The Apex family has been a very successful one for Callaway over the years, featuring in tour player and club golfers' bags all over the world. The earlier Apex launches of 2024 have been exceptional with the MB, CB, and Pro all receiving excellent reviews, but now we have three more members of the family, the Ai200, Ai300, and Ti Fusion irons. In this review, I will be looking at the Ai200 irons to see if they can sit amongst the best irons of 2024.
In terms of technology, Callaway is offering a forged hollow body combined with a forged 455 face, strategically positioned MIM weighting, and a dynamic sole design to ensure enhanced turf interaction and provide more forgiveness through the turf. With a 7-iron loft of 30˚ the Ai200 is very much looking to become one of the best players distance irons.
From a visual perspective, they look very sophisticated both from a shelf appeal point of view and also in the playing position, with little to moderate offset and a very digestible top line. The whole Apex family this time around offers a real cohesion in terms of the aesthetics, so much so that as a tester you actually have to look quite hard sometimes to know which iron you are picking out!
The profile of the Ai200 frames the ball beautifully and there is enough real estate to provide confidence but not so much that it looks clunky or cumbersome in any way.
Performance-wise, they stack up against any of the best compact distance irons such as the Mizuno Pro 245 or the TaylorMade P790 irons, offering predictably strong distance output and a nice lively feel at impact. Despite the strong lofts, they are relatively easy to launch and the newly designed sole provides nice turf interaction.
I didn’t find any particular flight bias during testing, although my miss was generally marginally left of target which is probably mostly due to the fact that they have slightly more offset than my gamer set of Apex CBs.
My only problem with the Ai200 irons is that I don’t really know what - other than 3 degrees less loft - they are offering me over the Apex Pro irons. In terms of the profile, they are almost identical, with the Ai200 maybe just giving a hint more offset and, if you look very hard, perhaps a slightly thicker topline, but it is barely perceptible. I can absolutely see why Callaway would want to provide a bridge between the Apex Pro and the Ai Smoke irons, however, I am not sure it needed two iron models to do so which it has done with the Ai200 and Ai300 irons.
As you can read in my Ai300 review, they provide significantly more offset and a thicker topline than Apex Pro which makes sense as a link between Pro and Ai models. For me, despite being a genuinely nice product, its proximity to the Pro model leaves the Ai200 somewhat in no man's land and offers nothing that couldn’t be achieved by simply strengthening the Apex Pro.
With that said, if you look at them as a standalone product, the Ai200 is as good as anything in this category, ticking a lot of the performance, aesthetic, and feel check boxes that I look for here. The cohesive looks with the rest of the Apex range make multiple combo options viable, and you could genuinely fit five different models into your bag without even really noticing visually.
The Apex Ai200 irons will be available at an RRP of $1400/£1199 for a 7-piece set with irons between 4 and Approach wedge on offer. The stock steel shaft offering will be a Dynamic Gold True Temper Mid 100, and the graphite option will be a UST Recoil Dart 80. The stock grip will be a Golf Pride Z-Grip.
