I wanted to do this last year while they were running the half priced fittings but by the time I could work it in my schedule they had already filled up all the time slots and it just didn't work out. I was excited that I was able to easily book a time this year that worked for me. I booked my time for the Raleigh(Cary), NC location. They have a new one in Richmond but the drive was about the same either way and I was trying to avoid Richmond this week with all the crazies out down there for Lobby Day in VA. I arrived a few minutes early, they open at 10, and they were already there and ready to go. I was introduced to Taylor Flieg who was to be the fitter working with me for the day.
I spent a few minutes talking with Taylor about what I wanted to get out of the fitting and the current state of my game. Basically, I was here for educational purposes but not opposed by any means to finding anything that would help my game. I was not brand specific at all either and open to whatever he wanted to try. I told him I knew my driver and woods game is off right now. Timid is the word I used to describe it and that comes from some swing issues, mostly setup really, that was causing me to not find center face. That was leading to confidence issues and I was not really swinging to my max potential and knew it. He had me warm up with a few PW and 7i swings and then off we went! He is supposed to email me the numbers we saw yesterday but as of yet I have not received them so this will be mostly from memory and without much visual aid.(sorry!)
We started with my F9 driver and as I expected I was getting almost exclusively heel hits and my swing speeds were low. I was also seeing my normal left miss consistently. After a few of my driver, he randomly grabbed the Ping G410 head and plugged in a shaft. I didn't ask what it was and just gave it a few swings. It was better but still not great so we swapped shafts a few more times. Again, I didn't even ask what he was plugging in each time as I didn't want my over active mind to prejudge anything. We finally found one that worked really well. I started hit really small tight fades instead of my left miss. The final shaft that seemed to work best for me was the counter balanced VA Composites Nemesys 75 stiff. After that, we started swapping heads and experimenting with swing weight. The problem though was again with me making heel strikes and being timid with my swing and we knew the numbers were not great and why. I will say I tested the heel forgiveness on almost everything available right now and the Maverik Max performed best on heel strikes by a large margin. More on that in the Mavrik thread later. He finally suggested if I really wanted to upgrade driver head go with the 10.5 Maverik Max with a D3 swing weight but told me he honestly felt just changing the shaft on my F9 would suffice when I got my swing worked out.
My 3W was next and started much the same as the driver. I did finally realize something I was doing and made a slight change that suddenly seemed to correct my swing issue. My F8 3W tended to trickle out a bit much to the right. He told me he knew exactly what would work for me and grabbed the new TaylorMade SIM Max Rocket 3 head. We did try a couple shafts but quickly found out the Mitsubishi Chemicals Diamana BF 70 stiff was the ticket. I had gained a little confidence and lost some of my timid swings by that point and I was astounded by that 3W. My best strikes with it carried 250+ with totals around 270. It is simply a beast. Very slight fade for me paired with that shaft of 15-25 feet tops. I can live with that all day. Even the few heel strikes I got with it still went over 250 yards total so we stopped there and knew we had a keeper.
We briefly talked hybrids and I hit a few but nothing was really working well for me and he suggested moving on to irons and talking about that more later. They fit using 6i heads and in all honesty I have less confidence in my 6i then I do in my 5i which is not saying much for it. Yesterday however my irons game was strong. I hit my Cobra FTB solidly and after a few swings he tells me he honestly loves the head for me but wants to see a heavier shaft then my Recoils. He got their FTB head, and plugged in the Aerotech Steelfiber i125. I do prefer graphite shafts and that is why we went that route first. It was ok but not quite right so we backed it down to the Aerotech Steelfiber i110 and there was where we found great results. My swings speeds with it were around 92mph club head speed and I while I don't recall carry distances I do recall the longest totals just over 190. I don't recall the launch angle, descent angle, or spin rates but all were excellent as well as tight dispersion with a very slight fade. He basically told me what he saw was very similar to tour average including smash factor and that made me feel pretty good about it. We did try a few other heads just to see but nothing was any better although the Srixon Z785 was t*t for tat and looked sexy as could be looking down at it. Not enough of a reason to invest in it and he suggested just reshafting my FTB the Steelfiber i110 taper stiff shafts. We did try an Oban steel shaft to see as even though I prefer graphite I wanted to be openminded. It was honestly not bad but I was starting to get tired by that time and when I did have a mishit I was not happy with how it felt in my hands which was why I went away from steel to begin with.
Next we talked wedges a bit. We decided that I am comfortable enough with my King Black 54* and he saw no reason to change that but asked me how I feel about my Cleveland CBX 58*. My honest answer was I used to not carry anything beyond 54* and am just now starting to use the 58* more effectively but I had some concerns. My concerns were it just felt bulky to me and at 58* I felt like opening it up sometimes and that made me nervous with the chunky cavity back. I told him all I use it for is short chips, short sided bunker shots, and some short pitch shots and I just felt a more traditional wedge and possibly one in 60* might be a better option for what I am using it for. He smiled and told me that was exactly what he was thinking the whole time and we started checking out some different wedges and grinds. We finally found that the Ping Glide 3.0 60* SS grind with the stock steel shaft was just butter for me all day with the short pitch and chips shots I like to use it for.
We finally decided my bag should be driver, 3W, 5W at the top. He had me listed down for 5-GW in my current FTB with the shaft change, my current 54* and then the Ping Glide 3.0 60*. It was then I asked him what to do about the spot that my current 4H is in because we never really talked about what to do there. He told me after watching my speeds and launch with the 6i, he felt I should just ditch the hybrid altogether and get a 4i to match the rest of my set. Again, kind of what I wanted to hear because I just like hitting irons more then hybrids. Below is the sheet he worked up for me on his suggestions:
I spent a few minutes talking with Taylor about what I wanted to get out of the fitting and the current state of my game. Basically, I was here for educational purposes but not opposed by any means to finding anything that would help my game. I was not brand specific at all either and open to whatever he wanted to try. I told him I knew my driver and woods game is off right now. Timid is the word I used to describe it and that comes from some swing issues, mostly setup really, that was causing me to not find center face. That was leading to confidence issues and I was not really swinging to my max potential and knew it. He had me warm up with a few PW and 7i swings and then off we went! He is supposed to email me the numbers we saw yesterday but as of yet I have not received them so this will be mostly from memory and without much visual aid.(sorry!)
We started with my F9 driver and as I expected I was getting almost exclusively heel hits and my swing speeds were low. I was also seeing my normal left miss consistently. After a few of my driver, he randomly grabbed the Ping G410 head and plugged in a shaft. I didn't ask what it was and just gave it a few swings. It was better but still not great so we swapped shafts a few more times. Again, I didn't even ask what he was plugging in each time as I didn't want my over active mind to prejudge anything. We finally found one that worked really well. I started hit really small tight fades instead of my left miss. The final shaft that seemed to work best for me was the counter balanced VA Composites Nemesys 75 stiff. After that, we started swapping heads and experimenting with swing weight. The problem though was again with me making heel strikes and being timid with my swing and we knew the numbers were not great and why. I will say I tested the heel forgiveness on almost everything available right now and the Maverik Max performed best on heel strikes by a large margin. More on that in the Mavrik thread later. He finally suggested if I really wanted to upgrade driver head go with the 10.5 Maverik Max with a D3 swing weight but told me he honestly felt just changing the shaft on my F9 would suffice when I got my swing worked out.
My 3W was next and started much the same as the driver. I did finally realize something I was doing and made a slight change that suddenly seemed to correct my swing issue. My F8 3W tended to trickle out a bit much to the right. He told me he knew exactly what would work for me and grabbed the new TaylorMade SIM Max Rocket 3 head. We did try a couple shafts but quickly found out the Mitsubishi Chemicals Diamana BF 70 stiff was the ticket. I had gained a little confidence and lost some of my timid swings by that point and I was astounded by that 3W. My best strikes with it carried 250+ with totals around 270. It is simply a beast. Very slight fade for me paired with that shaft of 15-25 feet tops. I can live with that all day. Even the few heel strikes I got with it still went over 250 yards total so we stopped there and knew we had a keeper.
We briefly talked hybrids and I hit a few but nothing was really working well for me and he suggested moving on to irons and talking about that more later. They fit using 6i heads and in all honesty I have less confidence in my 6i then I do in my 5i which is not saying much for it. Yesterday however my irons game was strong. I hit my Cobra FTB solidly and after a few swings he tells me he honestly loves the head for me but wants to see a heavier shaft then my Recoils. He got their FTB head, and plugged in the Aerotech Steelfiber i125. I do prefer graphite shafts and that is why we went that route first. It was ok but not quite right so we backed it down to the Aerotech Steelfiber i110 and there was where we found great results. My swings speeds with it were around 92mph club head speed and I while I don't recall carry distances I do recall the longest totals just over 190. I don't recall the launch angle, descent angle, or spin rates but all were excellent as well as tight dispersion with a very slight fade. He basically told me what he saw was very similar to tour average including smash factor and that made me feel pretty good about it. We did try a few other heads just to see but nothing was any better although the Srixon Z785 was t*t for tat and looked sexy as could be looking down at it. Not enough of a reason to invest in it and he suggested just reshafting my FTB the Steelfiber i110 taper stiff shafts. We did try an Oban steel shaft to see as even though I prefer graphite I wanted to be openminded. It was honestly not bad but I was starting to get tired by that time and when I did have a mishit I was not happy with how it felt in my hands which was why I went away from steel to begin with.
Next we talked wedges a bit. We decided that I am comfortable enough with my King Black 54* and he saw no reason to change that but asked me how I feel about my Cleveland CBX 58*. My honest answer was I used to not carry anything beyond 54* and am just now starting to use the 58* more effectively but I had some concerns. My concerns were it just felt bulky to me and at 58* I felt like opening it up sometimes and that made me nervous with the chunky cavity back. I told him all I use it for is short chips, short sided bunker shots, and some short pitch shots and I just felt a more traditional wedge and possibly one in 60* might be a better option for what I am using it for. He smiled and told me that was exactly what he was thinking the whole time and we started checking out some different wedges and grinds. We finally found that the Ping Glide 3.0 60* SS grind with the stock steel shaft was just butter for me all day with the short pitch and chips shots I like to use it for.
We finally decided my bag should be driver, 3W, 5W at the top. He had me listed down for 5-GW in my current FTB with the shaft change, my current 54* and then the Ping Glide 3.0 60*. It was then I asked him what to do about the spot that my current 4H is in because we never really talked about what to do there. He told me after watching my speeds and launch with the 6i, he felt I should just ditch the hybrid altogether and get a 4i to match the rest of my set. Again, kind of what I wanted to hear because I just like hitting irons more then hybrids. Below is the sheet he worked up for me on his suggestions:
