OEM, Custom, Knock-Off Golf Club Heads - What Is The Difference?
There can be a lot of confusion about the quality and performance of different type of golf club heads, and hopefully the information below can resolve that for you if you are also confused.
OEM heads. These are golf club heads built by companies like Titleist, Mizuno, Taylor Made, Callaway, Cobra, and Ping. These are the clubs that you typically purchase in golf and sporting good stores, golf club pro shops, and through the internet. There is no doubt that the quality of these heads is excellent. Many PGA tour players play them and are paid to play them.
Custom heads. These are heads built by companies like Tom Wishon, Alpha, SMT, Infiniti, Miura, Scratch, and Eidolon golf. They are also high-quality well-designed golf heads. They are built primarily for use by custom clubfitters in building golf clubs. Many of not all of these heads are in fact being used by PGA tour players - for example for a long time a recent world #1 male player (who has the same initials as me....) played Miura iron heads, and Scratch wedges are very popular on tour. SMT and Alpha heads have been used by winners of the ReMax long drive championships.
Knock-off heads. Quite frankly I cannot tell you specific names of these. Often a "distinguishing" characteristic of them is that they look a lot - if not exactly like - OEM golf heads. But they are not of the quality of OEM heads, and no true professional clubmaker would use these heads to build clubs for a player. Sometimes, you can find "deals" for clubs on the internet that look exactly like OEM heads. Be careful of such deals - they may be knockoff clubs and you may be disappointed in what you purchased.
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Tom Wishon - The "Guru" of Custom Clubfitting
Tom Wishon has been in the custom club business for more than 30 years. He has more than 300 patents on different golf head designs. He has had offers from OEM companies to be the designer for their clubs, but has a passion for the value of custom clubfitting to golfers. One of these days (!) I hope to make a pilgrimage to his company headquarters in Durango, Colorado.
For someone who might be interested in the value that custom clubfitting might be to a golfer he has written two books that are great reads: The Search for the Perfect Golf Club (2005), and The Search for the Perfect Driver (2006). Hopefully in the next few months the third book in this series will be available - The Search for the Perfect Putter.
He has also written a small booklet that summarizes some of the key elements of the Perfect Golf Club book - 12 Myths That Could Wreck Your Golf Game. I have copies of this booklet available at the Centenial Golf Course Teaching/Fitting Center, and also can send an electronic version of this booklet to anyone who requests it by email at tony@gameimprovementgolf.com.
On his web site - www.wishongolf.com - he also has links to a number of videos he produced on the value of custom clubfitting.
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More to Come!
Thanks for reading this first newsletter - I plan each month to provide information and content that will be well worth your reading time.
If you have any specific questions on golf clubs, shafts, fitting, and clubbuilding, please feel free to email them to me and I promise to address them either off line or within future issues of this newsletter.
The Fit Is IT!
Tony Wright
GAME IMPROVEMENT GOLF
Oak Ridge, TN
tony@gameimprovementgolf.com
www.gameimprovementgolf.com
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