Marketing Ploys are Killing our Game!

By Dr. JJ King, President of KZG.

"The zeal for sales is really messing up the game of golf. Rather than focusing on game improvement, most major golf manufacturers focus on how to sell more clubs. Sadly, the clubs they keep producing don’t necessarily help your game.

The biggest folly recently has been in the iron category. Only a few short years ago, a traditional iron set was comprised of #3-9, PW, AW and SW. The typical #5 iron had a loft of 28 degrees. Today, most major brands sell a #5 iron with a loft of 22 or 23 degrees. Why? Because when you hit it at the retail store with their launch monitor, it will definitely go further…and the one with the most distance wins. But this presents a big problem. Your #5 iron is really more like a #3 or #4 iron and is much more difficult to hit consistently. But you already bought the set… so who cares?

And now you have to buy more clubs to replace the clubs you cannot hit in the iron set. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why the manufacturers have been doing a rip-roaring business in hybrid clubs over the past few years".

If you are in the market for a hybrid to replace one or more of your long irons, remember to replace the long iron with the same lofted hybrid. Just because the hybrid is stamped "3" on the sole does not mean it is the same loft as your conventional #3 iron you are replacing. The iron you are replacing must be measured for loft as well as measuring the new hybrid's loft to make sure they are the same. Just because a hybrid may be stamped "19 degrees" on the sole does not mean it is 19 degrees. There is a tolerence and it could very well be 2 degrees off it's stated loft. Get it measured.