THE BEST (and worst) Golf Equipment Of 2025

2025 was a really great year for golf. Some impressive drivers, putters, balls, launch monitors. So many awesome things were introduced to us golfers. A lot of that stuff made its way through my garage and there was a lot of hits and maybe just a few misses. So, in today's video, I'm going to break them down, the hits and the misses of things that I had the pleasure of testing in 2025. So, let's get into it. So, this list is in no particular order. It's just me sitting down for the last week or so, thinking back on all of the gear that I tested this year, looking back at old videos, logging into my memory, and also referencing my golf bag. What are the clubs that I've been going back to the most over 2025? And there's a few things that just kind of let me down or didn't live up to the billing. So again, in no particular order, these are the hits and misses of 2025. I'm going to start with the Atlas MB irons from Powerbuilt. I grew up understanding PowerBuilt quite a bit. Powerbuilt was a name that was synonymous with majors and it was a name of golf clubs that I cleaned a lot of in the back shop in the '9s and into the 2000s. Then they disappeared and they came back and in late 2024 I started seeing pictures of these blades and I was blown away. And I was fortunate enough to meet the team in January at the PGA show. it built out a set of these for me and they're gorgeous. And they're not just [snorts] style. There's substance to these. They're like a classic blade that I to this date have shot my lowest round of the year with these on my birthday, no less. I shot 66 with this set of irons. Unfortunately, they haven't stayed in the bag because I'm testing so many other things, but they are back in the bag for the end of the year because, yeah, they're the best set of irons that I was able to hit this year. Not just looks, but performance. Rice 2, like just so many great things to say about this set of irons. So, yeah, Power Bill, they're back. It's not your grandpa's Power Built, your dad's Power Bill. Power's here for for the modern era, and they've made an incredible, gorgeous set of clubs in these Atlas MB blades. So, staying with irons, these are actually the most recent things that I've tested, the Mizuno Pro S3 and S1's. Unfortunately, I don't have a full set of them. I have a 579 of each. So, I can't say how I've played a full round or rounds of golf with them. But all of the testing, the numbers, the performance, the precision, the feel, and then working to see what they do for a combo set, these irons are so good. And I use Mazuno Pro Twos in late high school into college. And it's been since that time that I've hit Mazuno irons. And my gosh, the feel is fantastic. The performance is unparalleled. Yes, there's a recency bias because these are the most recent things that I've tested, but these Pro S3 and S1 irons, I mean, they're Mazunos, and anyone watching this video that plays Mizunos knows exactly what I'm talking about. But they also are so loyal to their older sets of Mazunos, their MP33s or MP24s, whatever they are, their 221s, 241s. It's hard for Mizuno players to go into new Mazuno irons, but when they do, they're not let down. But Mizuno irons are just so solid that if you are making the switch from another brand to Mazuno, you're not going to be let down. I hope I can talk more with Mazuno to build out a full set to put in the bag because I would love to play some full rounds of golf with like my dream combo set of I think four or five in the S3s and then S1's six down because these irons really really impressed me separately, but then as a combo, yeah, incredible irons, these Pro S1's and S3s. So, we're going to round out irons with a miss. And this is actually from a set of irons that is a few years old that I've had for some time, but it's a current release. I set out to make a video testing graphite iron shafts. I had a set of US Mama Dark V's sent to me and I wanted to build out like a really expensive bougie custom Tacoma set of irons. What we discovered in that process was some glaring quality control issues in the iron heads from Tacoma. The lofts, the lies, the swing weights were so out of whack, so inconsistent. And in the video, the comments leaned more to echo what I experienced in that process. Yes, there was still comments. There were still people saying, "Well, I've had sets of Tacomaos specked out and they were great. I've done head only from Tacomao and they were great." But we still had a fair amount of comments were like, "Yeah, that happened to me. The swing weights were just the the raw weights, everything was wonky. The lie angles were wonky. And when that happens, when you buy a set of clubs like sight unseen through a DTC, if the quality control is not there in the build, you're going to experience inconsistencies out on the golf course. And maybe that's fine in the 101's, the 101Ts for your kind of catch all sets of irons. But if we're looking at blades, blades that your best YouTuber uses, you hope that you're getting something that is to the same quality standard of what they're saying we're trying to charge half up. And don't get me wrong, OEMs still sometimes screw up on quality. But what we experienced in that build was a miss. It it was a letdown because it just opened up a can of worms and opened my eyes to h maybe part of the the DTC drop ship avenue is you can roll the dice when it comes to quality control when it comes to consistency set to set product to product. So take for that what you will but that was definitely a miss that I experienced with a test of golf clubs this year. So, one thing that was not a miss in 2025 were these Arcade belts. Arcade reached out to me in August to sponsor a portion of a video. I said yes. But if you've watched the channel since then, I've not worn a different belt. And I was not part of the deal. They're just the best belts. They're so minimal, low profile, easy to take on and off, but they move so well with you. I mean, like look at that stretch. And then they go right back into place because they're so durable. 100° out there sweating. A lot of other belts fall apart, lose their shape. These things have not. But then even off the golf course, these things are rocking with me. I'm building a bike ramp with my kid. We're riding the bike. We're wrestling. We're doing whatever. I've got the belt on and it's moving with me. It's not getting in the way. The buckle is so minimal and smooth. My wife likes them if we're out on date night. Like these belts tick all the boxes. I don't know why I had never heard of them before, but I'm glad I have now. So, click the link down below. There's package deals on these Momentum and Future Weaves. I'm sure there's other package deals to get great savings, especially as we are in the holidays now. Arcade, thank you so much for sponsoring this part of the video. But thank you for making an awesome belt that I rock with every day. So, make sure you check them out. Arcade Belts. So, going from a miss in the DTC space, I want to talk about an absolute hit of a DTC golf company, and that's Sub70. I tested so much of their equipment this year, and everything that I tested, I was incredibly impressed by. the drivers, the fairway woods, the TA3 irons, wedges, like everything performed so well. And then you think about the price tag of the stuff, but also the custom fitting options of the stuff and the quality control. Like every club that came from their factory to me had a sticker on it of the weight. I had a spec sheet. Like the build is not skimped on. It's handbuilt in Illinois. It's not just drop shipped from wherever. And that's what sets them apart from a lot of DTC brands, but also is why I think they have to charge just a wee bit more than the other DTC brands of the space. But what impressed me the most, their 699 Pro V3 irons, I believe, for my brother-in-law. My brother-in-law Brad has never broken 80. So he we took his 8-year-old set of Callaway irons that didn't fit him, and I dialed him into a set from sub70, and it drastically changed his game. You saw it in that video. The height, everything, the distance update. Brad has finally broke at 80. That set of irons has done so well for him. He's playing better golf. He's hitting better golf shots. And even if he were to have paid for that set of irons, he would have paid $400 less for incredible performance. [snorts] Huge hit in the DTC space. Sub70. Everything that I tested was fantastic. I'm excited to see what they bring to market in 2020. So, going irons into wedges, I've got one hit and it's the Cleveland RTZ wedges. And it started with my customization process. I went through the process through Cleveland that any customer would. I got to custom the stamping, the paint fill, the fererals. I could have even gotten hand grinding done to these things, which I didn't. But if I did, the price tag for that pales in comparison to the price tag to do all of those things with their competitors. That process alone, I was like, that's that's a hit. Then I tested them and they have not left the bag sits. They're the best wedges I've tested this year that staying in my bag. I'm trusting them. I'm playing well with them even though I'm not as sharp as I want to be. I'm able to do what I need to do around the greens with these things. Control the flight spin. The feel is fantastic. And I never use Cleveland wedges literally until I tested them two years ago, but that was simply for testing. These ones I tested, they stayed in the bag. Of the six, seven sets of wedges that I have tested this year, nothing could oust them. absolute hit, huge win in these Cleveland RTZ wedges. I just think Cleveland is a wedge brand that more people need to pay attention to because I think they're often overlooked, but they are so freaking good. So, let's go from the bottom of the bag to the top of the bag, and I've got a huge hit, and that's the DS Adapt drivers from Copa. Hugely overlooked and I think hugely misunderstood drivers this year. early reviewers over complicated it and I think it was just easy to dog pile the Future Fit 33 and a lot of dumb club testers didn't know what they were talking about and I think it gave this a confusing bad rap because when I got them and I tested them all and then when I dialed in the one that was best for me the LS head nothing that I've tested has outperformed it this year. Sure, we don't see the tour dominance of Cobra drivers, but the fitting and the like what you can do across those four heads with that sleeve. I was so impressed as a former fitter and someone who helps some friends with their golf game. One in particular, I was able to dial him into one of these heads with the Future Fit 33. and he's driving it better than he's ever driven it because he's able to hit the center of the face more often because we've been able to fit the golf club to his tendencies. People just overlooked this driver. They wrote it off as complicated, a gimmick because some dumb YouTubers didn't understand it back in January, February with big channels and they said stupid things about the Future Fit 33. I think that turned a lot of people off of it. But if you're a fitter, if you know anything about that side of it, you can see how this can be so good. It's not complicated. It's in It's very easy if you want to. But if you're a fitter, it's awesome cuz you can do so much. And like I've said, performance is king for me. This thing has been in the bag since February. And I've tested some really hot, greatl looking, great feeling drivers. Nothing has outperformed this because I have this thing so dialed to me. It's just hard for something to compete with it. So absolute huge hit Cobra's DS Adapt lineup. Well done, Cobra. I think people uh needed to pay more attention to these drivers this year. So, staying with drivers, I've got a miss. And it's two drivers that I actually don't have because I didn't do deep testing with them, but I hit them. I tested them against drivers from the same brand from yesterday year. That's Tailor Made and that's Callaway. And they're 2025 releases. Just disappointed. I'm not saying they were bad, but they didn't perform as well as I would have expected them to perform in those tests. The Qi35, I mean, it didn't even make it out of the range session. Like, it didn't perform well at all. The look, I really like the look of it this year. The feel was mediocre and the performance to my testing. And then the other shots that I hit with it on the range, it was not that great. And on tour, not a lot of guys switched to it. Like, I think it was easy to dog pile that driver. But don't get me wrong, I'm sure there's a lot of people who got that driver this year that love it. But for me, it just it didn't even come close to drivers from a year ago, two years ago, three years ago. It was disappointing to see how poorly it performed when compared to other tailor made drivers. And then with Callaway, the Elite, I think a lot of people loved that driver. And don't get me wrong, it was a great driver. It just didn't perform as well as I would have expected it to perform in that test of the last 6 years, mainly against the 2024 and 2023 drivers. It did make it out of the range round robin, but then it got eliminated very quickly in the brackets here. And then when I think about how well the 23 and 24 drivers performs, why wasn't the 25 one even like kind of neck and neck with that? Again, I'm sure a lot of golfers got those drivers this year and really enjoyed them. So, I'm not saying they're bad drivers by no means. Everything to an extent is is very very good. But to me it was a miss because those two drivers did not perform as well as I would have expected them to perform when compared to drivers from the same companies. Oh yeah, bit of a miss because you would expect more out of such heavily marketed and pushed drivers. So we'll see what 2026 holds for uh the tailor made drivers and the cowboy drivers. So, we're going to round it out with golf balls, but I'm gonna start with a total miss because I want to finish with an absolute hit finish on a high. But this Amazon core soft golf ball, total miss. And I think it was easy for everyone to like jump on it as garbage, it impressed me. Like, it performed better than I thought it would in its testing. And the fact that it like disappeared from Amazon, it's out of stock. And also the fact that the videos don't have a lot of views just shows that golfers were not interested in that speaks volumes. That shows that it was a miss for not just me because I think the interest in this thing was not there. I think Amazon thought they could compete with with Kirkland because Kirkland makes a really good golf ball but this thing like no interest. Performance was mediocre. The feel is pretty garbage. And then if you look at comments, people that would compare it to the Callaway Super Soft, I believe the Super Soft was still better and not that much more expensive. It's not like Kirkland making a golf ball that is crazy affordable, but then performs pretty damn near the best golf ball in the game. This thing was a dollar a golf ball. Didn't move the needle. The interest isn't there. Total miss like Amazon. I don't know what they they were hoping for something special with this, but absolute miss this core soft golf ball. But I want to finish on an absolute biggest the highest high of the year. This was the first thing that came to mind when I said I'm going to make a recap video. The Maxfly Tour X golf ball. This golf ball blew me away. It's so good. At the time when I made the video, Ben Griffin won twice on tour with the Disser. Now he's won three times on tour and he's played in a Ryder Cup with a Max Spyly golf ball. A Dicks Sporting Goods Golf Galaxy only golf ball that was not on anyone's bingle card for 2025 that a golf ball that you can only get at Dicks would be that good and be in such high demand. If you look at the comments on those videos, people that use the Tour or the Tour S because I only tested the Tour X, they love it. They're loyal to it. The price is incredible. The performance is phenomenal and the golfer interest is buzzing. Like those videos, mine and all the other videos about the Max Flight Tour X, people are watching them. There's so much interest in this golf ball because performance speaks. And people are saying, golfers everywhere are saying it's so freaking good. And yeah, this ball is like really, really good. As good as anything that I've ever tested or used. It's given me exactly what I need and want out of a golf ball. And I tested balls from the OEMs this year and other DTC balls that were good, but nothing nothing outperformed this golf ball for me. The MaxFight TourX, the ultimate hit, the ultimate win for me in 2025. So, let me know. How was my list? Do you agree with me? Do you disagree with me? And what were your hits? What were your misses in 2025? What are you most looking forward to in 2026? Sat off in those comments and we'll see you in the next one.