Are we in a golden age of equipment?

KEV

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Yesterday Puttin4bird and I were talking about equipment and the comment was made that this seems like the golden age of equipment. Sure there has always been good equipment in the market at any given time but everywhere you turn right now it's great. You could be randomly assigned to almost any major brand and not be disappointed by their equipment.

What do you think? Is today's overall marketplace better than any other time or is marketing helping it seem that way?
 
#HoorayScience

I haven't hit everything, but it seems like there should be good clubs (probably from multiple brands) for almost everybody if they get a good fitting.
 
Yesterday Puttin4bird and I were talking about equipment and the comment was made that this seems like the golden age of equipment. Sure there has always been good equipment in the market at any given time but everywhere you turn right now it's great. You could be randomly assigned to almost any major brand and not be disappointed by their equipment.

What do you think? Is today's overall marketplace better than any other time or is marketing helping it seem that way?
This is a great observation. Maybe I’m just more aware than I ever been but it sure seems like we are in the golden age.
 
#HoorayScience
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I think you could make a compelling argument that we are.

New materials and new and updated technologies, better manufacturing processes all combine to create a great environment for equipment. I don’t think there’s an OEM making bad equipment right now.
 
I haven't hit everything, but it seems like there should be good clubs (probably from multiple brands) for almost everybody if they get a good fitting.

Very true about the fitting but I think that could be true about equipment in years past. It just seems like there are more great options that you could just grab stock off the shelf and it will perform well. Of course a fitting is the way to go if possible though.
 
I’m actually not sure we are just yet, we do have it better now than we probably ever have, but I think the next 5 year we could see some mind blowing equipment come to market.

Then Jack will get his way, everything will get rolled back, and we’ll be “bombing” drives 220 yards...
 
I dunno if it's necessarily a golden age, because while nearly all the equipment is very good today, we aren't experiencing radical shifts in the equipment landscape like the era of titanium drivers or graphite shafts. While this is good because technological advances have reduced the likelihood that a product line is likely to be a stinker (by my estimation, we're about five years removed from the last product whiff by a major OEM) I'd say that improvements are still quite incremental after you initially get your toe in the proverbial waters. That is, the first time you get fitted with modern equipment you'll see a jump in performance, but after that, gains will be a little harder to come by or quantify.

That's not a bad thing, necessarily. Only that it's becoming more obvious to me that a revolutionary leap in club performance is (probably) not happening this year...and next year doesn't look awesome either.
 
Very true about the fitting but I think that could be true about equipment in years past. It just seems like there are more great options that you could just grab stock off the shelf and it will perform well. Of course a fitting is the way to go if possible though.

That's true. I was just thinking back to the fitting that I had earlier this year, although I have THP info to get me started down a path. Once we chose an iron shaft, there were a few sets of heads that would have worked well for me.
 
There is no doubt that equipment is great right now, obviously better than it has ever been. But they continue to try new materials and shifting things around the club head so we still have a way to go.
 
It always seemed before like there were one or two industry leaders and a couple of OEMs that did something specific well. Now i can think of 7 or 8 OEMs without even trying that most people would be very happy to have a full bag of their clubs.
 
It always seemed before like there were one or two industry leaders and a couple of OEMs that did something specific well. Now i can think of 7 or 8 OEMs without even trying that most people would be very happy to have a full bag of their clubs.

I guess that was my point. I agree with others that there haven't been huge advancements but I would say it's a more even field with more choices than ever.
 
... I told Techner of Scratch Golf that I wished someone would go to the PGA Show and just review the very best that was offered that year. He said it was a great idea and I should be the one to do it. So I started going to the show and giving out the Best Of PGA Show awards every year. It was usually pretty easy to find clubs that were much better than the competition. Clubs like the RBZ with a speed slot that was light years better and changed woods. But the last several years it became more difficult to find any clubs that seperated themselves form all the others. While I personally liked the Cobra F8 better than any other drivers, someone else may feel the same about the Rogue. Or the M3/4. Or G400Max. Or the GT180. Or even the Launcher HB. And they would all be correct, and I didn't feel that way several years ago. So yea, I do think we are in a pretty golden age for most golf equipment.
 
I agree that most if not all OEM's make a great product. My friend recently was looking at a used set of nearly new irons and upgrading from his 10 years old set was going to take some convincing as he rarely changes clubs (he still play a SLDR at 12-13 degrees and hits it 280 consistently).

Anyway, Golftowns up here in Canada are basically ghost towns this time of year as majority of golfers, except a few of us diehards, have put the sticks away. Anyway, I suggested doing a blind iron test. So he was up visiting relatives and had a couple of hours of free time and dropped into the local GT which was dead and explained to one of the fellas what he wanted to do and the chap was eager to help. So the GT employee selected a 6 iron from 9 different sets all with relatively same stock offering shaft (stiff). Each iron was covered in masking tape (backside of head) so my buddy had no idea what iron or OEM he was hitting. I believe on average he hit each iron around 7 times and the GT employee kept track of all the stats for each iron on the Flightscope. At the end of the test, one iron was on top but the remaining were all very close behind in dispersion and distance. For him, feel, dispersion and ball flight are very important. Distance not a big deal as he hits everything very long anyway.

I have never had a fitting before and neither had he but this was a cool experiment that with the help of the GT employee gave him broad insight into his selection. His experience for him showed that the gap between OEM's is minimal and comes down to personal preference on the few factors including minimal aesthetics (look at address) that are important to you.
 
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I think what is really cool now is just how much variety there is. Not only do things perform really well, but from driver to putter you can customize your entire bag to get exactly what you want out of each club. Another great thing is the versatility in clubs these days, I really don't like my high bounce 58* wedge much off the turf because I tend to blade it or hit it fat a lot, but yesterday I went out after 2 hard days of rain on a very soggy course and guess which wedge I was using successfully, the 58* high bounce wedge. The bounce allowed me to make solid contact with the ball in soggy conditions. I think you can see it everywhere too. Pros have a lot of variation in their bags as well. Not a ton of guys out there playing the set D-3-5 woods and then a set of irons and then 2 wedges anymore. They have all kinds of clubs in their bags too.
 
I’m actually not sure we are just yet, we do have it better now than we probably ever have, but I think the next 5 year we could see some mind blowing equipment come to market.

Then Jack will get his way, everything will get rolled back, and we’ll be “bombing” drives 220 yards...

I already bomb drives 220 LOL!!!
 
I agree that most if not all OEM's make a great product. My friend recently was looking at a used set of nearly new irons and upgrading from his 10 years old set was going to take some convincing as he rarely changes clubs (he still play a SLDR at 12-13 degrees and hits it 280 consistently).

Anyway, Golftowns up here in Canada are basically ghost towns this time of year as majority of golfers, except a few of us diehards, have put the sticks away. Anyway, I suggested doing a blind iron test. So he was up visiting relatives and had a couple of hours of free time and dropped into the local GT which was dead and explained to one of the fellas what he wanted to do and the chap was eager to help. So the GT employee selected a 6 iron from 9 different sets all with relatively same stock offering shaft (stiff). Each iron was covered in masking tape (backside of head) so my buddy had no idea what iron or OEM he was hitting. I believe on average he hit each iron around 7 times and the GT employee kept track of all the stats for each iron on the Flightscope. At the end of the test, one iron was on top but the remaining were all very close behind in dispersion and distance. For him, feel, dispersion and ball flight are very important. Distance not a big deal as he hits everything very long anyway.

I have never had a fitting before and neither had he but this was a cool experiment that with the help of the GT employee gave him broad insight into his selection. His experience for him showed that the gap between OEM's is minimal and comes down to personal preference on the few factors including minimal aesthetics (look at address) that are important to you.

A blind test would be so much fun to do, especially in drivers. Try to take out any bias and just let the numbers do the talking.
 
I thought this almost two years ago about putters:

https://www.thehackersparadise.com/forum/showthread.php/91728-Golden-Age-of-Putters

I think you're on to something. I think it's golden throughout the entire bag.

Putters are interesting with the limited amount of real estate they have to make improvements on. It's pretty cool when you see new tech come out like Microhinge or the Ping and Cleveland faces with variable milling. Again there are so many great options right now from so many companies.
 
I feel like golden age is usually used to reference a previous time that was great and was now lost. I think if there is any rollback to equipment this will be seen as a golden age. The one thing I would say is that there is a significantly smaller market for knockoff clubs.

I also think we have recency bias as well.
 
I am not so sure...it seems to me a lot of the new equipment isn't THAT much better than equipment from a couple of years ago. IMHO a lot of changes are more cosmetic than anything else and won't improve performance all that much.
 
I think that approximately 1998-2008 was the best 10 year period for equipment offerings.
 
Yes. I believe it is. Tech for tech, pound for pound, everyone is innovating and making damn good gear.
 
Why do you say that?

During that era there were some driver heads being offered in the 400 to 440 size range. Also fairway metals in the 140CC to 160CC size range. Hybrids in the 100CC to 110CC size range. I think the 425 or so driver size is easier to consistently square at impact. I definitely believe the older, smaller head size fairway metals and hybrids were easier to play off sloped, grassy, hard pan and and other less than ideal lies.
Today's fairway metal and hybrid heads are a bit too large. Also, the recent trend of using rubber-plastic all over the sole of these clubs does not make good sense for playing shots from the ground.
Finally, I do believe the former epoxied shaft-to-head connection offer a bit richer and more stable impact sound/feel than today's adapter connected offerings.
 
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