Cheap clubs or not??

Pssst! James! Except for Ping, all heads are chinese made now, and have been for a decade or more.

I just bent clubs for a guy - an older make of Titleist blades - and they were all 3° weak when compared to modern lofts (his PW was 51°!).

Know your specs...

My advise is and always well be, to get into the club building process early in your golf career. It is not hard at all to do, read a book and after the first club you will be amazed at how easy it is to do. The benifits are, today components are as good if not better then name brands, the cost is much, much lower then name brands. Building your own gives you a much better understanding of your equipment, gives you the flexability to custom fit to your liking, and experiment a little.

I use Golfworks almost exclusively now, and have been for the last 5 years or so. http://www.golfworks.com/ they have a great forum and can answer any question you might have http://forums.prospero.com/golfworks/messages

to intially get into building your own, just start with a book, and starter supplies (grip tape, knife, shaft holder, epoxy, swing weight scale) all for under $50, then get your components. Later as you get into it, you can start getting more advanced, loft/lie, etc..if nothing else regripping yourself saves much money, especially if you do it twice a years as I do.

hi
as lowpost says all clubs heads are now made outside the usa apart from ping, and as go navy said you can get copy of all top brands that are made out the same basic molds and have the same swing weights too but you can match your shaft to it for sometimes half the price.
some are copys but some are clones and a lot of the clones are real good value for the money, there are a few that will make you up a matched set to suit you, lowpost knows more about club building tham i do.
think its the way to go in the coming years.
bill

I'm not talking about clones, I talking about components heads from companies that have there own R&D program, and they are every bit as good, and quality as the name brand. Lots of companies like GolfSmith, Pinemedows come to mind, GolfSmith has the SnakeEyes series, Don't know about PineMedows, GolfWorks and Maltby have the LogicTradition series, KE4 series, and CT series these are not clones and you don't buy these assembled or off the rack, they have had their own R&D done. In Golfworks case I like the playability factor they provide.

I purchased a set of Pinemeadow clones (Irons, wedges and a driver) and was very impressed with the quality of materials and workmanship(I am an engineer and not easily impressed with things but I had seen a few sets that others were using), they also offer good shafts and grips and fit them. I have used them a number of times a week for the last two years (and I play all year round) without a single fault. OK, I agree that it's horses for courses with preferences but they are worth a serious look.