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As you might have read, I recently had a custom club fitting at the TaylorMade Performance Lab out at Grand Cypress Academy of Golf. Subsequently, I purchased the custom fit 2009 TaylorMade Burner Irons and I’ve been hitting them for a little over two months. After a few adjustment rounds, I’ve noticed a world of difference and improvement in my iron play, as a matter of fact, I shot the round of my life two weeks ago using the new sticks.
This got me thinking about the benefits of custom club fitting. I’ve always been of the mindset that getting fitted for clubs at this level of my game would only be a waste of money because my swing is constantly changing and I would be constantly heading back to the fitter to get adjustments made. So pondering this, I contacted Travis Kent, Master Club Fitter out at the TaylorMade Performance Lab and asked him to share his opinion on the matter.
Before we get into that, I’d like to give a little background into my first club buying experience and the resulting impact it had on my game. It was probably five years ago when I purchased my first set of golf clubs. I’d played off and on with some friends and decided it was time to “take the plunge.” Relying on the advice of my girlfriend at the time’s father, I was told to purchase steel shafts because they’re easier to hit. Other than that, he had no further words of wisdom or brand recommendations. So, with my college students fortune, I traveled to a local high end golf equipment store called “play it again sports.” 
After browsing aisle after aisle of golf clubs, having no idea what I was looking for, only concerned with the price tag, I settled on a set of used Callaway Big Bertha knockoffs called Turbo Power XL6 Irons. I asked the highly qualified salesperson what he thought about the irons and if they were a good fit for me and his response was “yeah man, they look good to me.” That was the extent of my club fitting.
Now, fast forward to the year 2009, during the fitting, Travis mentioned that the clubs I was using were about a 1/2 an inch shorter than today’s standard irons. Now, I’m not a terribly tall man, I come in at a little over six foot, but using clubs that are 1/2 an inch shorter than they should be, could not have been good for the game. During the swing analysis, he mentioned that my backswing was great but during my follow through, I was pulling the club closer to my body causing unnecessary side spin on the shots. He said this was due to using clubs that were too short. My swing contained many additional deficiencies, but this is the only one that I can almost use as an excuse.
So in my case, my first set of clubs grooved a pretty bad behavior into my swing that will take quite a bit of time to undo.
Let’s put this on hold and move to the Q&A with Travis. I sent him a series of questions which he was gracious enough to answer.
Would you recommend club fitting for a beginner, if so, why?
“I think club fitting is important for all golfers, no matter the skill level. For beginners, it is important to have clubs that fit your current swing (flex, length, grip size). If you have the wrong equipment and are trying to learn the golf swing, you may be changing things in the swing based on ball flight characteristics that may be caused by too flat a lie angle, too upright a lie angle, too long a club, too short a club, etc. etc. The thought then becomes about the swing and changing it where having the right equipment may have allowed you to assess the ball flight properly and then make swing changes according to the results.
Whether you are a high, mid, or low handicap, club fitting is all so important to not only maximize your good golf swings but also maximize your bad golf swings. One of the things that I hear most before starting a club fitting is “My shots are so inconsistent from day to day!!”. That is usually true for every golfer. It is most likely due to timing. One day your timing is perfect, you feel the golf club all throughout the swing and every shot is going at the target. You are in THE ZONE. The next day you can’t hit water if you fell out of a boat. If you had the proper golf club that was fit toward your swing tendencies, you will find that most of your bad shots turn out PLAYABLE and not lost in the trees or other hazards. When you decrease dispersion and increase accuracy, you can’t help but shoot lower scores.”
What benefit can high, mid and low handicap golfers expect to gain from custom clubs? Aside from the obvious handicap, what traits pertaining to golf would you expect to see in the different handicappers? (etc.. consistent swing, just in the wrong direction, doesn’t hit the sweetspot very often….)
“I wouldn’t necessarily say that any one handicap range has an attribute or a swing tendency or anything like that. Just to use a number, let’s say you have two golfers, both 8 handicaps. Player 1 has a nice smooth swing, hits the ball great and sees that he averages 11-12 greens in regulation per round on average. This is a pretty high number for an 8 handicap. He loses all his shots around the greens because he is not getting the ball up and down and he is a pretty poor putter.
Player 2 finds that he hits about 6-7 greens per round but he can get up and down from a trash can. They both shoot around the same score but they get it done in entirely different ways.
Each of these players would be candidates for checking the clubs that they are struggling with. Maybe player 1’s putter is too upright/flat. This would cause him to tend to miss putts and most likely leave them short. He probably goes into every round with the mindset that he needs to hit every green in regulation to shoot a decent round. Maybe he only has 1 wedge in his bag. He is stuck playing the same shot on every chip or pitch because he doesn’t have the proper “Tools” to get up and down.
Player 2 may be struggling off the tee. He hits his Driver into places where he is forced to lay up. He misses his fair share of greens because of this and is forced to get up and down more often. He doesn’t sweat it though because he knows that his short game is so good that he most likely will get it up and down. If we were to fit each of these players properly, they would by all means see their handicaps drop into low single digits.”
Anything Else?
Some of the things mentioned are more related to swing mechanics and basic fundamentals. In my opinion, the most important thing to really see a change in your game after getting properly fitted clubs, is to increase flexibility. If you can get more flexible, your muscles work more efficiently, therefore making your new custom fit TaylorMade clubs work that much better!!”
Any Recommendations or pointers for a player trying to achieve greater flexibility?
“Best thing for flexibility is a stretching regimen. Many stretching videos can be found on YouTube with the search word(s) of Golf Stretching.”
There you have it, straight from the experts keyboard.. Thanks Travis for your input, it’s greatly appreciated!
I also recall someone saying (I believe it was Travis) that custom fitted clubs make the misses more manageable, which I can completely attest to. Crazy slices have slowly evolved into slight push and even (dare I say it?) straight shots.
Per the professional’s orders, here’s a video from Mike Pederson that contains a couple of simple, pre-round stretches.
Thanks for reading and please, let me know your thoughts on custom club fitting.
-Dave
