Golf Digest Hot List SIP 2026

BECAUSE WE ALL SHOULD hit it farther, every year Drivers is the most-read section of the Hot List. What began as a not particularly profound assumption about audience behavior in 2004 when the Hot List debuted as a magazine-only review of new clubs has since become proven fact. Every website nowadays counts its clicks and scrolls in fine measure, and in the spirit of not embarrassing people about the naked desperation of their lopsided attention, I won’t disclose specifics. I’m just as guilty of perennially spending more time with Drivers under the auspice of proofreading. But not this year. For the 2026 Hot List, the first section I read, greedily, after haranguing our equipment editors for it to be ready already, was Putters. And not because I had a worse-than-average season…

The mission of the Hot List remains unchanged: To help you identify the golf equipment that should be at the top of your shopping list. What has changed, however, is how much higher the level of excellence has become. Sure, today’s golf clubs, including the second-hand market, are universally very good, but “very good” isn’t good enough for our ratings anymore. Clubs now need to earn a score of 90 to make the Hot List (Silver medal) and 95 to earn a Gold. What you will see with the Hot List again this year are the clubs that substantially raise the bar, a list robust with new woods, irons, wedges and putters that push new technological barriers and offer more designs tailored to an array of golfers’ specific needs. Plus,…

In addition to our overall star ratings for each club in Performance and Look/Sound/Feel, we ask our player-testers to provide their input in two other dimensions that you will see in the individual club write-ups. First, we look at the collective average of each player’s score for the Look, Sound/Feel and Performance criteria for clubs that earned one of the Top 5 highest average scores based on player handicap. On occasion you will see in the write-ups a mention of a club that earned a Top 5 average score for a particular handicap group in one of those criteria. Another area where you will see ratings are what we call “vectors.” These are descriptive ratings about a certain characteristic of a club. In most cases (exceptions are the vectors for…

Producing the Hot List is an all-hands project for our editorial team, but it’s the contributions of two groups that aren’t doing it as their day jobs that set it apart. Our scientific advisors guide us on technological advancements, and our 32 player-testers try out every club—over and over again—and report back what they experience. Together, these dedicated partners help us formulate our three selection criteria: Performance, Innovation, Look/Sound/Feel. PERFORMANCE 50% Based on interviews with our testers, we assess the utility of each club. In other words, this is a grade for what happens to the ball when a player hits it. Rapsodo MLM2Pro launch monitors were used at every hitting station, and during testing over a two-week period, we recorded more than 20,000 shots and thousands more wedge shots…

Our scientists prod manufacturers about their claims on innovation, and our fitters from Golf Galaxy ensure that players hit the right clubs for their individual swings. SCIENTISTS MARTIN BROUILLETTE, PH.D. University of Sherbrooke TOM MASE, PH.D. Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo JOHN MCPHEE, PH.D. University of Waterloo DICK RUGGE Senior Technical Director, USGA (retired) FITTERS CHRIS MARCHINI Director of Performance and Innovation, Golf Galaxy, Coraopolis, Pa. CARSON BOWEN Ocala, Fla. ANDREW FARLOW Richmond, Va. BRENDAN HEPTNER Columbia, Md. RONNIE HURST Greensboro, N.C. EMILIE JACKSON Oklahoma City STEVE LANGS Lakeside, Mich. DEVIN LOGUE Richmond, Va. DANIEL MARTINEZ Orlando DERRICK MAYER Greendale, Wisc. RHIANNON RAY Pittsburgh PAT SNYDER Pittsburgh ANDREW STONESIFER Towson, Md.…

Our panel of 32 players—from 90-shooters to pros—performed hundreds of hours of comprehensive testing to rate each club. Here’s the team. Gary Abbott, 38 Paris, Ontario, Canada Solutions engineer/Handicap: 13 Driver: 250 yards/7-iron: 165 yards “I share a kindred spirit with Jordan Spieth: My long game can be shaky, but I hit enough good shots and sink a few putts. I tend to cast from the top, so pulls and hooks haunt my golf brain, which is prone to over-activity.” Favorite Hot List driver: Ping G440 K Tom Allen, 61 Middletown, Ohio Trial attorney/Handicap: 7 Driver: 244 yards/7-iron: 158 yards “I’ve been known to have the driver yips and a two-way miss. I’m decent with my irons but fight a stubborn sway, so I have a lower trajectory than I…