Mutts Discount Golf?

[Gobsgraham]

Last year I bought some knock-offs unkowingly and have done a lot of research on this topic. From the information posted here as well as what is offered by the website, I would guess (stricly my opinion) that these are clubs that are built in China (possibly on the same lines as the manufacturers orders) specifically for sale on the grey market. the manufacturer will order 1000, they run 1200 and skim 200 for personal sales. Other scenarios are the owners set up two lines side by side - one for the man and the other for the knockoffs. This is likely a good thing though as the clubs are usually the same quality as the real deal but for less money. I still recommend buying from an authorized dealer but this is a good option for someone only wants to pay 500% markup instead of 1000%. If anyone here does make a purchase I would strongly recommend that you take it to Golftown and ask them if it is authentic and post back their results.

Damn my rants are hard to read..Sorry!!

[DuffMan]

A couple of years ago, i had a friend who had a friend.....who imported stuff from China. He brought over some Ping and Callaway clubs that were apparently authentic, but they were production over runs. I bought a brand new, complete set of Ping G2's with a bag for $400(no serial numbers though). They were pretty popular and the guy sold quite a few sets. The first thing I noticed was there were black inserts on the back of the irons that fell out almost immediately. They still worked OK for about 50 games and then the head of the 3 wood flew off, shortly after that face of the driver caved in. Not long after most irons are rusted out on the bottom of the shaft.

So really, I pretty much knew they were knockoffs after about a week, but, I used them for probably almost 2 seasons. For $400 it was worth it, and I liked them so much I actually went and bought a set of real Ping G5's.

I've since heard various stories of production over runs, distributors going out of business etc, but if it seems to good to be true, it probably is. But like I said, for $400, I think I got my moneys worth from them.

Here is a really good warning on Ebay about Callaways.

Check out the NINE WAYS TO AVOID BEING FOOLED BY COUNTERFEITS: part

[Tron_fdc]

Whenever I go over to China I usually bring back a set of clubs. If you're careful in selecting them, you can usually get stuff that is so close to authentic there's almost no way to tell the difference.

I picked up a full set of Callaway X18 irons, Scotty Cameron putter, leather Callaway cart bag, VFT driver and a 3 wood for about $100 US. If I showed them to you side by side with pretty much the exact same set I bought from Golftown (I'm kinda superstitious with clubs so I bought real ones) I'd bet no one here could tell the difference.