Help Us Revise our Review System

[Tony Covey MGS]

We're putting the final touches on an upgrade to the scoring system we using in our ULTIMATE REVIEWS. I'll save all the details for a later post, but we definitely want to hear your thoughts on what it takes to achieve A-Level performance.

 

Specifically how close to the pin do you think a player should average with a specific club in order to receive an "A" for overall performance. Let us know your thoughts on what it should take to get an A with the clubs and distances listed below.

 

Fairway (~230 yards)

 

Hybrid (~210 yards)

 

Long Iron (~185 yards)

 

Middle Iron (~160 yards)

 

Short Iron (~125 yards)

 

Wedge (~100 yards)

[Xamilo]

Totally unrelated, but I do think the "price tag" / performance should be avoided. With the Adams 9064 the $399 tag kept it out of the A+ category, and today the driver is going for less than $150 new. Some people, including myself, always wait for drivers to be an "old" model in order to buy them at half the price new, so the price tag isn't really a big problem. In the other hand, if someone has the money and is in the market for a Driver, it makes you think two drivers are similar when one might have over-scored the other one with the difference of the price tag.

 

Just my two cents...

[Tony Covey MGS]

Totally unrelated, but I do think the "price tag" / performance should be avoided. With the Adams 9064 the $399 tag kept it out of the A+ category, and today the driver is going for less than $150 new. Some people, including myself, always wait for drivers to be an "old" model in order to buy them at half the price new, so the price tag isn't really a big problem. In the other hand, if someone has the money and is in the market for a Driver, it makes you think two drivers are similar when one might have over-scored the other one with the difference of the price tag.

 

Just my two cents...

 

We dumped "Value" a bit ago. After much discussion we have decided to keep LOP (likelihood of purchase) around since time and time again it has proven to be the best indicator of whether or not our testers like a club enough to actually consider purchasing it. As a bit of a teaser, we're also dumping "Perceived Distance" and "Perceived Accuracy" from our subjective surveys. We pretty much proved what we wanted to (people see what they want to - reality be damned), and so we no longer see the need to keep them around.

[Tyk]

You could use your review history to get helpful numbers. What is the best a club has received, and what is the worst? What is the difference between them?

[Tony Covey MGS]

You could use your review history to get helpful numbers. What is the best a club has received, and what is the worst? What is the difference between them?

 

Historical data will actually play a part in the new system, but for some of the new ways we'll be testing no previous data exists.

[Tyk]

Ya, I guess my point is that its all relative, an arbitrary distance doesn't really mean anything. Its all about how a club compares to all the other clubs in its class. The best clubs at doing whatever they are supposed to do would be the A grades but the standard is always changing. If your best club last year gets beat by 4 models this year, its no longer the best club so even if you gave it an A then, it doesn't deserve one now if you see what I mean. Maybe forget the grading system altogether and just give us the data and tell us how it compares to its competition. Perhaps maintain a spreadsheet that allows people to see and sort the information however they want?

[MmmmmmBuddy]

I really wish that the testing was done outside... like where we play golf. Ballflight feedback is very important when fitting clubs.

[Tony Covey MGS]

I really wish that the testing was done outside... like where we play golf. Ballflight feedback is very important when fitting clubs.

 

Nic - A couple quick points...

 

Some of the top fitters in the country are now fitting indoors exclusively. The technology when it comes to not only calculating, but accurately displaying ball flight on the screens has come along way. From low stingers, to slices, hooks, and even ballooning, the simulators we use do an excellent job of providing an accurate visual experience. I suspect there may be some subtleties lost, but the technology is very, very good.

 

The data we get is 2nd to none. It's also advantageous to our purposes to eliminate the elements from our testing process. We never have to worry about wind, temperature, or humidity putting one club at a disadvantage. It also makes it much easier to test to a target and calculate things like distance from the pin.

 

Also, we're not in the fitting business. We test (mostly off-the-rack, stock). We do compare numbers for each club to make sure our testers are leveraging the best possible fit from the supplied equipment (again, the data we get back is extremely helpful in this regard), but ultimately we are club testers, not club fitters.

 

Having said that, there certainly are limitations to testing indoors. We'd love to be able to provide much more detailed data for other aspects of performance (rough, deep rough, bunkers, etc.), but until we can actually collect data it's all subjective, and as we've learned countless times, the subjective is highly unreliable. Should budget and manpower ever allow it...the things I could do with a dedicated testing facility, more time, and a some help.

 

Maybe someday...

[MmmmmmBuddy]

Nic - A couple quick points...

 

Some of the top fitters in the country are now fitting indoors exclusively. The technology when it comes to not only calculating, but accurately displaying ball flight on the screens has come along way. From low stingers, to slices, hooks, and even ballooning, the simulators we use do an excellent job of providing an accurate visual experience. I suspect there may be some subtleties lost, but the technology is very, very good.

 

The data we get is 2nd to none. It's also advantageous to our purposes to eliminate the elements from our testing process. We never have to worry about wind, temperature, or humidity putting one club at a disadvantage. It also makes it much easier to test to a target and calculate things like distance from the pin.

 

Also, we're not in the fitting business. We test (mostly off-the-rack, stock). We do compare numbers for each club to make sure our testers are leveraging the best possible fit from the supplied equipment (again, the data we get back is extremely helpful in this regard), but ultimately we are club testers, not club fitters.

 

Having said that, there certainly are limitations to testing indoors. We'd love to be able to provide much more detailed data for other aspects of performance (rough, deep rough, bunkers, etc.), but until we can actually collect data it's all subjective, and as we've learned countless times, the subjective is highly unreliable. Should budget and manpower ever allow it...the things I could do with a dedicated testing facility, more time, and a some help.

 

Maybe someday...

All very good points.... Especially club testing vs fitting.

Thanks.

N

[Damon]

I suggest taking into account the data collected from the PGA tour shotlink as a starting point to see what type of distance from the flag for a distance range can be expected for a PGA tour player, and grade from there. For instance, from 150 - 175 yards, the PGA leader is at around 24 feet on average from the hole.

 

http://www.pgatour.com/r/stats/info/?338

 

So, for us regular players, maybe 40 feet would be an A? And probably every 6 feet or so difference would then be a B, C, D, and then F.

[Matt Saternus]

I suggest taking into account the data collected from the PGA tour shotlink as a starting point to see what type of distance from the flag for a distance range can be expected for a PGA tour player, and grade from there. For instance, from 150 - 175 yards, the PGA leader is at around 24 feet on average from the hole.

 

http://www.pgatour.c...stats/info/?338

 

So, for us regular players, maybe 40 feet would be an A? And probably every 6 feet or so difference would then be a B, C, D, and then F.

 

Fantastic suggestion! I really like this idea and hope that it gets taken into consideration.

[Damon]

Fantastic suggestion! I really like this idea and hope that it gets taken into consideration.

 

Thanks, I appreciate the feedback! It would be interesting to see how past results for certain club reviews (like a wedge and a hybrid) compares to the PGA Pro averages.

[Kanoito]

I suggest taking into account the data collected from the PGA tour shotlink as a starting point to see what type of distance from the flag for a distance range can be expected for a PGA tour player, and grade from there. For instance, from 150 - 175 yards, the PGA leader is at around 24 feet on average from the hole.

 

http://www.pgatour.com/r/stats/info/?338

 

So, for us regular players, maybe 40 feet would be an A? And probably every 6 feet or so difference would then be a B, C, D, and then F.

 

Fantastic idea indeed! Combined with Tyk's suggestion we will have objective data for benchmarking to draw our own conclusions.

[Tony Covey MGS]

Thanks, I appreciate the feedback! It would be interesting to see how past results for certain club reviews (like a wedge and a hybrid) compares to the PGA Pro averages.

 

Hey ddelise, thanks for completely ruining everything. After reading your post we went back and looked at the shotlink data, and it turns out we had actually over-estimated the real world abilities of low handicap golfers (to say nothing of tour pros). It really got us thinking, and we also reached the conclusion that we had dramatically under-estimated the abilities of higher-handicap golfers. All of that got us thinking even more about what the real difference in scores is between a 4 handicap and a 20 handicap.

 

The short of it is our original differentials were way to high (from a numbers perspective we conceptualized a high handicap golfer being half as accurate. In reality, conservatively there's only about a 20% difference in scores so we elected to use that as a baseline (you have to start somewhere). Combined with the shotlink data we came up with a new starting point, and when looking at A,B, C, and D grades for various distances, we're much, much happier with the results.

 

So while your suggestion cost 2 of us the better part of our mornings, we think the end result is a further improvement in what we believe will be a big improvement over the current system. So very sincerely, thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts.

[RookieBlue7]

Are you going to use all scratch or better players in the new tests? If no, I'm voting to remove proximity to the flag completely. Find me an amateur around a 10 (which average is around 18 nationwide) that hits the green 5 times of 10 from 230 and I'll be impressed. Proximity to the pin shouldn't be used unless they're scratch or better and the club is fitted to the tester individually. The average distance an amateur hits a driver off the tee, nationwide, when factoring across all handicaps and ages? 220 yards. They're gonna have a tough time getting within 30 yards of the green with a fairway from 230. JMO

[GolfSpy_X]

I think you will need to see how we do our new scoring. We have taken all of this into consideration.

 

Are you going to use all scratch or better players in the new tests? If no, I'm voting to remove proximity to the flag completely. Find me an amateur around a 10 (which average is around 18 nationwide) that hits the green 5 times of 10 from 230 and I'll be impressed. Proximity to the pin shouldn't be used unless they're scratch or better and the club is fitted to the tester individually. The average distance an amateur hits a driver off the tee, nationwide, when factoring across all handicaps and ages? 220 yards. They're gonna have a tough time getting within 30 yards of the green with a fairway from 230. JMO

[finalist]

Golf club reviews are tough because equipment and individual needs are different. I like cold hard facts like when you cut open a driver head and we get to see the quality on the inside. Even a Myth Busters style review or head to head comparisons so baselines are established.

[GolfSpy_X]

Maybe if their show picks us up...cause I would love to do that

 

Golf club reviews are tough because equipment and individual needs are different. I like cold hard facts like when you cut open a driver head and we get to see the quality on the inside. Even a Myth Busters style review or head to head comparisons so baselines are established.