The Golf Digest hot list: for the first time in our history, we name the equipment of the year and tell you what to put in your bag—right now

Golf Digest, Feb, 2004 by Mike Stachura

THE QUESTIONS AREN'T MERELY COMMON. THEY'RE relentless. Readers write letters, send e-mails, sometimes even call us on our cell phones (no, we are not making this up) asking our advice on whether they should play the new driver that is hot on tour, switch to a backweighted putter or get the $19 or $40 box of balls. It's basically the question we all wrestle with: What stuff should I buy?

Over the years we've tested golf equipment with machines, with tour pros and average golfers, even with computers. What we've invariably found is that today's golf equipment is, as our departed friend Ely Callaway used to say, "demonstrably superior and pleasingly different." How good? Probably better than the golfers using it. Today's golfers have it so good that finding bad name-brand equipment almost never happens anymore. What's more, our tests demonstrate (and even our venerable Frank Thomas confirms) that today's equipment is far more advanced than it was as little as three years ago. Every golf company you've heard of, and some you haven't, benefit from the kind of engineering know-how that's usually reserved for fighter jets and smart bombs. So what's a golfer to do? The science is solid, so pick anything and you'll be fine, right? Hardly. Walk into any golf shop or visit an online retailer, and chances are you'll be so overwhelmed with choices that you won't be able to speak, let alone think, clearly. What you really need is someone to explain the difference between equipment that's simply "not bad" and the stuff you've "gotta have."

Enter The Golf Digest Hot List. It's a combination of objective research and the most informed subjective opinion on equipment you can get. Our equipment editors know the inside scoop. We know which brands are selling. We know which brands are getting good word of mouth, and why. We know which brands have tested well. As a group we've tried virtually all of the equipment out there that's worth trying (granted, it's a burden). Furthermore, we have come to know what golfers like ourselves lust after--and "golfers like ourselves" covers just about every golfer there is. How do we know it? It's our job. You want to know the name of the graphite shaft Tiger tried once? We know it. You want to know why plasma welding is interesting? We'll cut open a driver and show you. You want to know what loft works best at your swing speed? We'll do the testing to give you an answer. And now we want to help you buy the right equipment, too, and we're going to tell you in the clearest terms possible, uncensored and completely authoritative.

The Golf Digest Companies has on its staff five editors who study equipment and the golf industry full time--they are experts in the business of knowing what's working, what's being used on tour and what's generating excitement. No other magazine has more than one editor dedicated to equipment coverage. By combining the resources of four magazines--Golf Digest, Golf World, Golf For Women and Golf World Business--there are five independent editorial experts along with Thomas, Golf Digest's Chief Technical Advisor and the world's leading independent authority on equipment, ready to serve as your guides. Collectively our five editors have attended more than 100 trade shows and spent more than 80 years covering the golf equipment industry. If the question "What stuff should I buy?" could be answered, this is the panel to do it.

We see our role in the average golfer's buying decision as one of trusted advisor. Says E. Michael Johnson, equipment editor at Golf World: "When I was an assistant pro 20 years ago, the members came into our shop all day long and would ask us what to buy. Today, I'm doing the same thing for readers."

Starting with this issue, Golf Digest's team of equipment editors will rank the stuff we think is worthy of your consideration. It's a list you'll want to put on the refrigerator, so on holidays and birthdays you'll be able to avoid another golf ball-themed tie or the engraved combo divot tool and ball retriever.

Now, what precisely is the hottest? It's probably easier to tell you what it's not. It isn't necessarily the "longest" or the "most accurate" or the "softest" or the one that "spins the most off a half wedge." Why? Because we don't know that. It can't be tested, and, frankly, it's different for every golfer, every swing and every product. Instead, what we are offering is a list of clubs and balls that at the very least you should try right now. We are looking for the equipment that in our opinion advances the game. Golf Digest Chairman and Editor-in-Chief Jerry Tarde may have said it best when he gave this advice to the judges: "It's a little like Dave Marr's definition of a great golf course: 'Would you tell your best friend to get off the Interstate to play it?' That's really what it comes down to: Would you tell your best friend to buy this club?"

How we arrived at our answers to this straightforward question wasn't a simple process. It involved significant club and ball research as well as a comprehensive play-testing session and meeting at the Cranwell Resort in Lenox, Mass., but it wasn't about what worked with our particular swings. Just as important to our decisions was the series of (sometimes heated) discussions that occurred during the three days at Cranwell. We reviewed, dissected and debated the candidates in each category like a Supreme Court case in the chief justice's chambers. However, instead of constitutional law, our arguments focused on these four factors, each weighted to each judge's individual interpretation: