Editorial policy

What we publish

Two things. Instruction guides at /guides/, which explain how to do something in golf. Buying guides at /reviews/, which explain what to buy and why. Nothing else.

Each page owns exactly one search intent. If two questions would be answered by the same article, they get one page rather than two thin ones competing with each other. That rule is the reason our guides run long: the page has to finish the job, because there is no second page to send you to.

How guides are written and checked

Before a guide publishes it has to clear the same set of checks, every time:

• Every statistic carries a linked primary source. If we cannot find one, the statistic comes out. We do not cite other instruction sites, roundups, or numbers that trace back to nothing.
• Directional and geometric instruction is drawn by hand, not generated. Anything showing a swing path, a clubface angle or an alignment is a coded diagram with the geometry set deliberately. Illustration tools get left and right wrong, and a diagram that teaches the opposite of the text is worse than no diagram.
• Feel cues are always translated. If we tell you what a movement should feel like, we also say what it is actually producing. Otherwise feel language becomes mysticism, which is most of what is wrong with golf instruction online.
• Practice gets a dose. Reps, how often, and roughly how long before it should feel different. Telling you to practise a drill without that is not advice.
• No outcome promises. We will not tell you that a change adds twenty yards or takes five shots off your handicap. We describe what changes and what it feels like, because that is the part we can stand behind.

Guides are written for a golfer who shoots in the nineties and plays a couple of times a month. Tour averages appear as context, never as the target.

How gear pages work

Our gear pages are buying guides, not first-hand reviews, and every one of them says so in a methodology block at the foot of the page.

We have not played this equipment. What each gear page is actually built from:

• Manufacturer specifications as published, with the spec named rather than paraphrased.
• The fitting logic that should drive the choice, which is the part that transfers between models and does not go out of date.
• Independent measured data where it exists, cited by name and sample size.
• An explicit statement of who a product is wrong for, not only who it is right for.

There are no scores out of ten and no star ratings, because the correct pick genuinely inverts depending on your swing speed and handicap. We also publish no Review or AggregateRating structured data for products we have not handled, which is the machine-readable version of the same promise.

Prices are given as bands and are checked on a schedule rather than continuously. Treat any figure on the site as indicative and check before you buy.

Sources we use

Golf has unusually good primary sources and most free instruction sites cite none of them. Where a claim needs backing, it comes from one of these rather than from another blog:

• USGA and The R&A for the Rules of Golf, the World Handicap System, and equipment conformance.
• TrackMan for ball flight laws, club path and face angle, smash factor, launch and spin.
• Shot Scope and Arccosfor amateur performance data by handicap. Both publish aggregates from millions of tracked shots, which is the only honest basis for a sentence beginning “the average golfer”.
• Titleist Performance Institute for golf fitness, mobility and biomechanics.

We link out to sources directly in the text rather than collecting them in a reference list nobody reads. Citations are ordinary follow links.

When the advice is contested

Good coaches genuinely disagree about several things: one-plane versus two-plane swings, whether to fix the clubface or the path first, how much a beginner should be told at once. Sites that present one of these as settled are either unaware of the argument or hiding it.

Where a topic is contested we say so on the page, give the trade-off on both sides, and then tell you which way we lean and why. You are allowed to disagree with the lean. You are not well served by not knowing there was a choice.

How the pages are produced

Drafting here is AI-assisted. That is worth saying out loud, because plenty of sites are in the same position and quiet about it. It changes nothing about the standard the page has to meet: sources are named and linked so you can check them yourself, every statistic is traceable, technique diagrams are drawn deliberately rather than generated, and nothing publishes without a human read.

The illustrations are generated in a house style built for this site. Anything a reader could act on that depends on direction, angle or a number is a coded component instead, for the reason given further up.

Corrections

We would rather fix a page than defend it. If something here is wrong, tell us which page and what looks off and it gets a real read. Substantive corrections change the page and move its last-updated date. We do not quietly rewrite a page and pretend it always said that.

Corrections and everything else: the contact page. We aim to reply within a few working days.

Commercial relationships

Some links on gear pages earn us a commission. It costs you nothing extra, and it has no bearing on what we recommend or the order we rank it. Any page carrying commercial links says so above the fold, before you have read a word of the recommendation. The affiliate disclosure covers the detail.