By Gaghalfrunt
Section 1: OEM, COMPONENTS, CLONES AND KNOCK-OFF.
"OEM" means "Original Equipment Manufacturer", that a name brand, pro shop type club like Taylormade, Ping, Callaway and Titleist. The words "clone" "component" and "knock-off" are used interchangably, but should not be. Both "clone" and "knock-off" are essentially synonyms, they're clubs designed to imitate a well-know OEM style as closely as possible. The term is used perjoratively by many as they look down upon any club that is a derivitive design rather than something original. "Components" differs from "Clone" and "Knock-Off" in that they're closer to original designs and are clubs that stand on their own rather than trying to imitate something else. They're also designed to be sold a la carte, buy a set of heads from one company, shafts from another, grips from another, etc, to create something truly unique. They're held in higher regard than clones and knock-offs as being original is more noble than being a copycat. In actuality, those lines are blurred beyond the point of relevence. There are few truly original designs these days, almost everything is a slight adjustment to a proven design. Even OEMs copy each other and make minor cosmetic changes to distinguish their stuff from the design they pilfered. Scotty Cameron lifted almost every one of his putters directly from Ping, the Futura is the only original putter he ever made, the rest are just clones. Scotty works for Titleist though and has that marketing clout, so Scotty copies Ping and he's considered to be OEM while if any smaller company copies Scotty they're "Clones".
What's important is quality and there are lots of companies that sell knock-off or clones that are of inferior quality. Tolerances are way too loose, materials are 2nd-rate, fit and finish are lacking, etc. There are also many companies that sell clubs that are considered to be clones or knock-offs because of the design, but that are every bit as good as the major OEM clubs they're imitating. Companies like Wishon, Bang, SMT, Dynacraft, Golfsmith, Golfworks, Raven and KZG all are top notch in quality and easily meet or exceed the designs and performance of the big OEM players. They all specialize in mostly original designs, but all have been accused of being clones or knock-offs from time to time. There are only so many ways to make a driver look and the fact that a Wishon looks like a Titleist which looks like a Golfsmith which looks like a Taylormade merely reflects that reality, it doesn't mean that they're copying each other.
Section 2: THE FUNDAMENTAL FACTS OF GOLF
Golf is a hard game. Unlike millions who are born with great speed or the potential for great strength, very few are born with natural golf ability. Progress takes practice, hard work, good instruction and patience. Nothing happens overnight and improvement comes s-l-o-w-l-y. In an attention-deficit-disorder world, that isn't acceptable to most people. Nobody wants to do the work, they expect to be able to walk into a pro shop and buy improvement. If it was that easy we'd all be Tiger Woods, but that just isn't possible. The manufacturers know this and they prey on the desire to improve through spending rather than through practice. Despite inflated claims by the manufacturers that their equipment will revolutionize the game, things really change at a glaciers pace. About 25 years ago investment-cast perimeter-weighted iron heads started coming into vogue. Those were a huge step forward for the average golfer and were much easier to hit than the old forged blades. In the intervening 25 years, only 3 pieces of technology have had any impact in golf. Everything else has been smoke and mirrors, empty hype and ridiculous marketing claims. 3 things and only 3 things have made the game easier.
1) The new multi-cover balls. The biggest change in the game since hickory shafts gave way to steel, the new balls are actually destroying the game. They go too far, fly too straight and are too easy to control.
2) Oversize titanium driver heads. Forget the talk about hot faces and high COR trampoline clubs launching balls into the stratosphere, that's just lies. Spring-faces have surprisingly little impact on distance, most of the distance gains recently are due to the ball. The impact of titanium clubheads is that you can make them HUGE without increasing weight. A 460cc titanium head weighs the same as a 200cc steel head that was considered large a few years ago. 460cc has a sweet spot about the size of the entire clubhead on a 200cc driver. Balls struck near the heel and toe now fly almost as far as balls hit perfectly. THAT is the benefit of the new heads, they don't hit the ball much farther than older smaller heads, they just forgive tons of mistakes and a mis-hit that would have gone 70 yards on a tiny head now catches that huge sweet spot and flies 250.
3) Good graphite shafts. Early graphite shafts were terrible. They were underpowered, overhyped and prone to breakage. Now graphite shafts have hit the 21st century. They're light, powerful, reliable and available in thousands of configurations from low torque, superstiff beasts that allow fast swing pros to control their distance, accuracy and trajectory to supersoft ultralight 45 gram 48" garden hoses designed to maximize the swing speed and carry distance of even the slowest swingers. Everyone can now find a graphite shaft to help their game and getting the right characteristics can help significantly.
That's it. That's what's changed in 25 years. Iron heads have remained static, they're no better than they were 25 years ago and in many ways are now worse, especially in quality control. Steel shafts are about the same as they were 25 years ago. Shoes are the same, tees are the same, fairway woods are pretty close to the same and even putters are about the same. There's not a golfer on earth that can be turned from a crummy putter into a good one just by changing models. Belly length, high-tech inserts, new gizmos like the Futura all exist for one reason: To make a bad putter think that he can become a good one by spending more money. The manufacturers love people like that.
Section 3: THE ECONOMICS OF GOLF EQUIPMENT
Ely Callaway is largely to blame, but like Bill Gates he's an evil genius who determined how to take advantage of his customers stupidity, so maybe it's more accurate to say that the customers are to blame. Callaway tapped into the mindset of those morons who think you can buy improvement and came up with the simplest, most profound aspect of the golf business. People equate more expensive with better and most expensive with best. He found that you could take 3 identical clubs and place them in a proshop. Mark one $99 with no hype, mark one $250 with a good ad campaign and mark one $400 with a great ad campaign and a tour pro saying he plays it. The $400 club will outsell the exact same $250 club 10-1 and the exact same $99 club 25-1. Sadly, that's the real difference between most $400 clubs and most $99 clubs, marketing and endorsements.
The ugly truth and well-kept secret is that the parts that go into a set of clubs are dirt cheap. Even the parts that go into superexpensive clubs are mostly dirt cheap. What the manufacturers sell is the hype, the illusion of superiority and the dishonest endorsement of a pro who "claims" he's using a club. The typical $400 proshop driver is well less than $100 worth of parts. It's a titanium head that costs $60-$80 sitting on a $6-$10 shaft capped with a $1 grip. That's it folks. That shiny new $400 miracle club is as little as $70 worth of parts. Where does the money go? The manufacturer makes over $100 profit, the dealer makes over $100 profit and $100 goes towards marketing and supporting the tour program. It's expensive to buy endorsements. In a carnival it might cost 50 cents to throw a baseball and attempt to knock over a bottle to win a prize. The prize itself costs the carnival 10-25 cents, so even if you win, they win. Golf equipment is a lot like that. If you buy your equipment on closeout when it's being replaced by the next shiny miracle club, you're getting a better deal, but you're still getting hosed. That driver that was $400 2 months ago but has been replaced by the new $400 driver, is now down to only $200. What a deal! You're getting the privilege of spending $200 for a $70 club and sadly, many people think they're actually coming out ahead in the bargain. In a way they are, they got less money stolen from them than the schmuck who payed $400 for it. On the component club route, a $50 head paired to a $25 shaft produces an EXCELLENT driver that would be a great performer for many people. Even at the high end of cost range you're left with clubheads that cost maybe $120 and shafts around $75. For $195 you get performance that exceeds the OEMs in every possible way.
The manufacturers like to maintain the illusion that more expensive is better and will artificially inflate prices accordingly, even if the part prices don't justify it. Look at the prices for drivers or irons with graphite shafts versus those with steel. Normally, for a driver it'll be something in the range of$299 with steel and $399 for graphite or for irons $699 with steel and $899 with graphite. Newsflash here, the stock graphite shafts are in many cases CHEAPER than the stock steel shafts. It's not unusual for a driver to come with an $8 Dynamic Gold steel shaft, but to have a $4-$5 generic graphite shaft as on option. There will still be a $100 markup to get the graphite. With irons it's even worse. It could cost the manufacturer $50-$100 less to build a set with cheapo graphite shafts that those with decent steel, but they'll still upcharge you $200 to get the graphite just to make people believe that it's a superior set. There's as much as $300 MORE PROFIT in a set with graphite shafts, so it pays to foster that belief. Note that this is not necessarily a disparagement of graphite shafts. There are many excellent graphite shafts that outperform steel for many people. The issue is that steel shafts run from $5-$20 where graphite runs $4-$200. Many companies will use graphite shafts at the low end of the scale and charge for them like they're at the upper end of the scale. There's nothing wrong with spending $150 for a $150 shaft if that's what fits you best. There's a big problem with OEM club manufacturers charging $150 for a $6 shaft though.
One of the keys of golf economics is that you need to have endorsements. There's an old adage in all sports that what wins on Sunday sells on Monday and nowhere is that more true than in golf. Despite the fact that Tiger Woods is a +8 handicap with a 125mph swing speed, Joe Moron 36 handicap with an 84mph swing speed will still think he can and should play what Tiger plays. He'll buy ill-fitting equipment that he doesn't have a prayer of hitting well in the belief that it's step one towards getting on tour. The manufacturers know this, so they want to be winning on Sunday. They need to get their logo on as many bags and visors as necessary and they'll pay for the privilege. A journeyman no-name pro or a guy fresh out of Q school will have an equipment deal worth $500,000 a year for clubs, balls, shoes, etc. A big name will have a deal in the millions and a real top player will be $5 million+ a year just to be a walking billboard. Tiger is closer to $10 million a year for clothes and equipment from Nike, not counting what he makes from Buick, American Express, etc etc. That's cool, but does a pro really play what he endorses and tells you to buy? NO!!!
Even if a pro actually uses the brand he says, he is often not using what you can buy in a pro shop. In many cases, the equipment that goes to the tour is a completely different model than what's available to the public. Even if not a different model, the pros are using specially selected equipment hand built to their specs by teams of experts who follow the tour from stop to stop in tractor trailers that are rolling clubmaking shops. If a pro needs a loft adjusted it's done. He needs reshafts, no problem. He needs 40 new sets of clubs built to different specs so he can try them all and pick the one he likes best the clubs will be delivered to him in a week. What are the pros using? COMPONENTS!! Custom clubs, just like what they're telling you NOT TO BUY. They don't use off-the-rack stuff, every club in the bag is extensively fitted, customized and adapted to their swing with special shafts, funky grips, different grinds, non-standard weights or varying lengths and lie angle. If that wasn't bad enough, they often start with equipment that you and I can't obtain at any price. Mike Weir won the Masters with a hand-built, one of a kind set of Taylormade irons that isn't available for sale to the general public. But he tells you to buy Taylormades from a proshop because they're good enough for him. They're not good enough for him, HE ISN'T PLAYING THEM!!! Tiger was playing a Nike ball that was specially made just for him and not for sale until they got caught at it and were forced to market his version too. Tom Watson, Nick Price and Justin Leonard were using a Precept ball for half the year that was a prototype not for sale, others are using special clubheads or shafts that can't be bought. What's wrong with the equation when a guy tells you to buy a product because it's so good that he uses it, but doesn't actually use it? Even worse, club and ball contracts are pretty loose. They allow a player to change equipment that doesn't work, even if they change to a different manufacturer. Most club contracts are for 10-11 clubs while a golfer can carry 14. He's got wiggle room to get rid of junk and replace it, so a guy that endorses Nike clubs can be hitting a Titleist driver while still endorsing Nike. Tiger isn't the only guy to have dumped some equipment to change to a competitors while still endorsing the junk he can't hit. Duval is another notable who dumped his Nike in a search for something better. Right now Sergio Garcia is featured prominently in ads for Maxfli's M3 ball which he is payed big bucks to push. The problem? Sergio tried that ball for half a season and couldn't hit it worth a lick, he dumped it and is now hitting a ProV1x while telling you to buy an M3. Hmmmmm.
It's also important for manufacturers to win the Darrell Survey, that's a weekly poll of who's using what equipment and it's conducted on the first tee, the bags are checked and the number of Taylormade drivers, Ping putters, etc, are tabulated. The manufacturers use that in their ads, like "#1 driver at the US Open" or "Most played putter on tour..." right there in bold print. How do they get there? By paying weekly bounties. You want to be #1, just offer $5,000 to $10,000 to every pro that tees up your driver on Thursday. You'll win the survey and can use that in your ads. Meanwhile the pros got the money from using your crap and went back to what works the very next day, but by then it's too late, you bought yourself a place as the #1 driver on tour. There are stories about pros who enter tournaments just to collect bounties. If they hear Callaway is introducing a new driver model and needs to be #1 for the marketing push, they'll enter a tournament, collect $10,000 for helping Callaway win and withdraw after 9 holes. $10,000 isn't bad for 2 hours work, eh? There's a rumor (likely true) that Taylormade offered Kenny Perry $25,000 to use their new Monza putter in a recent tournament where he was up 6 shots heading to Sunday. They figured he'd get all the TV time with such a huge lead and that $25,000 for one round of golf was a great investment. He declined, but the next time you walk into a pro shop and spend $400 on a big name club, THAT is what you're paying for, bribes to PGA players, NOT the club itself.
Section 4: MANUFACTURING, TOLERANCES AND QUALITY CONTROL
Due to high costs, major manufacturers do not build their own club heads. In fact, major manufacturers truly manufacture nothing. The heads are outsourced to a foundry in China. The shafts are made in China by a different company and bought by an OEM. The grips are made either in Mexico (Golf Pride) or China (Winn and almost everyone else). All the parts are sent to factories in China where the head, shaft and grip are assembled into a completed club. The completed clubs, completely untouched by employees of the OEM selling them, are then shipped back to the USA for sale. That's the role of major OEMs these days, they buy pieces and have them glued together, then sell them to you. It's the same role that a clubmaker/clubfitter does, only the manufacturers don't do it nearly as well. Here's why: All the heads are made in the same foundries. The component companies are outsourcing their work to the same Chinese foundries as the OEMs and getting back a product of similar quality and design. In any manufacturing process, there are variations in the work. A part might be heavier or lighter, have more or less loft or a different lie angle than the specs called for. It's theoretically possible to get only perfect parts, but the cost is huge. You need to reject any head that doesn't meet spec and that costs more, so some leeway has to be allowed. Each manufacturer sets their own limits on how far a part can be out of spec and still be accepted. For clubheads, tight tolerances are around plus/minus 2 grams of weight, 1 degree of loft and 1 degree of lie angle. Some allowances will be as high as plus/minus 4 grams of weight, 2 or even 3 degrees of loft and 2 degrees of lie angle. Setting such lax tolerances allows you to reject fewer heads for being out of spec which keeps costs low. EVERYONE does the same thing, major manufacturers and components alike all have parts out of spec. That's normal. The difference arises in that component and custom club makers measure tolerances and either fix or work around them while the major manufacturers DO NOT.
If I (or any competent clubmaker) buys a set of heads to make a set for a customer, the first thing we do is to check the parts. We'll weigh and measure all parts to insure proper weight, lie and loft gapping. Parts out of spec will be adjusted as necessary. We'll bend for loft and lie so that all heads are the same. We'll add or subtract weight to maintain a consistent swing and static weight through the set. If there's supposed to be 4 degrees of loft difference between a 5 iron and 6 iron, you damn well will get 4 degrees of loft difference, if you need clubs that are all 1* upright in lie, every club will be 1* upright in lie. All shafts will be flex tested to make sure that they feel and play the same way. In short, all manufacturing tolerances will have been eliminated by the time the clubs get to you.
For OEMs the process is different. All parts are pass/fail and all passed parts are considered to be the same. With 3* of loft tolerance and 2* of lie tolerance there can and will be a huge difference between parts that pass their version of "quality control". A 9 iron that should have 44* of loft can be either 41* or 47*. A club that should be 1* upright can be either 1* flat or 3* upright. One that should weigh 220 grams can weigh 224 grams or only 216. All are the same in the eyes of the manufacturer because all are within allowable tolerances. The heads are then mated to shafts that likely are weight sorted, but not flex tested. That's pretty common, a shaft that weighs 126 grams should be stiffer than one that weighs 117 grams and that's stiffer than one that weighs 109. This creates a problem because the shafts themselves have tolerances. One that is supposed to weight 125 can in fact weigh 116, yet flex the same as one weighing 125. By weight sorting that winds up in the wrong batch and will be marked regular rather than stiff.
Since all parts are the same as long as they meet spec, nothing actually mates to any other club within a set, each is deemed a separate entity. A 9 iron is a 9 iron is a 9 iron and an 8 iron is an 8 iron is an 8 iron and a stiff shaft is a stiff shaft is a stiff shaft. Any club they make is supposedly as good as any other club they make since only parts that passed "quality control" are used. Are they really good though? Let's do a little math here and find out. Let's build 3 clubs, a 7 iron, 8 iron and 9 iron with regular shafts from that "all passed parts are equal" bin. The true specs say the 7 iron "should" be 36*, the 8 40* and the 9 should have 44* of loft. Cool, if all parts match it's a nice set with perfect 4* gapping. But let's assemble that set with a perfect 40* 8 iron, a 9 iron that is 3* strong (still within spec, so it's okay) and a 7 iron 3* weak (also okay). Instead of 36-40-44 you get 39-40-41 and instead of a normal 10-12 yard gap between how far you hit each club you have clubs that differ by 3 yards in difference potential. Whoops, that won't work too well, so let's toss that 9 and 7 iron away and keep the 8 because that one is perfect. Time to grab 2 new heads only this time we get a 7 iron that's 3* strong and a 9 that's 3* weak. Instead of 36-40-44 you get 33-40-47, suddenly 7* of gap between clubs and what should be a 10 yard difference between clubs is now an unmanageable 20 yards. Makes it really hard to pick a club for the approaches, huh? Let's take it a step farther and have the 7 iron use a head that's 1 degree flat and a stiff shaft while the 9 is 1* upright with an A flex shaft. You wind up with 33*(S) 1* flat - 40*(R) normal lie - 47*(A) 1* upright lie. To an OEM manufacturer, that's a perfectly valid set of club as every part used is within tolerances. To a clubmaker that set is a piece of junk that would never ever get sold. This might seem like an exaggeration, but it's not. I've never, repeat NEVER tested a set of OEM irons that were right directly from the box. Every single set had problems with loft, lie, shaft flexes or all of those things at once. Price is not a determining factor, a $1200 set of graphite shafted Callaway X-16 isn't any better at matching spec than a $200 set of Northwesterns from K-Mart.
Section 5: THE IMPORTANCE OF FIT
Golf clubs look mostly the same. It's a head on a shaft with a grip. Pick up one companies driver and hold it next to another companies driver. On the surface the differences are mostly superficial, the color might be different, they might be a slightly different shape or length, but that appears to be it. The truth is that there can be VAST differences between two clubs that look identical and those differences are not apparent to the naked eye. There are many factors that determine how a golf club performs and almost none of those factors can be seen or measured without special equipment. Among the factors that influence a clubs performance are loft, head weighting, lie angle, length, static weight, swingweight, shaft length, shaft flex, shaft kickpoint, shaft weight, grip size and grip shape. EVERY ONE OF THOSE factors has some effect on how a club works and what it does. Take a Ping 5-iron with a Dynamic Gold steel shaft and an identical Ping 5-iron with a lightweight graphite shaft and those two clubs will play completely differently. The trajectory will be different, the weight and swingweight will be different, the balance will be different, they'll hit the ball different distances and perhaps even a different shot shape, that it, hook vs slice. And that's just the shaft. Two nearly identical models of a club that have the same shaft will perform differently if the head has weighting in a different place. Weight low towards the sole makes the ball go up quickly. That's great if you hit the ball too low, but it's trouble if you hit it too high. Weight towards the toe and heel will forgive offcenter hits, but will sacrifice feel, feedback and shot shaping ability on good hits. Weight high in the head will help control trajectory, great if you play in the wind a lot and tend to hit the ball too high to control, but that will kill a player that struggles to get the ball airborn. Lie angle (the angle that the shaft enters the clubhead) is critical. Too flat and the ball will slice, too upright can cause a hook. Even something as simple as the grip can have a big impact. Smaller grips will increase hand action, usually helping reduce a slice. Larger grips will reduce hand rotation and can help a hook. EVERY SINGLE PART of the club will effect the clubs performance and you can't afford to ignore any of it. Getting it all right isn't magic and it isn't difficult, it just requires a little time, knowledge and effort.
What complicates the matter is that there is no such thing as a "standard" golf club. From company to company and even from model to model from the same company, clubs are different. One company might make their 5-iron 38" with 28* loft and a 62* lie angle. Another company might make theirs at 37.5" with 26* loft and 61* lie angle. That same company can make a different model 5-iron at 38.5" with 30* loft and a 63 lie angle. All perfectly valid 5 irons, but if you hit one of them well odds are you will not hit the other two well at all.Now factor in the various available options. Usually there will be a stock default shaft offering and several upgrades as well as a standard grip and several upgrades. The same model club might be one length and lie with a certain shaft and be longer or shorter with a different shaft. The lie angle can be special ordered. It's very possible to hit one set of Pro Model VGT model 17's with Bestco Ultralight shafts and have them be great and to hit a different set of Pro Model VGT model 17's with Bestco Ultralight shafts and have them be terrible just because the length or lie angle was different between the sets.
So what's the "best" kind of club? There is no right answer to that. A club that is perfect for player A will be terrible for player B. A grip size that helps one player will hurt another. A shaft that controls Player A's high trajectory will hurt Player B with his low trajectory. A sole-weighted, highly offset "game improvement club" will only improve the game of someone with a specific set of flaws, that is, a low slice. That very same "game improvement club" will ruin the game of a guy who hits a high draw because it'll turn the high draw into a ballooning hook. It's all a trade off and there's no such thing as a free lunch. A club that helps to do one thing makes it harder to do that things opposite. A club that helps hit it high makes it very tough to hit it low. A club that reduces a slice will increase a hook. One that has a stiffer shaft for control will sacrifice some distance potential. There's no best and there's no worst. There's no right and no wrong. There's only what fits your game and what doesn't, PERIOD! Don't make the mistake of believing that because your best friend bought a set of Pro Model VGT model 17's with Bestco Ultralight shafts and improved that those clubs will help you improve. You might be the same height, the same weight, same age, same skill level and hit the ball the same distance, but when it comes to clubfitting you might as well be a completely different species. The clubs that help him can hurt you. A club that he bought and hated could be perfect for you. How somebody else hits a given club has ZERO effect on how you might hit it. ZERO! If everyone you ever met hits that same Pro Model VGT model 17's with Bestco Ultralight shafts very well it still is probably the wrong set for you.
How do you find the right clubs for you? First, put aside your ego. Yeah, everyone wants to think he can swing the same sticks as a PGA tour pro, but unless you're scratch or better you probably can't. Everyone thinks he can use a superstiff shaft, but most guys need a regular or even softer. Everyone wants to think he's good enough to pure blades, but he probably can't. Forget what the pros play. Forget what your boss plays. Forget that your friends are going to laugh at you if you use a shaft softer than theirs. The only number that counts is the one on the scorecard. You will play better with cheap no-name equipment that fits rather than high end, expensive and impressive proline equipment that doesn't. Forget what you WANT to be playing and fill up your bag with what you SHOULD be playing.
So how do you know what you should be playing? Simple, you get fit by a professional. The vast majority of golfers lack the knowledge and special tools to fit themselves, the process is too complicated and there are too many variables. The clubfitting process is quick, easy, cheap and painless. It should take half an hour to a full hour and cost $50-$100. You know what you do? You just hit some golf balls. The clubfitter will take some measurements of your height and arm length, how you swing and how you stand to the ball. He'll give you a club that sort of fits and watch you hit more balls. He'll use those results to hand you a slightly different club and then watch those results. He'll make constant adjustments to the gear you're using as he zeros in on your ideal specs. He'll use a launch monitor to check your swing speed, launch angle and ball spin and come up with the right combo of head shape, shaft flex and shaft flex profile to maximize your distance, get the right trajectory and hit the straightest. That's it, getting fit is like going to the range to hit a bucket of balls. You don't have to be rich, you don't have to be very good and you don't have to know anything. The results are what counts and you'll be getting real world results on what works and what doesn't work for YOUR swing rather than the useless info of what works or doesn't work for somebody elses swing. Go from there. With the info provided either get a custom made set or if you have to have a certain name brand, buy that brand and have them customized to match your ideal specs.
Section 6: ASSORTED RAMBLINGS
When considering a set of clubs, you should always go by fit. Ignore brand, cost, status and what pro is playing which model. A set of clubs that fits you well will work well no matter who makes it or what it costs. A $200 set from K-Mart will easily outperform a $2000 top of the line set if the cheap set fits you and the expensive set doesn't. After fit comes shaft performance. The shaft is the engine of the club and it has the greatest impact on how it feels and hits. Think of the shaft as the speakers of a stereo or the CPU/motherboard of a computer. An expensive head on a cheapo shaft will not work as well as a cheap head on a quality shaft. Don't let your ego get in the way, if you want to be using extra-stiff shafts but the fitter thinks you need regular flex, believe the fitter and don't cater to your threatened manhood. Likewise, don't buy clubs as a status symbol. Nobody cares if you're got the newest hot irons or the driver that won last Sunday. You want to impress people, do it with your game, not shiny toys. If you've got $2000 worth of clubs and a 2 bit swing, you're going to get laughed at, if you've $200 worth of clubs and can hit the hell out of them, that will impress people. Consider getting rid of some long irons and adding more lofted woods. That goes back to the ego thing, most guys refuse to believe that they can't hit a 3 iron well, but most guys truly can't. If you're one of them, dump the 3 and 4 irons and pick up a 7 wood. Nobody laughs at good results and knocking a 7 wood onto the green is much better than knocking a 3 iron into the trees.
Accept the fact that there are no magic wands. You can't buy a game, you can only buy the tools necessary to build one. Good clubs that fit are the foundation, not the sole answer. When you walk into a pro shop, keep it in your mind that the path towards improving your game does not lead solely to the shiny new itequipment. It also leads to the guy giving lessons. Getting a decent set of clubs that fits is critical, but it's just a start. Bad or ill-fitting equipment will make it hard to improve. It can hold you back and ingrain bad habits. After getting the right set of clubs it's time to see a PGA Pro for a few lessons. Don't try to buy your way out of swing flaws, a new driver is not going to fix your slice and new irons will not keep you from hitting ground balls. This takes work and if you think you can write a check and have skill delivered to your door, save yourself the time and frustration. Just send the money to me and I'll spend it on beer, you'll get the same results and I'll be drunk and happy, so at least one of us will be better off. You need both good gear and good instruction. Remember that practice does not make perfect, "PRACTICE MAKES PERMANENT". If you have a slice and think that hitting a bucket of balls 4 times a week is going to cure it, you're wrong. Making the same swing over and over merely roots the slice even more deeply. You need to practice a CURE for the slice, not the slice itself. That requires the help of a trained pro.
Spend your money where it counts and where it'll do the most good. Get an oversized titanium driver with a graphite shaft that suits your game and swing speed, they really are a major breakthrough and it'll be money well spent. Don't spend $400 on one though, that's insane. You can easily get one far superior to that for under $200 and should have no trouble finding something in the $125-$150 range. You'd be amazed how many people I've fit with drivers for under $100 that provided better performance than a $400 proshop stick. And don't be afraid to get one with plenty of loft. The pros might be playing drivers with 8-10* loft, you should be 11-12* and perhaps even more. Be honest with yourself, the slower you swing the more you'll benefit from added loft. Unless you're a single digit handicapper or less, you should not be paying more than $24 for a dozen balls. There are plenty of excellent balls in the $15-$24 range. You need to be a really good player to get the true performance out of a ProV1x or Nike One and if you're not highly skilled you won't be any better with a $45 ball than you could be with a $15 ball. Go for low compression, for swing speeds under 105MPH (that's almost everyone) you can hit a Maxfli Noodle or Dunlop LoCo farther than a ProV1x. Fight against the inclination to spend more.
Section 7: GETTING LESSONS
As I've already mentioned, improving means getting the right gear and getting some help from a teaching pro. That extra set of eyes that can identify flaws and provide fixes is important to the process. What you feel happening in your swing might not be what's really happening. Your body can lie to you and make it seem like you're doing one thing when you're really doing something else entirely. There are a huge number of golf instructors out there and not all of them are good at their job. The PGA of America seems to be more concerned with turning out dues-paying members than they are with turning out competent teachers. Most instructors fall into one of 3 categories.
1) The perfectionists: They're the guys like Butch Harmon and David Leadbetter who think that every student should and could become a Tour Pro by devoting 100 hours per week of range time. Their methods are confusing to the vast majority of students and they can only be effective with the most dedicated pupils. In an attempt to make everyone conform to THEIR idea of the ideal swing they'll smother the students natural swing and make them mechanical. That only works for a small handful of people with the skill, feel and dedication to learn something completely new. Most students will get worse if working with this type of instructor as their swing will ALWAYS be under repair.
2) The clock-punchers: They're out there in vast numbers, guys who can play well enough to pass the PGA's Playing Aptitude Test (which is insanely easy BTW), but who are rotten teachers. The ability to PLAY golf does not necessarily translate into the ability to TEACH golf. These guys learn a few generic drills and make every student do them even if that drill won't help that particular student. They're like piano teachers who would make a one-armed student play chopsticks because they don't know any specific teaching methods that would be appropriate for that single student. The clock-punchers are usually very personable and talk a good game, so their students like them and keep coming back week after week after week. And after hundreds or even thousands of weeks, the student has not made any progress whatsoever. Millions of lesson takers start as 30 handicappers and remain 30 handicappers forever. It's because they're learning from clock-punchers who have no idea on how to help them.
3) Smart teachers: Smart instructors realize that no 2 swings are alike and that there's no such thing as a perfect swing. Instead of teaching you Tiger's swing, Ernie's swing or their own idea of the perfect swing, they'll fix YOUR swing. They have the ability to tailor their lessons to address the specific problems and the specific needs of each student. A true beginner needs to be taught differently from a guy who has played for 5 years and is still a 30 handicapper and that guy needs to be taught differently than a 12 handicapper who wants to become a 5. Every student has individual goals and an individual commitment level and golf instruction is not one size fits all. The truth is that everyone outside a tour pro lacks the time or ability to learn a great swing. They need to have the flaws taken out of their own swing. There are only a few fatal flaws in a golf swing, flaws that MUST be corrected to improve. Most of what looks like a flaw is merely an idiosyncracy that isn't causing any harm. A golf swing doesn't need to be perfect or to look good on TV. It just needs to repeat and be free of the fatal flaws. A good teacher is like a surgeon. He cuts away the bad and leaves the good stuff untouched. Type 1 teachers try to cut away EVERYTHING and Type 2 don't even know which end of the scalpel to hold.
Teachers should see students like a doctor sees patients. Their goal should be to fix what ails them and keep them healthy, NOT to get them back into the office every week until the end of time. Your teacher should be interested in fixing your problems, not using you to make his car payments for the rest of your life. Here's a way to identify a good teacher: Before he watches you hit balls he should talk to you about your goals and commitment. He needs to find out what you want to achieve and how hard you're willing to work to get there and then he needs to create a teaching program to meet your specific goals. If he tries anything else he's a charlatan. And if he promises to turn a 30 handicapper into a scratch player with 2 lesson a week he's a bigger liar than that guy who claims to hit it 350 and straight every single time.
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