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Clone Golf Clubs May Be What The Doctor Ordered
For a start, the main makers of clone golf clubs are fully fledged golf companies. Their own design departments turn out club designs that are manufactured with the exact same materials the big OEM's use. These golf clubs include the same design principles such as club volume, increased MOI and multi material irons, to name just a few.
Club design is dictated by the rules laid down by the game's governing bodies. Club heads have to conform to these rules, otherwise they are considered to be non-conforming and prohibited for use in competitive play. That's not only at the top levels of the game. Playing a non-conforming driver in your monthly medal could well get you disqualified.
The major producers of golf clones will submit their clubs to the game's governing bodies for approval (USPGA in the USA, R&A in Europe) in the same fashion as the main OEM's. This is an expensive undertaking and nobody selling cheapo copies would go to the expense and effort of submitting their clubs, only to see them rejected.
Take titanium drivers for example. For a driver to be conforming, it has to have a volume of 460 cc maximum. It's not sufficient for a producer to claim their drivers are smaller than 460 cc. The game's governing bodies have to confirm they aren't. If they are under the limit, they go on the Conforming Driver lists. If they are bigger then the allowed maximum, they are placed on the Non-Conforming Driver lists.
A word to the quick here. Some manufacturers of second-rate knock-offs trumpet their drivers as being conforming and point to the fact that these clubs are nowhere to be found on the non-conforming lists. All that means is that they haven't been submitted for testing. Conforming drivers go on the conforming list. Just because a drivers is on the conforming list, it isn't necessarily conforming.
Creating conforming clubs takes a lot of attention and a lot of manufacturing skill. The limits placed by the rules are very strict and it only takes a tiny manufacturing discrepancy to end up with non-conforming clubs. Dimension isn't the only limit the rules make. With restrictions on club-face rebound for instance (Coefficient of Restitution) potentially influenced by even the tiniest deviation in the thickness of the face, quality control during manufacturing is vital.
Golf clones from the top manufacturers conform to the rules of the game and will make a much smaller dent in your wallet. Manufactured from the same materials as the big golf companies and with the same (or better) shafts, these are top quality golf clubs that will make the game that much more fulfilling. As a bonus, many of the big companies offer custom build options on their clubs.
What you end up playing is a set of top quality, conforming, custom built clubs that will play ever bit as good, if not better, than a set of high-priced off-the-rack OEM's. What you won't get is the price tag.
And that's not a bad result for a set of custom golf clubs.
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