"The Search for the Perfect Golf Club" by Tom Wishon

So, I'll start with it...

To me, it's one of the eye-openers I have read, since getting into golf (5 years ago).
I always have wondered, why some guys, who hit the ball worse than me are able to use one or even two clubs higher - now I know. To me, it never occured, that my i7 could have the loft of other's i9.

There's a lot of clubmaking background to read in this book, and he adds some nice stories of his "career".
I think, the normal golfer will find out, how the industry is trying to get his money, whithout _really_ helping him ;)

At the end of the book, there's a small "maintenance how-to", which I find really helpful to keep your golfclubs proper.

To me, it's been a great read, and I even get it off the shelf from time to time.

greetings
michi

No electronic version of this book on Amazon or iBooks from what I can tell, or audio version from Audible.

Boo...sounds like a great read.

If someone wants to know the true benefit of custom fitting from the ground up, this is the book you need to read. There are probably a lot of golfers who don't know who Tom Wishon is. He's devoted his entire career (30 plus years) to custom fitting and designing components for that purpose. He's had offers to head up design, research and development for some of the major companies but turned those offers down because the major companies cannot truly custom fit the consumer. He has more "design firsts" than anyone in the business.

The major companies offer an outstanding product, but what good is that product if it doesn't fit you? Some of these companies have a custom fitting program but none offer a true custom fitting in the strictest sense of what a custom fitting actually is.

Wishon does an excellent job defining what a custom fitting is, 475 pages worth! He has presented some excellent analogies to illustrate custom fitting. Like if you purchase a baseball bat, they come if various lengths, barrel sizes, handle sizes, weights, balance points, etc. You can choose one off the shelf that you are comfortable with. There are literally hundreds to choose from. Golf companies can't do this because of the number of clubs that comprise a set. Building 50 or 60 different variations of the same model isn't cost effective. So they basically build "one version fits all" and call it "standard." Even if they have a custom fitting program, the best you're going to get is a shaft stiffness designation of "A", "R", "S" or "X", length of the club and Lie angle adjustment. Listen to Wishon when he says this is only the tip of the ice berg when it comes to custom fitting.

The major companies spend big bucks to brainwash the public into thinking their product is the best available. They pay huge endorsement fees to pro's and have huge advertising budgets to accomplish this brainwashing. Who do you think pays these costs? The consumer every time they purchase a driver or set of clubs that don't really fit them.

Trust me, this is an excellent book, if only to educate yourself on what you should be getting when you purchase a set of golf clubs.

I to thought the book was very informative and a real eye opener. I went and bought "In Search of The Perfect Driver" after I read "In Search of The Perfect Club". IMO, one should read this book before buying clubs. It is amazing how much stupid stuff the OEM's say and even more mind numbing how many ppl believe it. Definetly a must read.

I have read this one, I am not qualified to judge the accuracy of the information, but I enjoyed it greatly and have used the information as resource for my equipment decisions. I particularly liked the parts when he explained how torque, offset, club weight etc impact ball striking.

So as a stupid question, is it REALLY worth the $55 amazon has it priced at? Or am I just high, cuz that seems kind of steep for a paperback :S

Excellent book. Especially on driver shaft length. I choke up an inch on my driver now and am hitting it much farther because I'm in the sweet spot more often. And I don't lose any ss. I still like lower lofts though because hitting into the wind with a high lofted driver is hazardous to your ego....

A great book that really illustrates the need and benefits of custom fitting, ESPECIALLY for beginners.  I forget what I paid for it but I'm pretty sure is was less than $55.  They had some used around $25.  I think you can order them direct from Tom's website for less than that too.

FWIW, there are a bunch of them on Amazon used for less than $10.  Thats where/how I by most all my books.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1587261855/sr=1-1/qid=1302058668/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me;=&qid;=1302058668&sr;=1-1&seller;=

When I had searched it the first time, they ALL were outrageously priced and none used were available :P but I haven't checked since then, kind of forgot about it lol

Have and have read all books by Tom Wishon. The reason I learned to build/fit my own golf clubs. 

I was able to borrow the book from the Wishon fitter I went to several years ago. Quite informative and revealing about the industry but I got the feeling it was part of the sell job on the part of the fitter - reducing cognitive dissonance, I believe it's called in Marketing. In any case I played with Wishon irons for a couple of years. No better - no worse than other brands and traded them in last year for my current set of irons. (As an aside, it's not easy to trade in Wishon equipment because they're not listed in the PGA Value Guide so not every dealer will accept them.) 

Bottom line...it's not the arrows, it's the Indian.