Generic/Knock off Clubs..........

[Rockford35]

You would be hard pressed to find someone in the clone/knockoff world willing to put their products to the test. Not only do they expose themselves to their product flaws, they also may open themselves up to legal activity from the OEM's. By staying on the fringe of the component club world and keeping a low profile, the OEM's generally leave the less blatant cloners alone. Once they start to heavily advertise or promote their clones, you can bet the OEM's will unleash a team of lawyers to make an example out of them. Callaway is pretty hardline when it comes to getting their designs ripped off and have shut down several cloners in the past.

Bang on, Tim.

And, I can tell you from experience, it would be a total waste of time.

R35

 

[3Bogey]

You need to do a little more research before you start posting stuff as fact when it clearly isnt.

Clones are all junk. They are build using lower grade materials, with horrible if any tolerances, and are built stricktly on cosmetics, with no thought to what the actual design was trying to accomplish.

Back at You Lyle......Your 2 comments above are as unfactual and misleading as any post on this thread. Not all Clone companies sell crap. Are you saying Hireko components (which have several Callaway clones by the way) and Golfsmith components ( which are a copy of an original form........according to Webster this is the definition of a clone) are all crap?? As was recently stated earlier in this thread, all oem manufactureres rip off other each others ideas. So what is the difference when a clone company does it?????? As far as materials go, what is the difference between 431 stainless in an OEM compared and 431 stainless in a clone. Does the ball know any difference??? Bottom line is that the best equipment is the equipment that best suits your game. If that means spending $800-1000 on a set to make you think that you will play better........than all the power to you. As for me, I'll stick with my $199.00 custom fit Acer XP905 Tour Irons and be happy............with several hundred dollars to boot!!

 

[TheWOAT]

...

I have some "TP 588" clubs, a clone of the TM 580, and pretty much its a blatant rip off, but for about 20 bucks a club I got what I paid for. Buying clones will only make you want buy some "real" clubs. Its a gateway to becoming a club-whore.

 

[HighTopFade]

I tried an Acer driver a long time ago. It was pretty good.

 

[Jules150]

my first driver was a big bertha knock-off. It sucked. I will never buy clones again.

 

[LyleG]

3bogey

The golfsmith stuff, the heirko stuff are not clones. They are original designs. They may look similar to others but are all made from an actual new design. Iron shape hasnt changed much over the years but there still are a lot of new ideas incorporated into an standard look.
Clones take a club like a Callaway and copy it based on look alone. Exact same shape, colors, writing font. No regard is payed to the weighting, the face thicknesses, the metals used. It is simply a copy of a look, there is nothing at all the same in terms of the actual design behind the look. I have been dealing with golf clubs for nearly 20 years and can tell you first hand with the utmost of certainty.

In the golf world a clone is a look alike, nothing more. A counterfit is look alike with the exact same name markings, meant to be passed of as the real thing. A true component is an original design. Big difference.

 

[Rockford35]

my first driver was a big bertha knock-off. It sucked. I will never buy clones again.

You are of the 99% of the population.

There's always one in every crowd that thinks they can rock the boat.

This has been argued at naseum and proven many times over that clones are inferior in every way.

From WorldGolf.com:

"Attack on the clones


To the naïve or brand-name obsessed golfer, component clubs are often associated with low-quality knock-offs or clones - blatant copies of well-known OEM (original equipment manufacturer) clubs. Britt Lindsey, VP for technical services and R&D at The GolfWorks in Columbus, Ohio, calls this topic "near and dear to my heart." Lindsey has recently written an article on this very subject for the February GolfWorks catalogue, documenting the vast differences between clones and high-quality component parts.

"I can only speak for the GolfWorks," says Lindsey, "but we pride ourselves on doing original designs that actually work. There are always trends in design that all designers will evaluate and follow, but following material trends or design trends do not have to be knock-offs of the major brands. In fact, we currently see trends that seem to follow some of our own original design concepts of longer blade lengths and lower center of gravity with wider radiused soles."

For Lindsey's article, GolfWorks engineers inspected clone irons and found that not one model they tested even had a flat face. Callaway Golf has recently led the industry in litigation against knock-off producers, winning damages and forcing the removal of clones from store shelves. As Lindsey says, however, there are times when the OEMs actually follow the design trends of component producers.

Amateur clubmaker Hollingworth also warns against clones. "Don't start clubmaking just to make knock-offs of popular designs," he warns. "The cheap knock- offs are generally of very low quality. If you pay a bit more for high quality components, you will still pay significantly less than OEM clubs, and the quality will be as good or better than the OEMs."

Another widespread misconception is that all component clubheads are cast or forged in China, and all OEM clubheads come from the U.S. At the cost of domestic manufacturing jobs, however, in this age of "free trade" almost all clubheads are produced in China. According to Lindsey, "Years ago, many heads were made in the U.S. Some were made in Mexico. Having been [to China], I can tell you that every major brand is being produced in China. It may not be all the production, but it is the majority, I believe." Furthermore, both component and OEM heads are generally made at the same foundries, using the same materials and processes."

and....

From Clubfitter.com

"Clones - What are they really?

Many of you have heard the term “clone” when referring to golf clubs. Some think “clones are just as good as anything else, just cheaper”.

Some think the look alike design “is just like the original model but less expensive to buy”.

Some think that “all heads not made by the major manufacturers like Callaway, Nike, Titliest, Taylor Made, Ping, Cleveland, Cobra and others played on the Professional Tours around the world known as OEM clubs are clones”.

The truth is all of those statements are very misleading.

There are great designs made by small niche companies that are the equal of the Callaway, Nike, Titliest, Taylor Made, Ping, Cleveland, Cobra and others played on the Professional Tours around the world and are actually manufactured in the same foundries as many of them. There are clubheads designed by designers who worked for some of these companies who decided to start their own business to have more control over their designs. There are clubheads designed by designers who were approached by some of these major names that started their own company to have more control over their designs. None of these proprietary designs are clones. These proprietary designs or OEDs are original designs by some of the best designers in the world and many are as good as and maybe even better than many of the heads you are familiar with.

The question is; How do you know the difference?

You can call one of the AGCP members you find here:
http://www.clubfitter.org/html/find_your_agcp_fitter.html because they do not use clones to make custom clubs. They may have heads that a similar to or may look a little like a design you are familiar with, but honestly, how many ways do you think a golf club can look? The real test may be as stated below by AGCP member Dana Upshaw of Danagolf in Warner Robins GA.

Dana writes;
"While clones may LOOK like original designs, the major difference is in the metallurgy and quality control for various design specifications such weight, loft, lie, offset, bounce, groove width, etc.. There is a big difference in clubheads meticulously designed and manufactured using certified methods and materials versus look-a-likes haphazardly cast from scrap metal such as hubcaps, refrigerators, and old truck wheels. It is critically important that iron clubheads have metal properties which permit loft and lie adjustments to achieve proper ball flight for every golfer. Many clones don't possess these properties and fall short of providing golfers with the equipment that is truly "best" for their games."

Or in the words of Tom Wishon of Tom Wishon Golf Technologies, author of “The Search for the Perfect Golf Club” and “12 Myths that can Wreck Your Golf Game”.

“In saying the following about clones, I have to make some “sweeping generalities” – but since we all hate the presence of such things, forget that there may exist some that are able to be built into reasonably decent sets and focus on the bad ones

Loft, lie and headweight specs can and often will be all over the ball park. Face angle too when it comes to the woods. While a clubmaker might be able to overcome the headweight variance though tip weights, unless the lofts and lies are checked by someone who KNOWS how to do that and adjusted to be correct, you can end up with clubs that hit the ball off line and which also have big gaps or no gaps between in distance.
Most of the clones or poorly made driver heads will have a higher incidence of cracking, caving in – variance in bulge and roll that can also add to the points in #1 above to result in loss of distance to crooked shots.
Clones are just not right when it comes to golf clubs – if YOU developed the experience and knowledge to design good clubhead models, how would you feel when some bozo with no such experience and knowledge came along and had some foundry copy what you created, make it poorly and made money from such a lazy effort?” "



Can we please put this to bed? This isn't rocket science, folks.

And in the case of Clones, it REALLY isn't.

R35

 

[chollyred]

There is an interesting article in Golf Digest this month talking about the Chinese factories and the produciton of club heads. The level of security at the top factories is amazing. They even make the employees enter and leave through a metal detector to try and prevent someone from stealing components. Even with the security, some do find their way out of the factory. Once that happens, they find their way into lesser hands and are copied to produce clones/knock offs in less reputable foundries.

There was another article about a year ago that discussed the cloning issue in China. This article stated that in many cases, as soon as the design or model is received in the factory, it's often sold out the back door to the "cloners" in other factories regardless of how tight security claims to be. That's why clones often hit the market before the original is even released.

There were clones of the Callaway Fusion irons out several months before the OEMs were released.

I don't usually support clones. I bought one off Ebay as an experiment (12* senior flex). It's supposed to be similar to a Nike design that was never released here in the U.S. It's been in the bag ever since. Now, do I want a new driver? Yes. This has piqued my interest to see what a properly fitted club would do for my game.

 

[HighTopFade]

Buying clones will only make you want buy some "real" clubs. Its a gateway to becoming a club-whore.

So true. I had a Titleist 975D clone. It was pretty good. I got a real one shortly after. It was wayyyyyyyyyyyy better.

 

[LyleG]

As far as materials go, what is the difference between 431 stainless in an OEM compared and 431 stainless in a clone.

I missed this earlier.
The difference is that in a real component or an OEM head I know that when it is stamped 431 stainless that it is indeed made of 431 stainless. Not a mix of melted down scrap metals.

 

[3Bogey]

Lyle........I think you and I differ only on terminology. What you refer to as a "clone" is what I refer to as a component that looks the same as an OEM and a "component" as an original idea from some companies like Golfworks,Golfsmith, Wishon Golf, ect, etc. . One of Hireko's designs, Acer, which is notorius for their Callaway looks, is referred to all over the net as a "clone" or "knock-off" from many component companies who sell them. This nonetheless is still a very good component, I play them myself. Yes, it is referred to as a component from Hireko. But if anyone says that Hireko's Acer clubs are not copies of Callaway they're just plain ignorant. Because they are "copies" or "look-alikes" I consider them "clones" as do everyone that I deal with. I know of no one who will dispute their close looks, because they look virtually identical. I'm assuming since you have been in the industry of making clubs for over 2o years, this term "clone" is associated in your mind as crappy heads because at one time probably all "clones" were crap. But today, many people in blog sites and the general golf public refer to components from reputable companies as "clones" if they look the same. When it comes down to where these heads come from, I think we are both on the same page.

 

[ualtim]

Can we please put this to bed? This isn't rocket science, folks.

And in the case of Clones, it REALLY isn't.

R35

Thanks for the research, Rock. I was way too lazy to go find this stuff again.

It seems like we visit this subject evey few months now. Maybe you can make a sticky thread that is locked with those statements so that we always know where to find them?

 

[TheWOAT]

Ive seen the Integra Quadratic on some sites labeled as "Similar to Callaway Ft-...."

As for Acer, I would buy the irons if they were cheap enough. As for the drivers... that Mantra, Mantara thing is quite ugly. Reminds me of the Denver Broncos, and I hate the Broncos.

 

[LyleG]

The Integra Quadratic is an original design with its own patent # which was issued prior to Callaway.

 

[TheWOAT]

The Integra Quadratic is an original design with its own patent # which was issued prior to Callaway.

I realize that, but some websites list it as a clone, and I bet many would confuse it as a clone. For me, some of the Hireko stuff I would classify as clones, and almost all of the offerings from Turbo Power. Some websites list the Ping G5 Clone (the PG5 driver) and other obvious clones alongside products from Bang, Integra, Alpha, and Hireko. I would understand the confusion.