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How much did a complete club fitting help your game?

Nippon Shafts
Scott F

Scott F

I Putter Around
Albatross 2024 Club
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Without taking additional lessons, how much did your game improve when you got your new clubs? Did you start hitting the ball better right away, or did you have to get used to them first? I’ve never really had a complete fitting so I assume, that the new clubs should have been easy to hit right away. When I recently took up the game again, I visited a few shops and got such conflicting information about what I should be playing (in very brief sessions) in front of a monitor, that it made me wonder how valuable fittings actually are. I knew a fitting wasn’t going to help me much until I practiced and got my swing into something repeatable. Are detailed fittings really necessary or are they just another source of income to pay for the launch monitors and to sell clubs for the golf shop?
 
I think fitting really adds consistency. The clubs weight matches your swing. This means less errant shots and more consistent ball flight. My only caveat to getting fit would be if your swing is really bad and you have a weird setup like overly upright or overly bent over and you are planning on getting lessons then don't get fit yet. The instructor is going to fix your setup and then the clubs you had fit to that weird setup will have a bad lie angle.
 
I only got fitted for irons, yet I improved right away but not at an extremely fast pace. I had to work hard at it and now they seem so natural to me. The fitting was well worth it for me because the irons simply fit me better than what I was using. I know another guy that recently got fitted and got new irons and he is playing worse than ever, but he just needs some more time. He has some real swing issues.
 
personally, I've not seen a huge improvement in my scores from a fitting. the biggest improvement I've seen has come from catching lightning in a bottle with a club I purchased on my own on a whim. ping g400 max, odyssey #7s, and Srixon z565 irons come to mind.
 
Got worse. though that's probably more on me.

I think it helps with confidence if you really think something is off.
For the most part, I do think most people adapt to whatever equipment they have.
 
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I went for a full bag fitting. They told me to keep my driver as is, got new irons, wedges and modified my current hybrid, and purchased the fairway wood they recommended and I actually owned the shaft they wanted me to buy. So I put them all together and love my current setup. I won’t be getting anything new for a long long time. The fitting was free because of the time of year I went. I feel it’s worth it but holy heck the clubs are expensive when they build them. So I’d say if you’re swing isn’t where you need it to be yet hold off. But once you’re swinging pretty consistently even if the ball flight or shots are bad it’s worth it.


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See I’m highly debating this but I don’t know if it will really help. I have a real good idea of what I want in a club and wondered if a PGASS would work. I’ve heard massive horror stories of up charges at Club Champion


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It depends entirely on how unsuited your previous clubs were to your game.

Plenty of golfers find a set through trial and error which basically suit them in terms of weight and balance, length, loft, lie and feel. Yeah, maybe their driver would work better with a different shaft or their yardages gaps could benefit from a bit of loft tweaking. There's always room for fine-tuning but meaningful score improvement with no additional practice isn't going to happen from minor tweaks.

OTOH, there are also plenty of golfers whose physical attributes or swing peculiarities make "standard L/L/L" off the shelf specs a poor fit. If they just go to Golf Galaxy and buy whatever looks good they could end up definitely costing themselves strokes. A better fitted set would be a night and day difference for them.
 
Trying to build a repeatable swing and get fit is doable, but you might find yourself covering up flaws to make the clubs work. I say play what you like, but also be honest about what you should be playing to help make the game more enjoyable.

i’m of the mindset that no matter your skill level a fitting makes sense. You can really understand your swing flaws, you can get to work fixing them and the fitting helps you then get clubs that will maximize your game while you work to getting better.

something as simple as lie adjustment on irons can help you hit it slightly straighter immediately.

I will say don’t underestimate a putter fitting. People often overlook a putter fitting and can help shave strokes off your score the quickest while you fix swing flaws.
 
I would say my fitting at ECPC at #TheGrandaddy 2018 made little to no difference at all. First of all, you can't compare having about an hour to fit all full swing clubs to an in depth fitting one receives at a Club Champion for example. There was nothing unusual or different about what I was fit into versus buying off the rack and what I would choose for myself. Even though the driver and fairway woods were built with R flex and I was fit in to Senior flex, they have worked out OK. The only improvements in my game I would relate to the clubs is that they were built by the best in the business and they are a generation newer than what I was using. I don't believe the "fitting" itself has made any difference.
 
One other factor is whether you have a relationship with an experienced swing coach. A good teaching pro who you've worked with over time is going to be quite aware of any compensations or limitation you're experiencing due to using clubs that don't suit you. He or she may not be the person you want doing your clubfitting but they can certainly point out the need if it exists, or not.
 
I added 10-15 yards of distance with the new irons and lowered my Hcp by 3. Huge difference!
 
My original fitting was a long time ago. Actually it was three fittings. One at three different places. My club specs came back the same from all three.

Iirc, getting fitted clubs easily saved me 7-8 strokes, once I got use to the new clubs. I remember breaking 80 for the first time with those new clubs.

In fact the newer clubs probably helped save a few of those 7-8 strokes saved. They were quite an up grade, compared to clubs I was using.
 
Fittings aren’t for me. I’m not gonna rehash my experiences because I’ve went over them before but ultimately I spent a lot of money on clubs I couldn’t hit and got worse. Was given a driver that shouldn’t fit according to fittings and I hit it well for the most part. Definitely better than what I was fit into. Went completely the opposite way from my iron fitting on a whim and am hitting irons really well. I doubt I’ll ever do another fitting
 
After doing a few "full bag fittings" over the years:

Don't do a FULL bag fitting all at ONCE.

You get too tired and the results by the end are probably questionable due to fatigue.

I recommend just one section at a time like irons, wedges, driver, etc.
 
In terms of prioritizing what is most helpful to lowering scores here is my ranking:

75% effective swing technique for all shots from tee thru the green
24% course management including choosing good sense lines of play and good sense club selection
1% equipment
 
blueonblack said:
After doing a few "full bag fittings" over the years:

Don't do a FULL bag fitting all at ONCE.

You get too tired and the results by the end are probably questionable due to fatigue.

I recommend just one section at a time like irons, wedges, driver, etc.
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I've not gotten into the whole fitting process but based on people I know who've been fitted or what I see on TXG or other YouTube videos, the fitting process for only a driver or fairway wood looks like it would be exhausting. I can't imagine trying to swing a driver 50+ times, some swings with a fairway or hybrid, another 50+ iron swings and then somehow move on to wedge and even putter. Yikes!
 
I had a full bag fitting and frankly it really didn't help me at all. Half of the reason was I got worn out swinging the club consistently after an hour or so. So probably it wasn't my best swing after swinging so many times. I do better by getting clubs and trying them out on the range. In my driver fitting, they wanted to put me in a real exotic shaft set-up which I declined and the fitting kind of went downhill after that. Hmm!
 
I got fit for a full set of irons, gap to 5 hybrid. It wasn't a relatively expensive process all in and worked they for a while, I was happy enough and it moved the scoring down until it started going up. I got my old none fitted set out and found I could hit those just as well if not better (I still have them as a back up set) and carried on playing with those and the fitted set moved to a closet.

Just for 💩 & :ROFLMAO: I tired out my wife's Adams irons and low and behold I could hit those no problem, not as long but playable (I can hit her M2 driver better than my own on some occasions). That lead me on to to buying a men's set of Adams Blue's, 3 hybrid down to sand wedge and being happy with those for over 3 years.

Now with better mechanics in the swing those Adams were of no use and I now have a set of G400's that are great and are working very well.

I went to the PGA store and tested 6/7 6 irons and got the same basic numbers back with each one and the only real choice sI had to make was on feel and price, they all seemed to work the same. Maybe I'm just one of those people that can do that, who knows.

I've been fitted for one set of irons and nothing else, I've seen my handicap move downwards more with better swing mechanics, lessons, practice and I would say course management than the fitted set of clubs has done.

Being a bit of a tinkerer and getting fitted was an expensive experiment and while fun going down that rabbit hole its ultimately not something I'll be contemplating anytime soon given my past experience or the fun of just working things out for myself.

Don't let all that waffle put you off a fitting however, some people will see a benefit in a fitting and in some cases a large benefit, its all going to depend on what you want out of golf in my opinion.
 
I’m debating hard just doing driver/ fairway then irons/hybrid/wedge at a later date because I blend those gaps


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Better scores - no. Better chance of lower scores - 100%. I caddied on a mini tour for 4 years before I started my fitting journey. While caddying I learned a ridiculous amount about how much differently a pro dissects a course/shot vs an amateur. I started offering course management lessons because I was seeing my golfers kill it during fittings and range sessions, but something wasn’t translating to the course.

While there are plenty of fittings that are sub par or average, the really great fitters will not stop until scores are dropping. It‘s a long term relationship between fitter and golfer and should always be approached with more expectation than a one time transaction. Fittings aren’t magic, but a great fitting unlocks potential in a big way.

I received a text from one of my golfers last night saying they shot their best round of their life. This was after two course management sessions and two extra visits to make subtle adjustments to their set. The lower scores required more effort on both ends to tighten things up.
 
Summit said:
Better scores - no. Better chance of lower scores - 100%. I caddied on a mini tour for 4 years before I started my fitting journey. While caddying I learned a ridiculous amount about how much differently a pro dissects a course/shot vs an amateur. I started offering course management lessons because I was seeing my golfers kill it during fittings and range sessions, but something wasn’t translating to the course.

While there are plenty of fittings that are sub par or average, the really great fitters will not stop until scores are dropping. It‘s a long term relationship between fitter and golfer and should always be approached with more expectation than a one time transaction. Fittings aren’t magic, but a great fitting unlocks potential in a big way.

I received a text from one of my golfers last night saying they shot their best round of their life. This was after two course management sessions and two extra visits to make subtle adjustments to their set. The lower scores required more effort on both ends to tighten things up.
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Your local to me. Interesting


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Summit said:
I started offering course management lessons
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This is definitely an under served segment of the instruction industry. Sadly, too many instructors feel compelled to make the golf swing complicated. They do this because they either don't know any better or they feel the paying customer expects lots of complicated information.
I am all for a guy's right to make a living teaching golf. But why do it with a charade of complicated nonsense that helps no one ? It makes more sense to teach basic technique fundamentals , because these are actually helpful . And the teacher can spend the rest of his/her time charging money teaching other helpful things, such as course management, choosing lines of play for the golf shots , club selection for different weather conditions and lie types, significance of mental focus when playing shots etc...
 
I do see a benefit in working with a swing coach, if you can afford it. However, just like any other profession, there are good ones and bad ones. Golf is a game of progress, not instant change. Most golfers have a mindset that things should click instantly if we make subtle changes or do swing overhauls. It’s something I have had to learn over the years and have patience with. While I am confident in my abilities as a fitter and builder, I know that my abilities will not suddenly make someone else a better golfer. There are a lot of variables between me and my golfer’s scores. It’s a process that needs to be taken with care and detail as well as honesty. I have had the privilege of being around some pretty remarkable talent, but have seen most of them go on to leave golf and pursue careers elsewhere. It’s a mental game just as much, if not more, than it is a physical game. The difference between mini tour players and PGA players is not necessarily pure talent, but rather the mental toughness of the top 125 players in the world.

Fittings, teaching, course management etc all can be incredible tools to help improve scores, but at the end of the day, the person swinging the club has to be making good decisions, the right decisions, the best decisions, in order to lower their scores. What I’ve seen over the last few years doing course management is 85% of my golfers lowered their scores by simply taking more club and aiming at the middle of the green.
 
I’m getting fit for the top part of my bag. Not sure who yet I’m using but I’m going to pay someone. I don’t want to be pushed to buy


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