- Staff
- #1
At the end of January I was lucky enough to receive a beautiful golf locker from TaylorMade Golf as part of a promotion for their new Tour Preferred iron line. Inside that locker was a 6 iron of each set style offered within that line, a TaylorMade hat, and a card that was good for an iron fitting at any TaylorMade Performance Lab. Well just like everyone else, life sometimes gets in the way so I was not able to cash in on that opportunity as quickly as I wanted to. That all changed on Saturday though as Nerfny and I took a trip out to Bolton, MA to get fit at TMPL.
Upon arriving at The International, where TMPL is located, I was greeted by Eric Pickering. Eric is a PGA Professional and is the manager and club fitter at this location. Talking with Eric throughout this experience you can just tell that he has a strong passion for golf and for getting people the right equipment for their games. We even joked about how last summer he fit a golfer for a 12 degree head, and while the guy was reaching numbers he had not achieved before, the guy was hesitant because of the dreaded 12 degrees of loft. As someone who has never really been through a fitting quite like this, I was set on keeping an open mind going in, and to not be the one who would quickly scoff at the idea of playing something that I have never played before. If meaning I would be best suited for a lighter flex, lighter weight shaft, so be it. I was going to let the numbers tell the story.
After almost a 3 hour drive, I took my time to warm up a bit. It was recommended that I bring my current set of irons with me, so that we could determine my baseline numbers. For this trip I brought my Ping s55 irons. I have had them in the bag since the middle of fall, and have been an iron that I was comfortable with. So after hitting a dozen or so balls with them I was ready to begin my fitting.
The first thing we did was to take out this blacked out 7 iron. It had little white sensors sticking out of the grip, shaft, and clubhead. Prior to taking a swing, there were these camera’s set up all around the room. Once the camera’s pick up the club, it produces a 3D image of the club path. While it doesn’t not pick up the body, it still provides plenty of visual evidence as to what the golf club is doing throughout the swing. For my swing it shows that when I get to the top, I have a slight over the top move. It also shows that even with that move I still approach the ball from the inside and make pretty consistent contact on the clubface. One tendency that it also showed is that my miss is catching the ball thin. That is consistent with what I typically see on the course. After a number of swings with this specialized club, the system recommends what club makeup I should be using. For me it recommended the Tour Preferred MC with a shaft that was half an inch short and bent 1 degree upright. I asked Eric why the MC, and he pointed out that this system really focuses on several factors, but when it looks at my contact points, it shows that they are pretty consistent so it perceives that I would not need the extra forgiveness of the CB. I certainly found all of that interesting. The bigger surprise to me was the 1 degree upright, as I have always been fitted for a flat lie, typically 1 to 2 degrees depending on the set.
Spoiler
At this point we have our baseline idea of what we should be looking for. So now comes the part that every club junkie loves, shaft testing. We started with the stock KBS Tour, a shaft I have used before. While I like a lot about this option, I was looking for something lighter. Eric had a KBS Tour half an inch short, which was perfect to validate the computers recommendation. After a few swings, we moved over to the Nippon Pro 950. This was a lighter weight shaft, that gave me some really solid numbers. The feel was pretty nice, and of all the ones we tested, it was one of my favorites. The importance of this shaft was that it didn’t come in the length we needed. But when we switched to the standard length we saw my accuracy and ballsriking improve. At this point we decided to go back to the standard length and stray away from half an inch short. Knowing now what we did we swapped out a bunch of shafts. Below is a quick rundown of what we tested.
KBS Tour 90 - similar numbers to the Nippon, but a few yards longer. Able to get a nice tight draw with these without much effort.
Dynamic Gold SL - these just spun much more than the other offerings. Not a good match for my swing.
Project X 95 - had that PX feel to me, no thanks. Numbers were middle of the pack compared to others we tested.
Matrix Program 130 - boy did these seem heavy. Really had to put in a lot of effort to make them work. I don’t know if it was the fact that they were near the end of all the swings, but if that’s what it’s going to feel like after 18, or during a round of 36, I think I’d rather not. Perhaps the 95 version would suit me better.
Steelfiber - We tried these in stiff. I would have though regular, but Eric said stiff would be the way to go with my swing. Whatever it was, they did not work as well as I had hoped. Everything was left, which is more a swing issue than the shaft itself, but it just did not give good enough results.
We narrowed it down to 2 choices, the KBS Tour 90 and the Nippon 950. I took more swings with both to see what would give me the best numbers. When it was all said and done, it was clear that the Tour 90 was giving me the most consistent flight and distance. KBS Tour 90 was the shaft for me. With this setup my avg 7 iron was just over 159yards.
The final thing was the lie angle. The computer system recommended 1 degree upright, something completely different to me. The way to double check was the old fashioned lie board. Eric placed some impact tape on the sole and on the face of the club. Few swings later we decided that the lie angle, with a standard length, did not need to be touch. All the marks were right in the middle of the sole.
So it was done. My clubs have been ordered and thanks to Eric and the TaylorMade Performance Lab at The International, I know they are properly fit for my swing. My clubs were ordered right from the TMPL and should arrive here in New York shortly. Big thanks to Taylormade Golf, THP, and of course Nerfny for being my photographer.
