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Can your brand like/dislike affect a clubs performance?

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jdtox

jdtox

Lord Tox
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Many of us have brands we like/dislike for many reasons. Mine is for PING, for no reason really other than I have disliked their clubs since I was kid, they have never done me wrong in any way, clearly they make great equipment. When I started playing this game the Ping Eye 2's were popular, heck my dad still plays a set that are well over 20 years old, but they never suited my eye. To this day the only Ping club that made the bag was a G15 driver that a salesman at Golfsmith talked me into and that lasted all of 2 rounds before I returned it. Many people love their equipment and I have given them shots to make the bag time and time again, but for some reason their equipment just doesn't perform for me. Take the G400 driver for example, many people LOVE this driver heck that thread alone has almost 120,000 views! Yet in a recent fitting at Club Champion with THP that driver was the worst performer for me and it wasn't close, so it got me to thinking....maybe its me.

I feel like other brands like Wilson or Tour Edge for example may not get a second look by many and if they do they don't work for similar reasons even though us THPers know they make very good equipment. What do you think can your personal thoughts about a Brand affect the way a club performs for you?
 
Yes. If you are already mentally in a place to challenge the performance you will attribute any possible flaws to the equipment.
 
I dislike Ping and Wilson Staff. Never worked and products never appeal to me. Had the G30 for maybe 3 rounds before discarding it. Think it got to me.

Srixon, Bridgestone and Tour Edge are just hard to find products to demo so I'm neither partial or impartial. My club or pro shops don't carry them and i can say have never hit them more than a couple swings. Only time is a partner having a club that I may hit a ball or two. Can't really make a decision that quickly.
 
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fupresti said:
Yes. If you are already mentally in a place to challenge the performance you will attribute any possible flaws to the equipment.
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So do you believe that if you like a company its automatically going to perform better?
 
It will absolutely have an impact. There are some brands that I am positive I would self sabotage if I even demoed them and for that reason I rarely even give them a try or comment on them. It wouldn't be fair to judge based on my feelings. In the same sense I'm sure I do better with some clubs due to my like for the brand even if I'm missing out on some performance aspects of other brands.
 
I don’t dislike any OEM’s, but there are some that I won’t gravitate towards. No rhyme or reason other than no desire to play their gear
 
I hate Taylormade for many reasons, some are dumb but I also had a horrid experience with their customer service. I struggle to play most of what they make though I do like the p770 irons really well.
 
I didn't like Callaway for awhile after owning the BB Alpha 815 driver. It rubbed me the wrong way about Callaway. It was stupid, I know but when I spent full price when it came out and was disappointed in a small period of time owning it... it's justifiable. Obviously, I love Callaway again!
 
jdtox said:
So do you believe that if you like a company its automatically going to perform better?
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Per my kinesiology courses back in college, sure. There's always going to be a mental component to sport, and equipment bias is always going to be one of them. See it in Hockey, between skates and sticks. You'll see it everywhere.

For the amateur, getting the equipment the pros use gives a bit of a boost. Just like getting anything new, there's a performance boost until the new wears off.

Will I ever look at Cobra clubs? Probably not because I have a completely dibilitating (and embarrassing) phobia of snakes due to almsot being bitting by a cottonmouth when I was 6. I'd need Riki Tiki Tavi club head covers lol.

It's just a psychological component, that's all.
 
It is more of a shape/appearance issue for me. There are some clubs I just don't like the look of. My aesthetic sense, golf club-wise, was likely set at an early age and unbeknownst to me. Brand does not matter.
 
4Regal said:
It is more of a shape/appearance issue for me. There are some clubs I just don't like the look of. My aesthetic sense, golf club-wise, was likely set at an early age and unbeknownst to me. Brand does not matter.
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I can understand that, in this case I don't mind the look of the current PING clubs or some others either in fact, but the numbers just don't work out for me just thought it was interesting.
 
To some extent, believing is seeing, as fupresti said. Brand/appearance bias can influence perception, up or down, for sure.

However, I can point to multiple clubs I've demoed that I really, really wanted to like, but they just did not work for me. On the other hand, some clubs that have long residencies in my bag were ones for which I didn't have a favorable impression going into the demo, but then . . .
 
There is such thing as a self fulfilling prophecy. That being said, some things you just know traditionally haven't worked for you so it is quick to dismiss something like that, and I get it. Does that dismissal leave and underlying feeling and action of performing less, possibly. Correlation does not mean causation, but I can see myself popping on a driver from a company I don't exactly like and having it perform less than optimal.
 
jdtox said:
So do you believe that if you like a company its automatically going to perform better?
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Yes, and that doesn't apply to just golf clubs. I think as consumers we have perceived bias, whether objective or subjective and it has a great deal of influence over our buying patterns. In my own personal situation for many years I largely avoided Wilson Golf equipment because I perceived it as "big box garbage". Even after trying their premium lines I would immediately find a reason to dislike it based on sound, looks, etc. without looking at actual performance.

When you are looking to spends hundreds, if not thousands of dollars you do not want to have any sort of regrets on the purchasing decision so I think we mentally condition ourselves to discard products we "know" we won't like regardless of performance.
 
Absolutely, I think the mental side of things plays a huge part in it. Id also argue bias helps out as well (even though so many people claim they are unbiased which is total BS). Its a shame too cause there are so many good clubs out there on the market, but so many people are stuck with the blinders on.

Side note, I didnt think your ping numbers where that bad, if I recall it was like 2nd longest but was offline or something like that.

anyhow, good topic.

Also for what its worth I hated Ping after that Anser wrecked my game...now Im a big fan of their irons after giving them another shot as well as the drivers
 
jdtox said:
So do you believe that if you like a company its automatically going to perform better?
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I think if you like a company, you'll subconsciously put more effort in to trying it, and less in to trying the brands you're not a fan of. The mind does crazy things.
 
It's possible, but for me, I'm going to say, "No." My like or dislike will be what potentially gets me to try or avoid trying a particular product. When I'm hitting a club, I'm going to put my swing on it, regardless. Heck, I've admitted to being a Ping homer, but just made the decision to pull the G400 driver from the gamer bag, because something else beat it. Was there bias involved, or did the Epic just perform better for me? On the other hand, I played a lot of quality irons last year, from various companies, and the i200s beat them all out. Was there bias involved, or did the i200s just perform better?

Disclaimer: I don't know that I "don't like" some brands as much as I have a "pull" towards certain brands.
 
The brain is more powerful than we ever give it credit for in this game. That's reality.
 
kevin81002 said:
I think if you like a company, you'll subconsciously put more effort in to trying it, and less in to trying the brands you're not a fan of. The mind does crazy things.
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Yep yep. Just like when reviewing a piece of gear that was free.....quick to blame ourselves and not the equipment. Now if I purchased it I would likely blame the equipment.

Power of the brain as jman said.
 
I'm gonna say no. I've had clubs that I wasn't a fan of the brand that I hit well, and others from brands I liked that I couldn't hit.
 
I think the reverse holds true as well. If I like the look of something that may not be best suited for me, I tend to play it well because I like it.
 
I think testing a brand that you don't like makes you nitpick on it more. So even if say you don't like Callaway and you hit a driver with Jailbreak and get solid ball speed numbers, but if you hit it say 2 yards more offline, it becomes that it's not as accurate for you. So I believe not liking a brand can make one come up with more reasons to dismiss it, even if it performs well.

When in doubt turn to the blind side for advice.....If you don't love it in the store you won't wear it. I think it definitely applies to golf clubs too.
 
I'm guessing what the OP is getting at is confirmation bias.

What I'll say is that sometimes the opposite has happened to me. There have been a few times that I've picked up a club where I don't care for the look or the company, and probably doing it to justify scoffing at it, I've come away thinking that I may not like <insert look or company here> but that's not a bad club.

On the other hand there are some that I've going in fully expecting to like and have been really disappointed when I didn't hit them well, and gave them way more chances than they deserved.

I distinctly remember going to a huge demo day many years ago, hitting a favored company's iron not very well, and the not so favored one very well. Still bought the other irons, and I've always looked back on that and one of my costlier golf mistakes.
 
ddec said:
I think testing a brand that you don't like makes you nitpick on it more. So even if say you don't like Callaway and you hit a driver with Jailbreak and get solid ball speed numbers, but if you hit it say 2 yards more offline, it becomes that it's not as accurate for you. So I believe not liking a brand can make one come up with more reasons to dismiss it, even if it performs well.

When in doubt turn to the blind side for advice.....If you don't love it in the store you won't wear it. I think it definitely applies to golf clubs too.
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Well said!
 
I believe this to be true. I don't dislike any OEM in that I wouldn't consider bagging a club if it worked for me. I do find this to be more true to me personally with other products, such as musical instruments and power tools. There are certain guitars and tools that I won't even pick up because I have a preconceived notion that they will suck. That's a me problem and I am good with that.
 
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