Most junior golf gear reviews follow the same pattern. Someone buys one club set,
uses it for a fortnight, photographs it on a kitchen table, and calls it tested.
That’s not what happens here, and it’s worth being straight with you about what
does.
What these assessments are actually based on
I’m a golf parent, not a golf professional, and I don’t buy every product I write
about. What I have instead is something a two-week loan unit can’t give anyone:
my kids and I are around a lot of junior golfers, and I see the same gear turn up
season after season, on different children, at different ages and sizes, and I
see how it looks a year later.
That means I can tell you which bag strap gives out after a winter of being
dragged across a car park, which shoes stop gripping once a nine-year-old has
worn them through a summer, and which club set gets handed down and which gets
quietly replaced. That’s a harder thing to find out than a first-impressions
review, and it’s the part parents actually ask about.
What I’ll always tell you
Every claim on this site comes from one of three places, and I’ll always make
clear which one you’re reading:
What I’ve seen. Gear I’ve watched in use, over time, on real juniors. Where a
judgement comes from watching, I’ll say so — “three boys in our group have used
this,” not a vague “in testing.”
What I’ve been told. Parents and coaches tell me things. That’s genuinely
useful information, and I’ll pass it on — but as what it is. “Two parents
mentioned the zip failing” is not the same as me finding the zip failed, and I
won’t blur the two.
What the maker says. Weights, dimensions, materials, sizing charts. If I
haven’t put it on a scale myself, I’ll cite the specification rather than present
it as my own measurement.
What I can’t tell you
Plenty. I haven’t hit every club. I haven’t worn every shoe. Some products I’ve
never seen outside a shop, and where that’s the case I’ll say so plainly instead
of writing around it.
If a comparison table has a gap in it, that’s not an oversight. It means I don’t
know, and I’d rather leave the space empty than fill it with something I read
somewhere else.
About the pictures
The illustrations on this site are drawn, not photographed. That’s deliberate.
A photograph of a product implies someone had it in their hands. Since I often
haven’t, a drawing can’t mislead you into thinking otherwise. Where you see an
actual product photograph, it has come from the retailer or the brand, and it’s
theirs — I don’t alter product images.
About money
Some links on this site are affiliate links, which means if you buy through one I
may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. That never decides what goes
on a list or what I say about it.
You can read the full disclosure.
If I’ve got something wrong
If you’ve owned one of these and your experience doesn’t match what’s written
here, I’d like to know. That’s more useful to the next parent than anything I can
guess at, and I’ll update the page and say when it changed.
Every article carries the date it was last reviewed, so you can see how current
it is.