Years Between Real Club Enhancements

Chump Fries

Captain Awesome
Joined
Dec 13, 2009
Messages
1,814
Reaction score
0
Location
Mississippi
Handicap
8.8
So each year, the latest and best golf equipment comes out promising yards, accuracy, reduced hair loss, and increased testosterone.

Sure, each year’s equipment is marginally better than last. My question is this...suppose you didn’t upgrade your equipment every year or two. Assuming you are properly fitted, how many years should you wait before upgrading your clubs? Phrased differently, how many years do you think it takes for the club technology to really make you a better golfer.

My gut says 3-4 years to see a noticeable decrease in scores due to equipment alone, but would like other thoughts as well.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
So each year, the latest and best golf equipment comes out promising yards, accuracy, reduced hair loss, and increased testosterone.

Sure, each year’s equipment is marginally better than last. My question is this...suppose you didn’t upgrade your equipment every year or two. Assuming you are properly fitted, how many years should you wait before upgrading your clubs? Phrased differently, how many years do you think it takes for the club technology to really make you a better golfer.

My gut says 3-4 years to see a noticeable decrease in scores due to equipment alone, but would like other thoughts as well.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I think this is entirely subjective and depends on when you got fit, and also what you got fit into. Some manufacturers (and it seems more of them lately) really push the technology limits, while others are much more conservative in what they are trying to get. The other issue is the players skill level. If you are a player who finds the center of the clubface on his driver with regularity you could probably play a 10 year old driver and not really notice much in the way of improvements in distance.

For someone like myself who does not find the center all that often the last few years have seen huge upgrades in ball speed retention and also dispersion on those off center hits.
 
Average 10 years for differences to equipment design/construction that create materially significant shot results changes.
 
I think the question is multi directional.

1 - Did you game the <<insert club from bag>> that best suited your game vs ALL other companies options?
2 - Did you play the club that was most forgiving/spin-optimal/furthest/best-sounding/best-looking for your game/ear/eye?

To answer that, I think it's yearly. I don't believe clubs are one dimensional in how they perform for us.
 
I think that if your clubs are more than 3 years old your probably leaving something on the table. I don't think year to year its as big a jump.

JMHO
 
I think this question has as much to do with the status of your own game vs. the status of your equipment. Our games are not static -- they are improving and declining all the time. That should bear on whether a particular golfer should get new clubs as well.
 
Whatever it takes to make the game easier while giving you the best performance possible.
 
I can only opine on my own experiences as I am sure different people would and do have different results. Every year since I bought my G25, I have scheduled a driver fitting to compare it against the newest releases. In every case, I left with the G25 in hand as nothing else produced numbers that would induce me to change. In that time, I have taken out a few demos to try against the G25 on the course and they have not fared great as I know where the Ping is going and what my misses will be.

Otherwise, I do not really chase much in the way of technology in my other clubs. As long as they hit through a certain window and produce a certain number (and have fairly predictable misses), then I am satisfied.
 
I think its entirely different person to person in terms of year over year gains.

Speaking drivers - if you find the center of the face more often than not, a lot of tech advances in forgiveness won't be noticed by you as much as it would for the rest of us. If you are someone who struggled to take spin off the ball, low spin advances probably did a lot more for you than it would for me. There are several more examples out there.

You might not notice an improvement over the span of a few years, but someone else probably is having the time of their life reaping the benefits of a tech that finally meets their need.
 
I have no idea about what should be done, if there's such a thing. I only know what I did.

I went 9 years, I guess it was, with my Mizunos. I'd play my full set of MX-200 irons when my swing was off or rusty. I'd insert my partial set of 7-PW MP-52 irons to go along with the Mx-200 5i and 6i when things tightened up (played this set-up probably 80+% of the time).

I very happily played the set(s) for nearly a decade until a spontaneous, curiosity driven urge drove me to buy Shakey's CF-16s with Steelfiber i95 shafts. But it was actually the shafts that compelled me rather than any imagined upgrade as to the quality of the clubheads.

I was blown away by their forgiveness. I really thought that the MX-200s offered all the forgiveness I could ever want but I was so blatantly wrong. The CF-16 represented an enormous leap in technology reflecting very positively toward my game.

So yeah, I definitely agree with realizing more tech improvements and benefits perhaps if one would wait at least a couple or few seasons. But that's not to discount the actual improvement from year to year, either. I now believe it to be real and would never begin to judge another for chasing it (never did before, really).

As for me, though. Although I have 2018 releases in the Rogue SZ driver, G400 Max, and C300 Forged (another curiosity purchase but CF-16s still in 'da bag), I have no urge to "upgrade."

LOL... for now, at least.
 
My opinion, if you're waiting for clubs to make you a better golfer, you will probably be waiting a while.

Clubs don't fix faults, they support potential. In my opinion anyways.
 
I bought off the shelf irons in 1998 or so. Cleveland TA4. Eventually bought a new TaylorMade r5 a few years later. I stuck with them for a long time until 2016 when I decided to upgrade. I did try the clubs at GolfSmith before buying them but I can't say that I was fitted. I got cf16's and they noticeably hurt my game. I bought an M1 driver and I can't say that it does any better than my r7.

I gave up on the cf16 that year. In 2018, I went after it again but this time got fully fitted for i200 and those are a reasonable upgrade to my old TA4's. Still stuck with the M1.

Overall, I don't think equipment upgrades affect scoring as much as the equipment companies would like to make you believe once you get past a certain skill level. I strongly suspect that the big time game improvement irons make a massive difference for a person who needs them though. The original question should probably be answered that way. For a golfer that is new to the game or struggling, getting equipment that helps you with your flaws is going to really help your scoring and updating it frequently will continue to do so. For a golfer that is pretty good with a stable swing, I struggle to see that even going a decade without upgrades is going to make a huge difference.
 
When OEMs were making distance claims, they were against models from 5 years prior most often. There's a reason why they don't anymore. And for this entire thread, I don't think there is a right nor wrong answer for any individual as it is their choice when and why to upgrade.
 
I think that if your clubs are more than 3 years old your probably leaving something on the table. I don't think year to year its as big a jump.

JMHO

I agree with this
 
I think hunting unicorns is hard. Besides, I've heard tales that even some unicorns are prettier than others. (Blasphemy I know... sweet, sweet, unicorn!)

Marketing > advancement and it takes real innovation before "need" comes into the picture. But it is still there slowly, slowly grinding away in the background adding up. (3-5 years is my general answer to your question)

Lessons, work, and playing is where I'd place my money if you're talking about playing better.
If you're talking about enjoyment... Well that is personal, but this is where I'm a sucker for shiny new things and the idea of trying to slowly grind them into scratched up, rusted, well worn "cool things".
If you're talking about shot efficiency... What Canadan said and the never ending cycle of finding, testing, fitting what works best for you (which plays into this yearly release hype) is where I think more club enhancements are found.

How can you tell where your going if you don't know where you are at?

Real Club Enhancements are probably in line with yearly ball advancements. Sometimes it is substantial, sometimes the rules change or regulations are put in place... but I have never felt it is holding me back.
 
Thinking back over my original question, I think it’s best a lot of times as golfers to not get rid of “the trusty club”. I can think of a few instances in my life where I traded out something I was really comfortable with (my R9 fairways come to mind) with newer tech only to be frustrated, less confident, and actually worse golfer.

Henrik Stenson is a prime example of someone who uses what works with his 3 wood.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
I've found the Epic Flash to be noticeably quicker on mishits than my XR16. I'd be leaving distance on the table if I didn't play it.

At the same time, while I absolutely LOVE my irons, I could probably go back to my G15 and shoot nearly the same score. But the Apex give me that forgiveness in a much better looking package, which I think has been the big improvement in irons as of late.
 
Make sense. If the tool is doing what you want out of it... I say good rep's only churn the charm. And who doesn't like Ice Cream or Butter?
I'm not even supposed to have it and I still like it..
 
I think it depends in part when a person bought the equipment that serves as a baseline for comparing improvement. For example, I believe most now acknowledge that Jailbreak was a significant step forward in technology, particularly with respect to retaining ball speed on less than perfect strikes. So, if you had purchased the Great Big Bertha, Fusion or whatever it was the year before the release of OG Epic with Jailbreak, I think an upgrade would make a significant difference from only one year to the next. If, on the other hand, you bought the OG Epic, you might not see a huge difference for several years.

I think this year is another example. Almost everybody is concluding that the F9 driver is a significant step forward from the F8. Will next year’s release make another technological jump? Who knows?
 
Back
Top