Welcome back to the MyGolfSpy series where I take the golf clichés you’ve heard forever and figure out how well they hold up. The goal isn’t just to call them true or false. It’s to find the part that has been oversimplified and get back to the lesson golfers should take from it.
Next up: “It’s the golfer, not the club.”
What does “it’s the golfer, not the club” mean?
Usually, you hear this one after somebody blames the equipment. The driver is why I slice. These irons aren’t forgiving enough. I can’t putt with this thing.
Then somebody better grabs the same club, hits a great shot and seemingly proves the point. The club works.
Sometimes it really is the golfer
I taught golf for years and if somebody came to me hitting a 30-yard slice, changing drivers was rarely going to be my first suggestion. The clubface and path need some work.
Could a different head, loft or setup help reduce the damage? Sure. But if the clubface is wide open at impact and the path is moving significantly across the ball, we still have a swing problem.
You can make that large slice a little more playable with equipment but in this situation, it is the golfer, not the club.
But sometimes it really is the club
This is where the cliché starts to fall apart.
Earlier this year, I looked at the worst putter among the 17 golfers who completed our blade, mallet and zero-torque testing. His average PuttView Handicap was +4.55 with blades and +3.98 with mallets.
His average with a zero-torque putter improved to -0.97, a swing of more than 5 1/2 strokes compared to the mallet category.
He didn’t suddenly become a better golfer. The equipment was a much better match for what he was already doing.
Our 2026 golf ball test gives us an even clearer example because robots don’t make swing changes.
At our highest driver speed, roughly 600 rpm separated the highest- and lowest-spinning golf balls. With a 7-iron, the spin difference was about 1,300 rpm and more than 10 yards separated the longest and shortest balls. There is no denying the fact that there are equipment differences.
A great golfer can overcome bad equipment
Could you hand a really good player an imperfect set of clubs and a random golf ball and watch them get around the course just fine? Of course.
Good players adjust.
But being able to compensate for equipment doesn’t prove the equipment doesn’t matter. If anything, you’re asking the golfer to use some of their skill to overcome a problem they may not need to have.
For golfers trying to maximize what they already have, that doesn’t make much sense. I often tell people if the equipment is there for you to use, take advantage of it.
So is it the golfer or the club?
Most of the time, I’d still put more responsibility on the golfer than the club.
But once your pattern is somewhat repeatable, equipment matters. A lot.
Where do you draw the line? Have you ever made an equipment change that produced an immediate improvement without changing your swing? Or have you spent money on equipment when the real answer was fixing the golfer?
Beak
4 seconds ago
I think most anyone who switched from long and/or mid irons to hybrids probably agrees that clubs matter. It probably wasn’t good for all who switched, but my guess would be most benefited from the change to a hybrid. I’m sure there are many other examples. Specialty wedges for instance vice a set of wedges that comes with an iron set. Blades to game improvement irons. Some will automatically play better and some won’t. Another way to put it is yes, sometimes one can buy a game, especially if one attends a fitting session. This is just one cool aspect of golf.