Plenty of shops describe themselves as independent while carrying a stocking agreement that obliges them to move a certain volume of one brand each year. That agreement does not have to be dishonest to distort a recommendation; it only has to exist.
We buy components per job. Our margin is a stated build fee — $30 a wood or hybrid, $25 an iron or wedge, $35 a putter — and it is identical no matter whose head or shaft ends up in your hands. It is also identical if you supply the components yourself.
The practical consequence is that our test racks are organised by specification rather than by logo. When we pull three shafts for you to try, they are grouped by weight band and bend profile, and more than one brand will be in the group.
What this means at the counter: if the right answer for you is a head we do not stock, we order it. If the right answer is that your current head is fine and only the shaft needs changing, that is a $25 build fee and a component, and we will say so.
Test components are chosen to cover the specification space rather than the brand space. What matters is that every weight band and bend profile has something in it.
Roughly thirty test shafts spanning five weight bands and three bend profiles per band, in both counter-balanced and conventional builds. Adapter tips for the major current head systems stay on the wall so swaps take a minute rather than a cure cycle.
Both materials across the full useful range, including the lighter steel options that suit golfers who want steel feel without steel weight. Test heads accept a shaft-holder collar so we can trial without epoxy.
Undersize through jumbo, in rubber, corded, hybrid and the softer tacky compounds that suit arthritic hands. Build-up tape in three thicknesses lets us land almost any finished span between the standard steps.
Demo heads in the categories golfers actually ask for: game-improvement irons, players distance irons, a compact cavity, drivers in three loft steps, and hybrids from 18 to 26 degrees. Anything else is ordered per job.
Low, mid and high bounce in 50, 54 and 58 degrees, so grind selection happens off real turf contact rather than off a chart. Bendable to your written loft ladder afterwards.
Three head shapes in adjustable-length test builds, plus a weight kit that lets us move head mass in ten-gram steps against your home green speed.
We buy through the standard component distributors and directly from several manufacturers' custom departments. In practice that means almost any current head, shaft or grip is available, typically inside a week, and discontinued shafts can often be sourced from remaining stock.
What we will not do is order something because it is fashionable. If a component arrives on the market with claims we cannot verify on our own analyser and monitor, it stays off the recommendation list until we have measured it ourselves. That occasionally makes us look slow. We would rather be slow than repeat a press release to a paying customer.
The rack exists to answer a question, not to be sold.
The build fee is the same whether the shaft came off our rack or out of your garage.