This is not a golf story. It’s a story of an unsatisfied customer. You won’t believe this.

Last November, in response to a card I’d sent in, Peter Quinn of Warrior Custom Golf phoned to offer a set of golf clubs to test. After explaining the deal, they’d send me a set of irons that were clones of the Calloway X-18 irons (Retail $1200) for a 45 day test. The catch is they’d charge my credit card $469 while I tested the clubs and would refund it when I sent them back. I could keep them for the $469.

When I expressed my displeasure at their keeping my money while I did a test for them, Peter offered to send me a clone of a Taylormade R5 driver for free. He said I could keep the driver just for testing the irons even if I didn’t keep them. I got the clubs about three weeks later except for the driver, which was backordered.

I tested the irons on several rounds of golf and several trips to the driving range. I decided not to keep the clubs as I could not hit them as well as my old clubs. In fact, each was about 15 yards shorter than the corresponding Prince clubs I had been using. I was expecting a call from Peter who would ask me for an evaluation of the clubs. Peter never called.

About a week before the 45 days were up, I called Warrior to give them an evaluation of the clubs and to find out how to return them. I talked to Valerie. First, she said for an additional $200 I could try the next higher grade irons and keep the ones I already had. Right away, I knew I’d been hosed if they were willing to give me a set of $469 clubs and another more expensive set for $669. When I refused, she offered me to keep the set I had for $200 and they’d refund $269. When I refused, she offered me the set for $100. (So the set of clubs they were going to sell me for $469 are really only worth $100). After many permutations of offers and refusals, she put me on hold to get me an return authorization number. A few minutes later, she gave me the RA and said as soon as they received the clubs they’d credit my credit card for the $469.

So I shipped the clubs back. The clubs arrived at Warrior Custom Golf on February 5, 2007 at 10:31 am. The driver arrived a few days later.

Today, I called WCG customer service as my credit card has not been credited. I was informed that they had, indeed, received the irons on Feb 5, but they hadn’t received the driver back so I wasn’t due a refund. I explained what Peter Quinn had told me about the driver, but she apologized for the misunderstanding, but the driver is only free with a $100 purchase. She said she’d sell me the driver for $50. Here we go again. I said I have a driver purchased on clearance at Wal-Mart for $5.50 that works just fine, I’ll send the driver back.

For anyone wishing to buy or test golf clubs, I recommed to go to someplace besides Warrior Custom Golf.

UPDATE: Please read subsequent post on this subject. I finally got this all resolved and got my money back.

If you decide to use Warrior, just remember two things. (1) Don’t be fooled: the test program is really a sales program.  (2) The price they list the test at is not the lowest price for which they’re willing to sell the club(s).

I have no complaint about the quality of their merchandise. The clubs they sent me were high quality clubs. I just didn’t like them. I subsequently bought Ping G2 clones from a different vendor for about the same price I would have paid (ultimately) for the G-18 clones from Warrior.