Why Fake Golf Clubs Are Too Good To Be True

Sshh! You not supposed to like it

Knock-off, Fake, Clone, Counterfeit golf clubs – whatever you want to call them are definitely too good to be true, but is this all bad?

When your anger subdsides, if you bought clone golf clubs unintentionally, you might come to realise that it’s not good, but not all bad either.

Like any other fraud, scam or rip off, golf club clones are very good – very good clones, but they are never the real thing.

I recently, well last year actually, purchased a set of reasonably priced golf clubs from Ebay (I’m sure it could have been anywhere else also, this is not a review of Ebay per se).

I’ll try to give a brief but full appraisal of what happened…

The listing

The listing was advertised as someone who had bought 2 sets of Callaway golf clubs, one with stiff shafts and another with standard flex. They were keeping the standard flex so were selling the stiff shafted set. The seller said the clubs had serial number on the 8 Iron and were genuine. It seems that a common way to identify fake Callaway’s is by the missing serial number on the 8 Iron (more on that in minute..)

Payment

Anyway, the sales and payment process was smooth at the time, although shortly after the seller (who I will not name) seemed to have some problems getting the clubs delivered, perhaps a couple of weeks or more went by and I tried to contact the seller who did not reply.

I contacted Ebay with the details and ask the question “when should I hit the panic button”, they responded with “just wait another few days – the guy might be on holiday”. So that’s exactly what I did, just waited, and sent the odd question about delivery to the seller every couple of days.

Phew!

About 3 weeks later the seller contacts me saying that he had indeed been on holiday, he seemed genuine about that I have to say, but said there were problems getting the clubs through customs! ALARM BELLS. The clubs were advertised as being already purchased and his possession so I thought why would they be stuck in customs?

I ask the question and apparently he had purchased both sets abroad and was bringing them back into the UK. This seemed a reasonable explanation so my pressure/anxiety level dropped to normal.

The seller wrote back to me after a couple of days and said the clubs were still in customs and would refund my money if I wanted to, which again settled my nerves, and being more comfortable with the situation I said I would wait.

Arrival day

About three days later the clubs arrive, I unwrap them and inspect every aspect including checking the serial number which was present.

Researching golf club clones

I researched golf club clones on the net to see if I could get an insight into what to look for in case they were fakes. I found a few articles, some more helpful than others. On closer inspection, using the limited information that I had found, my clubs appeared to be OK.

Registering your clubs ought to highlight a problem

So, I thought I would register the serial number with Callaway Europe, you can do this through their web site quite easily.

I was thinking if they write back and say sorry that number is invalid then at least I’ll know for sure.

Next day Callaway confirm the registration of the clubs and the serial number and add me to their mailing list and newsletter. So by now I’m thinking I’m in the clear, thank goodness.

Seeing how far you can hit ‘em

I take the clubs out on the range and hit a stack of balls – actually managing to pull a muscle in my side in the process which meant I couldn’t play for about four weeks. Nothing sucks more than that when you’ve got new battle gear to wear-in..

So, eventually I take my new golf clubs out on the course and play a couple of rounds with them and I am quite chuffed. The smaller heads were taking a bit of getting used to as I’d gone for tour sized heads this time, but other than that there was nothing alarming to write home about.

Tailored fitting

After about six weeks or so I was getting comfortable enough with the clubs to want to have them adjusted and tailored to suit me (loft and lie etc). So I go to the Direct Golf Shop that I’ve used for the last few years, I tell the Pro what I’m looking and he suggest I go out on the range and hit a few balls while he watches.

We get talking and I mention the clubs are new and were a good deal, more than £100 cheaper than in the shop blah blah.. as you do.

So he takes the first club for adjustment and is gone for about 5 minutes while I wait on the range. He comes back with my 8 Iron and another 8 Iron from the shop, and says to me “I can’t risk adjusting your clubs as it looks like they are fakes!!!” he shows me the club from the shop and the difference whilst subtle was actually obvious. Here is the list of what we found different:

The more obvious fake attributes:

• The styling of the text on the grip was different
• The pattern in the grip was subtly different
• The colours in the Project X label were very slightly off and quite a bit brighter than the genuine club
• BIGGY: The label was on the wrong side of the shaft – i.e. It was facing me when I addressed the ball, whereas on the geniune club it was underneath and not visible when addressing the ball.
• The last groove had a whiteline in it, whereas the genuine Callaway had no white line on any groove.

The not so obvious fake attributes:

• The badge on the back of the club head was very difficult to tell apart from the genuine club
• The shape of the club head was almost indistinguishable from the real thing
• The overall weight of the club was indistinguishable by holding a fake in one hand and a genuine in the other
• The styling of the shaft identical
• The shininess of the shaft was subtly different but you would never pick it out without the real thing in your hand to compare.

The aspect that really got me

• When I hit the real thing I could tell the difference, different feel and different noise
• Shaping shots was much easier with the real thing, even just off the range mats
• It just felt much more engineered – and it clearly was.

The lessons to be learnt

• Never buy clubs off Ebay or any other auction site where the seller is not a certified Original Equipment Reseller, unless you can view the clubs yourself and the seller has the original receipt AND will give you the details so you can check it out with the store.
• Get the serial number of the clubs beforehand – if the seller won’t privately give you this then you should assume they are fake. Unfortunately this puts the decent resellers at a disadvantage because you could be a serial number hunter in their eyes – its catch 22 but you have to protect yourself. Never ask a seller to publicly state the serial number because fake makers will get their hands on it, ask for it in a private email or by post (this may be more difficult internationally).
• When you get the serial number go to the OEM (the manufacturer) and ask them if it’s a genuine serial number and if it has already been registered. Don’t expect them to give you the details of the person that registered the serial number – this would be against data protection laws.
• You have to do everything in your power to check the genuineness of second hand clubs also. Stick to the age old saying “If it’s too good to be true then it probably is”. I have no idea if the seller from which I purchased knew the clubs were fake or not, if I had to err on one side I’d guess he did know they were fake.
• If someone says they have a product in their possession and later it turns out that they don’t have it in their possession, then quit the process immediately and go elsewhere. If you’ve already paid then ask for a refund. In my opinion, this buyer waited until I’d paid and then ordered the clubs from the Far East, or somewhere similar, and the 3 week lag was the shipping lead-time.
• For safety, stick to good quality High Street name shops or verified online shops that are well established and authorised resellers – I can’t overstate this enough.

Why it’s not good, but not all bad either

Finally, after twelve months of playing with my clubs I have become accustomed to them in a fashion, I play well with them but get limited joy from them as I know every time I take one out of the bag that it’s a fake.

Eventually I’ll get a new set and stick to the rules above next time. I’ll probably give these clubs to my step son as I would never sell them knowing they are counterfeit, and that’s another lesson to learn – you have no part exchange value with fakes – they are 100% dead money.

However, all-in-all I have to take my hat off to the cloners’ as they really are quite good – but worthless pieces of zero engineered iron. My fears that they would fall apart after a couple of rounds has disappeared – they haven’t fallen apart, in fact they have kept very well.

I also thought that the grips would not last and were probably cheap as hell, but in fact I think the opposite – these are actually the best grips I’ve had on any club – ever. The real shame is that I won’t be able to buy replacements because they are fakes, but I can honestly say I would buy the grips again.

My fear that the grooves on the club heads would not last has also been proved wrong. They look just as good after 12 months+ as they did when they arrived. I don’t know if the Callaway recommended groove sharpener will work, probably not but I’m sure I can find one that does.

In summary

Maybe I got lucky? Maybe if I’d bought similar clones from another golf club counterfeiter maybe all my fears might have been realised? Who knows?

If you’ve had a really bad experience I’d love to hear from you. I intend to write a series of articles in the future surrounding this topic to try and prove once and for all if cloned golf clubs do have some long term value, or not as the case may be.

I’ll also be trying to look at the topic of golf club clones from the point of view of both consumers and the main brand manufacturers’ and asking what they should/can do to protect their customers from counterfeits, we have some interesting ideas on this topic.