You’ve seen the ads. You have noticed the incredible prices. And you’ve no doubt wondered, “Are they as good as brand names?” We’re talking golf club clones, of course, essentially imitations of branded equipment that you can buy from various sources for very little. Well, cheap as far as new golf equipment goes.
But are they that good?
Bottom line
For those of you in a hurry (who isn’t?), here are my takeaways:
Come on. I sell a lot of used golf equipment on eBay. And you can bet that I try to reproduce almost everything that interests me that passes through my office. So the prudent question would be: What would someone like me, who has access to and can pretty much stake anything I want, have in my golf bag? Answer: Same set of cheap graphite shaft clone irons I bought at Pinemeadow Golf a few years back. It is not a joke.
Drivers and fairway woods. Although it’s no longer in my bag, my overall experience with the graphite shaft driver I picked up from Pinemeadow is fine; performance and feel were satisfactory. The corresponding fairway woods (3-Wood and 5-Wood), both also with graphite shafts, worked just as well, but I personally didn’t like how they felt. This is probably mainly based on sound – I prefer the distinctive metallic sound and resulting feel produced by the Callaway Steelheads and Orlimar Trimetals you’d normally find in my bag, a sound I guess I now expect to hear every time I swing a wood – and the Pinemeadows didn’t have the sound I wanted.
But to be fair, not many do. Once again, they performed as expected. In fact, I once placed third in a tournament armed with nothing but these fairways of Pinemeadow for my lumber. Stupid me, I forgot my controller at home and ended up using the 3-Wood as my controller. Now that I think about it, it was probably a blessing, actually, considering how inconsistently wild I can be with the driver (my fault, not the club’s). The point is that the fairway woods did their job, and still can: I held the pair as backup or loan clubs.
I think it’s important to note that these comments are based on “older” products. The latest releases of woods from Pinemeadow and others may very well be better than what I’ve experienced (the overwhelmingly positive comments and feedback from current customers on their site seem to indicate as much), but I haven’t personally experienced them firsthand.
hybrids. I also can’t comment much on cloned hybrids, not even branded ones. I just haven’t used them yet. My bag is equipped with a 7-wood instead of the more typical 3-iron, and this setup has served me quite well, at least enough to help me not bother with hybrids just yet. In all likelihood, I will be jumping on the hybrid bandwagon soon. Until then, I can only say that, quality-wise, there is no reason to think that clone hybrids won’t be at least on par with clone makers’ wood offerings.
Portions. I don’t have any clone wedges in my bag (I have a few Titleist Vokeys that were given to me), but I have used them, particularly the vintage Cleveland-style models. The clones are very good clubs and incredible values; I have absolutely no reservations in recommending them as worth trying.
putters I like to frequently change and rotate my money suits; Some days, for example, I inexplicably play better with a 343 shaft instead of a 333, and vice versa; or some days a mallet feels better than a traditional blade; and so on, and clone club companies like Pinemeadow Golf allow me to put together a large arsenal of putters to allow me to do that. Otherwise, I couldn’t afford such a “quiver of putters” (as my friends call it) at the prices that brands are asking today. Of course, you obviously don’t have to put together this kind of putter collection; the point is that clone putters are good and cheap and definitely worth a try.
Read on and learn a lot more about what I specifically experienced, particularly in the area of realizing the importance of choosing the right company to buy clones from because frankly, boys and girls, things happen sometimes.
Where everything beganI’m literally going back to the beginning, when I picked up the game a few years ago. As a beginner, I wanted to learn while using a better game than the typical department store variety. But man, paying top dollar for those Callaways, Pings, or Titleists I fancied just didn’t make much sense then, not when it was still unclear whether or not I was going to stick with the game. .
So after some research and clicking online, I opted for a set of Acer Sole undercuts from Pinemeadow Golf. Because? Aspect. They resembled the original and very expensive Callaway Hawkeyes. And, and this is important, to me anyway, the Acers looked classy, presentable and respectable, something I wouldn’t be embarrassed to be seen wearing, unlike many of the hokey clubs with the cheesy cosmetics I see offered by others. clone builders. (To this day, the Pinemeadow pick is among the best on the field in the looks department.)
While I was at it, I also picked up the Acer XDS 2+ (Callaway Hawkeye VFT clones) stainless 3-wood club set, which included a 10-degree driver, 3-Wood and 5-Wood, and the Pure Roll Series M-1 putter. (a Never Compromise deck clone). Standard Pinemeadow Aldila graphite shafts (steel for the putter) and grips for the lot. I was a beginner, remember, and I knew almost nothing about everything, so I thought, play basic, safe and cheap. If I ended up not liking sports, at least I wouldn’t go out as much.
The same quality? Issues?
Needless to say, I’m hooked on the game now, and I’m doing what I can to try and get that handicap down to as low a number as possible. I also became involved in various golf-related business activities, such as selling golf equipment on eBay.
Which means at least two things: now I not only know enough about the game to be able to competently judge the performance of my clone clubs, but I’m also able to play regularly and test a lot of expensive branded equipment to really be able to make decent and fair comparisons.
The fact that my Pinemeadow irons are still in my golf bag as I write this should tell you a lot. It’s not that I don’t like to play with name-brand irons, I do. In fact, I own a Cleveland set and a TaylorMade set for the simple reason that I like to play with them from time to time (I don’t like all Clevelands and TaylorMades, mind you, just the specific models I’ve saved).
Thing is, I play no better or worse for the Clevelands and TaylorMades than I do for the Pinemeadows.. The same goes for Callaways, Titleists, Hogans, Mizunos, or any other branded gear out there. My game plays pretty much as it should at my level, regardless of which set of clubs I use.
Obvious conclusion: It’s me, not the clubs.
So considering I’m pleased with the way the clones look, feel and perform, why the hell would I want to bother with name brand clubs that cost up to 8 times as much (or even more!) but don’t offer me any additional game benefits over clones?
Even if we could say that there is a slight incremental advantage or benefit to using an established brand name over clones, then we would have to ask: Would it be worth the extra cost? Yes, I like to keep an eye on cost-effectiveness and based solely on what I have experienced, for players of my level (medium handicap) or higher, these incremental benefits do not exist.
How about for better players? Do low handicap and scratch players realize the benefits of playing brands compared to cheap clone equipment? I’m not good enough to know. But judging by the comments posted on the Pinemeadow site, it seems that more than a few low handicap/scratch players have “discovered” the benefits of becoming a clone.
Note, however, that I’ve also experienced some issues with the stuff I got from Pinemeadow:
” Not long after I received my irons and woods, some plastic ferrules came loose. Nothing serious, easy to fix with drops of super glue. Aim…
” In just a few months, the plastic ferrule on my 5-Iron not only came loose, but completely broke off. The thing just opened up. Then, a few days later, so did the 3- and 7-iron ferrules (back then, I tended to play the odd numbers more often).
Although I probably could have put them back on with more glue, I thought this was now in the realm of weird, and I wasn’t too happy about it. So I emailed Pinemeadow immediately. Them quickly made me send the whole lot back at your expense, even the sticks with the ferrules still intact. They said they would fix the clubs, which they did. I think, however, that they finally sent it back new replacement clubs instead of going through the time and hassle of disassembling and reassembling each of my original clubs just to fix a few ferrules. Those sticks I recovered looked like new, heads wrapped in plastic and all. Obviously I can’t say that this is what they do in every situation; I’m just relating exactly what kind of “service” I got.
That was a couple of years or so ago. The set has been problem free ever since.
” After a round about a year after purchase, I noticed something new on the Acer XDS 2+ driver head: a very distinctive dimple about a quarter-inch in diameter at the tip. It must have happened on the 3rd, I thought, while skiing. It apparently did not affect the club’s performance the rest of the round as it went unnoticed. My fault and not a Pinemeadow quality issue, I concluded.
But I did mention it in an email to Pinemeadow. I wanted to know if this is common. They told me two things: (a) this was rare, and (b) I still had some time left under my original 1-year warranty, a benefit I had completely forgotten about, in fact, I only had two days left, so he could send the club back to be replaced! Once again, this replacement was done without costing me a dime out of pocket, shipping and all! Now that was a pleasant surprise.
” That I like the service and support of Pinemeadow Golf is an understatement. Aim I hated their standard grips.; I found them cheap, and the fact that they wore out and needed replacement very quickly – damn if I got an entire season of very casual play out of those grips – reinforced that conclusion.
He was not alone with this gripping observation. You used to find a lot of negative customer feedback on the Pinemeadow site about those grips. I don’t see the complaints anymore, and I hope it’s because Pinemeadow started using much better standard grips.
Even then, I say splurge a bit and have Pinemeadow install one of the best brand name grip upgrade options they offer. The benefits far outweigh the negligible expense to go this way.
recommendations
It should be clearly obvious that I recommend Pinemeadow Golf. Great products and prices, and better yet, absolutely excellent Service.
Another place to try is GigaGolf. I don’t own a game of theirs, but played with a friend and was equally impressed with the quality of their work and the low prices… I have no hesitation in recommending them for a try.