What is Club Fitting (II)

The last thread (What is Club Fitting?) was written in early Dec 2009, some 2 and half years ago and nothing great has inspired me to write another one till 6 am this morning. no i did not have insomnia but had just gotten out of a ICG Board web meeting.

On of our Board member, Jim McCleery of McGolf had a very interesting fitting recently and it will be featured in the September issue of Golf Digest USA.

Jim had a fitting session organised by GD to fit a 85 year lady golfer who despite her achievement of shooting her age over 60 times (meaning it might have been a 70 when she was 70) and winning the Ohio Amateur 3 times (twice in the 60s and once in the 80s), the golfer had NEVER been fitted in her life.

She use relatively new-off-the-shelf equipment and did not even know what fitted equipment felt like. After the session which include the photographer having his camera smash by a golf ball cos he insisted on crouching 10 yards from the ball to get a dramatic shot, the 85 year golfer had a new custom putter built for her immediately.

She reportedly shot an 84 on the same weekend with her new putter. A week later she picked up her new customized clubs and proceed to shot 81. Not bad at all for a grand old gal of 85.

the story did not end there. Her daughter was so motivated that she got fitted a week later, she proceeded to beat her 85 year old mother at her score (which she has only done so 2 times before) and ended up beating her husband as well.

What an inspiring story and it shows that you are never too late to get fitted. of course it will help if you remember to bring your swing to the fitting.

Speaking of which it brings me to the next point. in our context, when we speak of fitting, most golfers will think of fitting the big dog. here are some stats to find out what you are missing...

lets say you shot 85 in a round, the breakdown of equipment used and frequency might be as follows:

1. Driver/FW/Hybrid - average 15
2. FW, Hybrid, Irons - Approach to green - average 30
3. Wedges - Average 10
4. Putts - Average 30

Coming back to fitting....to be properly fitted, its not a one time exercise. i do believe that the putter, wedges, irons, hybrids, woods and driver should be fitted. however different players may need to be analyse differently so that priority can be set and this will lead to rapid improvement. simply put, if a golfer gets fitted incorrectly for his driver or iron and he gave up getting fitted without feedback to his fitter, he may never get the benefit of a proper fitting.

i hope this story from Jim McCleery will help inspire you to find out how with proper and professional fitting, anyone at any age can continue to improve.

DGman

Before I register GR, my friend told me that he got a set of custom fitted clubs from a online shopping website as the website asked for his height, arm length and promised to produce the best fitting results. At that time I can only say: wow that is fantastic. After joining GR I start get to know what is the club fitting. I have been convinced that everyone should get the benefits from club fitting depends on the quality of the swing. However, as a beginner I always wondering when and how should I start with it. Is there a simply way to break down the fitting into several package? And create an cost and performance chart for general cases. Or the club fitting is really so case by case and not be able to be described in a statistics way. If can have more information like that, I believe more ppls will recognize the value of club fitting and have confidence to meet with club fitter.

if you dig deeper there are lots of useful information including charts, cases, etc. often than not they are overwhelmed by WTS and other informercial thats prevalent in all forums.

DGman

Thanks, sure I will keep digging and reading