Titleist 716 AP2 irons review

The Golf Monthly test team's Titliest 716 AP2 irons review, a traditional-looking iron offering forgiveness and distance control in a slimline package.

Titleist’s new 716 AP2 iron broadens what already was a wide appeal to golfers of different abilities. The fact that Titleist have managed to make the iron more forgiving but by still retaining a compact, playable package that maintains its traction on Tour is testament to the performance on offer.

The look of AP2 behind the ball at address is traditional and hasn’t changed much down the years. Better players will enjoy the minimal offset while game improvers will take confidence from the mid-sized top line and larger overall size than most better player irons.

While the AP2 irons won’t offer as much distance as the new Titleist 716 AP1 irons, where the AP2 does excel is its distance consistency. Even on different strike points across the clubface, there was very minimal changes in ball speed and carry distance, meaning your bad swings maintain a surprising level of distance and accuracy.

One noticeable gain over the former 714 AP2 irons can be found in the performance of the long irons. Titleist have used over 50g of tungsten in the long irons which not only improves the feel and forgiveness, but also assists the launch slightly and as a result, they really were surprisingly easy to hit.

This was helped by the new stock Dynamic Gold AMT (Ascending Mass Technology) shafts, which get lighter by 3g as the irons move down through the set. Having a lighter shaft in the long irons helped maintain distance gapping through the set by accounting for the more frequent mishits via a minor increase in clubhead speed but without losing out on clubface control.

In summary, if you’re looking for an iron that looks and feels like a true better player iron but offers forgiveness levels similar to that of a game improver iron, the Titleist 716 AP2 iron should right at the top of your test list.