Gear: Callaway Apex CB, Apex MB irons (2023)
Price: $215 each with True Temper Dynamic Gold Mid steel shafts and Golf Pride Z grips.
Specs: Forged 1025 carbon steel. Available in 3-iron (20.5 degrees) through attack wedge (50 degrees)
Available: August 18 (pre-sale) / September 8 (in stores)
While most golfers desperately want irons that can help them hit the ball farther and higher, elite ballstrikers — players with a powerful, repeatable swing — are constantly looking for something else from their clubs. If you can generate all the power and distance you require, what you need is more control. You need irons that allow you to curve the ball and control its flight, which requires a heightened sense of feel at the moment of impact.
Using feedback from tour pros, Callaway has updated its Apex CB and Apex MB irons to deliver more control and feel, while also making them easy to combine to create a blended set.
The updated Apex Pro irons, which are also an option for low-handicap golfers, have been designed with a hollow chamber in the 3-5 irons that is filled with vibration-absorbing urethane microspheres, but the Apex MB and Apex CB irons are all solid-body designs forged from 1025 carbon steel. Nothing gets in the way of the sensations created at impact from reaching a player’s hands, which is exactly the way pros, college players and elite amateurs like it.
Callaway designed the Apex CB and Apex MB with a progressive center of gravity (CG) location. There is extra mass positioned low in the heads of the long irons, to help golfers create a higher-launching shot, but the CG shifts up in the head through the mid- and short-irons to encourage a lower, more-piercing ball flight for better distance control.
Both clubs also have a leading edge that has a more-rounded, pre-worn design. The trailing edge also has more chamfer, or upward curvature, to help the Apex CB and Apex MB get in and out of the turf more efficiently.
The Apex CB was inspired by Callaway’s Apex TBC (tour cavity-back), which is the iron of choice for Jon Rahm and Xander Schauffele. Callaway made the blade length a few millimeters longer than the Apex TCB, but the brand thinks this will be its most-played iron on the PGA Tour next season while also being an option to a few more amateur golfers.
To offset the weight of the hosel and pull the ideal hitting area into the center of the face, Callaway designers removed some mass from the heel area and added tungsten to the toe section. You can see it because the tungsten is under the chrome plating. This should help to a neutral weight bias and allow players to hit draws or fades more easily.
While the Apex CB has a small amount of perimeter weighting thanks to its cavity-back design, the Apex MB is a pure muscleback blade. It has a very compact blade length, virtually no offset and a very thin topline. It has a progressive CG throughout the set and Callaway studied and modified the sole design and bounce to make it quick through the grass, so golfers can maintain speed through the strike.
Like the CB, it has a plate on the back of the head that can be switched by fitters to allow them to change the swing weight of the clubs based on their length or a player’s preference.
Cosmetically, the Apex CB and Apex MB look very similar, and they have identical lofts, with the 5-irons being 26 degrees and the pitching wedges being 46 degrees. Working with a custom fitter, golfers should be able to easily create a blended set, as many PGA Tour pros do. Callaway plans to offer the “The Elite” combo set, which will include the Apex CB 3-iron through 7-iron and the Apex MB in the 8-iron through attack wedge.
Below are close-up images of the Apex CB and Apex MB for 2023.
