Every year, club manufacturers boast how their latest technology will transform your game, rendering previous iterations inferior. Forget year-to-year comparisons, how do today’s clubs stack up against those from 20 years ago?

To track two decades of innovation, Contributing Editor Shane Ryan tested a full set of clubs from the original Golf Digest Hot List—published in 2004—as well as a complete bag of today’s clubs. This Clash of the Eras answers whether cumulative advancements in technology can help a guy long-struggling to break 80 finally get there.