TaylorMade and Golf Digest fight?

[rustyredcab]

May 2012 issue of Golf Digest has reviews of the 2012 balls. Must have been nearly 20 balls reviewed. Maybe more. There is not one mention of any TaylorMade balls. It is as if TaylorMade exited the ball business.

Is there some sort of rift?

Surely this is not because no TaylorMade ball fit in any of the price catagories or that the new TaylorMade lineup is unworthy of a mention. They even reviewed a brand I'd never heard of before and don't recall now. They had something to say about every ball ball I could think of except TP3, TP5 or any other TP ball.

[Stretch]

My guess, it went something like this:

"We didn't like your balls that much."

"If you print that, we'll pull all our advertising."

"How about we just say nothing?"

"How about you just say nothing."

[rustyredcab]

Perhaps. But they found something nice to say about even pretty bad balls and the new TaylorMade balls have gotten pretty good reviews elsewhere. Maybe it was more:

"Would you like to add a few pages to your annual advertising commitment?"

"No."

"Then we will stop reviewing your stuff."

I did not look carefully, but my buddy said there were zero TaylorMade ads in the issue. Might be cause and might be effect.

[newtogolf]

Could be when TM didn't win any of the categories they decided it was best to pull their balls out of the evaluation rather than have a review published that would reflect poorly on them.  TM is very marketing savvy so by not participating they don't have to respond to question about why they didn't win a category.  Instead they can claim the weren't given enough notice or didn't agree with the evaluation criteria.

[dsc123]

Those reviews are so useless anyway.  They say nearly the same thing about every ball.

[x129]

I have come to that conclusion about just about any golf review including the ones on websites. Give me 30mins and I can find 3 different guys that all demoed the g20 , vr_s and the razr fit driver (to pick 3 new clubs) and one will say they got 10 more yards with one of the clubs and was hitting the fairway all the time compared to the other 2. Most of the stuff out there is pretty decent and it is more what fits your eye (and budget).

Originally Posted by dsc123

Those reviews are so useless anyway.  They say nearly the same thing about every ball.

[boogielicious]

Quote:

Those reviews are so useless anyway.  They say nearly the same thing about every ball.

+1 on this.  All their reviews about all equipment are like this.

[GaijinGolfer]

Id agree that the reviews are biased nonsense.  IMO, favorable reviews are more about ad space and money than they are fair, unbiased reviews anyways.

[lumpuckeroo]

I would suspect it's more of the fact that the product wasn't ready when they were testing balls.  I'm sure the ball test weren't last month, good chance they were several months ago and Taylormade wasn't ready.  I also noticed that no Taylormade balls were in the review, but the TP3 has only been available in store for about a month, the new TP5 for maybe 2 months.  Taylormade may not have felt comfortable having them review a ball that they had not got approval as being conforming, not saying that was the case, but seems more likely than just that Golf Digest didn't like them and left them out of the review.

[MiniBlueDragon]

Golf Digest is pretty much a "the more you pay, the better we say your stuff is" anyway so it comes as no surprise.

[rustyredcab]

and ZERO TM ads of any kind in the issue. No clubs or anything. I'd have guessed ads would have been committed to a few months back. I know ad sales are down but even Mizuno had a two-page spread. Guessing it is bigger than "we didn't get your balls in time."

[B-Con]

Those reviews are so useless anyway.  They say nearly the same thing about every ball.

I agree that their verbage is generally worthless when it comes to reviews. But when it comes to balls, their big redeeming factor is their launch and spin analysis. Having a chart comparing spin and launch angles for the new balls is nice. It lets me know which ones I should start trying when I make my next purchase. Anecdotes and online reviews are really hard to gauge, seeing some real numbers is welcome. But that 2/3 page chart is about all they need to publish by way of reviews. :-D [quote name="rustyredcab" url="/t/57133/taylormade-and-golf-digest-fight#post_700527"] and ZERO TM ads of any kind in the issue. No clubs or anything. I'd have guessed ads would have been committed to a few months back. I know ad sales are down but even Mizuno had a two-page spread. Guessing it is bigger than "we didn't get your balls in time." [/quote] There's a 2 page TM/Adidas spread in the beginning of the issue, but I found nothing after that.

[B-Con]

I agree that their verbage is generally worthless when it comes to reviews. But when it comes to balls, their big redeeming factor is their launch and spin analysis. Having a chart comparing spin and launch angles for the new balls is nice. It lets me know which ones I should start trying when I make my next purchase. Anecdotes and online reviews are really hard to gauge, seeing some real numbers is welcome. But that 2/3 page chart is about all they need to publish by way of reviews. :-D There's a 2 page TM/Adidas spread in the beginning of the issue, but I found nothing after that.

Came back to edit, but was too late. Don't forget the parenthetical statement in the ball Hot List: [quote](Editor's note: No TaylorMade balls were available during our evaluation period.)[/quote] That's vague since it doesn't say [i]why[/i], but it leaves the door wide open for something like lumpuckeroo's speculation: [quote name="lumpuckeroo" url="/t/57133/taylormade-and-golf-digest-fight#post_700459"] I would suspect it's more of the fact that the product wasn't ready when they were testing balls. I'm sure the ball test weren't last month, good chance they were several months ago and Taylormade wasn't ready. I also noticed that no Taylormade balls were in the review, but the TP3 has only been available in store for about a month, the new TP5 for maybe 2 months. Taylormade may not have felt comfortable having them review a ball that they had not got approval as being conforming, not saying that was the case, but seems more likely than just that Golf Digest didn't like them and left them out of the review. [/quote]

[Gioguy21]

i was told TM didn't have the pentas and other offerings available for golf digest testing...that being said, i could understand why ppl would get the idea TM fell off the map since golf digest was only testing 2012 versions of AVAILABLE golf balls.