MGS Forum Focus Group: What would YOU like to see change?

[Berg Ryman]

2 hours ago, txgolfjunkie said:

I would love to see a direct to consumer golf ball test compared to a baseline top brand golf ball (Pro V1). With so many brands and options out there, which would perform best for my game? I never played a Snell or vice or cut golf ball until I finally bought a dozen Snell on Amazon. They perform very similar to the TP5X in my opinion so that got me wondering about other brands out there. I know that would be a tedious test but I would fly to Newport News and donate my time for this test! 10,000 swings? You got it.

Also for product reviews, something simple to add to help someone reading is to add handicap/skill level at the beginning of the review for each stage. I'll read a stage two on something and then realize this guy isn't in the same boat as me skill wise. I'd rather focus on someone with a similar playing level to me.


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MGS  did one back in 2015, TX. The link to it is here

However, I do agree that an update is probably in the offering. Obviously Oncore is better than it was, Vice and Cut weren't involved , and other brands may want in. This is a good shout.

[cnosil]

MGS  did one back in 2015, TX. The link to it is here
However, I do agree that an update is probably in the offering. Obviously Oncore is better than it was, Vice and Cut weren't involved , and other brands may want in. This is a good shout.

I know at the lab there is/has been some ball testing being performed beyond the Snell/titleist comparison. Some of the balls I have never heard of. Can’t tell you what they are because I haven’t participate in those tests.

[Mr. 82]

Why is "Tour Chatter" under "Equipment"?

Makes no sense to me.

[GolfSpy MPR]

27 minutes ago, GSwag said:

Why is "Tour Chatter" under "Equipment"?

Makes no sense to me.

Agreed. My hunch is that, as a subforum, it began as a place to discuss "Tour only" or pre-release equipment, in the spirit of the "Spy" origins of this site. But as it stands now, as a place just to talk about all things Tour related, it should be moved, probably under "The 19th Hole."

[tony@CIC]

3 hours ago, GolfSpy Rob said:

Yeah, that is not just the case here but on the other two big Fourms as well.  I was a member of both them for several years and still pop into both and I can count on one hand the number of active females on both sites combined. 

I think it was discussed on one of them and one female said among her friends, they just didn't' get talking on the internet to strangers, regardless if it was golf, shopping, cooking, kids...etc.   that said they tend to flock to Facebook.  I guess because there they are keeping up with relatives and friends, versus arranging to travel out of town to play golf for two or three days with guy/ladies you've never met.  

So all that said, i don't think there are any particular thread topics that would draw them to the site.  But if Im wrong and one of them wants to speak up, we'd love to hear it.  We had only one active woman member early in the year that was part of the Snell test, but after that she kinda disappeared.  

How about a collaboration with 'Foregals.com'

[Golfspy_CG2]

Probably true.  I keep my wife up to speed on threads that I think she might be interested in (she knows some of you by name!).  She is mostly glued to Facebook.

Yep. Occasionaly mine will say to me, ask your friends on the "spy site" what they think about.....insert any random topic we may be discussing.

So that said...what do you guys think about the new show A Million Little Things


Bridgestone Tour B JGR Driver and HF2 irons Pre Release Testing

[robertson153]

I think a shoe test would be interesting. Is the Foot Joy DNA BOA shoe worth $200?? Or is a $50 shoe going to give you the same results? Is the expensive shoe going to outlast the cheap one?


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[GolfSpy_BNG]

3 hours ago, GolfSpy Rob said:

Yep. Occasionaly mine will say to me, ask your friends on the "spy site" what they think about.....insert any random topic we may be discussing.

So that said...what do you guys think about the new show A Million Little Things


Bridgestone Tour B JGR Driver and HF2 irons Pre Release Testing

That is my wife's favorite new show.

[Golfspy_CG2]

That is my wife's favorite new show.

I have to admit. I've enjoyed it as well. They've done a good job developing the characters.


Bridgestone Tour B JGR Driver and HF2 irons Pre Release Testing

[perseveringgolfer]

13 hours ago, GolfSpy Rob said:

Yep. Occasionaly mine will say to me, ask your friends on the "spy site" what they think about.....insert any random topic we may be discussing.

So that said...what do you guys think about the new show A Million Little Things


Bridgestone Tour B JGR Driver and HF2 irons Pre Release Testing

looks interesting, just viewed the trailer- not airing in the UK though.....

[Mr. 82]

14 hours ago, GolfSpy Rob said:

So that said...what do you guys think about the new show A Million Little Things

Having a son that committed suicide, I'll simply say that the reactions and behavior of that dude's best friend post-death is mostly BS.  I didn't eat for 3 days after he died, and we didn't just carry on with our lives like nothing had happened right after it happened.  Still, the wife keeps watching it, mostly by default, because 99.9% of everything else they pass for "entertainment" on network TV is total excrement and not worth my time.

God Friended Me is another show that has kept my interest.

[STUDque]

I dislike the show for 2 reasons:


1) It's depressing
2) It has NOTHING to do with the forum improvement focus group. Let's get back on track please

[tony@CIC]

52 minutes ago, GolfSpy STUDque said:

I dislike the show for 2 reasons:


1) It's depressing
2) It has NOTHING to do with the forum improvement focus group. Let's get back on track please

Good call Stud - thx. 

[StrokerAce]

On 10/21/2018 at 5:25 PM, GolfSpy STUDque said:

 

 

Without some big cash flow, I doubt MGS will be able to sponsor official course reviews like this. If it pleases the court, I could put together a standard review template for unofficial course reviews. These would be posted into a master review thread like we have for golf balls. Folks could review their home course or other courses as they travel to share the goodness with the rest of us.

________________________________________________


Thanks to everyone that has submitted input thus far. There's definitely some great stuff in here. Keep it coming!

 

 

This would be great!

It certainly doesn't need to be official and can be just a paragraph or two but if I'm travelling somewhere or looking for somewhere new to play it'd be neat to be able to read a review of a local course.  Of course this would just be someone's opinion but, nevertheless, it could be useful.

I see a lot of great postings in the "pics" forum and it would be swell if, along with the pics, someone would say something about the course - completely voluntary of course...

[StrokerAce]

On 10/20/2018 at 5:03 PM, cksurfdude said:

Second this ^

There's sooooooo much great info within the member review main thread, but it kinda gets lost after a while.....

Maybe one idea is some sort of hierarchy, for example under Member Reviews then break out by, eg., club type and then possibly by target player then by year ..
Drivers / Woods / etc. ...
Player / GI / SGI ...
2018 / 2017 / etc. ...

This... so much this.... sometimes I'd like to see drivers tested in 2016 but outside of the search function it becomes a laborious task to find it... and there is a lot of time/effort/content put into the reviews so it'd be great to have them so they can be found easily.

[Angry Yeti]

I'll second the regional course review being a great idea. Would it be possible to have an associated map of reviewed courses? A way to visualize where you are going vs multiple reviewed courses would be helpful vs scrolling through threads looking up town names you don't recognize. 

 

 

[StrokerAce]

so last year there was a thread titled something like "what would you like to see tested this year?" and there were a ton of great replies and suggestions but I have no idea how many were chosen - if any.... it's like it was a nice thread post that went into the ether.  Would have been great to lock the thread, consolidate the suggestions, identify those that are definites, maybe, no... or something like that.

in regards to reviews - I've done a few and the "stages" can be long.... some of them really long.... if you're the person selected then of course you'll want to provide as much valuable content as possible for the person reading it.  it is an honor to be selected and you definitely want to reciprocate, but it can certainly a TEST to make it to the end.  To dovetail onto @jlukes suggestion it would be good if we could break the review/comments/content up into smaller digestible parts instead of 2 big blog posts.  Might encourage more Q&A from members and make it easier for the tester.

I'm not sure how much control you guys have over the site itself..looks like you use forum software, but there are certainly opportunities for organization if that is a possibility. Most of us have used computers for many years and are used to a hierarchical grouping of things.

If I recall one of the profile demographics is local region or something like that.  It would be nice if there was some sort of list or grouping of members by region.  Of course one could opt out if they want but if you are looking for someone in your local area to play a round with this could be helpful.

Love the idea by @PlaidJacket for testing non-mainstream OEM's.  I realize it might be tough to get equipment from them but this gets right to the heart of the MGS mission - look beyond the brand name and get to the truth - is this good or not.

Golf bag testing would be nice.

There's a lot of content on the site and it seems that the search function has been improved but maybe a reminder to use search before posting a new topic.  (note-I'm probably guilty of that but I always do a search first...it's just that the search results haven't been the greatest)

Maybe a 'badge' on your signature - similar to MGS DONOR - if you have been a product tester.

 

[hckymeyer]

Loving the suggestions so far, keep 'em coming.

I'll definitely work on some reorganization, especially with official forum member review threads.  I was thinking of just organizing by year.  I want to avoid a million sub threads and with 20-30 official tests each year it shouldn't be too hard to browse through them.

Also you guys are aware we have a thing called Most Wanted in the blog right?  Both shoes and bags were tested this year

[Golfspy_CG2]

13 minutes ago, strokerAce said:

so last year there was a thread titled something like "what would you like to see tested this year?" and there were a ton of great replies and suggestions but I have no idea how many were chosen - if any.... it's like it was a nice thread post that went into the ether.  Would have been great to lock the thread, consolidate the suggestions, identify those that are definites, maybe, no... or something like that.

in regards to reviews - I've done a few and the "stages" can be long.... some of them really long.... if you're the person selected then of course you'll want to provide as much valuable content as possible for the person reading it.  it is an honor to be selected and you definitely want to reciprocate, but it can certainly a TEST to make it to the end.  To dovetail onto @jlukes suggestion it would be good if we could break the review/comments/content up into smaller digestible parts instead of 2 big blog posts.  Might encourage more Q&A from members and make it easier for the tester.

I'm not sure how much control you guys have over the site itself..looks like you use forum software, but there are certainly opportunities for organization if that is a possibility. Most of us have used computers for many years and are used to a hierarchical grouping of things.

If I recall one of the profile demographics is local region or something like that.  It would be nice if there was some sort of list or grouping of members by region.  Of course one could opt out if they want but if you are looking for someone in your local area to play a round with this could be helpful.

Love the idea by @PlaidJacket for testing non-mainstream OEM's.  I realize it might be tough to get equipment from them but this gets right to the heart of the MGS mission - look beyond the brand name and get to the truth - is this good or not.

Golf bag testing would be nice.

There's a lot of content on the site and it seems that the search function has been improved but maybe a reminder to use search before posting a new topic.  (note-I'm probably guilty of that but I always do a search first...it's just that the search results haven't been the greatest)

Maybe a 'badge' on your signature - similar to MGS DONOR - if you have been a product tester.

 

The highlighted text is a GENIUS idea...well at least in my mind for what that matters! 

As for your very first point on the what would you like to test.  I'm 99% certain you're speaking about a thread Studque started before he became Golfspy_Enrique as just a conversation starter.  But that said, it's a worthy suggestion to go back to that and see how the testings all fared out.    We don't have all the control over OEM testings,  the owners generally reach out to each OEM to see what if anything would like to partake in testings, and usually just goes from there.  We can offer or suggest certain models clubs, but it isn't always achievable. 

Good suggestion on the Search Reminder, maybe we should all have the disclaimer  "have you searched fist?" in our signatures...maybe then it would get driven home...ha

[GB13]

13 minutes ago, strokerAce said:

 

in regards to reviews - I've done a few and the "stages" can be long.... some of them really long.... if you're the person selected then of course you'll want to provide as much valuable content as possible for the person reading it.  it is an honor to be selected and you definitely want to reciprocate, but it can certainly a TEST to make it to the end.  To dovetail onto @jlukes suggestion it would be good if we could break the review/comments/content up into smaller digestible parts instead of 2 big blog posts.  Might encourage more Q&A from members and make it easier for the tester.

I think the Bridgestone wedge review this year was conducted a little like this. All questions were answered throughout and stage 2 was a summation of all the thoughts throughout the thread. I think more people were engaged in this review and it was more riveting than two blog posts. 

[StrokerAce]

...one more thing about the reviews - I'm not sure how much interaction you guys have with the OEM's but I have always wondered if they pay attention to how the review came out and what their thoughts are.  Is it possible to share any of that communication?

[Golfspy_CG2]

6 minutes ago, strokerAce said:

...one more thing about the reviews - I'm not sure how much interaction you guys have with the OEM's but I have always wondered if they pay attention to how the review came out and what their thoughts are.  Is it possible to share any of that communication?

It's really dependent on the OEM.  Some follow them quietly and anomalously from afar and prefer to keep it that way, some follow it and comment on them publicly, I think Shotscope and Precision Pro are ones that come to mind like that.   But by all means if one of the OEM contacts give us feedback that they want passed on we love to do that.    

The CobraConnect guys know that Enrique did a great job of keeping the Cobra folks updated each week on the results of the challenge and all the activity it was generating. 

But also remember those folks day to day job responsibilities may or may not normally fall into the Social Media or forum engagement arena's  often it's something extra they are doing and in many cases doing it with multiple outlets.   Think of all the youtube reviewers that are out there, and you can imagine how difficult it would be for them to have an ongoing interaction with each one.    

But good comment! 

[StrokerAce]

1 minute ago, GolfSpy Rob said:

It's really dependent on the OEM.  Some follow them quietly and anomalously from afar and prefer to keep it that way, some follow it and comment on them publicly, I think Shotscope and Precision Pro are ones that come to mind like that.   But by all means if one of the OEM contacts give us feedback that they want passed on we love to do that.    

The CobraConnect guys know that Enrique did a great job of keeping the Cobra folks updated each week on the results of the challenge and all the activity it was generating. 

But also remember those folks day to day job responsibilities may or may not normally fall into the Social Media or forum engagement arena's  often it's something extra they are doing and in many cases doing it with multiple outlets.   Think of all the youtube reviewers that are out there, and you can imagine how difficult it would be for them to have an ongoing interaction with each one.    

But good comment! 

Understood.... I guess I was thinking about the Srixon commercial in which they mentioned MGS specifically when I wrote that.  Seems like they are watching and it does matter. 

[Golfspy_CG2]

16 minutes ago, GB13 said:

I think the Bridgestone wedge review this year was conducted a little like this. All questions were answered throughout and stage 2 was a summation of all the thoughts throughout the thread. I think more people were engaged in this review and it was more riveting than two blog posts. 

Yep good catch, toward the end of the season we kind of unofficially let guys gravitate toward that.    Due to the number of guys in the PING I210 and I500 testings, we probably should have pushed that thought upfront to the guys, as a few had shipping issues and we had different continents involved and such.   But that is an approach I think we might  definitely look toward in 2019. 

[Golfspy_CG2]

2 minutes ago, strokerAce said:

Understood.... I guess I was thinking about the Srixon commercial in which they mentioned MGS specifically when I wrote that.  Seems like they are watching and it does matter. 

The Most Wanted on the Blog definitely gets attention from them (OEM's) , and I think a lot of that feedback goes directly to Tony and Adam as they generally have different contacts than we do for the forum testings.  Not in every case but in a lot of them. 

[kardboard.kid]

Well Thank you to everyone, as this has consumed my lunch today. Testing, Reviews, Stages are all in constant growth, and level of interaction on the forum.  I really don't have issues with those parts, although the threads seem to go dormant after the final stages and comments.  So a recap and lock might be a good thing.  MGS swag for testers is an awesome idea.  I would proudly wear, stick, hang... MGS swag for all to see.

I know we have all read the phrase, "you need to be fitted", or "get some lesson"  Want not create a greater awareness by creating a thread where you offer videos of a club fitting?

Thanks,

This place Rocks! 

[StrokerAce]

online instruction seems to be gaining steam....would be neat to pick an instructor or service (Revolution golf?) and have a few guys use that for the season to see how it goes and if it helps.

kind of outside-the-box but for those looking for lessons it could be useful....

[STUDque]

We'll be making changes slowly but surely throughout the winter.  We'll start small, first up: upload limits.  

 

Donors can now upload up to 1GB of attachments

Members remain at 500GB

 

 

Stay tuned.  We'll use this thread to announce new changes.

[Shankster]

Loving the upload limit increase!!

[fixyurdivot]

I think @PING Apologist #9nailed it.  I'd like to bring the Facebook sidebar tab back, but this time make it follow your cursor... sort of a game.