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
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
