How Useful Was Your Fitting?

[Cantankerish]

ChetlovesMer brings up a good point here:

Since we only seem to be getting information from people with a financial stake in it, I would be interested to get some data from another (admittedly completely unscientific) source.

How helpful was your fitting?

 

[iacas]

Don’t love the poll. Fitting is about more than distance gains.

Fittings with a good fitter are well worth the money for most golfers.

[Typhoon92]

6 minutes ago, iacas said:

Don’t love the poll. Fitting is about more than distance gains.

Fittings with a good fitter are well worth the money for most golfers.

Yeah I was thinking the same thing.  Could be a poll where “ other” is the winner.  FYI, I didn’t vote.

[Cantankerish]

8 minutes ago, iacas said:

Don’t love the poll. Fitting is about more than distance gains.

Fittings with a good fitter are well worth the money for most golfers.

Then the positive options should simply garner more support.  Alternatively, how would you word the poll?

[ChetlovesMer]

I think this is a tough question.

3 things:

Firstly, Far too many folks just talk about distance. Which might be fine if you are being fit for a driver. A good iron fitter will discuss things like gapping, set make up, dispersion, and more. 

Secondly, I go to a fitter that I like and trust. He's done my last iron, and my last 2 driver fittings. @iacas did my last (and only) putter fitting. I like this guy because he will literally give me the best overall option. AND the best option with NO upcharge. Personally, I think that's really cool. Sometimes they may be the same option, other times the difference is so small you will never notice it out on the course. 

Lastly, I find it silly that fitters make ridiculous claims. I've seen adds in magazines where they mention that after a fitting the average player drops 7 strokes or 10 strokes or what ever. In my mind, that is as ridiculous as some of the claims that driver manufacturers used to make where literally every year their driver was 10 yards longer than the previous year. 

1 hour ago, Cantankerish said:

ChetlovesMer brings up a good point here:

 

I'm not sure anyone's ever said that before.... Have you been drinking again?

CHEERS 

Edited March 3, 2020 by ChetlovesMer

[iacas]

1 hour ago, Cantankerish said:

Then the positive options should simply garner more support.  Alternatively, how would you word the poll?

Your choices are skewed entirely toward distance.

• "I gained more than 10 yards."
• "I gained a bit of distance."
• "My clubs were fine."
• "Waste of money."
• "Other"

Other will/should probably win, because a fitting is about much more than distance, yet you've positioned the poll as "I gained distance" versus "my clubs were fine" or "waste of money."

How about dispersion? Landing angle/height/launch angle improvements? Etc.

There's a lot more to fitting than distance.

[snapfade]

I'm on the bubble here with fitting. I am happy with my distance on all my clubs, I don't physically need 10 more yards right now. Sure it would be great to have 280 yards of carry, but I'm ok for now. Im fighting a tendency to pull the ball, but even then its acceptable distance. Would club fitting fix that? I don't think so. My instructor can though, and did once before but now its crept back. I got all my measurements checked and I am a standard length and lie. When I buy new irons though I will get fitted if its free just to see. At some places it seems like the people were former car salesman. Now that I'm typing this, with all of the shaft companies out now and the advancements in even steel shafts, I'm starting to wonder if I need shafts with a stronger/lighter torque resistance. When does this ever stop!!!!😭

 

[billchao]

I didn’t buy my new clubs because I hit them farther. I bought them because the dispersion was tighter, I launched them higher, they peak higher and land softer. I gained a few yards of distance from them but it’s probably not noticeable on the course.

We’ll see how they perform when I actually get out and play.

[Vinsk]

51 minutes ago, billchao said:

I didn’t buy my new clubs because I hit them farther. I bought them because the dispersion was tighter, I launched them higher, they peak higher and land softer. I gained a few yards of distance from them but it’s probably not noticeable on the course.

We’ll see how they perform when I actually get out and play.

Well distance with your irons isn’t really a problem for you Mr. 8i 170yds....lol.

[billchao]

22 minutes ago, Vinsk said:

Well distance with your irons isn’t really a problem for you Mr. 8i 170yds....lol.

Is that the one I hit at Celebration? Complete fluke. Swing hard in case you hit the ball, right? 😜

[jmanbooyaa]

A fitting to me should provide confidence in each club fit. Distance would be secondary. A driver I can control and bit fairways all day. Irons as someone mentioned gapping and ball flight. 
 

i would imagine distance would be gained by a few other aspects outside of a fitting. Exercise, proper instruction and practice. 

[Cantankerish]

3 hours ago, iacas said:

Your choices are skewed entirely toward distance.

• "I gained more than 10 yards."
• "I gained a bit of distance."
• "My clubs were fine."
• "Waste of money."
• "Other"

Other will/should probably win, because a fitting is about much more than distance, yet you've positioned the poll as "I gained distance" versus "my clubs were fine" or "waste of money."

How about dispersion? Landing angle/height/launch angle improvements? Etc.

There's a lot more to fitting than distance.

So, like I have been saying (and you have denied), you love to edit my posts.  I included two options for dispersion: "My dispersion is much tighter!" and "My dispersion is a bit better".  Why would you remove those?  I also did not include an "other" for ball fitting.  Yet, there it is.

[iacas]

32 minutes ago, Cantankerish said:

So, like I have been saying (and you have denied), you love to edit my posts. I included two options for dispersion: "My dispersion is much tighter!" and "My dispersion is a bit better".  Why would you remove those?

I edited your poll to do two things:

1. Remove the "multiple choice" option, which made absolutely no sense.
2. Add an "other" option to the second question.

I did not do anything like what you said, and I advise you to stop making provably false allegations.

[xrayvizhen]

I didn't answer the poll questions because I felt the choices are a bit silly.

My fitting didn't gain me yards (the stronger lofts did that) or get me a tighter dispersion (working on my swing did that.) What it did do was determine what lie angle (standard) and club length (+1/4") were correct for me. I had already decided that I wanted to switch to graphite shafts because my old steel shafts were just feeling heavy, especially towards the end of a round. (Getting old, I guess.) I also wasn't sure if my clubhead speed had slowed down to the point where I needed to go back to regular shafts. (Not yet it hasn't.)

I don't necessarily think that a full blown Club Champion-type fitting is suitable for everyone. I've noticed that CC, in particular, appears to make more money on switching out the manufacturer's recommended selection of shafts with ridiculously expensive ones, increasing the final cost (and their profit) by a crazy amount as the price of the clubs themselves is controlled by the manufacturer. A friend of mine showed me a quote from Club Champion for set of irons where the upcharge on the shafts exceeded the cost of the clubs themselves. I told him if he bought clubs from them he was nuts.

A free fitting at a Golf Galaxy or PGA Superstore (assuming you buy your clubs there) with the tried and true lie board and face impact tape analysis, along with some Trackman analysis will serve the average golfer like me just fine. (That also assumes the fitter knows what he's doing.)  I've also noticed that Mizuno now has a new gizmo that puts some kind of sensor on a 7-iron and connects via bluetooth to an Ipad. After three swings it recommends several shafts with specs that you can then test. Pretty interesting way to do a fitting.

[Vinsk]

1 hour ago, billchao said:

Is that the one I hit at Celebration? Complete fluke. Swing hard in case you hit the ball, right? 😜

You’re modest. You made a swing and struck that ball as solid as possible. I don’t think if I did that I could hit an 8i 170+yds uphill. But...imagine if that was your stock swing....

1 hour ago, Cantankerish said:

So, like I have been saying (and you have denied), you love to edit my posts

No. He decides  to make it better phrased, more accurate and provide better insight than before as this his his website and he cares about that stuff..come on man....

[DrvFrShow]

I think with Club Champion, you probably can tell them "yeah, well now that we got the clubs picked out with the proper lie angles, what shafts don't require I sacrifice my first born?"

I'm sure they want to sell the clubs and they have shafts that are more mundane. Most club manufacturers might even have one that is close in properties that isn't an upcharge. You might have to speak up and ask.

[BC-to-MI]

I voted other because my iron fitting wasn't about added distance, in fact I weakened the lofts on most of the irons to improve my gapping. What the fitting did do was greatly improve my dispersion and ball flight, not to mention the intangible difference of giving me the confidence when I am standing over the ball that my equipment isn't making a negative impact, like my old, beaten up irons could have been.

[Alohaed]

I'm with Xray... I might have gained distance, but more importantly I gained accuracy and ball flight, and more fun. My original clubs were off the shelf. For my new clubs, they were 1.25" longer, grip size down a size. Obviously finding the correct club head, where I hit closest to the sweet spot, and of course lie angle. Also testing and finding the best shaft too(ball flight).  I did not do a ball fitting.