It’s golf show season here in Michigan (and, I suspect, in many other places, too).  And these shows are often a great place to get good clubs at a tremendous discount.

Unfortunately, the reason some of these clubs are so inexpensive is that they’re cheap knockoffs. But how can you tell?

Here’s a tip: if you’re shopping for clubs at one of these shows, carry a small magnet with you. It’ll be useful for determining whether a club really is what it says. Magnets won’t stick to titanium, so if a driver says that it’s got a titanium face and a magnet sticks to it, be suspicious. Magnets also won’t stick to zinc or aluminum. So if an iron claims to be steel, and a magnet won’t stick to it, be suspicious.

Zinc-Aluminum alloys often are used in beginner clubs and in knockoffs.

During the long, cold Michigan winters, I have a lot of fun building golf clubs. It’s relazing, and keeps me looking forward to arrival of spring. some, I build for myself; some for others. I generally build a set to be auctioned off in my kid’s elementary school auction fundraiser; and I sometimes will repair a club brought to me by a friend.

If you’ve never built a golf club, I suggest you give it a try. It’s not terribly expensive to get started (although it can be quite expensive if you buy all of the optional tools). And it’s not terribly difficult at the basic level. The tricky part of golf club making is not the assembly, but in the choosing of which parts to assemble it with.

Golfsmith has a number of convenient kits to get you started in clubmaking. Teh Viper Ti 464 driver kit gives you a 460cc titanium clubhead with a moveble weight system, a matched Proforce graphite shart, a velvet grip, ferrule (the plastic slip that goes above the clubhead and offers stability and reinforcement to the shaft) and a matching clubhead cover.

You’ll also need to get the clubmaking supply pack, which comes with the proper epoxy (superglue will NOT work), grip tape and solvent, a vise clamp and a step-by-step instructional DVD.

What you’ll need to have on your own is a vice, some sandpaper and a fine toothed saw—all stuff the average homeowner already has.

Give it a shot. It’s fun.

Golfsmith’s SR-460 driver head is its entry in the strangely shaped drivers sweepstakes. Bearing a striking similarity to the Cleveland Hi Bore, the SR-460 has a cavity crown design that shifts the center of gravity low and to the back of the clubhead. This raises the launch angle and reduces spinning, delivering longer drives on the course.

Inside the cavity crown, the clubhead has a baffle system to minimize flexure, or bending, of the crown and sole, allowing maximum energy transfer while tuning the acoustics. In addition, a tungsten heel weight in the head’s sole provides a draw-bias flight pattern to reduce pushing and slicing.

While it may look like a knock-off, GolfSmith has for years produced its own designs, so I am certain that this is—as they say—the result of two years of research by their design staff. The similarity to the Hi-Bore is most likely a case of form following function, just as Nike and Callaway both are offering square driver heads this year.

I’m a big fan of GolfSmith’s Snake Eyes line. I’ve built five sets of Snake Eyes irons—each using a different head—and have found them to all to be well-designed, and well-made. They were all well within tolerances for weight and angles. More importantly, they all played well. Unlike a lot of component manufacturers, GolfSmith’s products are original designs, well executed.

The Snake Eyes Z9s are next on my build list. It’s a great concept: a thin faced, undercut, perimeter weighted “forged” iron.

GolfSmith does this by plasma welding a 1025 carbon steel billed forged face to a 431 stainless steel body. CNC milling on the back of the face is designed to help focus the optimal center of gravity location. The design, Golfsmith says, offers the feel of forged, with the benefits of improved distance and tighter dispersion.

I like the idea a lot.

Element 21 Golf says that Scandium is the new wave of golf club materials, replacing Titanium. Scandium, the 21st element on the periodic table (thus, Element 21), has a weight to strength ratio that is 25% better than titanium, 50% better than graphite and 70% better than steel. Its used in the Russian space and missile program.

I can’t put my finger on it, but I am sure that a few years ago, I had a clubhead that claimed to use materials from the Russian ICBM missile program. Maybe someone out there also had one and can drop a comment on what it was.

At any rate, Element 21 is trying to pull off what has to be the greatest publicity stunt in the history of golf: they’re going to have someone drive a ball using their club off the International Space Station, and into orbit, for the longest drive in history.

The original scandium products were shafts, but the company now has branched out into clubheads. Interestingly, the company thinks that, unlike titanium, it holds the exclusive rights to clubs made from the material.

More here.