Equipment Threads Semi-Rant

[Lefty39]

Go to a store, try each club and make your own decision. People post really bad questions on here that are common sence and just require a little thinking.

I couldn't agree more. Any time there is a What driver should I get thread. I want to say go and demo golf clubs you want to try. We can hardly help you. We are not Santa Claus we don't see you when you are awake, and we can't give you want you want, so find the driver that is best for you by looking for it by yourself.

[Harry Longshanks]

I'm really tired of seeing all these posts. Thats all this forum is made up of now. Which driver which this which that. We are all different.. how are we supposed to give you an opinion based on your play from 2000 miles away?

I couldn't agree more. Any time there is a What driver should I get thread. I want to say go and demo golf clubs you want to try. We can hardly help you. We are not Santa Claus we don't see you when you are awake, and we can't give you want you want, so find the driver that is best for you by looking for it by yourself.

The one thing to keep in mind is that not everyone is a complete gear head/club ho like a lot of us are (myself included). They don't know much about equipment, or may just be starting. And walking into a store with 8 bazillion clubs can be mighty intimidating. They have no idea where to start. So many times, people are just looking for ideas on how to narrow their choices. And the people respond to them should keep that in mind. Any time I read a "what should I get" thread, and I see someone respond with "Brand X club is the best and the only one you should consider" or "Brand Z is crap", I know to ignore their recommendations from then on (unless they later show some serious improvement in their advice). As far as I am concerned, any good post recommending equipment should start with "No one club is bet for everyone. The best way for you decide on what is best for you is to go to a demo day and hit as many clubs as you can. " Followed by "You might want to consider ___________ because your _________ suggests _________ and Brand Y has ___________ and ________." Responses of "Driver A hits the ball far and straight" are misleading to the people relying on candid responses. Do I have strong preferences? Hell yes. Do I tell people to go buy those clubs, no questions asked? Hell no. You have to work a little to find the right club for yourself. If you aren't willing to do that work yourself, or you are willing to just accept other peoples opinions as fact without further investigation, then you probably aren't going to be successful at this game anyway. The burden is on both the people seeking the advice and the people giving the advice. Unfortunately, far too few people take those burdens seriously. Especially in an internet setting, people are often looking to either avoid thinking for themselves, or conversely, proving to everyone that their opinion is "right." Personally, I try to give advice on golf message boards as though I am giving recommendations to a friend of a friend. And the last thing I want is for my friend to think I was a d!ck to his/her friend. On a completely unrelated note, my Google bar spell checker did not flag "bazillion" as a misspelled word.

[TinCupTampa]

Please anyone reading this ... take notice. When you want advice on equipment... have a specific end result you are looking for... not just "what clubs will make my scores better".

Proper questions would be:

What iron shafts will give me a lower ball flight... which ones higher?
Which driver shaft flex would be consistant with XXX swing speed?
Which putter will give me consistant distance on toe or heal hits?

Unless you have a specific goal to accomplish or end result noone here can give you advice.

[golf_junkie27]

This is a great thread. It is really hard to recommend a club unless you are looking to play a specific manner or are seeking answer about a particular type of club.

I've been looking for a backup set, myself and recently demoed/played with some different sets. The three sets that I really like are all shaped similar, have a similar design and had the same exact shaft. The only differences were how they looked at address and the amount of offset. Just when I thought I had narrowed it down, I hit the new Adams Pro Gold. Aarrrgggh, damn you Adams, did you have to make such a nice club?

So now, I'm starting, again. I think if I asked I'd become less convinced of my decision and ultimately, it is mine. Golf is tough and choosing between great equipment makes it tougher.

[joshtpa]

I also want to make clear that my issue is not so much with a lot of the posters asking which club should I get, as I do with every single member jumpin in and telling him which club they own. Like Harry said, information is the key. We must try and help someone with a question like that sincerely.

[ssrs8]

This forum has been so helpful to me, I would like to offer another perspective.

Some of the posters are quite intelligent people who went through a deliberate decision making process before concluding that something worked very well. Then they eventuall purchased the equipment they now own.

Also, even though a post seems useless to me, I often need to remind myself it may have a hidden value or a value to someone else out there. For instance, if one post said "this is the best ____ I have every owned" I would not see much value in it (especially if it was an unqualified statement). But if 100 other posters eventually said the same thing, I would take notice and have been glad to have read it.