millsan1
I've figured this game out! Oh wait, no I haven't
My fiancee turns 40 today, and one of the presents I gave her was a club fitting, at Club Champion, which we did yesterday.
I need to make some statements here, to level set:
I believe in fitted gear.
She is a beginner, recreational golfer.
She was not having a good swing day yesterday. Shots were much shorter than her normal, she can drive it 170-180 all day, every day. She was hitting 150. Her 7 Iron is her 100 yard, go to shot. She was hitting that 70. So something was up.
I am not bashing here. I am documenting one fitting, with one person, and putting up my opinions, not making statements of fact.
We arrived and were greeted and she was put out into the hitting bay to warm up.
The fitter was a great guy and was very pleasant.
I stayed out of the bay for the most part, but an hour in I was too bored, so I went in to watch and shag her balls, as she was fetching them after each round of shots, which I thought a bit odd. I would have expected the fitter to be shagging her balls.
As the fitting progressed, a few things came up where it would have been good of the fitter to help, where I had to step in. When she got to driver, she was badly topping almost every head he gave her to try. Why? Because she was teeing the ball up to her normal driver height, but with all the new heads, which are much larger, the ball was teed too low. I saw it. Let it go for a bit, but then had to tell her to tee it up higher. Once that was done, she was hitting the other drivers better.
The last hour of the fitting, she was shot, physically and maybe mentally. She was barely swinging at the ball, and basically hitting with a body language that said "I'm done, let's just get this over with". Her clubhead speed was way down from the beginning of the session, no backswing to speak of, no follow through, literally going through the motions. Given that, I don't think very useful info was being gathered at that point. I would have thought the fitter would have seen this, and suggested a break, or whatever, but the fitting went on.
Through all of this, I believe the only thing we found that improved over her current bag was irons. She hit the new Big Berthas pretty well compared to her clubs. Fitter agreed that her Driver is probably OK for now, and offered a refit on the driver, at a later date, if she wanted.
There were improvements available to her in the hybrids as well, but not as dramatic.
Putter fitting was offered, but she declined, mostly because she was completely fried at that point.
At the end, a set of clubs was suggested for her. Now I understand that Club Champion does not make their money doing these fittings. I know they need to sell clubs, and if she was hitting her normal shots, and we saw improvement that warranted a custom set of clubs, I was ready to pull the trigger. But that was not the case yesterday. She was off, physically shot by the end, and the improvements we saw on the irons were about 10 yards and tighter dispersion.
The suggested clubs were some hybrids, 7-GW and a wood or two, I don't remember, but it was a bit more than half a bag. The dollar figure made my eyes water. We are talking about a recreational golfer, who was having an off day, and I think it was clear she was not providing much useful info that last hour she was in the fitting.
When I declined and said that it was a lot more than what I was thinking coming in, the session became very used car salesy in my opinion. "Well how much did you want to spend?" "I can remove this, cut this down, go with a different head, etc to get closer to your number". So now we are not fitting her to the best equipment, we are trying to sell some gear. Again, I understand the need to sell gear, but the way they present themselves is one of "let's find you the best gear for you", not "Let's find the best gear for you, then downgrade the shafts, change the grips, go with the cheaper clubhead that you didn't really hit well, so I can make a sale"
So really, my biggest gripe is that I think the fitting went OK, but there were items I think could have been better (shagging her own balls, tee it up, doing something about her clearly physically or mentally shot state at the end).
It might make sense to ask budget range when starting the session, so you are not testing $300 shafts for a golfer who is not going to spend that kind of scratch. I understand that contradicts the idea of best for you, but it is really wasted effort if there is no way the customer is going to spend that kind of dollar figure.
I ended up buying a sand wedge that she hit pretty well, because she needs one, I felt bad about not buying anything and I am a softy at heart.
Overall, I think a more accomplished golfer, with a larger checkbook, would benefit from this. For a beginner, I think this level of fitting is probably too much, but a fitting definitely helps. I had my clubs fit a few months ago, which I documented in a different thread. I swung about 10-20 times, and he dialed me into much better fit. Changed a lot about my game. It is in no way as thorough and advanced and scientific as the Club Champion method, but I have seen noticeable improvements. I put all new grips, new shafts on all clubs and adjusted some of my clubs. Cost was less than 2 of the shafts that were suggested for her, and I am a lot better than she is and take my game a lot more seriously.
In a year or two, if I progress as I intend, I see myself coming back for my own fitting, and would be OK spending the $ figures I was presented with.
I need to make some statements here, to level set:
I believe in fitted gear.
She is a beginner, recreational golfer.
She was not having a good swing day yesterday. Shots were much shorter than her normal, she can drive it 170-180 all day, every day. She was hitting 150. Her 7 Iron is her 100 yard, go to shot. She was hitting that 70. So something was up.
I am not bashing here. I am documenting one fitting, with one person, and putting up my opinions, not making statements of fact.
We arrived and were greeted and she was put out into the hitting bay to warm up.
The fitter was a great guy and was very pleasant.
I stayed out of the bay for the most part, but an hour in I was too bored, so I went in to watch and shag her balls, as she was fetching them after each round of shots, which I thought a bit odd. I would have expected the fitter to be shagging her balls.
As the fitting progressed, a few things came up where it would have been good of the fitter to help, where I had to step in. When she got to driver, she was badly topping almost every head he gave her to try. Why? Because she was teeing the ball up to her normal driver height, but with all the new heads, which are much larger, the ball was teed too low. I saw it. Let it go for a bit, but then had to tell her to tee it up higher. Once that was done, she was hitting the other drivers better.
The last hour of the fitting, she was shot, physically and maybe mentally. She was barely swinging at the ball, and basically hitting with a body language that said "I'm done, let's just get this over with". Her clubhead speed was way down from the beginning of the session, no backswing to speak of, no follow through, literally going through the motions. Given that, I don't think very useful info was being gathered at that point. I would have thought the fitter would have seen this, and suggested a break, or whatever, but the fitting went on.
Through all of this, I believe the only thing we found that improved over her current bag was irons. She hit the new Big Berthas pretty well compared to her clubs. Fitter agreed that her Driver is probably OK for now, and offered a refit on the driver, at a later date, if she wanted.
There were improvements available to her in the hybrids as well, but not as dramatic.
Putter fitting was offered, but she declined, mostly because she was completely fried at that point.
At the end, a set of clubs was suggested for her. Now I understand that Club Champion does not make their money doing these fittings. I know they need to sell clubs, and if she was hitting her normal shots, and we saw improvement that warranted a custom set of clubs, I was ready to pull the trigger. But that was not the case yesterday. She was off, physically shot by the end, and the improvements we saw on the irons were about 10 yards and tighter dispersion.
The suggested clubs were some hybrids, 7-GW and a wood or two, I don't remember, but it was a bit more than half a bag. The dollar figure made my eyes water. We are talking about a recreational golfer, who was having an off day, and I think it was clear she was not providing much useful info that last hour she was in the fitting.
When I declined and said that it was a lot more than what I was thinking coming in, the session became very used car salesy in my opinion. "Well how much did you want to spend?" "I can remove this, cut this down, go with a different head, etc to get closer to your number". So now we are not fitting her to the best equipment, we are trying to sell some gear. Again, I understand the need to sell gear, but the way they present themselves is one of "let's find you the best gear for you", not "Let's find the best gear for you, then downgrade the shafts, change the grips, go with the cheaper clubhead that you didn't really hit well, so I can make a sale"
So really, my biggest gripe is that I think the fitting went OK, but there were items I think could have been better (shagging her own balls, tee it up, doing something about her clearly physically or mentally shot state at the end).
It might make sense to ask budget range when starting the session, so you are not testing $300 shafts for a golfer who is not going to spend that kind of scratch. I understand that contradicts the idea of best for you, but it is really wasted effort if there is no way the customer is going to spend that kind of dollar figure.
I ended up buying a sand wedge that she hit pretty well, because she needs one, I felt bad about not buying anything and I am a softy at heart.
Overall, I think a more accomplished golfer, with a larger checkbook, would benefit from this. For a beginner, I think this level of fitting is probably too much, but a fitting definitely helps. I had my clubs fit a few months ago, which I documented in a different thread. I swung about 10-20 times, and he dialed me into much better fit. Changed a lot about my game. It is in no way as thorough and advanced and scientific as the Club Champion method, but I have seen noticeable improvements. I put all new grips, new shafts on all clubs and adjusted some of my clubs. Cost was less than 2 of the shafts that were suggested for her, and I am a lot better than she is and take my game a lot more seriously.
In a year or two, if I progress as I intend, I see myself coming back for my own fitting, and would be OK spending the $ figures I was presented with.