PGA TOUR Superstore Review – The Cart Costs Money and Removes the Exercise

A Guarantee That Accepts a Club You Have Played With

We apply one test to every guarantee in this series: does it cover the thing that actually goes wrong? A pet retailer accepts opened food because refusal to eat is the real failure. A bedding brand excludes pilling, which is the only complaint owners have. This one passes cleanly.

That last clause is the whole thing. The failure mode for a golf club is not that it arrives broken — it is that it does not suit your swing, and there is no way on earth to discover that without hitting balls with it on grass.

A policy requiring clubs be returned unused would be worthless, in exactly the way we found a marketplace policy requiring consumables be returned unopened to be worthless. You cannot evaluate a club you have not played with. Accepting a used one is the only version of this guarantee that means anything.

It matters more here than in most categories because of the money involved. A driver can cost several hundred dollars and an iron set considerably more — this is one of the highest-value discretionary purchases where fit is entirely individual, and being able to take it back after playing removes most of the risk in buying.

The Rest of the Returns Picture

Read the conditions on the 90-day guarantee carefully, because it is generous and specific rather than generous and open. It is credit, not cash; it must be spent that same day; and it must go toward similar product.

That is a swap arrangement rather than a refund, and it is designed to keep you in golf clubs rather than to give you your money back. Which is a perfectly reasonable thing for a golf retailer to design — just do not confuse it with a refund policy.

Keep the original receipt, which is required for full store credit, and note the same store-credit caution we applied elsewhere this month: credit is only as good as the retailer’s continued existence, so spend it rather than banking it.

The Cart Costs Money and Removes the Exercise

Now the part this site exists for, and it is one of the cleanest health findings we have encountered.

Four hundred to eight hundred calories, decided entirely by whether you rent a cart. Same course, same holes, same shots, same afternoon.

Push carts are the resolution, and they are the interesting middle case. Walking with a push cart burns 36% more calories per hour than riding a motorised cart — so you get to keep the walking while not carrying the bag, which for anyone with a back or shoulder problem is the difference between playing and not.

Walkers also reportedly see higher heart rates, more time in fat-burning zones, and better focus on the course — the last of which is the argument that actually persuades golfers, since it is about scoring rather than health.

How That Was Measured

We normally have to flag calorie figures as estimates. Not this time, and the methodology deserves noting because it is better than most nutrition research we cover.

A VO2 mask measures oxygen consumption rather than estimating from step count or heart rate. That is direct measurement of energy expenditure, and it is considerably stronger than the calorie estimates we usually have to hedge.

The within-subject design is the good part. The same ten golfers played all three conditions, which means the comparison is not confounded by fitness differences between groups — each person is their own control, which is exactly what you want when measuring the effect of a single changed variable.

The honest limit: ten golfers is a small sample, and nine-hole rounds are extrapolated to eighteen. But the effect size is large and the design is sound, and we would rather have ten people in a mask than a thousand people estimating.

Twelve to Fifteen Thousand Steps in One Round

Worth pausing on, because it reframes what golf is.

The commonly cited daily target is 10,000 steps, which most people find genuinely difficult to hit. Walking one round of golf produces 12,000 to 15,000 — so a single afternoon exceeds a full day’s target, comfortably.

Nobody has to sustain willpower to keep playing golf. That is a structural advantage over any activity you have to make yourself do, and it is why golf can be sustained for decades where gym memberships lapse in March.

It is also low-impact and playable into old age, which very few activities producing this much walking are.

The Study That Says Golfers Live Five Years Longer

This finding gets quoted constantly and almost never with its caveats. Here it is, and then here is why we are not repeating it uncritically.

Three hundred thousand people is an enormous cohort, and a 40% mortality difference is a very large effect. Two details are genuinely interesting: the effect being larger in blue-collar players argues against the difference being purely about wealth, and the lowest handicaps having the lowest mortality looks like a dose-response relationship — more golf, better outcome — which is the pattern you would expect if the activity itself were doing the work.

Why We Are Not Repeating That Uncritically

It is an observational cohort study, not a trial, and the confounding here is about as severe as confounding gets.

Nobody randomised 300,000 Swedes to golf or no golf. The comparison is between people who chose and were able to play and everybody else, and a substantial share of that five-year gap is almost certainly people who were going to live longer anyway.

The handicap finding cuts both ways too, and this is the part usually presented only in the flattering direction. Lower handicap may mean more golf and therefore more benefit — or it may mean younger, fitter, more mobile people play better golf, which is reverse causation rather than dose-response. The same data supports both readings.

So what should you take from it? Not five years — that number is not deliverable, and anyone selling it to you should be treated accordingly. Take the mechanism instead: the measured, within-subject VO2 finding above shows that walking a round is 1,200 to 1,600 calories and 12,000 to 15,000 steps. That is real, it is measured, and it is the thing actually available to you — and it does not require a longevity claim to be worth doing.

Fitting, and What It Costs

The credit-back arrangement makes fitting effectively free if you buy, which removes the main reason people skip it. Studio fittings have also been offered free with a qualifying purchase of $299.99 or more.

Get fitted before you buy, not after. It is the single highest-value thing on offer here, and it costs nothing if you buy on the day — which combined with the used-club return guarantee means the two biggest risks in buying clubs are both covered.

Standard Ladies Clubs Assume a Height Most Women Are Not

A finding that belongs to a thread running through this entire review series, and it is particularly stark here.

The median customer sits outside the standard product. Not at the edge of it — below the bottom of it. Which means the default off-the-rack club is built for a woman taller than most women, and the majority are buying something designed for somebody else.

We have documented this shape repeatedly: a bra brand whose bands stopped at 38; life jackets bounded by chest circumference rather than the weight printed on them; a litter box rated for cats twice the size its door admits; running shoes where width decides fit and size is printed. Fitted goods assume a body, and people outside it find out by failing.

The consequence in golf is worse than discomfort. A club of the wrong length changes your posture at address, which changes your swing plane, which changes your contact — so a beginner using ill-fitting clubs concludes they are bad at golf when they are using equipment built for a different body. That is how people quit a sport.

The Measurement That Actually Decides It

And here is the same structural insight we have found in every fitted-goods category on this site.

Height is the number everybody uses and it is the wrong one. Two people of identical height with different arm lengths need different clubs, because what matters is how far your hands are from the ground, not how far the top of your head is.

This is exactly the pattern. Life jackets: chest circumference, not body weight. Bras: band, not cup. Shoes: width, not size. Litter boxes: aperture, not weight rating. In every case the number printed on the box is not the number that decides whether it fits — and in every case the buyer only discovers this after it does not work.

Which is the strongest possible argument for getting fitted, since a fitting measures wrist-to-floor and standard sizing does not. The fee is credited if you buy.

Price Matching

Against a named list — Dick’s Sporting Goods, Edwin Watts, Golf Galaxy, Tennis Warehouse, TGW and Worldwide Golf Shops — on identical in-stock items, within 30 days after purchase, refunded as a credit to your account.

Naming the competitors is better practice than a vague “any retailer” promise, because it tells you in advance whether your comparison will qualify rather than leaving it to a discretionary judgement at the counter.

The 30-days-after-purchase window is the part to use, and almost nobody does — set a reminder and check the named competitors once, as we recommended for another retailer’s price protection earlier this month.

Exclusions: liquidation pricing, promotional giveaways, special and limited offers, and it cannot be combined with other discounts. And it is credit to your account rather than cash back, which is consistent with everything else in this retailer’s policy design.

Pros and Cons

How to Buy From Them Well

Get fitted before you buy, and buy on the day so the fee is credited. Wrist-to-floor is the measurement that decides club length and standard sizing does not use it — which matters most if you are shorter than 5′5″.

Then actually play with the clubs inside 30 days. The Playability Guarantee lets you return a used club, which is the only way to evaluate one — so use it as a trial rather than letting the window lapse.

Understand you are getting credit, not cash, on anything after 30 days. Spend it promptly rather than banking it.

Set a 30-day reminder to check the named price-match competitors, which almost nobody does.

And buy the push cart rather than renting the riding cart. It is the single highest-value purchase in the shop for anyone whose reason for playing includes their health — 36% more calories per hour than riding, without carrying the bag, and it pays for itself against cart rental in a season.

Limitations of This Review

We have not shopped at PGA TOUR Superstore, been fitted, tested a return or used a price match. This review says nothing about staff quality, fitting expertise, stock or the in-store experience — and fitting quality in particular varies enormously by individual fitter, which no policy document captures.

Return, fitting and price-match terms are as reported by third parties rather than read from the policy documents ourselves, carry conditions we have not reproduced in full, vary by location, and change — verify before relying on any of them. Fitting prices are explicitly reported as varying by store.

On the walking study: ten golfers is a small sample and nine-hole rounds are extrapolated to eighteen. The design is strong — direct VO2 measurement, each golfer serving as their own control — but calorie figures vary enormously with body weight, terrain and pace, so treat 1,200 to 1,600 as a range rather than a number.

The Swedish mortality finding is observational and we have set out its confounding at length — it should not be read as establishing that golf causes five extra years, and we read it through summaries rather than the original paper. Nothing here is medical advice, and anyone with a cardiac or musculoskeletal condition should speak to a clinician before taking up several hours of walking.

Frequently Asked Questions

Verdict

The retailer passes the test we apply to every guarantee in this series. The Playability Guarantee accepts a club that has been lightly swung and used on the course or simulator, within 30 days, for full store credit. The failure mode for a club is that it does not suit your swing, which is undiscoverable without hitting balls on grass — so a policy accepting a used club is the only version that means anything.

Read the 90-day Performance Guarantee accurately though: it is credit, spent the same day, toward similar product, and returns between 31 and 90 days are not eligible for cash or card refund. That is a swap arrangement designed to keep you in golf clubs — reasonable for a golf retailer, but not a refund policy.

The health finding is unusually clean, and it is about one decision. Walking a round burns 1,200 to 1,600 calories against about 800 riding, covering 8 to 10 miles and 12,000 to 15,000 steps against roughly half. Four hundred to eight hundred calories, same course, same afternoon — and the cart is the thing you pay extra for, so you are spending money to remove the exercise from your exercise. Push carts keep the walking and lose the bag: 36% more calories per hour than riding.

And unusually, those numbers were measured rather than estimated — a VO2 mask study with ten golfers each playing all three cart conditions, so every golfer was their own control. Small sample, strong design. Twelve to fifteen thousand steps exceeds the usual daily target in a single afternoon, without feeling like exercise — which is the theme this site keeps returning to, that the changes which hold are the ones requiring no willpower.

On the famous claim that golfers live five years longer: a Swedish cohort of 300,000 did find a 40% lower death rate. But it is observational, and being well enough to play golf is itself a powerful health signal — mobility, stamina, joints, vision, income, leisure. Nobody randomised 300,000 Swedes. Even the handicap finding cuts both ways: more golf may cause better health, or fitter people may simply play better. Take the measured mechanism, not the five years.

The sizing finding lands in a thread running through this whole series. Standard ladies clubs are built for 5′5″ to 5′9″, while the average American woman is about 5′4″ — below the entire range. And the measurement that actually decides club length is wrist-to-floor, not height, exactly as life jackets turn on chest rather than weight and bras on band rather than cup. A beginner with wrong-length clubs concludes they are bad at golf when they are using equipment built for a different body.

Get fitted, buy the same day so the fee is credited, play with the clubs inside 30 days, and buy a push cart instead of renting the riding one.