GEAR OF THE YEAR
Now in its 10th year, Top Gear – our datadriven, month-long testing process of all the new clubs on sale each year – is the cornerstone of our club reviews. Along with the reviews on the next 24 pages, you will find much more data, more insight, more verdicts, more comparisons and more images at www.todays-golfer.com, along with in-depth videos on our Youtube channel – @todaysgolfer. We feel it’s by far the biggest and most in-depth golf equipment test published in Europe, and it’s certainly the most useful.
The number of golfers’ eyes that see Top Gear run into the millions. But it wasn’t until we started to pack our hired transit van for the final week of testing that we truly got an appreciation of how big the franchise has become.
In total, we hit 234 clubs – 29 drivers, 24 fairway woods, 17 hybrids, 80 irons, 26 wedges and 58 putters – all so you can see how the latest models compare side by side and form a clear picture of which new equipment should be on your radar this year.
HOW WE DID IT
We invited golf equipment manufacturers to submit their entire 2024 club ranges for testing. We created a controlled environment indoors at Keele Golf Centre, Staffs, and used a premium tour ball (Titleist Pro V1x). We collected a ton of data from every shot, using a Foresight Gcquad launch monitor. We rated each of the 234 clubs tested and then picked the best. But what you see here is merely a sample – the rest of the reviews for every other club can be found at www.todays-golfer.com, along with much more detail, insight, opinion and tech analysis of all the clubs we tested.
THE DATA
Before we came to any conclusions, we analysed the data for each club tested (excluding putters) on distance, spin rates and forgiveness. To get an idea of forgiveness, we looked at the differences in ball speed and carry distance (drop-offs) from our test pro’s fastest to slowest and longest to shortest shots. For every club, we also tracked where each shot landed to establish how far left and right of its target the ball had finished and work out a dispersion area. Dispersion can of course be misleading, as it’s much more player than club-reliant, but essentially we use the information created to establish trends. We analysed all our data before identifying our ‘Best of 2024’ equipment choices.
OUR BALL OF CHOICE
Using just one test ball brand every year inevitably leads to criticism for being too closely aligned to one manufacturer, especially if that brand’s equipment performs particularly well. So, to ensure fairness, we like to switch brands for the Top Gear test ball every year, and for 2024 we’ve gone for Titleist’s Pro V1x. It targets higher launch and more spin in the long game than the Pro V1, and feels slightly firmer, too.