Recent driver fitting results

[amcquay]

I'd been gaming a Ping G10 driver, 10.5* with a stock TFC129 stiff shaft for the past two months or so and just wasn't doing very well with it. I attributed a lot of it to the shaft flex, as my swing speed is only around 90 mph right now. So, I decided to go in for a driver fitting and the results were pretty amazing.

The fitter did make one fix to my swing, he noticed that my feet, knees, and hips were all set up nice and square, but that my shoulders were slightly open. He pulled my right shoulder back and had me drop it a bit, and that made a pretty significant improvement (compare group 1 vs. group 2 of the Ping results below). I only hit regular shafts in the fitting, here are the numbers, all of which are averages of 5-10 swings:

Ping G10 10.5 Regular - group 1 (before shoulder fix)
Carry - 189.5
Roll - 13.3
Total - 202.8
Ball Speed - 124.2
Launch Angle - 12.7
Back Spin - 3706
Side Spin - -1847
Club Speed - 86.5

Ping G10 10.5 Regular - group 2 (after shoulder fix)
Carry - 204.7
Roll - 15.1
Total - 219.8
Ball Speed - 123.5
Launch Angle - 15.6
Back Spin - 3013
Side Spin - -990
Club Speed - 84.5

Taylor Made 09 Burner 10.5 Regular
Carry - 227.5
Roll - 17.3
Total - 244.7
Ball Speed - 131.6
Launch Angle - 13.6
Back Spin - 2729
Side Spin - -220
Club Speed - 89.6

Nike SQ Dymo 11.5 Regular
Carry - 229.6
Roll - 17.1
Total - 247.3
Ball Speed - 129.2
Launch Angle - 14.7
Back Spin - 2494
Side Spin - -59
Club Speed - 87.5

As you can see, the change to my shoulder alignment helped a lot and pulled the slice I was seeing with the G10 in some, but I still was hitting it right of center almost every time. The TM Burner added some distance and straightened me out quite a bit, but adding a degree of loft on the Dymo completely killed my fade/slice and got my launch angle and spin in the optimal ranges. I was even hitting slight draws, which I've never done. I should have done this a long time ago!

[amcquay]

I played 9 holes today with the new driver. I hit 4 of 7 fairways, and the others were between 1 and 5 feet away from the short grass instead of in the trees. One was actually a draw that missed a couple of feet left. GPS verified that my drives were in the 220-240 range with one at 253 (downhill fairway, lots of roll), so the LM seems to have been pretty accurate. I was a bit skeptical of that kind of distance increase myself, but the results carried over to the course today.

[Dub]

Congrats on a great fit.

Those are some seriously improved numbers....glad to hear it works in the "real world" as well.

Which shaft did you go with?

[amcquay]

Which shaft did you go with?

It's just the stock SQ Dymo widebody 55 gram shaft in regular flex, although it is also labeled UST AXIVcore.

[Dub]

UST makes some great shafts.

Yours sounds like a perfect fit for you.

[soloredd]

When you say "pulled right shoulder back and drop it a bit" do you mean that before you were standing too upright to the ball instead of a bias toward the back of the ball? I can't describe what I'm talking about very well, but I think I have this same issue. I know that my spine angle is pretty much wiped out as I come through the ball and follow through and I think not dropping my right shoulder is the culprit. Good to hear of the results, I never thought fitters would give a swing change - but I've never been fitted so...

[amcquay]

When you say "pulled right shoulder back and drop it a bit" do you mean that before you were standing too upright to the ball instead of a bias toward the back of the ball? I can't describe what I'm talking about very well, but I think I have this same issue. I know that my spine angle is pretty much wiped out as I come through the ball and follow through and I think not dropping my right shoulder is the culprit. Good to hear of the results, I never thought fitters would give a swing change - but I've never been fitted so...

No, my shoulders were actually a little open, causing an outside-to-in swing. He pulled my right shoulder straight back (from my perspective) which twisted my left shoulder forward and squared me up.

If you saw a picture taken from directly above, left shoulder on top of the frame, my shoulders would have looked like this at first: \ When he twisted my shoulders clockwise a smidge, they would then look like this: | Not sure if that helps any, but it helped me get an inside-to-out swing path which eliminated the sidespin I was putting on the ball and killed the slice.

[soloredd]

Ah, you describe it well, I got it. I think part of my problem is the same thing. In fact, swinging my driver earlier today in the backyard I could even tell my shoulder was open off to the left. I've also realized my shoulder tilt to the right had disappeared, which helped me earlier this year in getting good, solid contact.

[CG031]

Wow, nice. You really seemed to have gained a lot of distance through getting fit.

You were carrying the ball 230 yards with a 90 mph swing speed? That doesn't really make much sense to me.

It had to closer to 95-100.