When a Clubmaker Declines to Participate

A new protocol for 2018

Given the amount of publicity generated by PXG in 2016, it’s logical that attentive readers would ask why its clubs aren’t to be found on this year’s Hot List. Certainly, we were as interested as anyone to put them through our testing process and find out how the clubs stack up against irons from other companies. Unfortunately, after numerous requests to submit clubs and relevant technical data for review by our academic panel, PXG declined to participate. With the exception of a few niche companies (Miura, XXIO, Krank), we haven’t faced this situation before, but it was clear to us that, in fairness, we could not include PXG this year.

However, the situation did prod us to develop a protocol going forward. Starting with the 2018 Hot List, every effort will be made by Golf Digest to obtain and fit clubs to our testers specs of any product deemed by the judges to be relevant in the market, regardless of whether the company submits them for testing. Because our process is considerably more comprehensive than just hitting clubs, we will obtain as much supporting technical documentation about these products as possible to share with our academic panel. This will be done to allow us to continue providing readers with the most comprehensive ranking of golf equipment in the industry.