This is John with swingFit. So are you a little tired of watching one video after the next review after the next to only walk away with the same realization that everything is freaking awesome? I mean, heck, do you recall a time when you watched a bad review? I mean, if everything was super awesome, and it can help you hit the ball straighter farther, drop your score, lower your handicap, then I can guarantee you this one thing. Club fitting today would not exist.
You could just buy something off the shelf, go directly through the manufacturer and order it from their website, but it’s not that easy. And in today’s video, I’m going to share the five best truths about club fitting that everybody should know and how it could be a difference maker. Let’s jump in to help you protect the investment you’re considering making without further delay.
Let’s roll up our sleeves to talk about those five club-fitting truths that everybody should know about, and this first one should be made a high priority.
Truth #1
The Golf Shaft Matters
The golf shaft really does matter. I might even go as far to say. What if it was just as simple as picking a golf shaft based off of its flex and weight, I mean, our job would be 100 times easier, and we would be able to get people in and out the door. So that way, we can do more fits. But it’s never that easy because there are so many other ingredients or variables that a club-fitter is going to analyze, such as the overall bend profile, right? So how stiff are that shaft and the handle versus the midsection versus the tip section? How stable is that golf? Half based on how fast you swing it; how you swing it fast will determine you know what.
Where do we need that stiffness? Located right? I mean these are just all things that we’re going to take into consideration when we are mixing these things up. And please never lose sight of this. Is that sometimes a club-fitter may go heavier weight and step you down and flex, and heck, you might even go. You know a little lighter and wait and step you up and flex just to find the right balance. And these are all tricks that are trade. Of what a club-fitter can do in order to help you determine what shaft is best for you and the two most effective ways to determine if a golf shaft is a good fit is simply to assess the quality of their strike point as well as to evaluate when the club is releasing.
Best Ways To Assess the Golf Shaft
Because if we know by nature the golf shaft’s role is to load and unload, we must get it to unload and release when we need it the most, and that’s through the strike zone so if the shaft is releasing. Too late, too early, or worse yet, not at all. We know that is an indicator of the shaft not working well with the current technique. Regarding assessing the quality of the strike, all you need is a can of doctor Scholl’s foot spray.
Spray your face, hit a series of shots, and see what your stamp pattern looks like. If it looks anything like this, then that’s a red flag that there’s something going on, and that shaft has a mind of its own, and it’s almost going to be next to impossible to get any type of consistency. As long as we remember, we’re trying to tighten up that dispersion to improve that stamp pattern and get that Golf Club to load and unload where it matters the most the golf shaft can help, and your club fitter is your best source of truth.
Truth #2
Ideal Launch and Spin
To help you determine that truth point, please make sure you take the time to understand your ideal launch and spin windows, so please hear me out. There’s no such thing as a size-fit solution. So if you happen to be chasing 13 degrees of launch, with twenty-five hundred RPM spin with your driver, you just might be doing yourself a disservice because there are certain situations where I might want to move the spin a little higher than twenty-five hundred versus that of a little lower than twenty-five hundred.
And usually, this will be predicated on how fast the customer swings the Golf Club and their delivery conditions. So are you hitting down on the ball versus hitting up on the ball? And these two factors alone would likely lead me down a path of choosing. One head over another, so do I go lower? Loft Higher loft 9 degrees turned up 10 degrees turned down. Do I go with a different type of CG characteristics? Do I even use the golf shaft to influence the final dynamic law position? I mean, these are all tricks of the trade of how a club-fitter can potentially move you in One Direction or the other, and the only way to know for sure is through the use of a launch monitor.
So by seeking out the guidance of a club fitter to analyze your numbers as we make these small. Changes could potentially be the difference maker. To find out which direction we need to go.
Truth #3
Maximum Energy Transfer
Truth Point number three is how are we able to improve your maximum energy transfer? And there’s no secret that if we’re ever going to help our customers hit the ball. As far as we possibly can, we need more ball speed. It’s just that simple and some of the things we’ve already talked about can play a vital role with improving that energy output, such as the golf shaft and helping you find center face.
Where Max ball speed lives. Maybe going with a little lower loft to prevent that glancing blow to get a little bit more of a piercing penetrating ball flight and playing around with the CG characteristics. Just us the line that sweet spot up directly behind the sweet spot of the golf ball. Once again these are all different ways a club fitter can actually help improve your energy transfer and depending on the system you are using, if you’re using a camera-based system, 1-4-5 to 1-4-6 is. Ideal, and if you’re using a radar-based system 150 – 151 one would be the ideal Smash factor rating that you’re searching for, but there is one other way to improve your speed output and it doesn’t have anything to do with the gear.
How Dynamic Loft Impacts BallSpeed
What I’m talking about are three key delivery characteristics that can also impact how much speed you’re able to produce with none more important than that of dynamic loft, and for obvious reasons we’re already know that if we add loft to a driver. We can increase spin, but having too much dynamic loft at the moment of impact would only do you more harm and actually reduce how much energy you are able to produce. So being able to keep that in the ideal range would be advantageous. But do you know what the ideal range is and not? Here’s a quick general rule of thumb to follow and simply are you going to do is take the static law off of your existing Golf Club and then add 6 to 7 to it.
How Swing Path and Face To Path Impacts BallSpeed
So if you have a 10-degree lofted driver. Your ideal dynamic loft window would be 16 to 17, which doesn’t necessarily mean that 15 or 18 wouldn’t work. It just means that we’re starting to get outside of that optimum range, and once you get to 19 and 20 you are definitely going to see a huge impact in speed production. The last two delivery characteristics, and arguably probably the most important, because these are the areas that we see that impact more of our customers than anything else, would be that of swing direction the customers. The path and the face, the path relationship, and what we have found that works the best for our customers is trying to get their club path in a range of three to four degrees.
So if you’re trying to pull that nice little right to left draw, then you want to be swinging about 3 to 4 degrees and out. And if you’re trying to pull off the fade, then you want 3 to 4 degrees out to the end path. In regards to the face-to-path relationship, simply cut it in half if your path is 4 degrees. In the out, I want my face-to-path relationship to be half of that, so 2 degrees closed, and it’s just that simple. And if you follow this simple formula and if you have access to the launch monitor to really dial that in, you would definitely be doing yourself a big favor.
What happens if, say, your club path is 8 degrees and out? Does that mean you’ll never have a fighting chance to hit a good shot? If you still follow the simple formula, you cut the path. In half and get the face closed 4 degrees, you’re still gonna hit a pretty decent shot. It’s just going to have a little bit more curvature, and it will impede the distance because it’s just not going to have enough energy transfer.
So guys, if you follow this, I promise you will see some impressive results.
Truth#4
Gear is Not a Silver Bullet
Truth Point number four is the gear by itself will never be the silver bullet, and I’m never afraid to share this with our customers, especially when they go through the fitting process. I’d instead manage their expectations up front to let them know that the gear will only account for one side of the coin, the other half will come down to technique, and as we already discussed, we already know that technique does play a vital role when not only helping you optimize your launch and spin conditions, but it can also help you hit the ball a little bit farther by being able to get the club and the right slot to produce a little extra energy transfer.
It’s just that important. And heck, I might even go as far as to say that there won’t be a single fitting I will not do where technique doesn’t enter into the equation. But there is one big difference between the advice we’ve shared in the fitting base and what you might receive from a swing coach. So think of any advice from a club fitter to be more like salt and pepper on a steak. It’s meant to enhance the flavor of the steak, not necessarily to change the dynamics of the steak, and that is a big difference.
So I’m talking about. Like some small refinements or adjustments to your technique like a minor grip change, a T height adjustment, or a ball position change that gets you to hit down on the ball or hit up on the ball. Or heck, maybe even playing in the right seed to help you stay in a box to prevent you from swaying off the ball in the backswing or getting the chest too far forward in the downswing. So, guys, these are all common mistakes that we see many of our customers make, and we’re not afraid to offer this advice.
But please understand that not all club fitters are created equal to your club. They might not feel comfortable offering this advice, or they may have a 0 technique policy and only focus on the gear alone, and there’s nothing wrong with that as long as you know that in advance. So definitely check with your fitter to see if this is a service that they are willing to provide, because if so, from our personal experience, we found this to work in our customer’s favor because not only can we address the gear side of the coin, but we can also just offer those minor adjustments to make the technique just a little bit better.
Truth #5
Clubfitting is Expensive
Better last, but certainly not least, is truth point five; custom club fitting is expensive now. Don’t get me wrong, for many years; I would have debated this topic or spent a lot of time trying to explain why we were more expensive. But as of recently, I’m no longer afraid to have this conversation and tell our customers up front that we are more expensive. It’s just that simple. And the reason why we are more expensive than that of what you can get online or through the direct retailers.
When you leave the studio with the products we built, you can take it to the bank that those are going to be the exact specs we identified during the fitting session. I mean, that’s the whole level of getting custom fit is to make sure that what you leave with was what you got fit for, which is considered a premium level service. I’m no longer feeling guilty about charging that premium because I know I’m protecting my customer’s investment, although it may be.
A little bit more expensive, so if you’re looking for your best deal or your best bargain on your next set of golf clubs, go into the custom Club fitting path. It might not be the best route for you, and you can shop around and find something a little cheaper online, but please understand that what you end up with just might be a little different than what we identified during the fitting session. So those are our five best truths about club fitting, and at least now, we hope you have a better understanding.
Reading can help you play a little better golf, so should you have any questions or comments, do me a favor. Leave them in remarks below, and I’ll do my best to help you find the answers you’re searching for. So until next time, don’t forget to look at one of these videos over here because there might just be a couple of golden Nuggets that can help you take your game to another level.
