 2021 model, you rarely see anything regarding “hollow body construction”.  This gets mentioned very quickly in i500, p790, and pxg reviews.  It seems they are not really placed in the hollow body category that these other orons occupy.

The irony is rich in the fact that I wasn’t liking the feel of my hollow irons (i500’s that had performed well for me) so I switched to some hollow bodied irons (apex 19)  without knowing I was doing so.  Fortunately I like the way the switch worked out...

Edited January 14, 2021 by jomatty

[driveandputtmachine]

I think every companies effort when going into cup face/hollow/foam/sphere is a bit different as well.  Some will worry more about feel, some are concerned with taking off as much spin as possible to increase distance and most are somewhere in the middle.  The big irons in this area I have tried are

 

Cobra, Cally Pro, Sub 70, P770, PXG, P790, T200, Mizuno, i500.   This is how they rated for me as far as highest spin to lowest spin.  Now granted, these were not all tested on the same day, so there will be swing day variances.  I am also not saying there was 1000k RPM difference from top to bottom, to be honest I am not sure what the exact difference was from top to bottom.  I do know they were all tested at the same loft, lie and length, and shaft.

 

The purpose of this post is to show that not all hollow bodied irons are the same, and some may perform better for you.  Also the i500 was the worst feeling of all of the hollow irons I tried, and The Cally, Sub 70 and P770 were the best.

 

In the end it came down to T100, i210, and the sub 70 699 pro.639 CB combo set.  I have spun the ball quite a bit all of my life, but because of a wrist injury and subsequent surgery I am flattening out my swing and my iron spin has dropped, and the hollow bodied above the PXG just didn't give me the spin I felt I needed.

[staysober for golf]

On 1/13/2021 at 8:38 AM, MtlJeff said:

 

Yup, I own the Apex Pro 16s and i have seen them cut open. So i can vouch for that with my own eyes!

Wow i didnt know that and i always loved the 16 apex pros.

[MtlJeff]

7 minutes ago, staysober for golf said:

Wow i didnt know that and i always loved the 16 apex pros.

 

They are really sweet clubs. I use Pings now but still have my Apex's and hit them a few times a year. It's the only time i've owned a set long enough to really give them that nice beaten-up look that is so cool on forged clubs

[cmatthews77]

4 hours ago, MtlJeff said:

 

They are really sweet clubs. I use Pings now but still have my Apex's and hit them a few times a year. It's the only time i've owned a set long enough to really give them that nice beaten-up look that is so cool on forged clubs

I would NOT describe the '16 Apex Pro's as "hollow'.  They might be a multi-piece construction but if so it would be more equivalent to the AP2 or T100 iron from Titleist.  I actually think the '16 Apex Pro was a one-piece forging with tungsten but I may be wrong about that.  But it's NOT hollow.

 

They did put the springy cup face into the '19 Apex Pro (7i to 4i) and not in the 8-PW.  So as someone else described it really depends on what you define as hollow construction.  The new Apex Pro obviously is a hollow body construction to compete with the P770 but it's a big change from the 2014 and 2016 Apex Pro which is more similar to the current X Forged. 

[MtlJeff]

3 minutes ago, cmatthews77 said:

I would NOT describe the '16 Apex Pro's as "hollow'.  They might be a multi-piece construction but if so it would be more equivalent to the AP2 or T100 iron from Titleist.  I actually think the '16 Apex Pro was a one-piece forging with tungsten but I may be wrong about that.  But it's NOT hollow.

 

They did put the springy cup face into the '19 Apex Pro (7i to 4i) and not in the 8-PW.  So as someone else described it really depends on what you define as hollow construction.  The new Apex Pro obviously is a hollow body construction to compete with the P770 but it's a big change from the 2014 and 2016 Apex Pro which is more similar to the current X Forged. 

 

The 2016 Apex Pros have the cavity / Spring face. I don't know what people consider "hollow" as you say so that's in the eye of the beholder/definer

 

But the 2016's do have the spring face with the hollow cut. I was at the Callaway factory and they cut open a head and explained it to us

[cmatthews77]

23 minutes ago, MtlJeff said:

 

The 2016 Apex Pros have the cavity / Spring face. I don't know what people consider "hollow" as you say so that's in the eye of the beholder/definer

 

But the 2016's do have the spring face with the hollow cut. I was at the Callaway factory and they cut open a head and explained it to us

 

This is just not correct.  The 2016 Apex Pro is a cavity back yes but it does NOT have the "cup face" that was in the 2016 Apex CF16.  They didn't integrate the cup face into the Apex Pro until 2019 and only in the long irons.  That is why they essentially ended up creating the 2019 Apex Pro dots (the iron Xander played) because those didn't have the cup face.

 

The only "tech' story in the '16 Apex Pro was the holes that were drilled behind the "Forged" space.  The long irons those holes were filled with tungsten, the mid irons were filled with stainless steel and they were empty in the short irons to raise CG.  But by no means were these a hollow cavity construction with a cup face.   They were constructed much closer to the 2013 X Forged (or say compare to a previous generation Titleist AP2)

[jholz]

I would agree with @cmatthews77. The '21 Apex Pros represent a different kind of construction from the former iterations. While the '21 Apex Pros are very similar in look and construction to the Ping i500s, Cobra King Forged Tech, etc, I don't think you can make the same statement about the earlier Apex Pro models. They are closer to a tech CB. 

[MtlJeff]

13 minutes ago, cmatthews77 said:

 

This is just not correct.  The 2016 Apex Pro is a cavity back yes but it does NOT have the "cup face" that was in the 2016 Apex CF16.  They didn't integrate the cup face into the Apex Pro until 2019 and only in the long irons.  That is why they essentially ended up creating the 2019 Apex Pro dots (the iron Xander played) because those didn't have the cup face.

 

The only "tech' story in the '16 Apex Pro was the holes that were drilled behind the "Forged" space.  The long irons those holes were filled with tungsten, the mid irons were filled with stainless steel and they were empty in the short irons to raise CG.  But by no means were these a hollow cavity construction with a cup face.   They were constructed much closer to the 2013 X Forged (or say compare to a previous generation Titleist AP2)

 

I don't know the terminology and it's possible i am misremembering certain details as this was 4 years ago. But there is a slot cut into the heads of the Apex Pro (2016) right behind the faces. I believed that it was hollow and a "spring face" , it's possible that it's filled with foam i suppose, i was standing maybe 7-8 feet away when they showed us the head cut open, it looked hollow but i suppose it could be a dark foam and i am just misremembering the convo

 

I remember it because they talked about finding a CM partner in Asia to do the cut was challenging because it was much thinner than previous versions, so there was a higher risk of defects. 

 

I'm not trying to be defensive here, I was on the Callaway WRX trip where they showed us these irons. I really don't think i am mis-remembering this

[MtlJeff]

Hey @QMany / @mackepa

 

read the above , am i crazy here or didn't they tell us back at the trip that the 2016 Apex Pros had the slot cut into them right behind the face? Maybe not necessarily a "sping face" but didn't they show us the head cut in half and talk about the slot behind the thin face...etc etc...yada

 

Or have i been on the Peyote again?

[cmatthews77]

29 minutes ago, MtlJeff said:

Hey @QMany / @mackepa

 

read the above , am i crazy here or didn't they tell us back at the trip that the 2016 Apex Pros had the slot cut into them right behind the face? Maybe not necessarily a "sping face" but didn't they show us the head cut in half and talk about the slot behind the thin face...etc etc...yada

 

Or have i been on the Peyote again?

Are you sure you’re not thinking of the 2016 Apex (not the Apex Pro)? The 2016 Apex you are absolutely correct they talked about the first ever cup face that was put into a forged body and laser welded together.  They were the first to do it (although to this day I’d semi-question the use of the term “forged”). 
 

The Apex Pro though at the time in 2016 was a players cavity back single forging. No cup face. No hollow body. No foam. 

[MtlJeff]

2 minutes ago, cmatthews77 said:

Are you sure you’re not thinking of the 2016 Apex (not the Apex Pro)? The 2016 Apex you are absolutely correct they talked about the first ever cup face that was put into a forged body and laser welded together.  They were the first to do it (although to this day I’d semi-question the use of the term “forged”). 
 

The Apex Pro though at the time in 2016 was a players cavity back single forging. No cup face. No hollow body. No foam. 

 

Almost positive but that's why i asked a couple of the guys who were there with me. It's possible i'm just mis-remembering but the reason i was so interested was because i was fit into the 2016 Apex Pro

 

Again this was 4 years ago and i'm pretty sure i also had several beers the prior night during our long drive contest.

 

Anyway, i'm not going to argue that i'm right, you seem pretty confident. But i'd like to hear one of those guys tell me i'm full of crap too. Because again i could've sworn this is what they told us

 

[QMany]

@MtlJeff, I think @cmatthews77 is correct. GolfWRX's writeup of the 2016 Apex lineup:

Quote

Of course, the Apex irons aren’t forged in the same way as the Apex Pro irons, which are hammered into shape from a solid block of steel. The Apex irons have Callaway’s signature 360 Cup Faces, which means that an extremely thin piece of steel is wrapped around the forged body of the irons (3-7), creating a trampoline-like club face that allows golfers to hit the Apex long and middle farther than the Apex Pros. 

 

[MtlJeff]

3 minutes ago, QMany said:

@MtlJeff, I think @cmatthews77 is correct. GolfWRX's writeup of the 2016 Apex lineup:

 

 

Well there is only one way i can reasonably deal with this:

 

All of you are terrible, terrible liars and conspiring against me....