It Measures as Specified
Heads get weighed and gauged on arrival; shafts get measured before they go on the rack. A product line that arrives outside its own stated tolerances more than occasionally does not stay, regardless of how it performs.
The policy
Why We Do Not List Manufacturer Names on This Page
You will not find a wall of logos here, and that is deliberate rather than coy. Displaying a manufacturer's marks tends to imply a relationship, and we do not have relationships with manufacturers in any sense that would matter to you. We buy their components the way a customer does.
What we can tell you is exactly how the rack is chosen, how big it is, and what causes something to be removed from it. That is more useful than a list of names, all of which you could guess anyway, and none of which explains why one of them ends up in your club.
If you want to know whether we can build with a particular head or shaft, ring the desk and ask. The answer is nearly always yes, including for things not kept in stock, and the question costs you nothing.
Roughly What Is Here
The rack turns over slowly and stays deliberately small. At any given time you can expect somewhere in the region of the following.
| Category | Approximate count | Refreshed |
|---|---|---|
| Driver heads | 14 to 18 | Annually, partially |
| Fairway and hybrid heads | 20 to 26 | Annually, partially |
| Iron heads, single test units | 30 or so | Every second year |
| Wedge heads across bounce options | 22 to 30 | Continuously |
| Putter heads and lengths | 12 to 16 | Rarely |
| Shafts, wood and hybrid | Around 90 | Continuously |
| Shafts, iron | Around 60 | Continuously |
| Grip models and sizes | 40 plus | Continuously |
A large retail floor will beat those numbers comfortably. What it will not do is tell you why any particular item is on the wall.
- Loaner components
- None
- Volume agreements
- None
- Rebate tiers
- None
- Shaft of the month
- Never had one
What Independence Costs Us
Buying every test component outright means the rack grows slowly and skips a good deal of what gets released each year. A studio on a manufacturer programme would have more choice on the wall than we do.
We think a smaller rack that owes nobody anything is the better trade. You are entitled to disagree, and if breadth of selection is your priority a larger shop is a reasonable choice.
Ordering Outside the Rack
Anything a component supplier sells, we can order and build. Custom shafts, unusual lengths, left-handed heads that nobody stocks in this valley.
Lead times run two to three weeks in the winter season, often under a fortnight from June onwards.
Selection criteria
Four Tests a Component Has to Pass
Applied in this order. A component that fails the first is not evaluated on the others.
It Fills a Real Gap
New stock has to serve a player type the rack does not already cover. A fifth shaft that behaves like four we already have adds nothing to a session except time spent testing it.
It Can Be Supplied Again
A component that will be discontinued in eight months is a poor recommendation. If you need a matching replacement in 2029 after a shaft breaks, we would like that to be possible.
It Survives the Bench
Some heads are awkward to work with, some ferrules never seat cleanly, some hosels are inconsistent in depth. Build quality problems become your problems eventually, so they are disqualifying here.
And One Thing That Is Not a Test
Tour usage. What a professional plays is a function of contracts and a swing nothing like yours. It has never once decided what goes on this rack, and we will not cite it in a recommendation.
Nor Is This One
Margin. The components with the best margin for us are not the ones most often specified, and we would be happy to walk you through the file if you ever suspected otherwise.
Removal
How Something Leaves the Rack
Components are pulled for three reasons and no others.
The first is measurement drift across deliveries. If a shaft model starts arriving with noticeably different behaviour than the units we originally profiled, it becomes impossible to specify honestly, because the thing you order is not reliably the thing you tested.
The second is discontinuation. Once a replacement cannot be obtained, the item comes off before it can be specified into a client's bag.
The third is simple non-selection. If a shaft has sat on the rack for two seasons and never once won a session on the numbers, it leaves. That is not a judgement on the product; it is a judgement on its usefulness to the players who walk through this particular door.
Nothing is ever removed because a different supplier offered better terms, because there are no terms to offer.
Clubs We Did Not Sell You
Roughly a third of the bench work here is on equipment bought elsewhere, and that is entirely fine. A club bought online three years ago is not treated as a lesser object.
- Loft and lie gauging on any brand, including ones we do not stock
- Reshafting a head you already own and want to keep
- Length and swingweight correction across a mixed set
- Assessment of whether a used set is worth re-specifying at all
If the honest answer is that the set is past economic repair, you will get that answer before any labour is charged.
I asked which brand they preferred and got a genuinely puzzled look, then a ten-minute explanation of why that was the wrong question. Ended up keeping my old heads with different shafts.
Ask whether we can build the thing you have in mind
Most of the time the answer is yes, and the conversation takes about ninety seconds.