Callaway Apex Ai150 Irons Review: The better player's new best friend

Key Features

• 1025 forged hollow-body design for ball speed and forgiveness
• 455 steel face cup and 17-4 steel face throughout the set optimise ball speed and forgiveness
• Screw-in tungsten insert lowers CG and maximises MOI

Callaway's iron offering is in something of a state of flux right now. 

While the brand's legendary Apex line rightly hailed as including some of the best golf irons made in the last decade, the combination of some very similar new models being both introduced and phased can make picking the right irons quite a daunting task for fans of the brand.

Now, a newcomer to the range has arrived in the form of the Ai150: a new players' iron that Callaway hope will give lower (think high single-digit) handicappers the balance of feel, workability and forgiveness they need.

The Ai150 sits at the higher end of what's becoming quite a sizeable iron offering from the brand. In addition to the Ai150, Callaway also offer the new elite-oriented Apex Ti Fusion, the 2023 model Apex Pro (which the Ai150 seems to have been introduced to replace), the Apex CB and Apex MB, the players' distance Ai200, and the most forgiving iron in the range, the Apex Ai300. 

On top of this, there's also the Callaway Elyte, Elyte X and Elyte HL irons, which fit a similar game-improvement iron profile for mid-to-high handicappers but without a forged construction and at a slightly lower price. Oh, and there's the Forged X as well. Plenty to choose from, then.

But with the Ai150 marketed as a players' distance iron, this immediately begs the question as to what the Ai150 accomplishes that the Ai200 doesn't, and who might be inclined to buy it. To find out ourselves, we took the Ai150 out for a round at Kent's stunning Princes Golf Club. Here's how they played.

Looks

Straight out of the box, the Ai150, in addition to all the other models in the Apex Ai range, is a very striking iron to behold. Callaway haven't leant on minimalism or a classic, clean blade look in the way manufacturers like PING and Mizuno do. 

The finish on the irons is more metallic and polished, with a screw-in weighted insert rendered in a futuristic black (the colour can be customised through Callaway if you wish) and stamped with a mark denoting the irons' place in the Apex range. Put simply, this is an iron designed to turn heads, and we love the way they look. That being said, if you're more of a traditionalist in the way you want your irons to present, these might not be your cup of tea.

At address, the Ai150 immediately stands out as the most aggressive entry into the Apex Ai range so far, and announces itself as a club truly oriented towards the 'players' end of the player's distance category. It's more compact than the Ai200, while the thin top line and slim profile behind the ball give it a razor-sharp look.

Performance and feel

While it's clear when looking at and holding the Apex Ai150 that it's a club geared towards more consistent strikers of the ball, Callaway have done an absolutely incredible job working as much forgiveness technology into such a small package as they have.

The irons are forged from a combination of 1025 stainless steel, which creates the hollow body of the head, 455 steel which forms the face cup in the 3-7 irons, and 17-4 stainless steel which make up the face in the 8-iron through wedge. Callaway have also sought to keep the Ai150 as high in terms of launch and MOI as possible while keeping the overall package small, with the coloured tungsten weight lowering the centre of gravity. The tri-sole design, meanwhile helps provide more leading edge relief to cater to the needs of better players who want to feel that interaction with the turf on clean strikes.

Aside from aiding feel and feedback, the choice to use two different types of steel on the face cups throughout the set has the dual benefit of producing far more consistent, replicable ball speed and flight throughout the set. This bore out in the numbers we were seeing during testing, and we found the Ai150 held an impressive degree of consistency throughout the bag, with shots remaining within a small window of dispersion. 

Over the space of a couple of weeks of testing on different courses, we found the Ai150 produced exceptional consistency of spin, something that will help players in that higher single-digit handicap range really seek the pins safe in the knowledge they'll be able to stop the ball on the greens.

The extra feel imparted on the irons as a result of all these additions is remarkable. The Ai150 produces a powerful, effortless feel on impact reminiscent of more easy-launching irons like the Ai200 and 300. In terms of overall feel, we'd put them somewhere in the middle of the range of more player-oriented irons—they're firmer than something like a Mizuno, but softer than an equivalent iron like Titleist's T150 or TaylorMade's P7 CB.

Should you buy the Callaway Apex Ai150 irons?

The question of whether or not the Apex Ai150 will suit you boils largely down to how aggressively you want to pursue bringing your handicap down towards scratch as possible. We suspect many golfers, having worked their way down to a single-digit figure, might find themselves at a crossroads choosing between these and the slightly larger, more forgiving Ai200.

Both, it's clear to us now, are great clubs. And while the Ai150 manages to pack a bunch of forgiveness into a much more compact package, those who want the natural sense of comfort that comes with a slightly larger club head may find themselves erring towards the Ai200 as a more dependable daily gamer.

If you want your clubs sleek, aggressive in profile and more workable while retaining forgiveness and ease of launch, however, these should definitely be among the very first clubs you look at.