Full bag fitting — setting realistic expectations

The only advice I would give for fitting is don't be afraid to ask for the lofts of the clubs you are trying. I've heard a few horror stories of people "gaining distance" based on steeper lofts which haven't been mentioned and thought they were better :(
 
Negative, I was not. This was just raw clubs shipped from the manufacturer and checking loft/lie (both shops are doing these). The invoice was exactly the same at the end of the day. They over-charged drastically for heads and shafts at CC in my experience and they explicitly said the price was the price.

They weight sort heads and shafts to ensure the final build is to spec. You also get a playability guarantee.
 
They weight sort heads and shafts to ensure the final build is to spec. You also get a playability guarantee.

My specs were off and erratic on my CC order, and I live 2 hours away so not a trivial thing to swing by, then blamed me for it. 🤷‍♂️
 
They weight sort heads and shafts to ensure the final build is to spec. You also get a playability guarantee.

Once again, not worth $700 extra. There is a lot of baked in stuff you are paying for as if it's a palpable product or service.

To each their own, but I am heavily against CC.
 
My specs were off and erratic on my CC order, and I live 2 hours away so not a trivial thing to swing by, then blamed me for it. 🤷‍♂️

Then that’s bad business practices on their end. I have always said it’s in the golfers best interest to go to a place that relies on you having a good experience. CC doesn’t need you to have a good experience, they’ll continue to have steady business. They have deep enough pockets.
 
Once again, not worth $700 extra. There is a lot of baked in stuff you are paying for as if it's a palpable product or service.

To each their own, but I am heavily against CC.

I can assure you I’m not begging for their success. I do, however, understand parts of their pricing. I don’t agree with how much they charge, but I understand a percentage of it.

It’s obviously not valuable to you as far as what they do. That’s perfectly fine. I am not saying you need to bend to them, but was saying they aren’t just ordering clubs from OEM and upcharging you for nothing.
 
I can assure you I’m not begging for their success. I do, however, understand parts of their pricing. I don’t agree with how much they charge, but I understand a percentage of it.

It’s obviously not valuable to you as far as what they do. That’s perfectly fine. I am not saying you need to bend to them, but was saying they aren’t just ordering clubs from OEM and upcharging you for nothing.

I should have clarified, I do understand they put them together. However, I don't think this holds a lot of weight for a lot of people when a solid shop can show you that they have the proper length, loft and lie.

I understand the perspective but it's not worth nearly 50% extra cost. The value proposition is poor at best in my opinion.
 
Excited to see what you come out of there with! Or at least what they recommend if you're not buying from them.
 
Are you working with Highland Ranch CC? I had good luck with them, though they didn't seem able to recognize me when I went back in to pick up my club order.
 
Others have made some good points already so I'll add that you should be very upfront with your budget. Don't say that you just want to get the best numbers if you aren't potentially good with a 400+ driver shaft or pricey iron shafts/heads.

I know you mentioned the ball, but that wasn't part of my fitting nor would I expect you to have time to add that variable into the mix. If you have a gamer ball then bring a sleeve or call ahead to see what they have on hand. If you do buy from them I'm sure you could go back and do a ball fitting with the new equipment.
 
If the fitter sees you starting to get fatigued, he/she should pull you off and let you rest and reset for a bit.
this - a good, experienced fitter should be able to manage the time with you and any limitations - a bad experience travels a long way on social media .....
 
Are you working with Highland Ranch CC? I had good luck with them, though they didn't seem able to recognize me when I went back in to pick up my club order.

Westminister. I am staying in Boulder and chose that one for proximity. It will be interesting. Going through the feedback has me a little nervous about spending the money, but I am going to stick with my plan. I frequent 3 small local shops with either GCQuad or Trackman and have hit a lot of clubs and shafts over the past year, including every new release I could try in recent months. The main limitation is that shaft selections are limited and many shafts I like are only with one OEM fitting kit. But I will have some good ideas on where to start and what I like.
 
Westminister. I am staying in Boulder and chose that one for proximity. It will be interesting. Going through the feedback has me a little nervous about spending the money, but I am going to stick with my plan. I frequent 3 small local shops with either GCQuad or Trackman and have hit a lot of clubs and shafts over the past year, including every new release I could try in recent months. The main limitation is that shaft selections are limited and many shafts I like are only with one OEM fitting kit. But I will have some good ideas on where to start and what I like.

Depending on how you feel from the CC fitting you can just get the widest range of experience with shafts at CC unless you go somewhere like TXG. And then you can just order through someone else if the price is shocking. The fitting experience comes down to the specific fitter on that day.
 
I'm a bit of a dissenting voice with my personal fitting experiences, but



That wasn't much of what my fitting was focused on. It's less of a demo day try a bunch of combos and more focused on taking one or two swings and trying to move forwards.
There was no talk of gapping besides, "the PW is 46*, so you should get a 50* gap wedge."
Still not sure what an indoor wedge fitting is supposed to accomplish.
And the putter fitting was the single biggest waste of money I've spent on golf ever.

I do think a lot of it is fitter dependent. Also, managing expectations like you are doing is key. I went in prior to joining THP and pretty ignorant about clubs and club fitting and I'm pretty sure I got treated that way.

hope that helps. 🤷‍♂️

I agree that a fitting isn't a demo day. It is a process guided by hopefully an expert to get you into a well fit iron head/club shaft combination. That said if there is a particular club you are interested in trying you should let the fitter know.

Gapping should definitely be discussed. That said it is hard to gap the full set until you have the clubs because most fitters only have 6 irons then woods. When I got fit my fitter recommended waiting on the fairways, hybrids and wedges then I went back and hit my new clubs to get distances all through the bag and we discussed options at both ends. He didn't charge me extra for that and also let me come back and hit shots using the trackman a number of times. My fitter has also said to bring my clubs back for him to check the loft and lies. I bought my clubs through him and paid extra for the build. I paid just under $2K for a set of Apex 19s which is a premium but that included the fitting fees. I have had the lies tweaked on my irons and they completely reshafted them when my results on the course were different than in the fitting. It was a premium but for the right fitter I feel it is worth it.

I have never had a putter fitting but I would be interested in it if I heard it was a good fitter. I am not certain I would wind up with a huge change but I would be interested in it.
 
Fitting is tomorrow. I have a voicemail from CC to pre-talk about the fitting and will follow up today. Because I am traveling with limited space, I only brought my driver, 7i, and putter. As I noted, putter will be the most interesting part for me. I brought my 35" Bettinardi SS9 instead of the armlock but will bring up my thinking on playing the armlock.

In terms of clubs, I am trying to remain objective and open but honestly have a working setup in my head. We'll see how that goes. Here's what is bouncing around in my internet golfer noggin:

driver: Titleist Tsi3
fairway: sim2
rescue: sim2
zx5: 4-5 (bent weak)
zx7: 6-AW
wedges: zipcore 54, 60
putter: big old mallet

I would like to stay with graphite iron shafts but remain open to steel.
 
If the fitter is good and experienced, you can do it in one day and shouldn't have to swing more than...

50-60 swings for an iron fitting
40-50 swings for driver
40-50 swings for fairways/hybrids
30-40 swings for wedges

I try to keep full bag fittings under 200 total swings IF we are doing it in one day. I prefer to split them up into two day, but that isn't always possible. I also like to strategically break up the golfers rhythm for two reasons, to keep endurance up and not let them get into a "fitting rhythm" that isn't realistic on the course.

Just go into it having a good meal an hour or so before your fitting. I don't know if CC provides drinks or snacks, so maybe bring some sports drinks/waters and some healthy snacks to keep energy levels high. If the fitter sees you starting to get fatigued, he/she should pull you off and let you rest and reset for a bit.

On a driving range I guess 90% of players become fatigued after about 50 shots. Playing a golf course a player shooting 90 is probably making 35 to 40 full swings.
So , if a weekend average amateur hits a bucket of balls and plays a round of golf I am thinking he has made approximately 100 full swings for the day.
If I went to a full bag fitting I think any more than 10 full swings each with driver, fairway, hybrid, iron, a total of 40 swings, would cause me to be a bit fatigued and my swing could start to deteriorate.
I agree that "fitting rhythm" is real and to avoid that I guess my preference would be to make one driver swing, followed by an iron swing, followed by a hybrid swing, then maybe a small wedge swing. Take a break for a minute, then repeat. The idea being to simulate the progression of clubs swung during a round of golf as much as possible.
 
On a driving range I guess 90% of players become fatigued after about 50 shots. Playing a golf course a player shooting 90 is probably making 35 to 40 full swings.
So , if a weekend average amateur hits a bucket of balls and plays a round of golf I am thinking he has made approximately 100 full swings for the day.
If I went to a full bag fitting I think any more than 10 full swings each with driver, fairway, hybrid, iron, a total of 40 swings, would cause me to be a bit fatigued and my swing could start to deteriorate.
I agree that "fitting rhythm" is real and to avoid that I guess my preference would be to make one driver swing, followed by an iron swing, followed by a hybrid swing, then maybe a small wedge swing. Take a break for a minute, then repeat. The idea being to simulate the progression of clubs swung during a round of golf as much as possible.

The problem with hitting one shot and then moving on is you’re not really collecting useable/useful data. It will take a couple of swings just to get used to any changes in the club (weight/flex/Swingweight etc). You want some rhythm. We just don’t want the play to hit shot after shot with no breaks.
 
That was a good fitting experience. Aaron was knowledgeable and communicated well. We had good discussion back and forth. Unfortunately we didn't fully finish and the plan is to go back on Friday morning. Took a gazillion swings. I'm tuckered out.

Key outcomes thus far:
  • Srixon ZX7 irons (4-AW) are solid for me, no need to combo. Apex pro, King Tour mim, and MP-20 mmc are all right there as well. I could be happy with any of them, but the Srixons were an easy winner with the best feel, efficiency, and dispersion.
  • Hands down the best iron shaft for me is the LAGP Tour AXS Blue 105 S. Price is not the best for me. I would like to find a more affordable alternative. But we hit 20+ shafts. IDK. Maybe mmt 105 -- it wasn't one of the options available.
  • Diamana TB 60x is a game changer driver shaft for me. I would take that kind of dispersion with a 6i. We didn't finish driver fitting, but I hit that shaft well with epic speed, tsi3, and g425 LST. tsi3 is my favorite among those heads.
  • Still a fan of zipcore wedges, but MG2 has a little better feel. I need to ponder wedges.
  • SAM lab is genius. Sign me up for a toe hang mallet. I didn't have a lot of time to hit many options, but I found 3 I liked. See pic.
IMG_2242.jpeg
 
Good stuff!!!!! Glad you can go back and finish Friday.
 
I'm always afraid of getting a club fitting because my major issue is consistency. Very smart on your part on making sure that your swing is in the right place.
 
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