The week we asked whether you need the thing at all
One memo, Sunday morning: what changed on the desk this week, what's newly worth your money, and what isn't.
Issue two. Still one email, once a week, still no countdown timers. This week the desk did something gear sites mostly avoid: before updating our launch-monitor recommendations, we stopped and asked whether the average golfer should buy one at all. The answer got its own guide, and it will save some of you five hundred dollars.
The WeekThe launch-monitor desk got its 2026 overhaul
Maya spent the week pulling the tech desk apart. The under-$500 launch monitor guide and the training aids guide were both re-verified line by line against this year's field — current models in, discontinued ones out, and an honest new section on what a consumer unit can't measure compared with the $20,000 machines your local fitter uses. Both now carry a visible "Updated July 2026" stamp, and the original publish dates stay right where they were. When something changes on this desk, you get to see that it changed. That's the whole policy.
Worth Your TimeThree from the week
- Do you need a launch monitor at all? — The new one. Who actually improves with the numbers, who's buying an expensive scoreboard for their slice, and what "Trackman technology" means when it's printed on a $300 box. If you've been eyeing one, read this before the buying guide.
- The best launch monitors under $500 (2026) — Freshly re-verified. The short version: the sub-$500 tier got genuinely good, but the spread between "useful practice numbers" and "random number generator" is still wide. We name which is which.
- Best chippers for high handicappers — Now with a budget wildcard: the clone-shop route, trade-offs named out loud — including which cheap chipper is illegal for handicap rounds. If your short game lives in bump-and-run country, this club is the honest shortcut.
The Honest TakeWhere our links send you now
Housekeeping worth being loud about. This week, several picks stopped pointing at retailer search pages and started pointing at the source: recommend a Cobra driver, you now land in Cobra's own shop; recommend SQAIRZ for wide feet, you land on their actual wide-fit collection instead of hunting sizes yourself. We also started naming the budget clone-shop option in a few club guides — with the trade-offs printed next to it, because "cheap and honest about why" beats "cheap and quiet about it." Yes, some of these links pay us a commission. The standing rule hasn't moved: the commission never changes the pick, and where the honest destination and the paying destination disagree, the honest one wins. Every guide still says so, right under every button.
Coming UpOn the desk next
Rosa is testing the proposition that a golf bag under $100 doesn't have to feel like a punishment, and Walt is writing the plain-English explanation of wedge bounce — the number on your wedge you've been ignoring that quietly decides whether you chunk it. Both file soon. Same time next Sunday.
— FILED BY THE DESK ✶ SUNDAY, 7:00 AM ✶ NO SILENT EDITS