Any difference in buying direct?

Club builders like CC are a different model. They tend to charge more than the market price of $200-214 per iron. Either through accessories or exotic shafts. Titleist protects its authorized dealer network (pro shops, retailers) by selling direct at the protected price.

If they charged you more than $230 per club before sales tax, did you really save with the gift cards?

If they built your clubs from your specs, you might have saved. They normally add a fitting fee as well. The Titleist $100 fee for a fitting is applied to a purchase through the sponsoring site. For those wanting to buy Titleist, you get a “free” professional fitting and clubs at retail. No better deal.

Titleist really tries to support the local golf shops so they encourage fittings and orders from those establishments but understand that not everyone has access to a local golf course so they also sell through big box stores. Club Champion has a unique relationship with Titleist as the only place where Titleist will allow a second-party retailer to actually assemble the Titleist components. That might be why they would be the only place where a blanket discount would be allowed. Normally Titleist has a price lock on their equipment where you will see big box stores have an exclusion clause on certain brand discounts like Titleist. Local golf shops at your home course may be willing to eat into their profit and make a deal but it is rare and not likely to be as much as 20%. Enjoy the new clubs and remember that ant warranty issues needs to go back through Club Champion as they likely did the assembly instead of Titleist at Carlsbad.