Methodology
How we rank golf gear
The honest replacement for a test lab: a published, reproducible method built on specs, standards and arithmetic. Every number we publish, you can check.
The one-paragraph version.We do not run a testing lab, own a launch monitor fleet, or hit every club. Where a bigger publisher cites a robot test, we cite the manufacturer’s spec sheet and show our math. Gear we claim to have lab-tested: none. Sponsored placements: none. Free products accepted: none. What we do instead is below.
What we use
- Published manufacturer specifications — the loft, compression, cover material, magnification, battery life and feature set the maker lists. These are claims, and where our writing leans on one, we say whose claim it is.
- Official standards and rules— USGA and R&A equipment rules for what’s legal, published compression and construction norms for how a ball behaves.
- Live retail prices — pulled from the Amazon Product API and stamped with the date we checked them. Nothing on this site shows a hand-typed price.
- Aggregated owner feedback — patterns in what real buyers report, used as a signal, never quoted as a fabricated review.
What we compute that others don’t
This is the gap we actually own. Test labs measure spin; almost none publish what the gear costs to live with. We do:
- Cost per dozen and cost per round for golf balls, factored through how many you lose.
- Three-year cost of ownership for launch monitors — hardware plus the software subscription that quietly compounds.
- Which GPS units and monitors charge a recurring fee, and which don’t.
- What a home practice setup really costs, line by line.
The scoring rubric
Every product carries a score out of 10, broken into named metrics appropriate to its category (for a ball: distance, greenside spin, feel, durability, value). Those scores are judgements from documented research — they are not measurements we took in a lab, and we never present them as such. The overall is the average of the named metrics, shown openly so you can weight them for your own game.
The “skip this” pick
Every roundup names a product we’d skip and says why — a spec that doesn’t back the price, a feature that’s wrong for the intended buyer, a cheaper option that does the same job. We include it even when the skipped product would pay us more. A guide that only ever says “buy” isn’t a guide; it’s a shelf.
What we do NOT do
- We do not run a test lab or claim hands-on lab testing.
- We do not invent prices, ratings, review counts, or spec numbers. If we can’t verify it, we say so or leave it out.
- We do not accept payment for placement or let commission rates move a ranking.
- We do not claim a credential our editor doesn’t hold. See about.
When we update
Prices refresh continuously from the live layer. Roundups and comparisons are reviewed quarterly and whenever a significant new model ships; cost figures are re-checked when a vendor changes its pricing. Each page shows a “last updated” date so you know how fresh the research is. Our full independence standards are on the editorial policy page.