club review redundancy ?

[JDax]

I've given a lot of though to comparison type reviews, how would that even work? It's literally not possible. Trying to compare 1 club to 50 just doesnt even make sense.

I do like the reviews where they compare two heads with the same shaft.

 

[MtlJeff]

Golf.com does robot testing at 95 mph across 9 points on the face https://golf.com/tag/robotest/?catfilter=39

Hmmm, i did not know that----thanks for the link. I always figured the vendors would not want reviewers doing this

 

[PuffChippy]

Yes, no doubt reviews are hard to do. For the launch of the product I believe OEM's could help the cause by providing more information such as results from player testing , club head size, how and why the stock shaft was selected etc... For example, Mizuno web site has an "iron comparison" table which provides heel-to-toe length and face height numbers. This is very helpful to anyone curious about how a new Mizuno iron model compares to a previous version. As far as I know Mizuno is the only company which provides these numbers, but it's information other brands could easily offer.

You're not wrong and while I love data like that there's little motivation for OEMs to do it and even less for them to provide actual test data. Most golf consumers know very little about their equipment (or care) and all the testing data would show is that in a lot of ways the performance difference is so small as to make it simply a matter of personal preference (see the articles linked above). It would also open the door to some things they'd rather not have enter the conversation and that's all I'm going to say about that. I will say that there's some good fact-based testing being done by independents but it's not always easy to find for reasons I also won't comment on. If you're passionate about golf equipment and look hard enough you'll find it but it won't be coming from the OEMs.

 

[Louis_Posture]

I've given a lot of though to comparison type reviews, how would that even work? It's literally not possible. Trying to compare 1 club to 50 just doesnt even make sense.

Consider for example Mizuno's prior generation ST-G 220 driver versus the recently released ST-G 440 driver. As far as I know the ST-G 220 did not sell especially well to consumers and I don't know of any Tour pros who had it within their bag. My guess is that the club produced such low spin shots that few players found it to be worth buying or playing.
For the new model (ST-G 440) Mizuno expanded the loft offering , so the higher loft settings would in theory would make the driver shots spin a bit more , perhaps equating to shot forgiveness. I think helpful review content here would include the 220 versus the 440, so potential buyers could learn if the newer model plays significantly different.
Another example is Ping's recent introduction of the Blueprint S and Blueprint T. Ping does not provide measurements of its iron head club sizes, so it would be helpful club review content if a professional reviewer actually measured the heel-to-toe length and face height of the new Blueprints (not an entire set, just a single club such as a 7-iron) so potential buyers could learn how it compares to Ping's original Blueprint or i230 models. This is an an opportunity for a professional reviewer to offer helpful information which Ping chooses to not provide.