Ben Marsden
Writes the buying calls — which one is worth the money, which one you can skip, and where the category's marketing is quietly hoping you don't look. Won't claim to have hit every club in the shop; will always tell you where he'd spend his own.
Latest by Ben
ProTee VX review: overhead club data where the only yearly bill is the course software
A ceiling-mounted camera unit with a hitting zone more than three times the size of Uneekor's EYE XR and no membership to unlock its own data. Play courses on it and you still pay GSPro, but only GSPro.
By Ben Marsden
Uneekor EYE XO2 review: a 28-inch hitting zone built for a busy bay, with stickers on the clubface
Three overhead cameras and the biggest hitting zone Uneekor makes, which is exactly what a bay with several players needs. The fine print is a box of 400 clubface stickers, a gaming PC and a software tier for course play.
By Ben Marsden
Voice Caddie SC4 PRO review: the phone-free range radar whose PRO extras need your phone
A Doppler launch monitor that reads carry, apex and spin off its own display and speaks your distance aloud, so the phone stays in the bag. The four metrics that make it the PRO are the exception: they live in the app.
By Ben Marsden
Fiberbuilt Studio Grass review: buy the 7x4 single-hitting mat, because the both-hands layouts cost flagship money
Fiberbuilt's grass panel is the reason serious home bays end up on this mat, and the entry layout is the best way to buy it. The centre-hitting version is priced level with the Player Preferred, and it leaves out the panel your launch monitor sits on.
By Ben Marsden
Bettinardi HLX 6.0 review: a putter maker's forged wedge with two grinds where Vokey has six
Bettinardi's sixth-generation forged wedge brings more grooves, less offset in the lower lofts and some of the best milling detail in golf, at roughly Vokey money. The fitting matrix is eleven configurations deep, and that is the number to weigh before the looks.
By Ben Marsden
Arccos Smart Laser review: the auto-pin is the reason to buy it, and it sits behind a second subscription
Arccos's laser drops the pin into your shot-tracking app every time you range the flag, which fixes the one number tracking has always guessed. That feature runs on the laser's own annual subscription, not the one you already pay for tracking.
By Ben Marsden
Trackman 4 review: the 2015 radar is still the reference, and it pays for coaches, putting and the range
Trackman's dual-radar unit is more than ten years old and every other launch monitor is still checked against it. That age is part of the case for it. The room it needs, the putting data it has and the iO doesn't, and who should spend the money.
By Ben Marsden
McLaren Golf Series 1 review: a metal-injection-moulded blade for the player who was buying a blade anyway
The supercar company's first golf club is a muscle-back made by metal injection moulding, sold by the head and backed by Justin Rose. Take the badge off and there is a serious iron underneath. It is still a blade.
By Ben Marsden
Foresight QuadMAX review: a coach's instrument for the range as much as the bay, and a GC3 covers the home sim
Four cameras, 18 parameters, a touchscreen and a battery that outlasts a range day. The QuadMAX is the machine fitting bays are built around, and the people who should own one are the people who use its data for a living.
By Ben Marsden
Krank Formula Fire Pro review: Bryson's driver is a 105mph head, and Krank sells slower swingers a different face
A handmade long-drive driver from a brand with long-drive titles to its name and a US Open in its marketing. The interesting part is what Krank's own fitting chart says: this head is for 250-yard hitters, and nearly everyone else gets steered to a thinner face.
By Ben Marsden
Titleist GTS2 review: the forgiving head that tour bags play at 9 degrees
Titleist sells this as the stability model, and the four bags on our roster that carry one are all set at ten degrees or under. That gap between how it is marketed and how it is actually used is the most useful thing about it.
By Ben Marsden
SkyTrak ST MAX review: the sensible home-sim buy, and the discontinued SkyTrak+ that still undercuts it
The unit that sits exactly where most garage budgets land, and the only one in its bracket that runs course play without a gaming PC. The awkward part is that the model it replaced is still on shelves, cheaper, and tracking the ball the same way.
By Ben Marsden
Stewart Golf Q Follow review: the best-made trolley in the category, and follow mode is its summer feature
Stewart's flagship follows you down the fairway with the handset in your pocket, is designed and engineered in Great Britain, and has just gone up in price with a new edition. The engineering earns the money. The headline feature earns it for about eight months of the year.
By Ben Marsden
Bushnell LPi Circle B review: Foresight measurement at a third of the Launch Pro, and it never leaves the room
It runs the same Foresight Sports measurement lineage as the Launch Pro and currently sells for about a third of the price. The catch is stated plainly on the spec sheet, which is rarer than it should be: this one is indoor only, and it is the first unit at this money to stop pretending otherwise.
By Ben Marsden
The 2026 wedge tests ranked a Costco three-pack above the Vokey SM11: the premium is buying grinds, not spin
MyGolfSpy's 2026 Most Wanted wedge test put a members-only Costco set ahead of the tour benchmark. The winner is not the useful part. What matters is what the wedges we do stock are charging for, and whether you are actually short of it.
By Ben Marsden
Mileseey GenePro G1 vs Bushnell Tour Hybrid: the screen or the viewfinder decides it
Two devices, one idea: put the laser and the GPS in the same hand. One hangs a touchscreen off the side of the barrel, the other hides the yardages inside the eyepiece. They cost about the same, which means this comes down to where you want to be looking.
By Ben Marsden
FlightScope X3C review: a radar house going after the indoor rooms the cameras own
FlightScope has spent two decades arguing that radar sees ball flight better than anything. The X3C pairs it with synchronised high-speed imaging and puts the whole thing in an aerospace carbon-fibre shell that weighs under seven pounds. It is a specialist's buy, and the specialism is a specific one.
By Ben Marsden
TaylorMade will not launch a driver in 2027, the first blank year since 2001, and a two-year cycle is the right call
The company that invented the annual driver refresh has walked away from it. Rory McIlroy says the players pushed for it. The case for and against, and what it does to prices and trade-in values.
By Ben Marsden
Takomo Ignis D2 review: three weight ports became one, and the driver got better
The R&A took the original Ignis off the conforming list over one arrangement of its sole weights. Takomo's answer was to delete the arrangement — a single rear port instead of three — and the mass that freed up went to the perimeter, where it does more good anyway.
By Ben Marsden
Home simulators are sold as practice and used as a cinema: spend on the projector or on club data, not half on each
Every brochure in this category promises a better swing. The rooms I hear about are four people, a speaker and a famous course on a Tuesday night in February. Both are good reasons to build one. They are not the same build.
By Ben Marsden
Medinah is 7,564 yards for one week: the transferable part of a Presidents Cup bag is the gapping, not the head
Twenty-four players arrive in Illinois on 24 September with bags assembled for one golf course, one format and one week. The industry sells the heads out of those bags. The part worth copying cannot be put in a box.
By Ben Marsden
TaylorMade SpeedSoft review: the two-piece ball that still spins a wedge
Sub-50 compression and an ionomer cover, which is supposed to mean nothing happens around the green. Independent launch-monitor testing keeps putting it near 6,000 rpm off a wedge. Here is the golfer that actually helps.
By Ben Marsden
TruGolf LaunchBox review: 27 courses you own, and no annual bill
A portable camera unit at the price where the running cost usually decides the argument. This one ships with E6 CONNECT Home and 27 courses you keep, which changes the maths in a way the spec sheet does not.
By Ben Marsden
Foresight Falcon review: the ceiling is the product, and the gaming PC is not in the box
Nothing sits beside the ball, nothing gets re-aimed, and a left-hander can step in without anyone moving anything. Then it asks for a ceiling you are allowed to drill into and a computer that is sold separately.
By Ben Marsden
Tour Edge Exotics Milled Wedge review: three bounce letters instead of the grind alphabet
On sale today, at roughly half what a Vokey costs, with a milled face and a KBS shaft. The clever part is not the price. It is that the whole line is sold on three bounce profiles rather than a wall of grind letters nobody can decode.
By Ben Marsden
The sim room gets built in September: a made-to-order enclosure can take a calendar month
The room that gets used all winter is the one where the screen is hanging before the clocks change. The one ordered in December is a box in a hallway in February, and the reason is not money.
By Ben Marsden
FootJoy Pro/SLX review: the chassis is what you are paying for, not the waterproofing
It looks like the wet-weather version of the shoe more tour pros wear than any other. It is not, because that shoe is already warrantied waterproof. What the extra money buys is structure, and the trade is weight.
By Ben Marsden
Tour Edge won MyGolfSpy's 2026 Most Wanted iron test. Our 400-plus product catalogue had zero Tour Edge in it
The Hot Launch Max D took the accuracy crown in super game-improvement irons and finished top three for distance and forgiveness. Tour Edge buys no tour staff bags, gets almost no rack space and does not run the ad pages, which is why it took an independent test for anyone to look at it. Us included.
By Ben Marsden
SportScreen Vanish review: the sim enclosure that rolls into the ceiling and hands the garage back
A retractable screen, side baffles and all, that winches up into a ceiling housing and leaves the floor clear for a car. It is the first enclosure built for the reason most people never build a simulator — and it does not solve your ceiling height.
By Ben Marsden
Mizuno Wave Hazard Pro Boa review: the grown-up waterproof I'd buy, and it isn't the one on the FootJoy wall
Full-grain leather, a Boa dial and the same Enerzy foam Mizuno puts in its running shoes. It undercuts the classic leather waterproofs by a long way, and there is one line in the small print that explains most of the gap.
By Ben Marsden
The Solheim Cup is where 24 women get clubs built to spec. The rest get a colour and a flex letter
A Solheim Cup team is about the only place in golf where two dozen women are all built clubs to their own measurements. Walk into a shop and the same industry will sell you a paint job and a flex grade that means nothing.
By Ben Marsden
The home simulator wins the five-year sum against a club membership. Most of the saving is rounds you didn't play
Every simulator comparison in this category is a simulator against another simulator. The thing it is actually competing with is the renewal letter on your kitchen table, and the honest arithmetic has a twist in it.
By Ben Marsden
Exputt RG review: the putting simulator whose 44-inch mat decides what it can teach
A putting-only simulator that nobody in the gear press takes seriously, aimed at the part of the game that quietly falls apart between October and April. What it measures, what it only pretends to, and the mat dimension that explains both.
By Ben Marsden
Eight hosel settings, a sliding weight and a torque wrench: what adjustability is worth on a driver
Eight hosel positions, a sliding weight, a torque wrench in a little pouch. Sold as personalisation, bought as insurance, and left on the factory setting by almost everyone who owns one.
By Ben Marsden
PXG Lightning fairway wood review: six lofts, eight hosel settings, and an un-PXG price
Six lofts, an eight-way hosel and three movable weights, from the brand that used to price itself out of the conversation. It went on sale in December, and the price is still the most interesting thing about it.
By Ben Marsden
PING S259 review: the wedge that finally stopped being a Ping-owner's default
PING's 2026 wedge builds on the tour-winning S159 with a groove strategy that changes by loft and six sole grinds across 46 to 62 degrees. The question is whether that is enough to move anyone off a Vokey.
By Ben Marsden
Three devices, one yardage: pick the one that answers your question and commit to it
A watch, a laser and an app answer three different questions, which is why their numbers never quite agree. Cross-checking the disagreement turns a decision into an audit.
By Ben Marsden
Players' distance irons won on feel, not distance: the hollow head stopped clicking
The category nobody would admit to owning is now the one the whole iron market bends toward. Not because the clubs got longer. Because they stopped sounding like a letterbox.
By Ben Marsden
FlightScope i4 review: the smartest yardage in golf, and you'll be switching it off
A launch monitor company built a rangefinder that tells you what the shot plays as, not what it measures. The adjusted number is also not tournament legal, which decides who should buy it.
By Ben Marsden
September beats January for a swing change: playable turf, evening light and nothing on the card
Everyone starts working on their game in January, in the dark, off a mat, with four months until it counts. September has better light, better turf and the one condition a swing change actually needs.
By Ben Marsden
Softer, wider trolley tyres are the free winter upgrade, and the turf is what you're saving
A narrow, hard, over-inflated tyre on saturated turf is how ruts start, and ruts are how carry-only days start. Almost all of the fix costs nothing.
By Ben Marsden
TruGolf APOGEE review: the sim unit that gives you your floor back
TruGolf's overhead unit clears the hitting bay completely and replays your impact in slow motion after every shot. The catch is a ceiling you have to drill into and a software list with one name on it.
By Ben Marsden
Waterproof is the wrong first question for an autumn shoe: the ground changes before the sky does
Most golfers replace a summer spikeless shoe with a waterproof one and think the job is done. The thing that changes in autumn isn't the sky, it's the ground.
By Ben Marsden
Mizuno Pro M-15 review: the distance iron for people who don't want a distance iron
Mizuno's Modern Series finally makes a players' distance iron a good ball-striker will look at twice. The catch is where the extra yardage actually turns up.
By Ben Marsden
Evnroll EZPZ review: the putter for everyone who tried zero torque and put it straight back
Guerin Rife watched the industry spend two years chasing zero torque and has shipped the opposite idea. It looks normal at address, which is the entire point.
By Ben Marsden
You bought half a waterproof, and it was the half people can see
Golfers spend serious money on a rain jacket and then walk eighteen holes in ordinary trousers. Legs are the biggest wet surface on a walking golfer, and no shell in the world covers for that.
By Ben Marsden
The Motocaddy I would actually buy is the one in the middle
The screen is the bit you pay extra for. Downhill control is the bit that earns its money, and on this model it costs less than the trolley above it.
By Ben Marsden
Foresight made real accuracy a garage purchase. The no-subscription pitch has one asterisk.
Three cameras reading the ball directly, close enough to a GCQuad that most amateurs will never find the gap, and no fee to keep using the hardware. The room it needs and the software it talks to are what decide whether it fits your build.
By Ben Marsden
Bushnell built the device that ends the two-gadget dance. Almost nobody buys it.
A laser and a GPS in the same viewfinder, so you look once instead of twice. The category has never really sold, and the reason is not the one golfers give.
By Ben Marsden
Full Swing KIT review: the tape measure decides this, not Tiger
Tour pedigree, TGL on ESPN, and radar good enough to be checked against a Trackman outdoors. It also wants eighteen to twenty feet of room, which rules out most of the garages people buy it for.
By Ben Marsden
Every driver on tour has a named shaft in it. Yours probably came in the box
We checked the shaft in all 49 tour drivers we track. Every single one lists a premium branded shaft, and not one lists a generic stock option. That gap is where most amateur driver money goes wrong.
By Ben Marsden
Callaway Opus SP review: the wedge in four tour bags while everyone buys Vokey
Callaway's Spin Pocket wedge lands a lower, spinnier flight for about the same money as a Vokey. It is the one I would buy for firm turf and full shots, and the wrong call if your short game lives in soft sand.
By Ben Marsden
Ten of the sixteen Scotty Camerons on tour are putters you can't buy
We counted the putters in 49 current tour bags. The gap between what the best players use and what the shop will sell you is real, it is much bigger for some brands than others, and it should change how you shop.
By Ben Marsden
Three of golf's biggest YouTubers own the iron brand they play. None of the 49 tour bags we track has it
Takomo made Grant Horvat and both Bryan brothers shareholders, not just ambassadors. That's a smarter deal than sponsorship and a harder one to read as a viewer — so here is what the number actually supports, and what it doesn't.
By Ben Marsden
Your golf bag is too big
Fourteen clubs is a limit, not a target, and you bought a bag sized for the target. If you walk, weight beats storage. If you ride, ignore every word.
By Ben Marsden
Push trolley vs electric trolley: is the extra money worth it?
One asks you to push your own clubs up the hill. The other does it for you, for nearly three times the price. How to tell which one you actually need.
By Ben Marsden
Mileseey GenePro G1 review: the rangefinder that swallowed a GPS watch
A laser with a full touchscreen GPS bolted to the side. Absurd on paper, genuinely clever in the hand, and let down by its own app.
By Ben Marsden
You don't need a new driver. You need a fitting.
Every January the longest driver ever arrives, again. The gains are tiny, the real yards are in a fitting bay, and the industry itself has started admitting it.
By Ben Marsden
Stop buying premium balls if you lose three a round
The Pro V1 is a magnificent golf ball. It is also a waste of your money if it spends half its life in the trees. The honest maths.
By Ben Marsden
Garmin Approach R10 review: it will tell you your 150 club carries 138
Pocket radar, app simulator and on-course tracking for the price of a good rangefinder. Still the best-value way to find out what your game actually does.
By Ben Marsden
Kirkland Signature golf ball review: the ball that embarrasses the big brands
Three-piece urethane for about a third of tour-ball money, and robot tests keep putting it near the top of the value pile. The hard part is finding it.
By Ben Marsden
Nikon Coolshot Pro II review: the laser for anyone whose hands aren't steady
The best glass in the mid-tier and stabilisation that genuinely works. The smart-money laser if you play in dull light or your hands aren't rock steady.
By Ben Marsden
