GOLF Magazine Awarded “Top Fitter” Honors to its own Sister Company

Merriam-Webster provides several definitions for the word “transparent,” but perhaps most relevant is 2a: “free from pretense or deceit”.

While the word “transparent” isn’t nearly on the tip of as many golfers’ tongues, it has arguably become one of the most important words in the golf world (see Patrick Reed).

Indeed, transparency has become particularly important to amateur golfers as it is the fundamental principle of a custom club fitting where, only after first bench-marking your current setup, a fitter can guide you through a nearly immeasurable amount of club head and shaft combinations to help identify a setup that provides you the greatest opportunity to play your best golf, all illustrated by quantifiable, Tour-level data (courtesy of a TrackMan or Foresight simulator).

Interestingly, however, is that the most recent transparency incident doesn’t stem from the Tour, but, instead, a club fitter being awarded the honor of “top club fitter” in North America from its sister company.

Screenshot from the 8AM Golf website’s “Our Brands” section

Founded in 2018, 8AM Golf quickly made its presence felt on the golf world after adding GOLF magazine and GOLF.com to its portfolio of brands, which already included Nicklaus Companies, GolfLogix, Miura Golf, Club Conex and True Spec Golf.

Being that GOLF magazine and GOLF.com, alongside Golf Digest, are among the larger and more influential largest golf media companies, you would hope that each of these brands would make a conscious effort to be as transparent as possible with their followers, particularly since golfers spend hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars based on their “top equipment” awards and recommendations that cover everything from the newest driver to the golf ball you consider playing.

Be that as it may, last week, GOLF.com decided to publish its list of the Top 50 Clubfitters in North America, which was determined by “an internal panel” who relied on various factors, including brand agnostic fittings, availability of indoor and/or outdoor fittings, technology (e.g., TrackMan or Foresight) and “proprietary fitting systems”.

Despite including a chart to provide some insight into how the rankings were assigned (which has also been a source of criticism due to its potential inaccuracies, such as entirely omitted Club Champion’s full-bag fitting fee, which is readily available on their website), many individuals were troubled that True Spec Golf—an affiliate of GOLF.com—was named the No. 1 club fitter absent any disclosure that True Spec and Golf.com are related brands under the same parent company.

True Spec and Golf dot com are owned by the same company. So one guy’s company is awarding his other company a top honor. Super. https://t.co/JymitTEzXf

— Ryan Ballengee (@RyanBallengee) February 18, 2020

After investigating the Twitter beef in greater detail, it’s clear that the shared frustration is that GOLF.com decided to publish this article, but not even mention, let alone acknowledge, the appearance of impropriety of the proverbial brother giving his sibling the top honor.

Indeed, Cool Clubs, who GOLF.com ranked as its No. 3 fitter, was equally frustrated and issued a statement addressing the debatable publication:

Read our response to https://t.co/0y1tL9Cv2l‘s latest “Top 50 Clubfitters in North America” rankings: pic.twitter.com/FiAYb6A0mc

— Cool Clubs (@CoolClubs) February 24, 2020

As Cool Clubs alludes to, I think we would all agree that if KPS Capital Partners, the private equity firm that acquired TaylorMade in May 2017, decided to acquire Golf Digest tomorrow, it would be fishy if the SIM and SIM MAX were the only drivers to receive “Gold” on the Hot List shortly thereafter.

Only further compounding the frustrations, GOLF.com has repeatedly disclosed that it has “partnered” with True Spec Golf for club testing and reviews, including its recently published review of the new 2020 drivers (alongside this article that discusses how GOLF’s ClubTest 2020 was conducted with the help of True Spec).

And to add the proverbial cherry on top, add into the mix that, presuming Cool Club’s statement is true, GOLF.com is also charging fitters $3,000 to use the special logo that indicates that they’ve been recognized as a 2020 Top 50 North American club fitter in a potentially “fixed” ranking for the mere cost of $3,000, and you’ve got a quid-pro-quo story that Adam Schiff would start drooling over.

Now, before anyone thinks I have an axe to grind with True Spec, allow me to inform you that’s certainly not the case. Indeed, the very first article I wrote for Golficity was a review of my new Srixon irons that were custom fit and built by True Spec, which are complemented by the Vokey SM6s (with custom stamping) and Callaway Rogue metal woods (driver, 3-wood and 5-wood) that were also custom fit and built by True Spec.

And although I am certainly interested in tinkering and trying the newest equipment on the market (just like every other golf junkie), there is nothing “wrong” with any of the equipment that True Spec prepared for me that I feel is holding my game back.

That said, I agree that it is highly debatable that, absent a more detailed explanation and insight into the, supposedly, independent internal panel’s scoring of North American fitters. Indeed, if GOLF.com or any other outlet that wants to compile and publish a top fitters list and wants to publish something truly helpful to the masses, perhaps send each panelist to your 5, 10, 25 for an actual fitting and see how everything plays out: did the fitter identify the optimal head and shaft setup, how did the fitter interact with the customer, did the build tolerances match what was set forth on the build sheet, how did the fitter treat the customer after the fitting and clubs were ordered, etc.

The “questionnaire” for that top 50 accreditation list was pretty soft. You really want to put together a great list you need to send someone in to get fitted. Not ask you to explain your iron fitting process in 50
Words…

— Greg Gibson (@GGolfpro) February 25, 2020

In sum, was it irresponsible for GOLF.com to publish a list of its Top 50 Clubfitters in North America? Absolutely not. Is True Spec Golf undeserving of being named the No. 1 fitter in North America? Not necessarily. But does naming True Spec Golf its No. 1 fitter without disclosing the ranking metrics and posting a table that isn’t exactly an accurate representation of the field challenge the honesty and credibility of its list? That’s 100% unacceptable.