Golf Digest equipment editors Mike Stachura and Mike Johnson show you how to identify a counterfeit club, and demonstrate the massive performance difference between real and counterfeit clubs.
The Hot List Presented by Dick's Sporting Goods and Golf Galaxy.
[golf club whack][upbeat music]- There are a lot ofbogus clubs out there.If you look at these, canyou tell the difference?- If the deal that you're looking atseems too good to be true,it is.[intro music]Hey everybody, welcome to The Hot List,presented by Dick's SportingGoods and Golf Galaxy.Today we're talking aboutthe biggest rip off in golf,and we're not talking about my handicap.- [laughs] That is a rip off,but no we're talking aboutcounterfeit golf equipment.Now I think it's important to start off,to know the difference betweencounterfeit and a knockoff.A knockoff is when youhave a brand name that'skind of close, kind ofa cutesy play on words.You kinda know you're notgetting the real thing.With a counterfeit, it isdisguised to look exactly likethe real thing, and you don't know it.- Well, and it's big dollars.Across all industries it'salmost 1.8 trillion dollarsin losses.And the fact is, obviouslyyou see it on the streetsof New York, with thefake Rolex's everywhere,and the fake Gucci bags,and all this other stuff.But the fact is in golf,if you don't see it,and even if you know whatyou're trying to findyou won't see it becauseyou don't have a comparisonbetween the legit cluband the counterfeit club.That's where we arewith counterfeits today,it is that precise.Yeah, and it's hundredsof millions of dollarsjust in golf alone annually.Put that in perspective,counterfeit clubs would probably bethe number five or numbersix equipment manufacturerin terms of sales.So it is a gigantic problem,and it's one that peopleneed to be aware of.- To know how big a problem it is,it's not often that thegolf industry gets together[Mike Johnson laughing]and speaks with one voice.In this case you've got 12of the leading manufacturers,all the big names, all togetherforming a working groupto essentially attack this problem.And when I say attack,I literally mean attack,because they will goto warehouses in China,and conduct a raid.We're not talking like 27 clubheads or something like that.We're talking aboutthousands of club heads,that are ready to beshipped and sold as legit,when in fact they're not.- Well, and in all, youknow those 12 manufacturersform the U.S. GolfManufacturer's CounterfeitAnti-Working Group, and overthe years they have seizedtwo million clubs.And if you won't put that in perspective,if you lay them down side by side,they'd go from Bethpage Blackall the way to Torrey Pines.So, there are a lot ofbogus clubs out there,and we're gonna help youfigure out if yours is legit,or yours is bogus, and alsohow to stay clear of itin the first place.- The tried and truerule in all things is,if the deal that you're looking atsounds too good to be true, it is.Because, that's exactly why counterfeit'shave been able to workbecause you're seeingbrand new product for 25, 33percent, half off sometimes,and at some point you just gotta say,I'm gonna take this deal.And what you get, is not what you want.- Well, we've been tryingto educate you a little bit,but now it's time toactually see the clubs.So Mason, I think we need to get in here,a little bit tighter on these.Mike, if you would take theseclubs and turn them around.- You want me to be the--- You can be the Vanna Whiteof this operation.- Vanna White of thisoperation?Very nice.- So, if you look at thesecan you tell the difference?Maybe you can, I'm guessingyou probably can't.But I'm gonna point outa couple specific things,to be on the lookout for.First off, if you look hereat the speed injected area,the actual club, very sharpstraight line, centered.And if you look carefully here,there's just a little bit of an uptick.So not quite centered, alittle bit off the mark.Also, if you look at thecoloring in the M6 here,much brighter here, alittle bit darker there.Now if we go to the face,before we go to the face--- Actually, look at this.- Yeah.- To say how far we'vecome in counterfeits,you've got a serial number here.That almost makes it looklike this is the legit thing,because obviously on real clubs,a lot of real clubs willhave a serial numberthat you can register.This serial number couldapply to a toaster,[Mike Johnson laughing]it could apply to a five iron,it's not, obviously, a real number.And in many cases in thecounterfeit business,it'll be the same number on every driverthat they try to sell you.- Absolutely, but againit shows to the extremehow good the crooks havegotten at making theselook like the real deal.Now let's go to the face,and we will see a coupleof very obvious onesthat you might not noticein a vacuum, but you can noticewhen they're side by side.On the real club, youhave a real screw here.Come down here, that is just a mill mark.There's no screw there whatsoever.So that one is probablythe most visibly obviousof this group.Then if you come up here, yousee a little bit of differencein the coloring on thegrooves on the face.A little bit brighter up here,a little bit grayer down here.Ditto with the twist face,little bit brighter up top,not so much down below.- And when you look atsomething like the screws,again you're talking about,in the legitimate case,TaylorMade trying toengineer getting those screwsflat on the, basically a curved surface,is really really difficultbecause if it's not flat,in essence it's not conforming,doesn't work as well.If you're just puttingorange paint and milling it,you don't have to worryabout getting it right,and it's a lot easierto make so therefore,you're not investing anythingin terms of innovation.- Exactly.Now we go to the top of a club.This is the big give awayand lot of people say,how can we actually tellif a club is fake or not?Well, in a driver or anykind of metal-wood withcarbon fiber, this is the dead giveaway.Here you have carbon fiber,[light tapping noises]nice and soft sounding.And here,[heavier louder tapping noises]it's ringing like the liberty bell,because that is just titanium.And why is that important?It's important because there are hugeperformance differences.Titanium is a lot heavier than carbon,and it's gonna lead to a heavier club,and a not as well performing club.So with that,let's take these, hit a few shots,and try to show you the differences.So what we're gonna start off with here,is the counterfeit club.They are in the same setting,they're both in the neutral setting.We wanna keep it as close as possibleto what you're gonna see.I can already feel thatit's a little bit heavierin my hand.That might send it alittle bit more off line.We don't know, but I have a good guess.A number of years agowe did a similar testand we saw some prettyamazing differences,and if you listen closely youmight even be able to hearsome sound differences as well.[golf club whack]Yeah, so the heavy clubhas got that ball going offto the right, it's spinning like mad,the face is pretty dead.I mean, 201 yardsand look at that backspin number.I mean, 6,049 backspin,I don't know if I've everhit a driver with 6,049RPM's of backspin on it.- And, you know you talked about beforewhen we did the sound thing,and you could tell thatit was maybe all titanium,maybe something else, butdefinitely all metal construction.- Yeah.- The reason you're seeingthose kind of spin numbersis again, that benefit ofthe carbon fiber constructionin the crown that savesweight, there's actuallycarbon fiber in thesole on that driver too,more weight is able to go low.If you have an all metal construction,that weight is gonna be high,that leads to high spin shots.That's not what you want for distance.- Definitely not.I mean, I think the pointyou're getting at is,the chassis, there's a lot more to it.You need the engineunder the hood as well.- Well and again, it's a supersophisticated driver designthat's got, you know,injected resign in the faceto push that face all the way to the limitin terms of COR.I'm guessing there's noinjection in Mr. Counterfeit.- [laughs] Absolutely not.So now, we have the real TaylorMade M6.Like I said, I canalready feel it's lighter,hopefully I can get through the balla little better with this.[golf club wack]That is a much better strike,as you can see.I mean, that's a 30 yard difference,and I hit that one alittle bit on the heel,but there's actual forgivenessbuilt into this club,where's there's none in the counterfeit.You know, backspin, that'sa little high, 4289.But that's because I did hitit on the heel a little bit,but even at that you'reseeing 1800 RPM's difference.I mean, 1800.Usually it's a differenceof a couple hundred at best.So, monumental performance differencesand it's one of the reasonsthat the manufacturersare really all about tryingto stop this trend because,if you think it's a TaylorMadeproduct and it's not,and it performs likethe counterfeit one did,you're not gonna be a very happy customer.- Well you're not gonnabe a happy customerand if you save 100 dollarsto hit it 30 yards shorter,I don't think that's a bargain at all.But, you know, you werementioning manufacturersand victimless crime, the factis if you buy one of thesecounterfeit clubs andyou say this is terrible,or worse yet it breaks, doyou go complain to TaylorMade?- You do and important to know is,there's nothing they can do for you.It's not their club.What they will do is theywill confiscate the club,because it's a fake,and they will turn it over.So, if you buy a counterfeitclub and something goeswrong with it, you really have no recourse'cause trust me, if yougo back to the websiteyou purchased it from, they are long gone.- So there you go.You save money, but it's 30 yards shorter,it probably breaks, and thenyou have to give it backto the company and you get nothing for it.So, great deal.- Well we do have a questionhere from @duntagolferthat's right along these lines.I'm buying a set of CallawayEpic Flash Woods online.How can I tell if they're authentic?And it's a great questionbecause this goes rightto the heart of it.If you're online, say you're on eBayor another auction site,and you see a bunch ofdrivers from the same seller,all for sale at a toogood to be true price,it's probably fake.And the thing is youhave to be really careful'cause the crooks havegotten so good at this.It's no longer a 500 dollar driverthat you're gonna get to buy for 200.It's a 500 dollar driver thatthey've got at maybe 389.And you're like, I'llsave that hundred bucks.- Right.- But you know,it's leading you into a trap,so you really have to be careful.- The challenge is, wellit's online, it's eBay,they're legitimate.What you can do is go tothe manufacturer that's,that they're selling the club and say,hey is this retailer listedin your list of authorized retailers?Because almost every major manufacturer,you go to their site and there's a listof authorized retailers.Sometimes there's even a listof authorized e-commerce sitesthat, okay this guy's legit.If it's not on thatsite, just run and hide.I mean, you're bringing on,it may turn out to be a legitimate clubbut it's not worth the risk at all.- Yeah and mostmanufacturers have a minimumadvertised price so, if you seesomething that's below that,odds are you're headingtowards a fake club.I mean, there are plentyof authorized retailersthat you can have theconvenience of going onlineand buying.Certainly Dick Sporting Goodsand Golf Galaxy among them.I think the real takeaway,is why take a chance.And if you want morehints on what to look for,there's a great website: keepgolfreal.com.You can go on there, lots oftips on how to spot fakes,and more importantly, howto stay away from them- You know one other thingthat occurs to me aboutcounterfeit clubs, you'renot gonna get fit for those.- [laughs] No you are definitely notgonna get fit for those.- So, if you wanna take the first step[upbeat music]to avoid buying counterfeit,go get fit.- No doubt about it.'Til next time.[outro music]