dcbrad's Callaway Performance Centre Fitting - Markham, Ontario

dcbrad

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When I found out that I would be sponsored by Callaway Golf in the 2014 Morgan Cup, I knew that I wanted to be able to make a trip to a performance center to be fitted for their equipment in 2014. DevRickus tried to get me to come to New Jersey, but obviously, that was not going to happen, for many reasons that you can all probably understand. :alien:

So I embarked on a wonderous journey to Ontario, CA. My good friend tyno accompanying me on a day filled with laughter, driving, congested traffic, Callaway awesome, and more traffic.

We got to the Performance Center about 30 minutes before my fitting started and met with Mike Lefevre, the fitter at the Toronto Center. He was a really cool guy, and started the fitting early and he was asking me a few questions about the event and THP and basically said "Hey, that's effing awesome." A few pictures of this awesome facility:

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To start the fitting, I warmed up with my DPC 6i for a few swings. He asked about lie angle and length and I told him they were 1° flat and standard length. He measured my hand to floor length and it came up as standard length. Then we got down to business.

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We determined after a few swings that the X2hot irons were launching way to high for me, and he wasn't comfortable with where the launch numbers were, even with trying to bring down the launch with different shafts, he was not comfortable with where those numbers were to maximize distance. So we moved onto the Apex irons. He started by putting in the exact same shaft that I had in my DPCs, PXi 6.0. I felt like I struck the ball well, but was fading it just slightly. He decided to check the lie on my swing and realized that instead of being 1° flat, I needed to be actually 2° upright (Thanks previous fitter). After the lie adjustment, it was like night and day, the fade had disappeared significantly and the results were a much crisper contact.

So, the first shaft, PXi 6.0, was determined to launch a bit too high and have a bit too much spin. He decided to go into the KBS family. We started with the Tour V in stiff and it had significantly better numbers, but my consistency wasn't as good as he thought, so we moved onto the C-Tapers and right from there, he knew that these were perfect. The consistency and dispersion I was getting was unrivaled by any other shaft. He threw the Tours in just to be sure, but it still wasn't going to make a difference. C-taper it was. The irons are going to be built out as follows:

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:callaway: Apex 4-AW, 2° upright, :kbs: C Taper Stiff, Standard Length/Loft.

Next was Driver. One of the things right off the bat he wanted to focus on was trying to reduce spin, and he felt the Alpha was going to be the best driver for me. He wanted to make sure that I obviously hit it well, because it is less forgiving than the regular Bertha. We started with the stock Fubuki in the Alpha head, stock setup with the Gravity Core down. The numbers were ok, I just never really felt comfortable with that shaft and he noticed it as well. We moved on to the hand crafted Project X LZ 6.5. These shafts are effing gorgeous and I wanted to like this thing so bad, but it just wasn't working out as well either. He then put the Kuro Kage 60 in the Alpha and I immediately noticed a huge difference in ball height, and it was the farthest my ball was traveling all day, right around 260 carry. He wanted to give me one more shaft to try, the Oban Devotion, and it was a pretty solid offering too. To be honest, I could have gone with either the Devotion or the Kuro, he left it up to me due to the shafts performing almost identically. I ended up going with the Kuro Kage 60, just felt better about that shaft and it felt a bit "softer" during my swing, if that makes sense. So driver order is as follows:

:callaway: Big Bertha Alpha 9° (set to 10°), Draw Bias, Gravity Core Down, 7g wt in heel, 1g wt in toe, Kuro Kage 60 Stiff cut to play 44.5"

Fairway Woods I thought for sure were gonna be Big Bertha. I talked about wanting to play a weaker 3W, kind of like a 4W (17°) and he suggested going with the Bertha 3W set at 17°, he thought that would help because the face would be closed at address and he felt that it would perform well off the deck for my swing as well. I hit it pretty well, not great but solid and he was pretty statisfied with it. He handed me an X2hot 4W with a stock shaft just to do our due diligence on it. Turns out the X2hot FW is a game changer for this guy. I was smoking balls with it, about 210 carry on the monitor. I hit 5 to 6 straight ones like that in a row and he said "Well, I guess that settles that, can't argue with those results."

:callaway: X2Hot 4W (17°), Standard Length, Stock Stiff Shaft.

Hybos were another surpise, I thought for sure that the regular X2hots were gonna be great for me but all I was doing was hitting hooks with them. He had me try an X2hot pro with the tour green and I saw much more consistent results. He said the regular X2hot stock shafts are designed to square the face up much easier than the tour green shaft did, he said that is why I wasn't able to hit the dang thing straight. Basically then it came down to head preference, and I liked the smaller head of the pro better so I went with that.

:callaway: X2hot Pro 18°, Standard Length, Tour Green Stiff

Wedges were pretty simple, we talked a bit about what I wanted to do with them, and settled on 2 wedges in chrome.

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:callaway: MD2 Chrome 54° (S-Grind) and 58° (C-Grind)


Putter, we decided to go with the TANK CRUISER. Never even gave this putter a chance and I am sorry I didn't, I was rolling it really well. It came down to the V line and 330M, we settled on the 330 because he said I was doing a much better job of aligning it. He wants me to put the heaiver weights in the head when I get it because that will help smooth out the putter swing with a bit more weight.

:odyssey: Tank Cruiser 330M, Standard loft/lie, 38"

Ball we decided that with my swing speed, the SR2 would be perfect and it is the ball I did my fitting on.

:callaway: SR2

So all in all my MC bag will look like this:

:callaway: Big Bertha Alpha 9° (set to 10°), Draw Bias, Gravity Core Down, 7g wt in heel, 1g wt in toe, Kuro Kage 60 Stiff cut to play 44.5"
:callaway: X2Hot 4W (17°), Standard Length, Stock Stiff Shaft.
:callaway: X2hot Pro 18°, Standard Length, Tour Green Stiff
:callaway: Apex 4-AW, 2° upright, :kbs: C Taper Stiff, Standard Length/Loft.
:callaway: MD2 Chrome 54° (S-Grind) and 58° (C-Grind).
KBS.jpg
C Taper Stiff

:odyssey: Tank Cruiser 330M, Standard loft/lie, 38"
:callaway: SR2

Big thanks to tyno for helping me at the fitting and for sitting in traffic with me for 2:30 hours in rush hou ron the way home. (thanks, Canada.) I had a blast and am so glad I went to a performance center to get fitted.
 
Solid read Mr. Bradley. My compliments to Tyno for the pictures. C-tapers huh? You are a beast. Do you think the change in lie angle is due in part to your swing changes you have gone through? Also interested in the thought process on going with 1 FW and 1 Hybrid, that are just a degree apart.
 
Very cool read Brad. And its awesome that you went in with some ideas and was able to put those aside and let the numbers speak for themselves. A great bag setup you have!!
 
Looks like one amazing place/experience. Well done Brad!
 
Solid read Mr. Bradley. My compliments to Tyno for the pictures. C-tapers huh? You are a beast. Do you think the change in lie angle is due in part to your swing changes you have gone through? Also interested in the thought process on going with 1 FW and 1 Hybrid, that are just a degree apart.

I think it has partly to do with the swing changes Dean and partly due to possibly my previous fitter incorrectly diagnosing it. Either way, I am happy with the results I am seeing.

The gapping may look goofy from a degree standpoint, but distance wise, it was pretty nice, Apex 6i was carrying 167, X2hot 18° was 197 carry, X2hot 4W was 210, Bertha was carrying 255-260. From a distance standpoint, it works out nicely. Will I use the 4i very much? Probably not, but it is there for more of gapping now and adding an extra hybo probably isn't going to be that beneficial. My tour rep and I talked about that very thing and he agreed.

I like the idea of the 4W because of the smaller profile, I hit all of those balls off the mat, and it so really easy to launch, I was so surprised, wanted to fall in love with the Bertha, but the results with the X2hot were too much to ignore.
 
Very cool read Brad. And its awesome that you went in with some ideas and was able to put those aside and let the numbers speak for themselves. A great bag setup you have!!

Yep, It would be stupid not to, especially with the results I was seeing. Like everyone says, you just need to get out of your own way sometimes. I am really excited about this setup and can't wait to get it out on the course.
 
I think it has partly to do with the swing changes Dean and partly due to possibly my previous fitter incorrectly diagnosing it. Either way, I am happy with the results I am seeing.

The gapping may look goofy from a degree standpoint, but distance wise, it was pretty nice, Apex 6i was carrying 167, X2hot 18° was 197 carry, X2hot 4W was 210, Bertha was carrying 255-260. From a distance standpoint, it works out nicely. Will I use the 4i very much? Probably not, but it is there for more of gapping now and adding an extra hybo probably isn't going to be that beneficial. My tour rep and I talked about that very thing and he agreed.

I like the idea of the 4W because of the smaller profile, I hit all of those balls off the mat, and it so really easy to launch, I was so surprised, wanted to fall in love with the Bertha, but the results with the X2hot were too much to ignore.

nice buddy. I love your setup. I'm a 4 wood fan, I think they are generally just easier to hit.
 
Also, I am bummed I didn't see the actual numbers printed out with everything, I think that would have been cool to see and I had trouble remembering all of them, so if something doesn't make sense, it's probably my jumbled mind mixing something up. Apologize for that.
 
Oh and one more thing, that visor rocks
 
nice buddy. I love your setup. I'm a 4 wood fan, I think they are generally just easier to hit.

As you probably saw this week, I think we are trending that way in this game. Just makes sense.
 
Cool read man, thanks for sharing! Would love to do something like this one day.
 
Oh and one more thing, that visor rocks

tyno said I looked like Stuart Appleby. I'm not buying it. Maybe my swing, but not my looks :alien:
 
Very cool to read. Thanks for sharing Brad.

Also cool to hear some validation on what I saw out of the Tank Cruiser line.
 
Nice write up and setup!

Typos courtesy of Tapatalk, enjoy!
 
Nice Bradley. Love the setup. And I am offended by your comments in the first post.
 
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That's great stuff Brad. I need to locate one of those in my area. Thanks for sharing the experience.
 
Great read. I REALLY want to get fit one day. Awesome stuff.
 
Fantastic write up and fitting. Love the surprises and the fairway wood finding by going the extra mile is awesome. Your MC bag is going to be awesome Brad.
 
Very cool Brad! Good on Tyler for hooking a bro up too. Pretty excited to see this bag in person! Great write up buddy.
 
Looks like that's gonna be a solid bag for you PABrad.
 
Pretty awesome partner! Looks like you got a quality fitting done!
 
Great work on the write-up B-Rad!
 
Great stuff, Brad! The more CPC fittings I hear about, the higher the bar gets!
 
That was a great read Brad. Sounds like you had a great experience. Funny what happens when we get out of our own way.
 
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