2012 Golf Digest Hot List: What Was Tested

[blugold]

No mention of the driver either. After being on THP for a few years now, I've come to realize that the hot list is really incomplete.

It almost feels like they hand out x amount of gold medals and y amount of silver for each catagory, regardless of the tests done.

 

[mhachtx]

The GD Hot List is a joke. Supposedly they perform comprehensive testing and analysis in order to provide an accurate estimation of the effectivness of each club. The first page even breaks down the panel of experts that were consulted (scientists advise regarding the innovation category, players comment on performance, look, sound feel, retailers evaluate demand etc.).

If this process is really as exhaustive as GD claim it is, surely it must be producing a lot more data than GD are actually presenting in the Hot List. All you get in the Hot List is a pathetic one or two paragraphs of generic, recycled rubbish that usually runs along the lines of - "feels awesome", "can't miss if you try", "really launches", "very forgiving", "ball really jumps of the face" etc.

Not to mention that all of the player comments are overwhelmingly positive. For example, the highest rated driver this year was the Callaway RAZR Fit (surprise!) with five star ratings in performance, innovation and look/sound/feel (actually the Titleist 910 D2/D3 also had fivers in these cats but i'm ignoring it because it was in last years edition). The feedback mentioned that the club had a nice sound, was forgiving and justified Callaway's late entry into the adjustability market. The one negative - the tour version has more adjustability options than the off-the-shelf model.

Now lets look at the Cleveland CG Black - only a silver award winner in the driver category, with four stars in performance and look/sound/feel and three and a half in innovation. The feedback talked up the club's softness and responsiveness. The one negative - apparently using a driver that weighs significantly less than your other clubs takes some adjustment (oh really!?).

So why the discrepency in ratings between the Callaway and the Cleveland? The Hot List certainly provides no adequate justification - we're just supposed to take GD's word for it. All the Hot List is doing is unfairly biasing the casual golfer against certain manufacturers. I'm not saying GD are wrong about their ratings, I just expect more from a publisher as reputable as they are.

They also fail to explain how the ratings of certain clubs inexplicably drop between Hot List editions. Last year the Mizuno MP 53 irons had four and a half stars in performance, five in innovation and four in feel. This year only four in performance and innovation, but feel has somehow improved to four and a half? I'm pretty sure the club hasn't changed - has new technology really raised the bar that much higher?

Guys - the fact that you read and post on this forum tells me that you're likely not going to be influenced by something akin to the Hot List anyway. I just wish GD would embrace it as an opportunity to provide truly useful information about golf clubs, rather than a chance to kiss-up to the OEM big boys.

You summed up a lot of my feelings with this.

This list is only useful as a list, their rating system is stupid, and the comments are even worse.

 

[One-T]

Stupid hot list

 

[blugold]

I forget, but is "tour use" part of the demand catagory?

 

[Jman]

hahaha....me too. But I will be getting them. J38's will be on the market.

Seriously might be the ONLY irons that could knock my 2.0's out of the bag (the dual pocket's that is).

 

[One-T]

Seriously might be the ONLY irons that could knock my 2.0's out of the bag (the dual pocket's that is).

Thats what I have, and I love them. I will be a DPC man for life now

 

[Jman]

Thats what I have, and I love them. I will be a DPC man for life now

Its posts like these that make me wish the NC Residency thing had worked out with my wife

The commonalities are crazy.

 

[Damaikis]

I just got a chance to look at the Hot List. While I'm not as interested in what they have to say about the clubs (THP is better for that IMO), I really liked that I could look at all of the products side-by-side. Helped me to compare and contast them much better.

 

[Swoosh]

2012 Golf Digest Hot List: Thoughts?

2012 Golf Digest Hot List: Thoughts?

http://www.golfdigest.com/golf-equipment/2012-02/hot-list-drivers#slide=1

Any thoughts on the new Hot List? I know, every year I get very annoyed that they have a 'Demand' category. What does that have to do with a good club? If anything, I want a club that has little demand so that I'm not playing the same club as everyone else.

Also, I think it's pretty cool that you can now buy a $300 adjustable driver.

 

[Jersey Nate]

I think there's a thread on this already....sorry Swoosh.

 

[furu]

I know all about the problems with 'demand', smaller brands and how the big names keep getting gold and silver. I still think that Hot List is an important factor in golf. We have to remember that the online community isn't that big. There are thousands of golfers out there who seek information in magazines like Golf Digest and don't use internet sources like THP. Hot List brings them very good info about equipment. If it's the 'correct' winners that are presented will be discussed forever no matter who wins. We have to realize that brands like Profound, Edel and Vision will not get as much attention as Callaway, TaylorMade +++.

Golfers that have a problem with who wins have to do something about it themselves. Spread the word online. On the range. On the course. In the clubhouse. Try to help the brands that don't get the attention they deserve. If you buy a Bridgestone J40 driver and love let the world know it.

 

[TC]

The GD Hot List is a joke. Supposedly they perform comprehensive testing and analysis in order to provide an accurate estimation of the effectivness of each club. The first page even breaks down the panel of experts that were consulted (scientists advise regarding the innovation category, players comment on performance, look, sound feel, retailers evaluate demand etc.).

If this process is really as exhaustive as GD claim it is, surely it must be producing a lot more data than GD are actually presenting in the Hot List. All you get in the Hot List is a pathetic one or two paragraphs of generic, recycled rubbish that usually runs along the lines of - "feels awesome", "can't miss if you try", "really launches", "very forgiving", "ball really jumps of the face" etc.

Not to mention that all of the player comments are overwhelmingly positive. For example, the highest rated driver this year was the Callaway RAZR Fit (surprise!) with five star ratings in performance, innovation and look/sound/feel (actually the Titleist 910 D2/D3 also had fivers in these cats but i'm ignoring it because it was in last years edition). The feedback mentioned that the club had a nice sound, was forgiving and justified Callaway's late entry into the adjustability market. The one negative - the tour version has more adjustability options than the off-the-shelf model.

Now lets look at the Cleveland CG Black - only a silver award winner in the driver category, with four stars in performance and look/sound/feel and three and a half in innovation. The feedback talked up the club's softness and responsiveness. The one negative - apparently using a driver that weighs significantly less than your other clubs takes some adjustment (oh really!?).

So why the discrepency in ratings between the Callaway and the Cleveland? The Hot List certainly provides no adequate justification - we're just supposed to take GD's word for it. All the Hot List is doing is unfairly biasing the casual golfer against certain manufacturers. I'm not saying GD are wrong about their ratings, I just expect more from a publisher as reputable as they are.

They also fail to explain how the ratings of certain clubs inexplicably drop between Hot List editions. Last year the Mizuno MP 53 irons had four and a half stars in performance, five in innovation and four in feel. This year only four in performance and innovation, but feel has somehow improved to four and a half? I'm pretty sure the club hasn't changed - has new technology really raised the bar that much higher?

Guys - the fact that you read and post on this forum tells me that you're likely not going to be influenced by something akin to the Hot List anyway. I just wish GD would embrace it as an opportunity to provide truly useful information about golf clubs, rather than a chance to kiss-up to the OEM big boys.

What a great post and one that I completely agree with. GD is very thorough in telling us about how they test yet they share zilch of that information when it comes to the write up. Hell, make the entire magazine about the clubs and data, it would be far more useful at that point.

Really good post.

 

[Ole Gray]

Why do people even read the Golf Digest equipment issue? It sounds like a huge irritant to me :confused2:

 

[Ole Gray]

Why do people even read the Golf Digest equipment issue? It sounds like a huge irritant to me :confused2:

P.S. We have had it in our house for a week and I have yet to look at it!

 

[runpuddrun]

P.S. We have had it in our house for a week and I have yet to look at it!

Same here. Got the mag for free when I ordered some golf stuff on Amazon, also have GOLF mag and like it much better. Their both decent reads, but just for fun, like a golf soap opera...

 

[crazygolfnut]

• PERFORMANCE (45%) What happens to the ball when it's hit by the club.
• - Ok, I go along with this.

• INNOVATION (30%) How the club's technology advances the category.
• - Makes no sense to me. I dont care if it is made of horse hair as long as it works.

• LOOK/SOUND/FEEL (20%) What the golfer experiences before, during and after impact.
• - Ok. If any of these are what I like, I wont buy it.

• DEMAND (5%) The relative interest in a product and its reputation.
• - Reputation! This is BS. The big company marketing hype is always going to win. Maybe they should simply ask if the tester would spend money on it and put it in their bag.

Also, where are the size specs that they use to provide?

 

[Sean]

• PERFORMANCE (45%) What happens to the ball when it's hit by the club.
• - Ok, I go along with this.

• INNOVATION (30%) How the club's technology advances the category.
• - Makes no sense to me. I dont care if it is made of horse hair as long as it works.

• LOOK/SOUND/FEEL (20%) What the golfer experiences before, during and after impact.
• - Ok. If any of these are what I like, I wont buy it.

• DEMAND (5%) The relative interest in a product and its reputation.
• - Reputation! This is BS. The big company marketing hype is always going to win. Maybe they should simply ask if the tester would spend money on it and put it in their bag.

Also, where are the size specs that they use to provide?

I would think performance should have a much higher percentage.

 

[crazygolfnut]

I would think performance should have a much higher percentage.

I think I agree. I just copied from their website. I would drop Innovation altogether and spread the 30% out over the others.

 

[Scrap Iron]

after reading everyone's thoughts on here about the scor wedges i was highly intersted to see what the hot list had to say
performance 4.5 stars
innovation 4 stars
looks sound feel 4.5 stars
demand 1 star
all that and they got a silver medal. that really makes no sense. For all the time, effort, thought and expense it's sad to see the hotlist come out with such a poor execution of a final product. THP is the place to come for true honest opinions on all types of equipment. To the staff and all the hackers thank you for keeping us all informed and open to all equipment.

 

[sub_par]

• DEMAND (5%) The relative interest in a product and its reputation.
• - Reputation! This is BS. The big company marketing hype is always going to win. Maybe they should simply ask if the tester would spend money on it and put it in their bag.

5% means they don't give a rat's patuey about this category.

 

[golf4life]

after reading everyone's thoughts on here about the scor wedges i was highly intersted to see what the hot list had to say
performance 4.5 stars
innovation 4 stars
looks sound feel 4.5 stars
demand 1 star
all that and they got a silver medal. that really makes no sense. For all the time, effort, thought and expense it's sad to see the hotlist come out with such a poor execution of a final product. THP is the place to come for true honest opinions on all types of equipment. To the staff and all the hackers thank you for keeping us all informed and open to all equipment.

The "demand" category is how they indirectly show extra love to the big OEMs in the Hot list. The fact that 5 points is generally going to be the difference between a gold score (90) and a Silver (<90) in almost all cases is how they continually seem to put certain OEMs on the gold list.

But it should still make you happy how highly they scored the performance and look/feel categories. It shows how good a set of wedges the SCORS really are to overcome the bias and make the hot list at all.

And while they claim to show no bias, Golf Digest continues to put old clubs in the hot list when certain OEMs (cough, Titlelist, cough) don't have a new offering in a particular category. That kind of irks me. Even the TM MCs that I play and really enjoy, I didn't want to see them on the list for a second year.

 

[blugold]

How's this for crap.

Callaway RAZR Black.

Spoiler

Stars 4, 4, 4, 3 but gets a gold medal. So that has to be the bottom of the gold medal range.

But yet these two iron sets had more stars in, yet only got silver medals.

Spoiler

Figure that out. I hate the Hot List.