This Is What I Do?

Why Custom Club Fitting Helps you play better golf, and getting your swing faults corrected while you do is a major way to play better golf right now!

AGCP Master Clubfitter & Golf Digest selection as one of America’s Best 100 Clubfitters. Founder of the AGCP

This is what I do…

There are 6 basic things a Clubfitter needs to consider about golf clubs. The clubhead, the shaft design, the grip, how the clubs are assembled, how the fit the golfer and his swing, and just what clubs should be in the bag. I think we can all concede that a 5 foot, 100 pound 60 year old lady golfer who plays on weekends is not going to use the same clubs a 6 foot 4 inch 220 male golfer that plays on the PGA Tours will use. The question is, why?

Getting the Right Sticks for YOU in Your Bag is Important to hitting YOUR Best Golf Shots

Consider the clubhead first: Depending on skill level of either golfer as well as how much power they have and swing speed they are capable of they are going to need different design considerations. Loft is a consideration as well as the weight of the head, and in the case of irons the lie angle will be different.

• Drivers: The lady might have a swing speed of 70 mph with her driver while the tour player is likely going to be in the 115+ mph range. The lady is going to need as much loft on her driver head as possible to get the ball in the air. She doesn’t swing fast enough to generate a spin rate high enough to produce aerodynamic lift from the dimples on the ball. The tour player is going to need far less loft, some with higher swing speeds maybe down to 4 or 5 degrees and most in the 8 – 10 degree range. With their speed the friction off the clubface is going to create a lot of spin and the dimples on the ball will create aerodynamic lift and keep the ball airborne longer. The added lift will produce more carry distance than a ball without it.
• Irons: The lady will likely need some game compensation design with cavity backs and high tech flexible faces to get more distance. This will not be necessary with the Tour player and he will more often than not choose a muscle back, more traditional iron design. The lie angles will have to be adjusted more flat for the shorter lady golfer and more upright than her for the touring pro.

Consider the Shaft design next: Size and strength more than skill level is a more likely consideration with irons. Also swing type is key. Is the swing slow and smooth or is the swing fast and aggressive? The lady will more often than not be slow and smooth unless she is an athlete and the tour player being more athletic will be faster and more aggressive. So we divide the shaft into 3 ranges, the Butt Section, the Mid Section, and the Tip Section. These three sections are designed for swing speed, downswing transition force and wrist cock release point. How these sections are designed to work together during the swing will determine how they feel to the golfer when they swing. How the shaft feels will be a key to how confident the golfer is to swing his best swing. Shaft weight is also important and also due to strength and athleticism. The lady golfer will feel more comfortable and generate more swing speed with a lighter shaft maybe in the 40 to 50 gram range but the stronger tour player can use much heavier shafts and still generate maximum speeds. Shaft weights range from the 40 to 50 gram range up to 120 to 130 gram range. More athletic golfers often swing heavier shafts faster than lighter shafts for the same reason we an throw a baseball faster than we an throw a table tennis ball. The weight of the shaft can also alter a golfers swing path and face angle. Try it. Get on a Trackman or Flightscope and track your swing path and face angle with a club with a 40 gram shaft versus a 130 gram shaft. Gonna put odds on the heavier shaft being more inside with a more open face and the lighter shaft being more outside with a more closed face. So, how straight you hit the ball can be changed by the weight of the club. This can be tweaked by altering the head weight too. The balance point of the club is important for many reasons. Balance point as in the ratio of weight on the head in relation to the rest of the club. You might call this swing weight, or MOI. More on this when we get to the golfer.

Consider the Grip next: How big is the grip and how much does it weigh? What material is it constructed with and how soft or hard does it feel? The grip is not only important because of the size of ones hands but also for how the weight of the grip effects the balance point and how it feels to the golfer. The grip must feel right and the weight must be accounted for in the overall weigh of the club as well as the balance point. More so in MOI than Swing Weight.

Consider how the clubs are assembled: There are mass assembled clubs and there are custom assembled clubs. The difference can be expressed in a comparison to Cars. There is the Ford Mustang you buy at your Ford Dealership, and there is the Ford Mustang built by a NASCAR team to drive in a NASCAR race on Sunday. The mass assembled Fords use stock parts off the shelf and are assembled in an assembly line by multiple assemblers to get to a finished product. Generally they are all the same and without tolerances determined by Ford. Then we have the NASCAR version of the same car. There isn’t a stock part on it I guess. Everything on the car is a custom produced and custom refined part built to perform far above and beyond its mass produced brothers. Even the “custom” modifications from the dealer pale in comparison to the NASCAR version. The mass produced version might get to speeds in excess of 100 MPH but cannot sustain those speeds for long. The NASCAR versions are designed to run at speeds in excess of 200 mph for 500 miles non stop. The mass produced models have a limited number of “custom” options where the NASCAR versions are designed and built for 1 driver. Just as AGCP custom clubs are fit and produced for 1 golfer. They are custom length, custom weights, custom balance points, custom shafts, custom grips, custom lies, etc. They are not limited to what the factor provides because like the NASCAR models they are produced as a one off version for 1 person to give that person maximum performance far in excess of the mass produced brothers.

Consider the Golfer: The golfer is the key too everything about the clubs. We need his physical characteristics, his swing speed, his transition downforce, his wrist cock release point, his downswing Tempo and his physical strength to fit him. We gather this data and we can use it to determine head design, shaft design, his best grip option, and how to assemble his clubs.

Last, but certainly not the least… Consider Set Make-Up: Just what clubs do you need in your bag? You are limited to 14 clubs in your bag. One of them is going to be a driver of some kind. That will be your longest club. More than likely you are going to have some kind of wedge, that will be your shortest club. You will also need a putter. That is 3 so what other 11 clubs do you need so you can have a club for every distance between your driver and your shortest wedge?

I’ve been a Golf Pro since 1967 and a Clubfitter exclusively since 2000. This is what I’ve learned and I use it to benefit my golfers.

This is what I do…