So I was curious and bought a 3 metre golf practice net on eBay for $99.
Click here for Part 1 where I document the buying experience.
After a 2 week anxious wait, the net is finally here! In Part 2 of this write up, I will document my first impressions of the net. I will go through the shipping experience, a quick compare against our Kaizen 3 Metre Golf Practice Net as well as how it fared after quick a initial hit.
Shipping
Shipping was done through Australia Post and I could see that the item was booked for shipping the day after the order was placed. However the status stayed on 'Received and ready for processing' for about a week and half before it was ready to be delivered. But given the current delays experienced by the courier network due to the current COVID lockdowns, it is somewhat understandable.
All up the delivery process took 2 weeks for a Sydney metro delivery (ordered on 19 Aug and received on 6 Sept), which was about a week longer than what was estimated by eBay.
Materials Compared
As soon as I received the eBay net I could not wait to open the box up and do a side-by-side compare against our very own Kaizen Golf Net which we thoroughly tested before it was brought to market. Although they look almost identical, below are some of the more obvious differences when the 2 products were pitched against each other.
Weight and Packaging
At ~7kgs, the eBay net was significantly lighter than the Kaizen Net which weighs in at almost 9kg.
The packaging was also a little bit smaller as well, see photo below, where the box for the eBay net is on the left.
So I was instantly intrigued by where the weight and size differences were coming from.
The Frame
To be perfectly honest, the frame of the eBay net looked solid. Pretty much every component matched up pretty well against the frame of our Kaizen Net.
There was one component where there was a visible difference though - this was in the two fibreglass poles along the sides. The metal connector at the end of the eBay net was a lot thinner when compared to the same components from the Kaizen Net, see photo below - left being the eBay net.
But does this matter in the grand scheme of things? I'm not sure it does.
The frame was easy to assemble and it looked good fully assembled too.
The Netting
The netting is where the 'rubber hits the road' as far as a Golf Practice Net is concerned. It is what will stop a golf ball from going to places where it should not be going, at high velocity.
And when I took a closer look at the netting, a lot of the questions I had were answered - this was the difference.
Although there was no visual evidence to suggest that the netting was not made of Nylon as previously confirmed by the seller, there was a big quality drop when compared to the Nylon netting which comes in one of our products.
As seen in the photo below, there were 2 visually obviously differences which were important factors which determine how well the net will stop a golf ball.
- Density - the Kaizen net is made up of much denser and thicker fibres/threads which will give it more stopping power. See side by side photos below.
- Mesh Size - another really obvious difference was the size of the mesh. Where the Kaizen Net has a small 2.2cm mesh size, the mesh of the eBay net was almost 3cm. See photos below.
You may wonder - how would a few millimetres make a difference? Let's now compare them with a golf ball which has a diameter of 4.3cm.
Where 3 x 3 square on a Kaizen Net is barely larger than a golf ball, you get a lot more daylight between a 3 x 3 square on the eBay net and the same ball. I know which net I want to be hitting into.
With less material going into the netting, there would obviously be less weight - the net felt much lighter in my hands too. The net will also require less packaging space to fit the product into - it all made sense.
Initial Hit
At the end of the day, a true measure of quality for a golf net is tested by hitting balls into it - so I got hitting as soon as I had the eBay net assembled.
After an initial 1hr session with just a 7 iron, the eBay net is still intact with no obvious signs of wear, which would suggest that the quality is decent, but I would need to do more testing.
Sum Up and Next Steps
So at this stage considering the differences in the netting material used, I can definitely say that the $99 eBay golf net is a lower quality product when compared to our own Kaizen Golf Net, which is marginally more expensive.
As a final step in this process, I plan to do a longer term test by having a few more sessions with the eBay net and getting the longer clubs involved - stay tuned for Part 3...