Experiences wth a real driver fitting

I am interested to learn about people's experiences when getting fit for a driver.  I am interested in really being fit.  Not trying every driver in the store and picking the one you liked in the shaft stiffness you think is right.  I'd like to know the results good or bad.

Thanks in advance.

Read this thread on my driver fitting and let me know if you have any questions:

http://thesandtrap.com/forum/thread/44730/my-driver-fitting-the-pharaoh/54#post_589065

Thanks I think I had read some of that back when it was new.  I did search before I posted and did not find this thread, odd?

Since this thread what have you found.  Are your dispersion and length still better then the old driver?

Thanks

My driver fitting post is here:

http://thesandtrap.com/forum/thread/51690/my-fitting-for-a-mizuno-jpx-800-driver

I'm easily 20-25 yards longer with the new driver ....when I hit it well! The ball comes off the face much faster. When you are hitting it poorly, like I am right now, it is difficult to see much of a difference. I am glad I bought the driver though as I much prefer the set-up and that gives you confidence standing over the ball.

Thanks

Mini Blue Dragons fitting thread brings me to another question.

What are the parts of a full fitting?

Head

Loft

Shaft

Shaft length

Shaft weight

What am I missing.

I think I am going to try and go back to the pro that fit my Irons, I bought Henry-Griffits OS-1 irons and have been very happy with them.

He only fits Griffits Drivers although he fits many other irons.  I would only get their Praxis Driver.  Is this limiting myself?

I had a driver fitting last week.  Best money I have ever spent ($50).  My old driver was a 10.5 supertri with a Fujikura fit on max 56S shaft.  I was set up on one of those Vector launch monitors.  They had me hit about 10 drives with my current set up and took out the mishits.  My SS was about 91, launch angle 10, ballspeed 130, backspin 900.  No wonder I couldnt get the ball in the air.  They checked the frequency of my shaft and it was about a 6.4.  A little stiff for my swing.  I changed the settings on the driver to the L setting which gave me a loft of 11.5.  This helped some with the launch angle but did nothing to the backspin.

I then tried out an R11, Burner2.0, Titleist 910, Cobra S3, and G15.  We went through a bunch of different shaft/head combinations to see what would give me the best results.  In the end I picked up a 13.5 G15.  Never thought I would buy a club like this.  One of the benefits of a driver fitting is that it will definitely open you up to drivers/manufacturers that you probably wouldnt have considered.  Go get a fitting and try and stay as open minded as possible.  Dont pay attention to the flex of the shaft and focus more on the results.  If it turns out that you need to play a regular shaft when you always played a stiff, go with it.  You cant argue with results.

Real driver fitting is key. I am a former college player and was fit by like PGA professionals. Last week I went to a guy who was on a tour van for 20+ years and he helped fit me for a real driver shaft. He spent over an hour with me just swapping shafts checking the CPM and everything. Well to say the least he was legit. I went from flying the ball 275 with a 114 mph swing to flying the ball over 290 consistently, and about 8 yards lees dispersion. And he got me roll which I almost never had

I went in this Saturday and got fit for a driver.  I got fit from the same pro that fit me for irons.  We checked the fit of the irons and it was dead on.  One of the things that is nice about buying Griffitts is that they will refit you for 100 days.

The process took a little over one hour.  My goal was more length and less dispersion.  The driver is the worst club in the bag for me.  My good drives of late are in the mid 230's (as measured by my GPS).  Given the right conditions every once and a while I will hit one 260-270 that is the exception.  Many come in below 230 which is a problem.  My home courses are not super long but they are narrow and unforgiving. On many holes 10 yards off the fairway is heather or deep woods.

He will only fit Henry-Griffitts drivers his logic being if he can't fit you with Griffitts he can't fit you.  Given their multiple lofts and shafts it is the most complete fitting system.  I was fit for their new Praxis head.

He had a vector launch monitor.  This is my understanding of the process.  I asked and he said he had 40 possible shafts.  He said 8 of those 40 were likely candidates for me.  He checked the frequency of the driver I am playing, it is a Mizuno that I bought off the shelf 3 years ago.  It has a "stiff" shaft.  He started with a shaft that had the same frequency as my iron shaft.  We tried stiffer more flexible, we tried longer and shorter shafts.  We tried 4 different lofts (I believe).  In the end we settled on a shaft that had a slightly higher frequency then my iron shafts meaning stiffer.

The choice was to fix my descending blow and go with a 9 degree head or leave my swing alone and go with a higher lofted driver.  I tried some more sweeping  swings and it was not hard for me to get my swing flatter, it was still descending but much flatter.  I chose to go with the 9 degree.  I was able to flatten my swing pretty easily so I would prefer to correct my swing they use equipment to bring it in line.  Again the nice thing with Griffitts is that within 100 days if I do not like the driver and can not get the ball in the air I can go back and get refit with a higher loft.

A few other interesting tidbits I picked up was that they measure each head, you will not find one labeled 9 degrees.  You will find labels like low launch, mid low launch and so on.  Then you can specify the loft and they will select the head based on what it measures.  This leads me to believe that if you buy a head from a larger manufacturer the loft can be different from what the head reads.

I did not write down the numbers but from memory my swing speed is in the mid high 90's with driver.  My goal is to increase it with better release but with that speed on a good strike I was getting low to mid 140 ball speeds.  And based on the number I should pick up 15 yards or so.  With the head a driver the spin was also down significantly.

I am being honest with my on course GPS number (who would lie about 230 yard drives).  The launch monitor numbers are what I recall.  In a couple weeks The club will come in and I will report on the reality.  This club cost $50 more then the new hottest driver.  Being that he spent an hour with me and I feel that I got a good fit it is well worth it to me.  Confidence over the the ball is priceless.

I was fit by Club Champion in the Chicago area. They had a variety of custom shafts, all top of the line and varied weights and stiffness. You could combo any of these shafts into any of the most recent heads.

They explained to me how their fitting process worked, and worked hard on matching my swing to the proper shaft. We took a driver head that was similar to the one I was using and spent quite a bit of time pouring over shaft after shaft until we got one that had a tight dispersion, low spin, and the highest distance. He also explained the difference of each shaft I tested to me (flex around the butt, mid, tip, and kickpoints, etc).

After the shaft fitting, the fun part began, which was trying out whatever heads I wanted in the shaft.

I hit on a Launch Monitor indoors. If you can find a fitting outside that has a multitude of shafts, I would recommend that. However, this was still a great fitting and I'm loving my new driver, carrying 260+ and rolling out 20 yards if I can make the fairway of course.

Ended up with a TaylorMade R11 head with a Bassara UL Griffin Tour Stiff shaft (the Bassara plays one stiffness soft).

My question is where are you finding these places that where you can try out different manuf heads with various shafts?

The local fitter in my area only sells KZG equipment including their shafts, no other manufacturers shafts which scares me a bit.

The local Golf Galaxy has one person that is reputable for fittings (their pro) and to be honest, being that he is sponsored by Taylormade, every time I see somebody going for a driver fitting the only clubs in their hands are Superfast 2.0 or r11's.  So I fear the bias will set in there.

Does anybody know if Golftec centers has the flexibility of doing a proper fitting?

I've never been to one but I know there is one about 45 minutes from me

I didn't think Ping drivers had removable heads on them, (unless the shaft was pulled and reglued).

Or did the place have a ping fitting cart?

I had the same old Ping driver for the last 10 years that I bought used. So, I went from 12 year old technology to current technology.   That alone had a ton to do with my length and accuracy improvement.  I had a stiff shaft in the old one.  I ended up with a stiff in the new one as well, but you will find out during your fitting there are a ton of other things to consider besides regular, stiff, or x-stiff.  Out of the 5 or 6 drivers I hit, I hit 4 of them well, one of them horribly, and one of them was awesome.

I played a course I haven't play today in a few years.  I was amazed at how much of a difference the driver made.

Things to avoid:

-don't go in biased against or for any brands

-don't go in trying to swing harder than you normally would to artificially get your swing speed/distance higher on the monitor than it really is

-if your swing speed is 90 and the fitter says you need a regular flex, go with it.  I have a friend that refuses to swing anything but a stiff shaft even though his swing speed is way slow.  He can't hit his driver worth a dang.

I've described my experience before, so I'll keep it short. After 2008 golf season, I realized it was long past time to trade in stiff shafts for regular. That November, I got a driver fitting from a pro at Golf Galaxy. I had taken spring lessons from him, so he was familiar with my swing.

I had done research on drivers, and was interested in the Callaway HyperX. He said that would be a good one to try out. I warmed up, and then got on the launch monitor. After getting base data from my old driver, he picked some other company's drivers to also test. To keep it short, I hit seven different drivers on the day. It ended up a performance tie between a HyperX Tour 10.5* with a midkick R shaft, and a Cleveland HiBore red. Went with HyperX Tour because it was easier to "set up" for a shot. I'm still using it.

Also...

• I got printout data on all the drivers I tested to use as baseline reference for future club changes.
• Since I bought a new driver, the fitting was free.

KZG is one of the most respected custom components manufacturers in the world. They are small but they cater to people who want 100% custom fit clubs, if you want a true custom fitting experiance I dont think you can do much better then KZG unless you in a major urban area with a boutique fitting outfit.