Equipment
2014 Gear Trials: What are the best clubs in golf?
“What clubs should I buy?” is such a loaded question, but it’s something all golfers find themselves asking at some point.
Ask 10 people their opinion on the best clubs in golf and you’ll get 10 different answers. And you can’t ask anyone who works for an equipment manufacturer. We’ve encountered very few OEM employees who won’t tell you that their company’s clubs will help you hit it “longer and straighter” than any other club on the market without hesitation.
So how can anyone actually figure out what clubs to play? It starts with an understanding that there are no “best” clubs, only the best clubs for you.
Our 2014 Gear Trials Best Clubs lists cut through opinions and marketing claims to help golfers choose the best drivers, fairway woods, hybrids and irons for their game. We rank the best clubs in three different categories — Distance-First, Forgiveness-First and Balanced-Performance — to help golfers gain a better understanding of what clubs will actually suit their needs.
Here’s a little bit more about how we break down our categories:
- Distance-First: What clubs go the farthest? It’s a simple question that’s answered using launch, spin and ball speed. This category is skewed toward the needs of golfers with either really fast swings or those who create a lot a spin, because they are the golfers who tend to benefit the most from the low-spinning head designs that tend to create the most distance.
- Forgiveness-First: It’s said that golf is a game of misses. The clubs in this category help minimize distance losses when golfers do miss the sweet spot. The formula here is more moment of inertia (MOI), which is what most golfers are talking about when they say forgiveness. A higher MOI helps your mishits fly more like your good shot, which means they’ll end up closer to your intended target.
- Balanced Performance: Having top-level distance and forgiveness is the ultimate goal of club design, but it’s no easy task. This is our most stringent category that will fit the needs of the widest variety of golfers. Know that if you buy a club from this category, it is truly one of the best models in golf.
How could we possibly develop such a list? Read on.
Who votes?
In our past best clubs list, we relied on both the feedback of our equipment editors and an elite panel of custom fitters located across North America. For this year’s list, we decided we needed another component: mass player testing of every major manufacturer’s clubs performed by fitters at Miles of Golf in Ypsilanti, Mich. Those fitters spent eight days with 33 different testers of various ability levels evaluating each club from each category.
After that, we surveyed our five other top custom fitters located across North America: Carl’s Golfland, Modern Golf, Morton Golf and two other custom fitters who chose to remain anonymous.
The scoring process
Unlike in years past, this year’s scores were entirely based on the performance of each club, removing the subjective categories of looks, sound and feel from the equation. What was left was the votes of our custom fitters (60 percent of the club’s score), the results of our mass player test (30 percent of the club’s score) and the votes of our staff members (10 percent of a club’s score).
The scores have been tallied and winners awarded. Below are the results, with the important areas of stress for each category.
2014 Gear Trials: Best Drivers
2014 Gear Trials: Best Fairway Woods
2014 Gear Trials: Best Hybrids
2014 Gear Trials: Best Players Irons
2014 Gear Trials: Best Game-Improvement Irons
Click the links above or browse below to see the winners from each category. Read all about Gear Trial FAQ’s here.
See the 2015 Gear Trail Winners here
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Whats in the Bag
Daniel Berger WITB 2024 (April)
- Daniel Berger what’s in the bag accurate as of the Farmers Insurance Open. More photos from the event here.
Driver: Ping G430 LST (10.5 degrees)
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus Black 6 X
3-wood: TaylorMade Qi10 (15 degrees)
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus Black 7 X
6-wood: TaylorMade Qi10 Tour (21 degrees)
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus Black 8 X
Irons: TaylorMade P770 (3), TaylorMade Tour Preferred MC 2011 (4-PW)
Shafts: Project X Denali Blue 105 TX (3), Project X 6.5 (4-PW)
Wedges: Titleist Vokey Design SM9 (50-12F), Titleist Vokey Design SM10 (56-14F), Callaway Jaws Raw (60-08C)
Shafts: Project X 6.5 (50), True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue S400 (56, 60)
Putter: Odyssey Ai-One Jailbird Mini DB
Grip: SuperStroke Zenergy PistolLock 1.0
Grips: Golf Pride Tour Wrap
Ball: Titleist Pro V1
Check out more in-hand photos of Daniel Berger’s clubs in the forums.
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Equipment
Heavy Artillery: A look at drivers in play at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans
What are the driver and shaft combinations of the best golfers in the world? For gearheads, it’s an endlessly interesting question — even if we can only ever aspire to play LS heads and 7 TX shafts.
At this week’s Zurich Classic of New Orleans, GolfWRX got in-hand looks at the driver setups of a wealth of players.
Check out some of the most interesting combos below, then head to the GolfWRX forums for the rest, as well as the rest of our galleries from New Orleans.
Rory McIlroy
Driver: TaylorMade Qi10 (9 degrees @8.25)
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus Black 6 X
Grip: Golf Pride MCC
Alex Fitzpatrick
Driver: Ping G430 LST (10.5 degrees)
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus Black 6 X
Grip: Golf Pride MCC
Daniel Berger
Driver: Ping G430 LST (10.5 degrees @9)
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus Black 6 X
Grip: Golf Pride Tour Wrap
Rasmus Hojgaard
Driver: Callaway Paradym Ai Smoke Triple Diamond (10.5 degrees)
Shaft: Mitsubishi Tensei 1K Blue 60 TX
Grip: Golf Pride MCC
Alejandro Tosti
Driver: Srixon ZX5 Mk II LS (9.5 degrees @10.5)
Shaft: Project X HZRDUS T1100 75 6.5
Grip: Golf Pride MCC Plus4
James Nicholas
Driver: Titleist TSR3 (8 degrees, A1 SureFit setting)
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus TR Blue 7 X
Grip: Golf Pride Tour Velvet
Kevin Streelman
Driver: Titleist TSR3 (10 degrees, D1 SureFit setting)
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus TR Black 6 X
Grip: Golf Pride Tour Velvet
Sang-moon Bae
Driver: Callaway Paradym Triple Diamond (9+ @8)
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus Blue 6 X
Grip: Golf Pride Tour Velvet
Russ Cochran
Driver: Callaway Paradym Ai Smoke (9 degrees)
Shaft: Graphite Design Tour AD TP 6 X
Grip: Golf pride MCC Align
MJ Daffue
Driver: Callaway Paradym Ai Smoke Max (10.5 degrees @9.5)
Shaft: Project X HZRDUS Smoke Green RDX 65 TX
Grip: Golf Pride ZGrip Cord Align
Check our more photos from the Zurich Classic here.
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Whats in the Bag
Rasmus Højgaard WITB 2024 (April)
- Rasmus Højgaard what’s in the bag accurate as of the Zurich Classic.
Driver: Callaway Ai Smoke Triple Diamond (10.5 degrees)
Shaft: Mitsubishi Tensei 1K Blue 60 TX
3-wood: Callaway Ai Smoke Triple Diamond Prototype (16.5 degrees)
Shaft: Mitsubishi Tensei 1K White 80 TX
Utility: Callaway Apex UW (21 degrees)
Shaft: Mitsubishi Tensei AV Raw White 85 TX
Irons: Callaway Apex Pro (3), Callaway X Forged (4-PW)
Shafts: KBS $-Taper 130
Wedges: Callaway Jaws Raw (52-10S, 56-10S, 60-06C)
Shafts: KBS Tour 130 X
Putter: Odyssey Ai One Milled Eight T DB
Grips: Golf Pride MCC
Check out more in-hand photos of Hojgaard in the forums.
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