This is the best approach to obtain high quality clubs that are right for you personally. It is also the best way for most golfers to improve their games. The cost savings you would achieve in the other approaches will be gone, but you will have high quality clone golf clubs that fit your swing. Do top PGA Tour players use off-the-shelf standard clubs? Not on your life. Even though they endorse certain brands and use clubs from their sponsors, those clubs have been modified and customized for each player. If the best players in the world need to have their clubs customized for their individual swings, wouldn&’t it benefit you as well, whose swing is less perfect? If you have a set of clubs made by a professional club maker/fitter who is certified by PCS (the Professional Clubmaker&’s Society- try to find a PCS Class A clubmaker) or the GCA (Golf Clubmaker&’s Assoc.), you will receive a set of clubs that will get everything possible out of your game. If this approach is beyond the means of your budget, it is possible to do a club fitting on-line. If you can find a professional accredited clubmaker from one of the two professional organizations mentioned above who offers on-line fitting and clubmaking services, that solution would be your best bet. To identify such a person, look on the web site of the PCA.

Some Basics Before Buying Clubs

Your professional club maker will collect a certain amount of data before choosing the components to make your clone golf clubs, and you should know this information even if you buy a set of standard, off-the-shelf clubs. He&’ll measure your swing speed with both a driver and five iron. He&’ll measure the distance from the floor to the top of our wrist to determine the proper length for your clubs (most standard clubs are too long). He will observe your swing and determine the proper loft for your driver and other clubs (most golfers use a driver with too little loft). He&’ll determine if you normally slice or fade the ball and make necessary adjustments in the club face settings. He&’ll ensure you have the proper lie angle on your irons, which can dramatically improve accuracy. In all there are more than two dozen adjustments a club maker can vary to optimize clubs for your swing, although of course some are more important than others.

Conclusion

You can approach procuring a set of clone golf clubs in three ways. You can simply find a web site that sells cheap clones, you can purchase quality components and assemble them yourself, or you can go to a certified professional club maker/fitter and get the best set possible for your game. Even if you can&’t afford the latter approach, you should at least know your swing speeds in order to choose proper shafts, and you should get clubs that are the proper length and correct loft for your size and swing. In addition, I would highly recommend that anyone looking to invest in a new set of golf clubs read Tom Wishon&’s book, &’The Search for the Perfect Golf Club&’.

Three Ways to Purchase Clone Golf Clubs

This article will discuss three ways to purchase clone golf clubs. The more money one is willing to pay, the less risk there is in obtaining a high quality set. Let&’s examine these three approaches.

Purchase Ready Built Clones

Of course you can go to one of many web sites selling clone golf clubs and simply make a purchase. These golf clubs often look like those from Calloway, Titleist, or other major brands, but they are substantially less expensive. This is the most risky alternative. If you pay $39 for a club that looks just like a brand name club priced at $169, are you getting the same thing? Was the club made in the same factory and on the same machinery as the brand name club or at another with equivalent quality? Was it manufactured using raw materials of the same quality and to the same tolerances? The chances of all that being the case are small. Let&’s examine this for a moment.

Outsourcing of Club Manufacturing

The vast majority of clubs sold by the major brands are outsourced to factories in low wage parts of the world. Of the less than 100 foundries in the world which make golf clubs, only a small number have the solid quality systems in place to interest the major brand golf club companies. The others produce clubs that sell for very low prices in department stores or low cost web sites, for example. They only survive because they can sell their output at low prices. So would it be a surprise if lower quality raw materials were used, like scrap metal instead of carbon steel? Could their machines hold the same tolerances as the quality foundries do? Can they afford to train their employees to the same level? Do they use the same quality golf shafts in their clubs? If they are selling low cost products on thin margins, they will probably cut corners wherever possible. Let&’s just put it this way: you are not going to get a $169 club for $39, no matter how much the two may be made to look the same.

Make Your Own Clubs

A less risky alternative is purchasing the components and assembling the clubs yourself. To end up with a higher quality product you need to be sure the heads are manufactured in a quality foundry. There are component suppliers who are reputable and who can prove they sell top quality parts. As for shafts, there is a large component market for shafts from the top companies like Aldila, Grafalloy or True Temper, among many others, who supply the major brand club companies as well. Quality grips are also readily available. Assembling clubs and grips is not that difficult. Golfsmith sells components and can instruct you how to do this. Not too many tools are required, and Golfsmith can also provide support at either their retail stores or on the phone. The main problem with this approach is that you need to know which components to purchase, which heads, what type of shaft, etc. This will be discussed in more detail below.