The BEST & WORST Golf Equipment Of 2024

so 2024 was a massive year for the game of golf when it comes to equipment and gear launch monitors kind of dominated the conversation they're getting better and better and more and more affordable drivers are getting more and more forgiving while maintaining crazy distance golf balls are getting faster and better the advancements never seem to slow down and this was my first full year being a dedicated tester and reviewer here on YouTube so like the title of this video and the thumbnail suggests I want to dive into the best and the worst things that I reviewed this year we'll start with the lab golf df3 I mean this putter is everywhere lab it's for a reason it's so good my review about it was full of hyperbole but it wasn't hyperbole like it it felt like cheating there's so many solid quality things about the putter it's going to help so many golfers like it's going to make bad putter good Putters it's going to make terrible Putters good Putters do I think it's going to make a really good putter better not really but it was so impressive and it's not surprising you're seeing so many creators and YouTubers who yes maybe were gifted the putter but they're continuing to use the Putter and you're seeing so many professional golfers that have struggled with their putting over the years switch to a lab putter because that zero torque thing it's not hype it's not a gimmick and that's why you see other brands copying it mimicking it I think 2025 2026 we're going to start seeing kind of slowly going the way of the Buffalo of uh a putter head kind of your traditional blade putter head with torque mallets no torque they're here to stay and the lab df3 is kind of like the top of the pile so next up is the 11 hybrids these things I mean I didn't actually think I wanted to test them when 11 reached out I was like uh I wouldn't see myself using these so why would I test these but then I watched some videos on them and it was very very intriguing and then when I got them I was I was so impressed like they look great they feel great they're so easy to hit so incredibly forgiving and the numbers they produce are awesome like they're helping so many golfers enjoy this game more and and play better Golf and shoot lower scores and their price point isn't crazy so my test my review with them I had so many great things to say about them then I gave the kind of top half of them I think the three iron down to the six iron to my father-in-law because that was a part of his golf bag that he was struggling with he didn't like the 175 to 220 range he kind of just felt a little bit handcuffed because he didn't know how solid he would hit his long irons put these in it's helped his game so much like he's still a player that shoots in the mid 70s but as he's getting older those long irons are a little harder to hit so he put those those in the bag and he's hitting them higher softer hitting more greens so ultimately like just shooting lower scores because when he's faced with that yardage he's gained confidence and he's not having to scramble for par maybe make a bogey or hit in a bunker maybe make a water double like they're helping his game they're impressive 11 hybrids yeah easily one of the best things I tested and reviewed this year so I said at the start of the video launch monitors are so impressive and what's happening with them is so impressive and rapsodo is a brand that continues to impress me with everything they do and then this year they rolled out target range and holy cow that that setting is so good I love to practice especially in a way that simulates real Golf and to have these wedge targets to have drivable par 4S to have Island greens so many yardages to do with your launch monor that you can do inside or you could do out on on a driving range just looking at your iPad incredible and then you pair it with an update they just recently did where they elevated their Graphics target range with the updated Graphics a launch monitor setting that's going to actually allow golfers to get better not just have a launch monitor to like watch their numbers or play Sim golf like that's a setting where if you use it you will get better and I think that's something in a launch monitor space that's a little bit lost so to have a setting that basically is giving you ways to practice that's going to prepare you for the golf course huge incredible incredible stuff so the fourth and final thing on this list is the p7 CV irons from tailor made yes I was a tailor made player in my playing career but I had gone away from tailor made irons for the last couple years and I got my hands on these and I was blown away it was love at first strike they look gorgeous they feel phenomenal the feedback performance is so good but the forgiveness is there so it's like I've got all the the look and feel of a blade but I have the Forgiveness of a cavity back and that's huge I don't play as much golf as I used to I don't practice as much as I used to so when I do get out and play I don't want to be penalized for a slight Mish hit of a six iron because I'm still using a blade the fact that I can feel confident like I'm looking at a blade but have the Forgiveness of a subtle Mish hit with that six iron still go 95% of what I wanted it to go impressive impressive stuff so after two years of no tailor made irons in my bag and always being a blade player these p7 CBS easily made this list of the top four things that I tested because they went in the bag they stayed in the bag and I'm continuing to enjoy everything about them so yes easily one of the top four things that I tested this year so before we dive into the four worst things that I got my hands on let's just do a quick honorable mention the irons that I tested from avoda wow those things weren't even fit to me and they were impressive impressive so nice to look at so precise so consistent really cool stuff that avoda is up to and like I said they weren't even fit to me they were just kind of a hodg Podge custom built set the 2024 tp5x couple years away from a tailor made ball going into this and doing a head-to-head comparison of that ball to the previous tp5x uh just yeah wow and I'm experiencing it on the GOL course I'm using the ball and I'm loving the golf ball another honorable mention are the McGregor irons using those mty mil I I tested them and then I kept them in the bag because I really liked them the Nostalgia of McGregor making that video was was cool but to think these irons were so nice looking Felt So Good performed so well for 550 bucks really really cool stuff definitely an honorable mention for that set of irons and then I think just overall an honorable mention is some of the direct to Consumer stuff that I got to test there's direct to Consumer Brands out there that are really in your face that kind of dominate the space but there's other direct to Consumer brands that are creating really high quality products that have a lot of custom fitting capabilities that the big director consumer brand doesn't offer that I think is really shaking things up so I'm kind of referencing sub7 in Haywood uh it's really impressive what I got my hands on and then when I dove into how customizable and how you could get fit into those direct to Consumer products definitely an honorable mention uh for the stuff that I tested in 2024 here we are the worst I'm going to try to make this brief it's four things I don't want to like harp on things because I said at the beginning there's just a lot of quality stuff and even the stuff that's not so good like people worked hard to create these things generally speaking there's quality in it but I was left really really unimpressed first up the Kirkland driver people are kind of going Gaga over it it was 200 bucks it was so mediocre it's so mediocre I hit it three times and something was shaking already in it the quality control on the build isn't there when tried to compare against an oem or even some of the director consumer brands that I tested and mentioned for 200 bucks it's a gimmick it's hype it's for I don't think it's that great and I think as time is progressing other Kirkland things are being exposed is not as great as people want them to be cool novel but really left me unimpressed in spite of the set making my honorable mention the pitching wedge from the McGregor set is on my worst of list it had a bizarre amount of offset for a pitching wedge like a draw biased pitching wedge I didn't understand it and even in testing and playing with it like I kept the irons in my bag but when I hit that wedge I like really had to try to like hit a fade with it and people commented well just bend the Loft so that changes the offset but now you're messing with your gapping because if you're changing the Loft in that pitching wedge it's going to hit a different trajectory and a different distance so that's not the solution I just didn't understand I come to learn that maybe the Mt Pro Set had a little bit less offset throughout the bag but the offset in that pitching wedge I used the set of irons for like six weeks I really like the set of irons but the wedge I bemon it I didn't get it it just it just didn't fit it just didn't fit with the set so definitely uh making my my worst of list this year so third on the list is a great product with one thing that just frustrates me kind of like the set of irons and that's the angle of descent on the unicore IM mini I use the unicore IM mini it's my favorite launch monitor like all of my testing on this video is with the unicor I mini I love the portability of it I love the face on display I love the button like I don't even use the PC for it I use an iPad it's serving me so well it gives me great readings the angle of descent is wonky like that's a pretty important reading if you are a club fitter if you are a coach or even if you're like a touring player that's practicing and and using a launch monitor you want that angle of descent reading to be accurate and it's it's it's not it's all over the place I don't understand it sometimes it's 18 degrees sometimes it's it's appropriate it's 53 degrees sometimes it's 26 and you I get comments in the video about it and I have to say yeah that's just something that hasn't been improved yet definitely definitely warrants a spot on this list and the fourth and final thing is a club that I just reviewed and it frustrates me because so much care and attention and R&D and money went into this golf club and it was the oxim driver it's a driver with offset in the year 2024 it just doesn't make sense I did so much due diligence in that video I I I worked harder on that video than any other video because I had other people hit the golf club and even comments on the video are like yeah it's a driver with offset and then people were like well that worked yeah it worked 25 years ago in the late '90s early 2000s that was what some Brands did text going this way and it was going that way and I just didn't understand it I wanted I I didn't H such a great rapport with the company and and communicating with them and I felt bad that I had to like make this video where oh I didn't I I just I wasn't I left it left me wanting so much more the performance was not there so yeah it easily made it easily made the the four the four worst of the year list so there you go I tested a lot of stuff but there's a lot of stuff that I didn't test this year so hopefully 2025 I'm able to dive deeper into more things and give you more uh feedback reviews tests so that you can make better decisions when it comes to the golf equipment you want to get so let me know what did you love what did you hate about golf equipment in 2024 and we'll see you in the next video