Each year The Hackers Paradise holds “Shoot Outs†with most categories of golf equipment. We put together a panel of testers that are not affiliated with our site or any company and ask them to test equipment and based on their tests we determine rankings for each club. These are the results of those tests and are not the views or opinions of the staff here at THP. We offer spots in these “Competitions†to almost all of the major equipment companies and most are kind enough to be a part of it. Last month we concluded our Putter Shoot Out and after that, and it was time to move on to the Wedge Shoot Out, now the Hybrid Shoot Out is upon us, and we were really excited by the turn out of companies eager to see how they fared in the hands of consumers.
None of this is scientific and we hope every person reading this tries as many hybrids out as they can when making their decisions on what will work best for them. However as THP is the site For consumers, By consumers, we think it is a great way to get through all of the marketing out there and find out once and for all which clubs worked best for our “Panel of Judgesâ€. We assembled 18 golfers set up in 3 categories to test each club in this “competitionâ€. Six Low Handicap players, Six Mid Handicap players, and Six High Handicap players. Click here to read a short biography for each person included in the testing.
We want to quickly touch on a couple of things before we get to the results.
1. Not one of these hybrids performed poorly. In fact most did extremely well, but in the end, some just fit players a little better than others did.
2. Players were given a series of shots both on a driving range and on a course.
3. Trending in certain clubs with each handicap group was definitely here. Each group was having the same 2-3 clubs do better than everything else.
Here are the participants in this shoot out.
Cleveland 09 Launcher
Cleveland Hibore XLS
Adams Idea Pro Gold
Adams Idea A7
Cobra Baffler 09 TWS
Mizuno MX-700
Nickent 3DX RC
Nickent 4DX Ironwood
Nickent 5DX Ironwood
Nike SQ Sumo
Nike SQ Sumo2
Taylormade Rescue TP
Titleist 909H
Wilson Staff Fybrid
Srixon AD Hybrid
Bridgestone J36 Hybrid
Categories for these tests are:
Looks – Personal preference on the appearance
Feel – Personal opinion on how these clubs felt overall
Distance – Measured by Testing crew based on outcome
Accuracy – Based on measurements to fairway center
Overall – The sum of these categories.
Looks
Each tester was asked to rank each hybrid based on aesthetics only, and rank them 1 through 16. Here is the top 5 in the looks category. They based looks on the 3 things. The look at setup and the look of the bottom of the club. Here is the top 5 in the aesthetics:
1. Wilson Staff Fybrid
2. Nickent 4DX
3. Titleist 909H
4. Srixon AD
5. Bridgestone J36
Feel
Nothing more subjective than this. We asked each tester to rank the clubs 1 through 16 based on feel and their own personal interpretation of how the clubs felt during play. This is the one that the testers seemed to have the most fun with because each golfer is different in how they compare feel. Things such as texture and feedback, were commonly used when the golfers were determining the feel. Each player noted more and more how different every hybrid felt that they got to try and as they changed clubs they did not know what to expect.
1. Adams Idea A7
2. Nickent 4DX
3. Mizuno MX-700
4. Nickent 5DX
5. Wilson Staff Fybrid
Distance
This was a measurement after each shot on both the driving range and the range. Each tester hit 6 balls with each with the high and low being kicked out and the average of the rest. Keep in mind that distance cannot be totally reliable based on the fact that not all the hybrids were of the same loft for the same club.
1. Nickent 5DX
2. Adams Idea A7
3. Nickent 4DX
4. Cobra Baffler TWS
5. Cleveland Launcher
Accuracy
This was done on the course with a line in the center of the fairway as a target. Measurements were taken after each shot by THP contributors and recorded. Each club got 4 balls hit by each tester at the target and the 4 hybrid was used by each company for this shot. The average was taken of the four shots with each hybrid.
1. Adams Idea A7
2. Nickent 5DX
3. Mizuno MX-700
4. Wilson Staff Fybrid
5. Nickent 4DX
Overall
After we totaled each category from all 18 people that are involved with this project we came up with overall rankings. Here is the top 5 for the overall rankings in our Hybrid Shoot Out.
1. Adams Idea A7
2. Wilson Staff Fybrid
3. Nickent 5DX
4. Mizuno MX-700
5. Nickent 4DX
Not one hybrid in this entire “contest†was a bad club or a poorly made club. In fact what we noticed is that so many of the clubs are excellent and the results backed that up. It in some cases came down to a couple of yards right or left in determining the overall winner. It goes to show that every club will feel and perform differently in each player’s hand and to test out as much equipment as you can to determine which is a perfect fit. If you would like to read how each handicap group fared and what the top choices were in each category by handicap group, click here.
If you would like to see all of the pictures taken of the gear used in this shoot out, click here for tons of photos.
You can read all about what each tester picked as his favorite and least favorite as well as quotes from the shoot out, by checking out this thread on it.
Another Shoot Out has come to an end and we had a blast doing it. We hope everybody enjoys reading how other players “just like you” perform with the different clubs and will continue to do them as long as our readers enjoy reading them. The equipment companies have been gracious enough to supply their equipment for these tests and we want to thank them for the chance to put these great clubs in the hands of the players for this event.
