Currently sitting in Dewey's Golf sports bar for lunch taking a break during my full bag fitting at the new Orlando Club Champion. Thought I'd start putting down some thoughts while fresh but will have more after I get home knight and am not on an iPhone to type.
First, the guys are fantastic. Very nice and very knowledgable. One of the guys is former assistant at Grand Cypress and used to work in their Taylormade performance lab. The guy doing my fitting is from Chicago and is a 0 handicap.
I don't have all my numbers on me right now, but we've done driver, putter, and 3 wood so far. Getting tired so giving the back a break and having lunch. Hit a half dozen shafts and heads and have settled into a Ping G25 with an Oban Devotion 65. Crushed it.
Three wood much harder to zero in on. Finally settled on the same shaft in a Tour Exotics head. Most consistent and forgiving head I tried. Liked the g25 head a lot and got a bit more distance out of it but not as consistent.
SAM putter fitting was very cool. Learned that my onset straight shaft FGP is not best for my stroke and that I don't "need" counter balance, but a midsize grip and half shaft offset with 45* toe hang. Sounds like a 35" Seemore m1w (or similar) may be in my future.
Doing hybrid and irons, wedges, ball after lunch.
Will have more detail and numbers when I get home tonight. After which I will likely collapse and sleep for many hours! They said the full bag fitting will feel like playing three rounds of golf in 4-5 hours. They weren't kidding.
Update:
Driver Fitting:
After hitting a baseline of shots with my current gamer (Srixon ZStar, Miyazaki Dromos 62 Stiff) Rob then had me hit a neutral shaft and head to get a baseline comparison and quickly started to hone in on a better shaft. I hit three or four and can't remember all of them but I know there was a RIP, a Fuji Fuel, and then we hit the Oban Devotion 6 03 (Regular) and it was the clear winner -took the left side out of play for me immediately and also brought down my flight to give me some roll, improved my club path, face angle, and attack angle. Great feel. We then bounced through a few different heads he thought might work - SLDR, 913, Big Bertha, G25, Exotics. There was really only one combination that just flat out performed the best - the Ping G25. Great feel and sound, very consistent.
Never been a Ping driver fan, but this one is much better than past versions for me and I can't wait to get it in the bag before Hilton Head. Went with the 9.5 head that he's going to tune down to 9.0 and neutral or slightly open, cut to around 44.5 or 44.75 in. I was fighting an occasional hook with my ZStar and so would also hold off and block a lot - my stats lately have been around 25% hook, 25% block, 50% in the fairway. This setup should allow me to not fear the hook and be able to swing without fear and eliminate a lot of the left and right and hopefully increase the fairway % as well as give me an extra ~15 yards of average distance.
I was a little surprised at how well I hit the regular flex in the Devotion. Always played stiff in my driver and woods in the past. SS was a little lower than normal due to my back, but only about 5 mph (I've been previously clocked around 97-103 on average). But with the change in kick points, etc the Regular Devotion fits my smooth tempo and does everything it needs to do. Whatever works.
Gamer vs G25:
Driver/Shaft - Ball Speed - Spin - Launch - Carry - Side - Smash - Total - Land Angle - Path - Face - Dyn Loft - Club Speed - Attach Angle
Gamer - 134.1 - 2782 - 17.5 - 218.7 - 28.2R - 1.44 - 238.2 - 40.3 - 5.5 - 3.9 - 19.5 - 93.2 - 1.8
G25 - 140.0 - 2404 - 14.9 - 227.2 - 6.7R - 1.47 - 253.4 - 34.9 - 2.1 - 1.2 - 16.6 - 95.0 - 2.1
3 Wood Fitting:
Had a little harder time with the three wood. I was getting tired after all the driver swings so we did the SAM putter fitting to give me a little break from swinging and then went back to the 3 wood. Even so I was a little inconsistent and my lower back was a little sore, so I wasn't making great contact with anything we tried, but there were some better than others. We tried a few different shaft options slightly heavier than the Devotion 6 but ultimately settled back into the same shaft as the driver trimmed for the 3 wood instead because I did so well with it. Tried many of the same heads - SLDR, 913, Ping, Exotics, and a couple of others but my best results came from the Ping G25 and Exotics XCG7. Given that I play so infrequently these days and only need the 3 wood a few times per round, we opted for forgiveness and went with the Exotics XCG7, which had a better dispersion and smash factor on my mishits than did the G25, though the G25 performed slightly better when well struck. I don't have the numbers for the XCG7 with the Dev 6 in it to compare, but the total distance increased from a 215 avg with my ZStar to 230 in the Exotics (and G25) with better angles and same spin. (Holding off on this one for a couple of months until I have paid for the driver and irons.)
Hyrbrid
As part of our discussion I decided to drop my 5 wood and replace it with a gap wedge, which will be especially needed now with my new irons being so much longer (more on that later). As a result, we also wanted to get my hybrid distance longer. I like my VRS head quite a bit, and Rob was happy with the head for me as well, but the shaft was not quite right for me, so we tried the usual suspects - SLDR, Adams, Titleist, Nike, Ping. Also tried a few different mid-launch, mid-spin shaft options before settling into a nice fit with the Accra Dymatch 2.0 MT regular. Winner in the head category was the Ping G25 again. Their whole line of woods and hybrids just suit me somehow (in the right shaft). In order to help fill the gap between 3 wood and 4 iron a little better Rob is going to bend the G25 down from a 20* to a 19*. The new combination doesn't give me a lot of extra distance (5-10 yards max), but the shot dispersion was much more consistent and that is more important in a hybrid anyway. (Holding off on this one for a couple of months until I have paid for the driver and irons.)
Irons
I was very much looking forward to the new iron offerings. After a nice lunch at Deweys watching a TV bigger than my living room wall surrounded by golf simulators, I went back and we started into irons. Baseline with my R9 TPs, KBS Tour R hard stepped once revealed an inconsisted shot dispersion and less than optimal smash factor on mis-hits. My normal carry is around 155 yards. We started with a neutral head and a number of shafts, including a graphite that was far too stiff a dead feeling, before we hit on the Aerotech Steelfiber i110. Same great feel as the KBS Tours but with better launch and shot dispersion for me. Then we went through haeds that include Apex, Apex Pro, TM Speedblade, TM CB, AP1, and Epon AF 503.
Oh my God. If money were no object I'd have bought the Epons on the spot. Performed as well as anything but the feel... oh, the feel. They look great, lots of tech, powerful and forgiving, and soft as butter. I could wax poetic about the Epons for hours, but at $300 per head, that isn't happening unless I win the Powerball. (Pay the mortgage for a couple of months or buy 8 irons, hmmmm...) We were joking about what price you could put on 15 extra yards with irons and evidently that price is $300 per head, haha.
I liked the Apex Pro a lot but lost too much on off-center hits. The regular Apex was ok but was just not quite it. Same with all the others. Then we tried the Cleveland 588 TT and the combination with the Steelfibers was just plain money. I actually got even better numbers than the Epons and almost (?) as good a feel. A bigger top line than I'm used to, and a little more offset than I've played in 10 years, but the results don't lie. I believe we're going to go 1 degree weak from their standard lofts, but even so they will be 3-4 degrees stronger lofted than my R9 TPs. That, combined with the better fitting shaft, gave me 15 yards of carry on the 6 iron. That's huge!
Club - Ball Speed - Spin - Launch - Carry - Side - Smash - Total - Land Angle - Path - Face - Dyn Loft - Club Speed - Attach Angle
R9 TP - 107.7 - 4756 - 19.1 - 152.9 - 24.8 - 1.4 - 165.0 - 42.3 - (4.5) - (1.8) - 23.5 - 78.5 - (1.8)
588 TT - 115.6 - 4310 - 18.8 - 170.2 - 8.4 - 1.4 - 182.8 - 43.7 - (1.3) - (0.6) - 22.5 - 82.8 - (2.2)
Avg carry up from 152.9 to 170.2
Ball speed up from 107.7 to 115.6
Lower launch, similar landing angle, higher clubhead speed
Also, the sole design on the TT's will allow me to go down after the ball like I prefer without as much fear of digging, especially in the lower irons.
Going with the Golfpride VDR grips in all, standard with 3 wraps. Standard length and lie in the irons and wedges.
We checked my wedges and they are fine, only change to maybe put the Steelfiber i125 shafts in those to match the irons, but that will be another I'll worry about in a couple of months.
As is, for the fitting ($175 at half off of the normal $350), plus the driver, shaft, iron heads, shafts, grips, shaft puring on all, build, and $15 to ship to my house, the total was $2,300. Not cheap, by any means, but worth it.
As for the putter fitting, the SAM recommended me for a blade style, half-shaft offset, with 45* toe hang. Using a Cameron of that design vs my FGP my results seemed much improved (for what the SAM measures). I over rotate a bit in the follow through and pull it inside a bit more than it likes in the follow through, but the take away and impact were pretty good all around. I will start hunting for a Seemore m1w at some point, 35", hopefully in black gunmetal. If not, Rob said they paint putters all the time and they turn out great (paint, bake it on, etc) so I always have that option - didn't ask how much that would cost.
For balls he said I could us almost anything depending on how I feel it reacts around the greens - ProV, Lethal, Chrome, B330RX, SR2. For now I think I'll stick with the SR2, but I'll know more after a few rounds with the new setup.
I should have the driver and irons in 10-14 days, just in time for one practice round, maybe a few hours at the range, before heading to Hilton Head for a little thing called an Invitational where I'll throw them into play a week later and probably have very little comfort with my distances yet, but I'd much rather be 15 yards longer an a little uncertain of yardages than certain and 15 yards shorter!
I can't wait to see how the extra yardage and eliminating the left side changes my game. Effectively we've shrunken every hole by 30 yards - 15 more from the driver and 15 more from the irons - so those long par 4s suddenly seem much more managable. Hopefully no more hitting driver-3 wood into long par 4s. No more feeling pressure to hit driver on medium par 4s all the time just to have less than a mid-iron into the greens. Maybe hit a few more par 5s in two. Who knows. The golf course is my oyster and it's all puppy dogs and rainbows. We'll see how it goes after the honeymoon is over.
First, the guys are fantastic. Very nice and very knowledgable. One of the guys is former assistant at Grand Cypress and used to work in their Taylormade performance lab. The guy doing my fitting is from Chicago and is a 0 handicap.
I don't have all my numbers on me right now, but we've done driver, putter, and 3 wood so far. Getting tired so giving the back a break and having lunch. Hit a half dozen shafts and heads and have settled into a Ping G25 with an Oban Devotion 65. Crushed it.
Three wood much harder to zero in on. Finally settled on the same shaft in a Tour Exotics head. Most consistent and forgiving head I tried. Liked the g25 head a lot and got a bit more distance out of it but not as consistent.
SAM putter fitting was very cool. Learned that my onset straight shaft FGP is not best for my stroke and that I don't "need" counter balance, but a midsize grip and half shaft offset with 45* toe hang. Sounds like a 35" Seemore m1w (or similar) may be in my future.
Doing hybrid and irons, wedges, ball after lunch.
Will have more detail and numbers when I get home tonight. After which I will likely collapse and sleep for many hours! They said the full bag fitting will feel like playing three rounds of golf in 4-5 hours. They weren't kidding.
Update:
Driver Fitting:
After hitting a baseline of shots with my current gamer (Srixon ZStar, Miyazaki Dromos 62 Stiff) Rob then had me hit a neutral shaft and head to get a baseline comparison and quickly started to hone in on a better shaft. I hit three or four and can't remember all of them but I know there was a RIP, a Fuji Fuel, and then we hit the Oban Devotion 6 03 (Regular) and it was the clear winner -took the left side out of play for me immediately and also brought down my flight to give me some roll, improved my club path, face angle, and attack angle. Great feel. We then bounced through a few different heads he thought might work - SLDR, 913, Big Bertha, G25, Exotics. There was really only one combination that just flat out performed the best - the Ping G25. Great feel and sound, very consistent.
Never been a Ping driver fan, but this one is much better than past versions for me and I can't wait to get it in the bag before Hilton Head. Went with the 9.5 head that he's going to tune down to 9.0 and neutral or slightly open, cut to around 44.5 or 44.75 in. I was fighting an occasional hook with my ZStar and so would also hold off and block a lot - my stats lately have been around 25% hook, 25% block, 50% in the fairway. This setup should allow me to not fear the hook and be able to swing without fear and eliminate a lot of the left and right and hopefully increase the fairway % as well as give me an extra ~15 yards of average distance.
I was a little surprised at how well I hit the regular flex in the Devotion. Always played stiff in my driver and woods in the past. SS was a little lower than normal due to my back, but only about 5 mph (I've been previously clocked around 97-103 on average). But with the change in kick points, etc the Regular Devotion fits my smooth tempo and does everything it needs to do. Whatever works.
Gamer vs G25:
Driver/Shaft - Ball Speed - Spin - Launch - Carry - Side - Smash - Total - Land Angle - Path - Face - Dyn Loft - Club Speed - Attach Angle
Gamer - 134.1 - 2782 - 17.5 - 218.7 - 28.2R - 1.44 - 238.2 - 40.3 - 5.5 - 3.9 - 19.5 - 93.2 - 1.8
G25 - 140.0 - 2404 - 14.9 - 227.2 - 6.7R - 1.47 - 253.4 - 34.9 - 2.1 - 1.2 - 16.6 - 95.0 - 2.1
3 Wood Fitting:
Had a little harder time with the three wood. I was getting tired after all the driver swings so we did the SAM putter fitting to give me a little break from swinging and then went back to the 3 wood. Even so I was a little inconsistent and my lower back was a little sore, so I wasn't making great contact with anything we tried, but there were some better than others. We tried a few different shaft options slightly heavier than the Devotion 6 but ultimately settled back into the same shaft as the driver trimmed for the 3 wood instead because I did so well with it. Tried many of the same heads - SLDR, 913, Ping, Exotics, and a couple of others but my best results came from the Ping G25 and Exotics XCG7. Given that I play so infrequently these days and only need the 3 wood a few times per round, we opted for forgiveness and went with the Exotics XCG7, which had a better dispersion and smash factor on my mishits than did the G25, though the G25 performed slightly better when well struck. I don't have the numbers for the XCG7 with the Dev 6 in it to compare, but the total distance increased from a 215 avg with my ZStar to 230 in the Exotics (and G25) with better angles and same spin. (Holding off on this one for a couple of months until I have paid for the driver and irons.)
Hyrbrid
As part of our discussion I decided to drop my 5 wood and replace it with a gap wedge, which will be especially needed now with my new irons being so much longer (more on that later). As a result, we also wanted to get my hybrid distance longer. I like my VRS head quite a bit, and Rob was happy with the head for me as well, but the shaft was not quite right for me, so we tried the usual suspects - SLDR, Adams, Titleist, Nike, Ping. Also tried a few different mid-launch, mid-spin shaft options before settling into a nice fit with the Accra Dymatch 2.0 MT regular. Winner in the head category was the Ping G25 again. Their whole line of woods and hybrids just suit me somehow (in the right shaft). In order to help fill the gap between 3 wood and 4 iron a little better Rob is going to bend the G25 down from a 20* to a 19*. The new combination doesn't give me a lot of extra distance (5-10 yards max), but the shot dispersion was much more consistent and that is more important in a hybrid anyway. (Holding off on this one for a couple of months until I have paid for the driver and irons.)
Irons
I was very much looking forward to the new iron offerings. After a nice lunch at Deweys watching a TV bigger than my living room wall surrounded by golf simulators, I went back and we started into irons. Baseline with my R9 TPs, KBS Tour R hard stepped once revealed an inconsisted shot dispersion and less than optimal smash factor on mis-hits. My normal carry is around 155 yards. We started with a neutral head and a number of shafts, including a graphite that was far too stiff a dead feeling, before we hit on the Aerotech Steelfiber i110. Same great feel as the KBS Tours but with better launch and shot dispersion for me. Then we went through haeds that include Apex, Apex Pro, TM Speedblade, TM CB, AP1, and Epon AF 503.
Oh my God. If money were no object I'd have bought the Epons on the spot. Performed as well as anything but the feel... oh, the feel. They look great, lots of tech, powerful and forgiving, and soft as butter. I could wax poetic about the Epons for hours, but at $300 per head, that isn't happening unless I win the Powerball. (Pay the mortgage for a couple of months or buy 8 irons, hmmmm...) We were joking about what price you could put on 15 extra yards with irons and evidently that price is $300 per head, haha.
I liked the Apex Pro a lot but lost too much on off-center hits. The regular Apex was ok but was just not quite it. Same with all the others. Then we tried the Cleveland 588 TT and the combination with the Steelfibers was just plain money. I actually got even better numbers than the Epons and almost (?) as good a feel. A bigger top line than I'm used to, and a little more offset than I've played in 10 years, but the results don't lie. I believe we're going to go 1 degree weak from their standard lofts, but even so they will be 3-4 degrees stronger lofted than my R9 TPs. That, combined with the better fitting shaft, gave me 15 yards of carry on the 6 iron. That's huge!
Club - Ball Speed - Spin - Launch - Carry - Side - Smash - Total - Land Angle - Path - Face - Dyn Loft - Club Speed - Attach Angle
R9 TP - 107.7 - 4756 - 19.1 - 152.9 - 24.8 - 1.4 - 165.0 - 42.3 - (4.5) - (1.8) - 23.5 - 78.5 - (1.8)
588 TT - 115.6 - 4310 - 18.8 - 170.2 - 8.4 - 1.4 - 182.8 - 43.7 - (1.3) - (0.6) - 22.5 - 82.8 - (2.2)
Avg carry up from 152.9 to 170.2
Ball speed up from 107.7 to 115.6
Lower launch, similar landing angle, higher clubhead speed
Also, the sole design on the TT's will allow me to go down after the ball like I prefer without as much fear of digging, especially in the lower irons.
Going with the Golfpride VDR grips in all, standard with 3 wraps. Standard length and lie in the irons and wedges.
We checked my wedges and they are fine, only change to maybe put the Steelfiber i125 shafts in those to match the irons, but that will be another I'll worry about in a couple of months.
As is, for the fitting ($175 at half off of the normal $350), plus the driver, shaft, iron heads, shafts, grips, shaft puring on all, build, and $15 to ship to my house, the total was $2,300. Not cheap, by any means, but worth it.
As for the putter fitting, the SAM recommended me for a blade style, half-shaft offset, with 45* toe hang. Using a Cameron of that design vs my FGP my results seemed much improved (for what the SAM measures). I over rotate a bit in the follow through and pull it inside a bit more than it likes in the follow through, but the take away and impact were pretty good all around. I will start hunting for a Seemore m1w at some point, 35", hopefully in black gunmetal. If not, Rob said they paint putters all the time and they turn out great (paint, bake it on, etc) so I always have that option - didn't ask how much that would cost.
For balls he said I could us almost anything depending on how I feel it reacts around the greens - ProV, Lethal, Chrome, B330RX, SR2. For now I think I'll stick with the SR2, but I'll know more after a few rounds with the new setup.
I should have the driver and irons in 10-14 days, just in time for one practice round, maybe a few hours at the range, before heading to Hilton Head for a little thing called an Invitational where I'll throw them into play a week later and probably have very little comfort with my distances yet, but I'd much rather be 15 yards longer an a little uncertain of yardages than certain and 15 yards shorter!
I can't wait to see how the extra yardage and eliminating the left side changes my game. Effectively we've shrunken every hole by 30 yards - 15 more from the driver and 15 more from the irons - so those long par 4s suddenly seem much more managable. Hopefully no more hitting driver-3 wood into long par 4s. No more feeling pressure to hit driver on medium par 4s all the time just to have less than a mid-iron into the greens. Maybe hit a few more par 5s in two. Who knows. The golf course is my oyster and it's all puppy dogs and rainbows. We'll see how it goes after the honeymoon is over.
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