How I Test Golf Gear

I am Mike Gaff. I play off a 4.2 handicap. I have been playing golf for more than 20 years and I get out two to three times a week, most weeks, weather permitting.

I play Titleist 620 MB blades. That tells you something about how I think about golf clubs. I like feedback. I like knowing when I missed it. That bias shows up in my reviews and you should factor it in.

I buy most of what I test. I am not a tour pro, I am not a fitter, and I am not a scientist. I am a decent amateur who plays a lot and pays attention.

Want to see the actual clubs and gear I carry? Here is what is in my bag.

Distance consistency, not max distance. Anyone can find one swing that goes 15 yards further. That number is useless on a golf course. What I care about is the gap between my best strike and my average strike. Tight gap means I can pick a club and trust it. That is what lowers scores.

Dispersion. Where does it actually finish. Left to right matters more than long and short for most of us. If a club is 5 yards longer and 12 yards wider, it is a worse club.

Forgiveness on mishits. Toe, heel, thin, fat. Every club gets tested on the bad ones because that is where the round gets away from you.

Feel and sound. This is subjective and I will always say so. But sound drives feel, and feel drives confidence, and confidence drives swings. If something clicks like a tin can I will tell you, and I will also tell you that plenty of people do not care.

Durability over a season. Grips, finishes, zippers, wheels, batteries, waterproofing. A lot of gear reviews well in week one and falls apart in month four. I go back and update when that happens.

Value against the alternative. Nothing gets rated in a vacuum. The question is never "is this good," it is "is this better than the thing that costs half as much." Often it is not.

Minimum five rounds on course before any verdict. Not five range buckets. Five actual rounds, keeping score, with real consequences. Gear feels different when the shot matters.

Range sessions to set a baseline. Before the rounds I hit the new thing next to whatever it is replacing. Same session, same balls, alternating. That gives me a reference point instead of a memory.

Real conditions. Wind. Rain. Cold mornings where the ball goes nowhere. A rangefinder that cannot lock through drizzle is a bad rangefinder no matter how it reads on a sunny Tuesday. I do not cherry-pick the weather.

I hit mishits on purpose. On the range I will deliberately move the ball toward the toe and the heel and see what comes out. It looks stupid. It is the fastest way to learn what a club does when you are tired on the 16th.

I keep using it after the review posts. If something breaks, fades, or turns out worse than I said, I go back and change the review. A review with a date on it should still be true.

I will not review gear I have not used. If it is not in this site's testing rotation, it does not get a verdict. Sometimes that means a popular club is missing from a guide. That is the trade.

I will not call something great because it pays a commission. Yes, there are affiliate links on this site and that is how it stays free. No, the payout does not move the ranking. The best product wins whether it pays well or not.

I will tell you when the cheaper option is 90 percent as good. It usually is. Most of the time the value pick does the job and the premium pick buys you a small improvement and a nicer box. I would rather you keep the money.

If a brand sends me something free, I will say so in the review. Right at the top, not buried in a footnote. Free gear does not buy a good score, but you deserve to know it showed up for nothing.

I am one golfer with one swing. What works for my delivery may not work for yours. A single tester is a small sample and I am not going to pretend otherwise.

I do not have a robot. I do not have a launch monitor lab, a pressure plate, or a room full of testers across handicap bands. When I give you a number it comes from real shots on real turf, which has its own value, but it is not laboratory data and I will never dress it up as such.

My 4.2 handicap means I hit it reasonably well. So forgiveness matters less to me than it probably does to you. If you are a 20 handicap reading my take on a set of players irons, weight my forgiveness comments heavily and my feel comments lightly. Adjust accordingly.

I also have preferences. I like a soft feel, a quiet sound, and a compact head. Those are tastes, not facts, and I try to label them as tastes every time.