A weird side effect of the pandemic is that golf, a naturally socially distant activity, became huge. According to research by the National Golf Foundation, 25.6 million Americans played a round of golf last year — a record high. Of those people, 6.2 million were adults aged 18 to 34, and 3.3 million were first-time […]
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A weird side effect of the pandemic is that golf, a naturally socially distant activity, became huge. According to research by the National Golf Foundation, 25.6 million Americans played a round of golf last year — a record high. Of those people, 6.2 million were adults aged 18 to 34, and 3.3 million were first-time players. In other words, a lot of young people are getting into golf these days, and almost all of them need golf clubs.
Enter a product category new to the golf market: the stylish, direct-to-consumer club set. Positioned as a less expensive alternative to name-brand gear from the likes of Titleist or TaylorMade, brands like Robin Golf and Stix Golf Co. claim to bring simplicity to the club-buying experience.
As someone who painstakingly assembled an affordable set of clubs via digging around thrift stores and Play It Again Sports, snagging deals on used golf websites like 2nd Swing, and trawling through Facebook Marketplace, I can say that this approach is hard. You’ve got to know about stuff like which shaft flex works best for your game, which types of club heads are more or less forgiving, or simply whether an old club has any life left in it. Though I only ended up spending about $300 on the clubs that I use now, it took me a whole lot of time to find them. Meanwhile, the most basic offerings from these DTC companies cost about $900 for a set of nine clubs, bag included.
And so I wanted to find out: if time is money, would it have been worth it for me to have just bought one of these sets, instead?
One well-placed inquiry to a Robin Golf staffer later, I was well on my way to finding out. I decided to test out Robin’s clubs for a few reasons. One, they just look cool — Robin’s kit features all-black everything, from club heads to grips to shafts to the bag itself. It’s basically the Smell the Glove of DTC golf sets, plus some white accents featuring the brand’s friendly bird logo. (In fact, during a round when I was using them, a rando I was paired with complimented them on their looks.)
Two, Robin’s set has the potential to be one that a new golfer could grow into as their skill level increases. The brand’s driver, for example, is adjustable, which allows players to change the club’s loft, as well as its center of gravity. Meanwhile, the putter features a milled face, which apparently offers an enhanced sense of feel but is mainly a marker of quality that will cause golf nerds to nod approvingly.
As for the rest of the set, there’s a fairway wood, a hybrid, pitching and sand wedges, and a five, seven, and nine iron. That’s nine clubs; the max number allowed on the course is 14. Though Robin also offers a 13-club set, I’d argue that nine is just as many as you need — fewer clubs cut back on unnecessary decision-making, as well as back pain if you’re walking (which you should be!).
I started off my highly scientific testing by taking the clubs to the range with my friend Zach, who I recently introduced to golf and who volunteered to test Robin’s clubs with me and offer his feedback as a beginner. (A bonus: as a fashionable Millennial, he falls squarely in the brand’s target demographic.)
The last time we’d played together, Zach had used some random clubs that live in my basement, most of which are the sort of ill-suited thrift store clubs that Robin’s offerings might hope to displace. He noticed a difference with the Robin clubs immediately, especially when hitting the driver. One of his problems is slicing the ball right, and the forgiving, left-biased design of the Robin irons helped him straighten his shots out enough to keep them in play.
Similarly, I was able to adjust Robin’s driver to its most anti-slice setting, which helped Zach start hitting lasers off the tee. As a control for our experiment, I also had him hit shots with the clubs I use every day, all of which were designed for serious golfers. He had a much tougher time with them, especially when it came to hitting with my Mizuno MP-60 irons, which are basically just tiny bits of metal that offer no forgiveness whatsoever. Later that evening, Zach texted me his review of the Robin clubs: “I’m thinking that’s a birdie.” (He is still getting the hang of golf terminology.)
So let’s imagine that Zach, armed with the confidence provided by his Robin golf clubs, played every day for two years straight and worked his way into intermediate golfer territory. That’s where I, an intermediate golfer, come in. Would they perform the way I wanted them to on the course?
A bit of a caveat here about the clubs I normally use: My current setup favors aesthetics over utility — i.e. I want my golf clubs to look cool more than I want them to help me hit good shots. That’s my personal preference, and not one that every golfer shares. Unsurprisingly, then, I found Robin’s clubs wildly simpler to hit than my own. The brand’s driver beat my decade-old Titleist 913 D3 by far in terms of ease of use.
Robin’s sand wedge, meanwhile, is much less forgiving and is instead geared towards flexibility. Its design focuses on helping the player hit an array of shots around the green and all the way to a hundred yards out. I was able to hit wind-killing knockdowns, high-flying flops, and delicate pitches with the thing — a versatility I wouldn’t have expected given the idiot-proof, point-and-shoot nature of these irons.
The real star of the set, though, is the putter. In addition to its milled face, it’s got substantial heft that gave me a sense of confidence and control. After a few practice putts with it, I found myself draining almost every short putt I tried, and giving medium-length and even long putts a chance of going in. While nobody will confuse this thing with a rare Scotty Cameron, having a murdered-out milled putter is just genuinely cool on its own merits.
In terms of cons, I’m hesitant to levy too many criticisms at these clubs, because they’re not really pretending to be anything they’re not. While I struggled to hit basic bump-and-runs with these irons around the greens, that might have been a function of me not being used to them rather than some sort of inherent flaw.
Similarly, I experienced problems with hooking basically all of these clubs besides the sand wedge, but I have a left miss no matter what — the design of these clubs merely accentuated it. (Newer golfers, the type who might buy these clubs, tend to miss right, so the elements that were tough for me might make things easier for others.)
As for the price and quality, you can definitely get better used clubs for less money if you know what you’re looking for — but really, you’re paying not to have to think about any of that stuff. That’s not a knock on Robin, especially when considering the frictionless purchasing experience the brand offers: fast and free shipping, the ability to try them at home with a $150 deposit, etc. Overall, Robin offers a very specific thing for a very specific type of customer. If that’s you, then you’ll be satisfied.
For new clubs, absolutely. I would not be able to tell the difference between Robin’s irons and a more expensive brand’s offering in the “Game Improvement” category.
Probably not, if only because the best golf clubs for a true beginner are whichever ones are free. They are, however, very beginner-friendly.
Nah, that’s just a marketing term. Nothing will genuinely make you a better golfer except for time, dedication, and practice. Get out there and hit the range, soldier!
No, but I only say that because I believe that you should replace your golf clubs only when they break or if they’re older than you are. But to play golf, you need golf clubs. These are golf clubs.
Yeah, dude. To be honest, my actual putter kind of fell apart like three days before the Robin clubs arrived, and rather than buying a new one I’m going to keep using Robin’s.
Not really. It’s not that golfers don’t have very specific tastes in clubs, but let’s be real — to step onto a golf course with other people is to make yourself vulnerable, because there are a million make-fun-able things about every single golfer, from their swing to their clothes to their bad shots to the fact that they care too much (or not at all). And if we’re both doing make-fun-able things, then I’m not going to make fun of you and you’re not going to make fun of me. It’s a beautiful thing, really.
