Question: I don’t think fitting works. I’ve got a driver I’ve had for a dog’s age, and I’ve been for a couple of driver fittings and they haven’t shown me they can beat it. I thought the new stuff was always supposed to be better. What gives?
Answer: There are three things at work here, and you might be surprised to learn that all three of them have a lot to do with supporting the idea that fitting is the most fundamental way to start improving. In other words, a good fitting doesn’t have to result in a club purchase.
First, while you say you’ve been fit for a driver a few times, let’s make clear that you know what a proper fitting is. First, a fitting is not going to a demo day or a driving range and pounding a bucket of balls while trying a handful of new models. Just thinking you are “probably a 9-degree” or “probably an S shaft” or even “probably stock length” (more players than not should be playing a shorter-shafted driver) isn’t setting up yourself for meaningful results. A fitting requires an expert fitter, a launch monitor, obviously your current driver, and perhaps not the least significant, an interview where the fitter finds out about your tendencies, your preferences and can build a game plan after establishing some baseline data with your current setup.
As Craig Allan, director and master clubfitter at the Sea Island Golf Performance Center [above], puts it, knowing your models or loft (or thinking you know them) isn’t really enough. “It can be very helpful to an expert fitter if a golfer has a sense of what they like and what has worked for them in the past,” he said. “With that said, specs don’t always transfer from model to model and brand to brand, as the engineering and tendencies of each club are different. For best results, a fitter should listen to the golfer and then in turn, the golfer should have an open mind to try new things. This will result in a productive fitting and positive results.”
Second, a proper fitting isn’t a search for one shot that produces the most distance, but rather a collection of shots that yield better average distance and tighter dispersion, both in terms of long and short shots, as well as left and right misses. A proper fitting should show you a noticeable improvement in the consistency of your impact locations (more centre strike, square-face hits). Improve this and you will improve your driving long term. A good fitter will start by changing only one variable at a time in the search for the distance, accuracy and consistency your game might be lacking.
Finally, maybe some of the best fitters aren’t necessarily going to fit you into a new driver just for the sake of getting you to buy something. A good fitter is frank about how a club switch should only be worth it to you if the difference between your old reliable and something new is significant and obvious.
This may be a surprise, but depending on your ability level, an old driver might still be as hot as a new driver – on your best hits. For instance, adjusting from a smaller driver could affect swing speed which ultimately puts a bit of a restrictor on maximising your distance potential. In addition, a driver that is built more stable and forgiving on off-centre hits may not be all that beneficial if you rarely stray more than 10 millimetres off centre face. (This is why we sometimes wonder why a tour player would be excessively concerned about bulge and roll if he is rarely missing face centre, but that’s another story for another day.) But take away your best hits, because as noted sports psychologist Bob Rotella said years ago, “Golf is not a game of perfect.” It’s the imperfections in your game that a proper driver fitting might be able to smooth over.
Make the goals of a fitting simple, said Chris Marchini, director of golf experience at Dick’s and Golf Galaxy, “Even if you have a two-way miss, which often is the same kind of swing problem, one of those misses is far worse than the other one. So if we eliminated even one side of the golf course and help you eliminate that one miss, how much better are you going to be?”
For example, let’s look at some practical data: if you get a current driver that reduces your spin by 10 percent and increases your launch angle by a degree or two with a modest increase in ball speed on average for both on and off-centre hits, it could be easily close to a 10-metre improvement. And the argument could be that those are relatively minor improvements.
The bottom line with fitting is you and your fitter have to go into the experience with a game plan (distance, consistency, improved clubhead speed, reduced penalty strokes, etc.). Moreover, it is extremely rare that a driver that is 10 or more years old will still be competitive against a current driver, provided you look at all the metrics and most specifically overall consistency. The best driver for you isn’t about one hit because you’re going to need to find something that’s going to be consistently better on a dozen or more hits a round. And of course, if you really think your game or swing haven’t changed in 10 years, it’s at least worth finding out.
As we’ve maintained for years, the beauty of fitting today is that the results immediately available on the launch monitor make it clear how much your game might (or might not) improve. That doesn’t happen when you want to go buy a new TV, car or roof. So get with a good fitter, particularly one who is OK telling you there’s no reason to switch from the clubs you brought with you to the fitting.
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