Gator1555

here is my take on your uestion. When practicing with range balls concern yourself only with swing feell contact fill and basic flight path. most commercial manufactured range balls are 38 grams vs the the playable 45-46 grams and have a very thin syerlin cover ond who knows what type of core. never judge distance of of the flight of range balls. I always practice short approch accuracy with top line balls that have made there way into my shag bag. If you do not have acces to a short game pratice green then to practice short came approch shots (40-110 yards) at a school yard with playable balls and a blanket. A blanket will stop the ball fairly quickly if there is good grass under it. this will give you better replication of your true flight carry than the typical commercial range ball will. That said for working on address, swing and contact aspects commercial range balls are fine. just keep in mind that if the balls are the typical commercially produced range ball the are going to fly about 12%-20% shorter than a pro playable line ball. In the 1980s Jack Nicklaus was building several cources in the Caymon Islands. Due to limited space these cources were restriced land mass about 1/2 the sized of the typical golf cocurse. to deal with this Jack had MacGregor engineers develop a ball that flew approxamently 1/2 the normal fligh of a 90 compression balata So that a player could play his complete club set. these ball were solid hard rubbet that had pimples instead of dimples. When hit they felt close to the same feeling as a 90 compression balata ball. MacGregor retailed these in the US for a shor period of time as practice balls. To day an other company is producing a product called AlmostGOLF balls that travel 1/3rd the distance but feel and look near a real golf ball. In fact there are some AlmostGOLF cources spring up around the country in places. More or less real miniture golf. these balls are used by Dave Pelts training centers. theu have a core that compresses to absorb energy transfer. I have yet to try but have recently recived a gross and intend to shortly.I will report back when I do. I have not weighed these balls butt expect them to be around 30 grams or maybe a bit more. But here again I would not use these for more than swing training devices. to find you mean length and spin with any club use pro line playable balls. If they are as good as claimed I have a 150 yard long practice hole in my back yard ( I have 5 acers of land) I could theoreticly have a practicce hole that could play like a 430 yard par 4. that whould be fun

I’m new here but not new to club making. There is no one answer to if clones are as good as the brand names or not. Historically when forged irons were the benchmark of quality clubs it was all in the quality of the steel and the makers ability to match the right shaft to achive best swing weight and lie for the individual player. When investment castings for irons and wood heads came in to vogue is when it became practical for cones to compete with major brands. The reason for this is that almost none of the major brands actually cast their heads. The major brands will design the head then turn the proof over to a foundry to produce the raw casting. This has lead to a lot of copies made by the foundries with lesser grade casting materials and sold to the clone market for a fraction of the price they are paid by the brand name club companies. Typically the major brands will trademark and or paten the major features to prevent copping of proprietary designs. However one single small change in the features of the irons overall design can keep a cone company outside the patens restrictions. There are very good clones, there are cones that actually better playing clubs for a given section of the market and then there are really bad clones. In this day and age most clones in the ½ off the brand name price range tend to be pretty good clubs over all. The ones that are in the 1/3rd of brand name price range are hit and miss and the ones less than 1/3 rd the price tend to be crap. Back in the day when the majority of Golfsmith’s business was cloning clubs they set the standard for quality clones by engineering their clones honestly compete with the major brands. However they saw the ever changing technology revolution coming and got out of the clone market for the most part while the getting was good. All this said you can take a top quality clone set of irons and with detailed attention to weighting and fitting you can make a set of irons worthy of praise. But that is the real key that most Sunday golfers forget. Even the brand name manufactures build clubs built for a 5’11”, 190lb player with ground to wrist distance of 35”-35 ½” and a swing speed with a driver of 80-90mph. So if you don’t fit very closely in this niche then the clubs regardless if clone of major brand don’t really fit you ideally. One of the biggest issues I see in regards to mid to high handicap players is shaft flex and shaft length. Everyone wants XS printed on the label of a 46 ½” driver shaft. Even when they are 5’8, 135lb and have 75 mph driver club head speed. Macho will always be macho even at their own expense. So here is my take. If you want to save some money find a top raked clone you like at about 1/2 the price of a top line major brand. Buy just the heads and then go to your local club maker and have them fit the clubs to you and your swing. You will end up paying about ¼ (or more) less than the cost the major brand names and have a set of clubs that you can swing consistently. What I am saying it is just as important to spend a bit of money to get your clubs fitted to your body and swing speed as it is to buy a good club. Regardless if it is a clone or a brand name. By the way fitting is something that really needs to be done in person. IMO fitting by internet is an oxymoron.