I bought five golf gloves from Facebook ads. Four are going in a drawer.

Facebook remembers what you click. I clicked on one golf glove ad in the spring, and within a fortnight my feed was nothing but gloves. Leather gloves, synthetic gloves, three-packs, gloves with your initials on them, gloves that promised to outlast my driver.

So I did what any reasonable man with a spare hundred dollars and a low boredom threshold would do. I bought five of them, wore each one for at least four rounds, and kept notes.

The short version: two of them are what you would expect for the money. One is still in my bag. The other two are good gloves I no longer need.

Let's start one by one.

Glove #1 - Skive Premium

It came in a plastic sleeve with a card that said cabretta, and it looked the part for about ten minutes. The leather was stiff out of the bag and shiny on the palm, and it never softened. By the third round the palm had gone slick, and on the fourth the strap started letting go at the top of my backswing.

Here is the thing nobody tells you about the word cabretta. It only tells you the animal, a hairsheep. It says nothing about which layer of the hide you got, and at this price you are almost always getting the split - the underside of the hide, sanded down and sprayed with a coat so it feels soft in your hand for a week. The label is true. The glove is not.

Verdict: nine colours, free shipping from the other side of the world and a price under ten dollars is a coating with a label on it, not a glove.

Glove #2 - Seven Iron Golf Tour One Pro

Three gloves for the price of one pro-shop glove sounds like a deal, and for the range it is. On the course the problems showed up fast. Two of the three fit. The third was a size bigger than its label in every direction. After a few rounds all three had stretched enough that the strap ran out of room to grab, and they all wore through at the same time, so what you are really buying is one wear cycle of three gloves, not three gloves.

Verdict: fine for the simulator and the range. Do not wear one on a day you care about.

Now the one that is still in my bag.

Glove #3 - GentGolfers Personalized Golf Glove

This was the one my feed pushed hardest, so I expected the least from it. What arrived was a white full grain cabretta glove with my initials pressed into the strap in gold foil, cut to my size and made after I ordered it rather than pulled off a shelf.

Start with the leather, because that is where the difference is. Full grain cabretta is the top layer of the hide, nothing sanded off, nothing sprayed on. Point four of a millimetre, double tanned. It was tacky on the club from the first hole and has kept that tack through fourteen rounds, two of them in rain. It is more leather than the shop gloves, and you feel that in the hand. It is also why it is still here.

The brand says it is stitched by one maker, about ninety minutes a pair, and flex tested past twenty five thousand swings. I cannot check the number. I can tell you that after fourteen rounds it looks like it has played four, and the palm has none of the shine glove one had by round three.

Then there are the initials. Two letters, mine, hot-stamped in gold foil into the strap, in the exact spot where every other glove puts a logo. They will do up to six if your name needs them. It is a small thing. It is also the first glove I have owned that someone asked me about on the first tee.

I ordered my normal size and it fit. If you get it wrong, every glove carries a 60-day fit guarantee and they replace it. On price, a single glove sits where a good pro-shop glove sits. The interesting part is the bundle: buy three and three more come free, which is a season in one order. Delivery took 12 days. Which very good considering that the product is personalised.

MyGolfSpy rating: BUY IT

Verdict: order your normal size and give it a round before you judge it. Full grain takes a hole or two to settle, then it takes the shape of your hand and stays there.

Two more gloves arrived after that one. To be fair to both, they are decent gloves. Neither got much play.

Glove #4 - Western Birch Classic Cabretta

You already know this one. It is a good glove. The leather is thin, the feel on the club is excellent, and it costs a little over thirty dollars, which is what everyone else at the club is paying for the same glove.

The trade with thin leather is that it goes fast. Mine was wearing through at the thumb by the sixth round, which is roughly what this glove has given me every season for years. And it looks like every other glove on the rack, because it is every other glove on the rack.

Verdict: if you like this glove, buy three when it goes on sale. You will get through them.

Glove #5 - Clinch Tactile Glove

No leather on this one at all. It is a knitted synthetic with a rubberised palm, sold on the promise that it grips in the rain and goes through the washing machine. Both of those things are true. Neither of them is the reason you wear a golf glove.

The feel is the problem. Leather goes thin between your hand and the grip and lets you feel the club. This puts a layer of rubber there instead, and every shot feels like it is happening slightly further away than it is. It runs hot on a dry day, the palm squeaks on a rubber grip, and the whole thing looks like it came out of the same factory as the gloves you use to lift a hot pan.

If you play a lot of golf in the rain, keep one in the bag for that. It was not built to replace a leather glove so much as sit in the side pocket next to one, and that is where mine lives now.

Verdict: buy it for the wet days and leave it in the bag the rest of the time. It is a rain glove with ambitions.

Final thoughts

Buying anything off a Facebook ad is a gamble, and this was five of them. I got one bad glove, one that is fine for the range, two good gloves I have already forgotten, and one I would buy again with no ad involved.

If you want a plain glove, the pro shop has you covered and always will. If you want one that is cut for your hand, wears in instead of wearing out, and carries your own initials where a logo would normally go, there is exactly one of those, and it is worth your money.