Quick Hits:
Tour Edge is announcing its Exotics EXS Pro line of irons and wedges that use premium materials to deliver top quality performance and feel. Each head is forged Japanese S25C carbon steel and is CNC milled to tight tolerances right up to the USGA allowable measurements.
Today, Tour Edge is expanding its Tour-inspired, “Straight from the Tour Van” lineup with new premium forged irons and wedges. Last week we learned about the new Tour Edge Exotics EXS Pro Driver, Fairway Wood, and Hybrid (more about them, here) and this week Tour Edge is rounding out the EXS Pro lineup.
According to Tour Edge founder and Master Club Designer David Glod, Tour Edge “received enormous demand for player’s irons after putting our focus on game improvement hollow-body irons with the EXS 220 releases.” In designing the new EXS Pro forged irons and wedges, Glod says, “[t]hese three designs were made to be irons that are drooled over by the core golfer, not only in looks and feel, but in how they perform.”
As you will see, the new EXS Pro offerings share some common design elements that are expressed in very different ways but share the common goal of delivering ultra-premium performance. Get ready to pick your jaws up off the floor because each of these tour-inspired, limited edition offerings is designed using advanced materials for ultra-premium performance. Introducing the new Tour Edge Exotics EXS Pro Forged Irons, EXS Pro Blade Irons and EXS Pro Milled Forged Blade Wedges.
Exotics EXS Pro Forged Irons
The Tour Edge Exotics EXS Pro Forged Irons are player’s forged cavity back irons that have a classic shape and appeal. This type of cavity back design is tried, true, and beloved in this category, with a player preferred shape and the forgiveness of cavity back weight distribution and technology. Tour Edge’s Exotics EXS Pro Forged Irons are a fresh, albeit slightly aesthetically familiar, design that will stand out based on high quality materials and outstanding craftmanship.
The EXS Pro Forged heads are made of triple forged Japanese S25C Carbon Steel, which has a reputation as being one of the best materials for an extremely soft feel in a forged iron head. The triple forging technique provides a thinner center and creates heel and toe weight pads for added forgiveness. A thinner face with extra weight in both the heel and toe are designed to provide excellent ball speed, performance, and forgiveness as strikes stray from the center.
CNC milling is also strongly featured in the EXS Pro Forged Irons, both on the face and within the cavity. The face has CNC milled square grooves, which provides extra quality control and maximum size and depth within the USGA regulations. The CNC milled cavity provides the deepest cavity possible for forgiveness and high MOI.
For golfers who carry long irons, the EXS Pro Forged are designed with 10-gram tungsten weights strategically placed in the toe of the 3-6 irons to elongate the sweet spot in these notoriously pesky irons and provide a bit more forgiveness.
Finally, the EXS Pro Forged Irons are acoustically engineered for improved sound and feel.
The irons feature an electroformed cavity insert (think electroplating but where the metal layer is its own object) that combines steel, a thermoplastic ABS polymer, and a dampening gel that Tour Edge says will improve the sound and feel of the irons even more than S25C forging alone. The little details clearly got a lot of attention with the new EXS Pros and they look to be ultra-premium workhorse irons that are designed to deliver both looks and performance that can live up to the Exotics name.
The EXS Pro Forged Irons will be available in 3-AW (20° to 50°, with a 32° 7-iron), come stock with True Temper Elevate Tour VSS Pro or Dynamic Gold 105 shafts, and Golf Pride Tour 360 grip.
EXS Pro Blade Irons
If you like what you saw in the EXS Forged Irons but want the sleek look and soft (dare I say buttery) feel of a blade, the EXS Pro Blade Irons might be for you. The EXS Pro Blade Irons have a classic blade design, with a narrow sole, a thin top line, a beveled leading edge and square toe design. Make no mistake, the EXS Pro Blades are designed to be demanding and incredibly rewarding for the best ball strikers and shot-makers with a feel and sound that is difficult to rival.
The feel and sound of the EXS Pro Blade Irons comes from the same Japanese S25C Carbon Steel material that is chrome plated to a high polish, satin finish. As many fans of high-end blade designs and high quality forgings will certainly recognize, the S25C material has a bit of a lore around it and is known for its incredibly soft feel in blade designs. The EXS Pro Blades also feature a short blade length and a progressive design into the scoring irons that just scream pure ball striking required.
With an iron designed to require so much precision from the player, it only makes sense that Tour Edge would deliver the same precision in the design. The EXS Pro Blades have tight tolerances as a result of using precision CNC milling on the micro-cavity, face, and scoring lines to make sure each iron is consistent from iron to iron, set to set. And more than just for consistency, Tour Edge is taking its CNC milled face right up to the USGA limits to deliver maximum spin and performance.
The EXS Pro Blades will be available in 3-AW (21° to 50°, with a 35° 7-iron), come stock with True Temper Elevate Tour VSS Pro or Dynamic Gold 105 shafts, and Golf Pride Tour 360 grip.
EXS Pro Milled Forged Blade Wedges
The perfect complement to the either the EXS Pro Forged or EXS Pro Blade Irons, the EXS Pro Milled Forged Blade Wedges are made of the same Japanese S25C Carbon Steel to deliver the same soft feel around the green and feature the same CNC milling on the face to deliver maximum spin within the USGA limits.
However, the CNC milling on the face isn’t the only story with the milling, as the EXS Pro Milled Forged Blade Wedges have a Dual-Groove Construction. The stronger, lower lofts (50, 52 degrees) have deep, narrow grooves where the higher lofted clubs (54-60 degrees) feature wider grooves to help boost spin around the green.
It looks like every aspect of the design of the new Tour Edge wedges was purposeful. The Flare Toe design moves the CG up higher in the club head to lower launch and increase spin and the “Milled-out” center removes mass from the center to provide better distance control. The custom grind on the EXS Pro Milled Forged Blade Wedges will provide all of the versatility you could want as a result of the heel, toe, and trailing edge relief that will allow you to let your imagination run wild from difficult lies.
The EXS Pro Milled Forged Blade Wedges will be available from 50° to 60° in two degree increments, come stock with True Temper Dynamic Gold 115 Wedge Flex shafts, and Golf Pride Tour 360 grip.
Each of the limited edition, “Straight from the Tour Van” EXS Pro irons and wedges will retail at $149.00 per iron/wedge with stock shafts and will be available June 1, 2020.
With the announcment of the Exotics EXS Pro Forged Irons, EXS Pro Blade Irons, and EXS Pro Blade Wedges to compliment the already announced Exotics EXS Pro Driver, Fairway Wood, and Hybrid, Tour Edge is poised to make a giant splash with the rebirth of golf in 2020. Tour Edge has clearly taken huge leaps in making “forged irons and wedges that cannot be found in regular production irons: individually milled irons made from Carbon Steel and engineered for players who look for the ultimate in control and shot shaping” and if you are anything like me, you cannot wait to get your hands on them soon. You can learn more at www.touredge.com or by visiting select Tour Edge retailers and custom club fitting locations starting June 1st.
I think the cavity backs looks pretty playable. I’d never be able to play those blades consistently or well – but they look great.
I’m guessing amazing. I’ve hit S25C forged clubs before and I really liked it.
When you climbing the ranks in golf designs, you don’t want to stop until you reach your apex.
Agree that these have the look of something else I like on the market today…
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Agreed 500%. I thought this while writing and researching past offerings.
Yeah, a little bit and I think that’s what @ddec was thinking too but I think it’s the color blocking design that gives us that impression. Quite different clubs and I like the looks
This is my take exactly. Not a bad thing.
This was my exact first thought, it looks like the Apex lineup. This lineup looks nice but for some reason I never really consider giving these guys a chance when it comes to irons.
No evidence of that based on what I have seen but I don’t know what I don’t know.
Those Pro Forged look legit. I also like the ironic, not ironic use of the word buttery for the blades. Well done!
I’m sure they perform great and will come in at a solid price point comparatively, but nothing says "we have no good ideas" like ripping off a competitor and not even trying to hide it.
This isnt about Exotics or Callaway, just my overall old man opinion on the industry in general. I’m aware that this shoe fits every OEMs foot at different points in time as well.
the carbon steel sounds really intriguing. love the stock shaft offerings.
the other thread what OEM am I most blown away… this should serve as a double feature or solidifies that TEE is blowing it out of the water in 2020… Great bag from driver to putter, guess you might need an additional wedge as 56/60* doesn’t exist
I’m not sure these can fall into copy cat land – they are quite different designs. The looks of the cavity may be similar but the underlying clubs aren’t all the same.
Im of the same mindset.
I also think they look a lot like apex, but I’d caution people throwing “knockoff” around, because that’s one thing Tour Edge doesn’t do with their exotics lineup, they get too little credit for their R&D.
Yes, thank you! These are hardly an apex knockoff – the looks may be similar from a distance and they are both irons. That’s about where it ends.
It’s a natural grasp though visually so I get it, and there is some natural defense going on too I think.
But TEE does things their way, always, and David isn’t going to copy and paste anything in the Exotics realm.
These might be the first that get me into the Exotics realm, assuming they aren’t tooooo limited and are still around.
It’s definitely not, if you read the feature that we have on the home page (your wrote).
I get it though, the look is pretty darn similar, near identical.
To use a flip side, if Apex came out and looked just like something else, the posts would be pretty darn funny.
Haha I’m a hair confused – I’m making the case they are anything but a knockoff and the only similarity is the looks from a far and that they are both irons.
I am agreeing that they are not a knockoff, just saying that in images, that iron looks very much like the Callaway, so if people just gandered without reading your article, they could get the impression.
Ohhhhh I get it now – I misunderstood your message.
That’s a great question. It wouldn’t surprise me if they did.
The TEE clubs I’ve tested or bagged have all surprised me in performance—really quite impressive, and wish more people had the opportunity to try what they sell.
I really dislike the term because it lacks a real meaning … but it also felt right.
I’ll start by stating that I have no clue how Tour Edge operates – but I just don’t buy that during all of the extensive R&D, design, and prototyping phases nobody stood up and said "Uhh guys…we know this looks just like something else on the market right?"
So whether or not the club underneath is the same or different to the Apex, it looks the same and that has to be on purpose. There’s no way it got all the way to market before someone clued in. Did they set out to copy the Apex look or was it just a happy accident? I’m sure we’ll never know.
Time will tell if this is a genius move or not. If they can convince consumers that they have an "Apex" for 70% of the cost, perhaps they fly off the shelves. When Hyundai started selling copycat Mercedes for half the price they did extremely well.
These to me look very similar to the apex from the back. From the top they look very very different.