Club Champion Fitting – Syndication Server

Antiquated to Updated: The evolution of club fitting

If you were to define a “golf club fitting”, your definition would likely vary from that of your playing partner, your father or even the local pro you use for lessons. You may have been fitted at your club a decade ago for your current set, while your playing partner might swear by their futuristic swing analysis session. In an industry with simultaneously so many innovations and so many traditions, it can be hard to know when modernization is truly the best option for your game.

Take golf equipment, for example. Each year, manufacturers release a new model touting faster ball speeds, longer carries, more accurate shots. From a sales perspective, this makes complete sense but from a practical standpoint, is there evidence to support the claim that new equals better?

“In short, the answer is yes,” said Nick Sherburne, master fitter and founder of Club Champion, the nation’s #1 custom club fitter. “We’re in a unique position since we see every model from every brand. Independent club tests back the claims and so do our informal findings.”

The principle is the same with club fitting: if your father’s iteration of a fitting found better equipment options, does that mean a modern version of Dad’s fitting can really give you an even greater competitive advantage?

Sherburne is so sure that the answer is yes that his brand is offering 50% off their custom club fittings to prove it. This winter special — 50% off all fitting types with a $500 equipment purchase — is active from November 1, 2020 – January 31, 2021. Those seeking out a putter fitting are only required to purchase a new putter for the 50% fitting discount to apply.

At any price, the insight and edge a golfer gains after a fitting is priceless. Club Champion uses technology every step of the way, from TrackMan swing analysis during a club fitting, Science & Motion’s PuttLab to optimize the putter, to PUREing machines that orient each shaft optimally into each clubhead during the build process. The mentality is show-not-tell: let the golfer see the improvement in real-time because the data doesn’t lie.

A Golf Digest study found that eight out of nine custom-fit golfers lowered their scores by as much as six strokes per round and added an average of 21 yards off the tee. That same study found over 13 yards extra distance with fitted irons. And that doesn’t even address the improvement in control and overall accuracy found with a fitted set.

“What we do is both an art and a science,” said Sherburne. “Every level of golfer can see massive improvement with a club fitting when they’re willing to embrace a modern fitting process — even if it looks a little different than it did back in the day.”

In short, this is not your father’s club fitting, and thank goodness for that.

For more information or to book your Club Champion fitting, call (888) 340-7820 or visit clubchampiongolf.com/golfweek.

Putter fitting: Technology can boost your consistency and performance

With the help of a good fitter and the latest technology, you can find a putter than will enhance your consistency and improve your roll.

When most golfers think about custom fitting, they think about drivers. The experience can be magical. A player and a trained fitter tinker with different head and shaft combinations, tweak lofts and adjust moveable weights. Presto, the ideal combination adds 15 yards of distance off tee and the golfer is hitting straighter shots.

Putters, on the other hand, rarely come to mind. That’s a huge mistake. Elite golfers will use their driver, typically, fewer than 10 times in a round but roll 27 to 30 putts. Weekend players may reach for their driver more often than pros, but they putt more too, often up to 35-40 times per round. A custom fit putter that augments your natural stroke can enhance your chances of performing better on the greens and lower your scores.

If you recently read my story on Arccos Caddie Strokes Gained Analytics, you know I’m an average player. My handicap is 13, and while I would love more distance and accuracy off the tee and need to sharpen my iron game, I’m a decent putter. But when Club Champion asked if I would like a putter fitting, I jumped at the chance. Here’s what I learned.

Safety first
I had not taken three steps inside Club Champion’s Hartford, Connecticut, faculty before Mitchell Becker, a PGA of America professional and my fitter for the morning, asked me to use some hand sanitizer. He also used some while we talked, and like me, he wore a mask. Becker explained that every morning before the store opened, it was thoroughly cleaned. Aside from fist-bumping instead of shaking hands, everything about the fitting experience felt the same as fittings before the COVID-19 pandemic. I felt very safe.

Know thy stroke
Before we did anything, Becker measured my putter and learned it is 34 inches in length and has 3 degrees of loft. That would be our starting point.

Launch monitors like TrackMan and Foresight do a great job revealing things like the launch angle, spin rate and ball speed you create with a driver off the tee. On the green, technology can show you data points and tiny details about how you aim, your stroke’s path and what is happening at impact.

Science & Motion’s SAM PuttLab is the device of choice at Club Champion. After attaching a small plate to your putter’s shaft, the Y-shaped machine uses ultrasound to track the club as it moves. Calibrating it using my putter took about 15 seconds, and putting from a predetermined spot on the artificial green, it collected information as I made seven 10-foot putts. Becker quietly studied my posture and alignment while standing about 10 feet behind me. The SAM PuttLab analyzed everything else.

Putting Path — The SAM PuttLab shows I have a slightly arced stroke. (David Dusek/Golfweek)

It turns out my aim is good. On average, my putter’s face was pointing only 0.5 degrees to the hole’s right at address. Becker said he had seen golfers who aim as much as 10 degrees away from the cup.

Coming into impact, my putter does not swing straight through the ball. Instead, it rises an average 1.7 degrees.

Putter launch conditions — My putter has 3 degrees of loft, but my forward press reduces it to 2.1 degrees at impact. (David Dusek/Golfweek)

Many people do not realize that the ball’s weight creates a tiny depression in the green and that a putter’s loft is designed to get the ball out of that depression. Too much loft can make the ball hop, but too little loft will drive it into the ground. I have a slight forward press, so while my putter has 3 degrees of loft, the playing loft at impact usually is 2.1 degrees. Luckily, my combination of effective loft and rising swing was good.

SAM also revealed I have a moderately arced stroke. The head swings to the inside of my target line on the takeaway and on the follow-through. As I make my backswing, it also showed the face opens an average of 7.4 degrees, and it closes an average of 15.7 degrees on the follow-through. In other words, it’s rotating, but at the most critical moment – impact – it was open 0.6 degrees to the right. Again, that’s pretty good. That combination of arc and rotation indicated that a face-balanced putter would be wrong for me, but that either a blade or mallet-style putter with 30 to 45 degrees of toe hang could be an option.

Length and lie angle are critical
While I holed six of the seven putts the SAM device studied, it showed I made contact slightly toward the toe of the face on all but one putt and that the toe of my putter was elevated by about 2 degrees. In the ideal setup, the putter should be flat.

Putting impact — A small adjustment to my lie angle was necessary to center my strike location. (David Dusek/Golfweek)

At impact, the lie angle was 68 degrees. By flattening the lie angle to 67 degrees and adding an inch in length to the club, the impact spot could be shifted more to the center of the face for improved consistency.

Becker bent the lie angle of the putter I was using 1 degree flatter, but I could not see any difference at address. Then he handed me a putter with the same specs but that was one inch longer. I felt the difference immediately. It was only an inch, but I felt more upright and more comfortable. However, because the lie angle was ideal, my eye position over the ball was in the same location, so my aim was not affected.

In 20 minutes I had learned that I need a putter with 30-45 degrees of toe hang, 3 degrees of loft, a length of 35 inches and a lie angle of 67 degrees. After that, everything is my preference.

Grips, alignment aids and customization
Once you know what you need, a good custom fitter can help you sort through the scores of putters on the market that are viable options.

A mallet or a blade?
Large grip or small?
Chrome, black, white, blue?
Alignment lines, alignment dots or both?
Custom stamping?

So, what putter did I get? In the end, I opted to keep the same heel-toe-weighted blade that I walked in with, but with a few modifications.

The putter was given a longer shaft, a small amount of extra weight was added to the tip section to increase the swing weight and I switched to a new midsized grip.

I walked into my putter fitting with a club that pretty closely matched my stroke and walked out with an even better one.

Fitting Files: How proper club fitting can help you gain yards, improve your game

Golfweek’s new Fitting Files series explores how proper club fitting can help gain yards, tighten shot patterns and improve a player’s game.

Television shows that conduct extreme makeovers are everywhere. It’s easy to relate to the person who wants to improve their fitness, the family that dreams of fixing up their old house or a couple that wants to improve their finances. It’s motivating to see how the right tools, training and support – mixed with a little time – can transform a person’s body, home or wallet.

The Fitting Files, a new Golfweek series, aims for the same kind of makeover. In the following pages and in future issues, we will share the basics of custom fitting and how golfers just like you were able to improve with professionally fit golf equipment that matches their swings and bodies.

To help, we enlisted Club Champion, one of the leaders in custom fitting with 74 locations throughout the United States. The company’s fitters have a brand-agnostic philosophy with a focus on matching players to their best gear, regardless of the name on the club. Using their universal hosel mechanism, Club Champion fitters can attach any head to any shaft, so golfers can test countless combinations of gear using TrackMan launch monitors and SAM PuttLab systems.

The three golfers featured this month all came to a Club Champion store near Chicago on a snowy January day in the hopes of getting an early jump on the season. The models of clubs they used before the fitting aren’t listed here, because it isn’t inherently important – their swings are theirs alone, and the results of their fittings almost certainly would be different for another player.

They all left with a reason to look forward to spring.

Player: Nathan DeBerry
Age: 35
Handicap: 21

Before: An athletic player with loads of power, DeBerry’s driver clubhead speed was almost 110 mph. That is nearly PGA Tour level, but after getting warmed up, he only averaged 221 yards of carry distance with his old 10.5-degree driver. DeBerry’s launch angle was 19.4 degrees, and he generated more than 4,300 rpm of spin off the tee. His moon balls were robbing him of yards, and his average driver distance was actually 3 yards shorter than with his 3-wood.

The Fitting: Smash factor describes the ratio of clubhead speed to ball speed and is a measure of efficiency that is capped by the USGA and R&A at 1.52. That means that if a player swings a club at 100 mph, the ball speed is not allowed to exceed 152 mph. Club Champion’s goal is for clients to achieve a smash factor of 1.48 or higher with their driver, and DeBerry’s was 1.32 with a tendency to slice.

“That number means you are leaving some serious yards out there,” said Brad Syslo, one of Club Champion’s most experienced fitters. “Every mile an hour of ball speed can be 3 to 5 yards.”

Syslo started by testing DeBerry with shafts of various weights. DeBerry had used a 60-gram shaft that came standard with his driver. After trying several models, he and Syslo discovered the Project X HZRDUS Smoke Yellow shaft reduced his excessive spin, lowered his ball flight and increased stability so his shots flew straighter.

Next, DeBerry tried driver heads on the Project X shaft. He liked several of them, and the Titleist TS3 with 8.5 degrees of loft provided him with the best match for his needs.

They repeated the process for DeBerry’s 3-wood and learned the same shaft, in a slightly heavier weight, fitted to a 15-degree TaylorMade SIM fairway wood produced more distance and a tighter dispersion pattern than his previous fairway wood.

Final impressions: “The shaft made a huge difference,” DeBerry said.

DeBerry gained 17 mph in ball speed with his driver, lowered his spin rate by about 1,500 rpm and reduced his launch angle by more than 7 degrees. His driver carry distance went up an astonishing 47 yards, his slice turned into a gentle fade and his smash factor climbed to 1.45. His new 3-wood also carried almost 13 yards farther than his previous fairway wood.

Player: Steven Jacobi
Age: 44
Handicap: 18

Before: Jacobi had never been custom fit for clubs and purchased a used driver online three years ago. A league golfer who plays twice a week in season, Jacobi loved his driver but arrived at his fitting searching for more distance and to reduce his slice.

The Fitting: Club fitter Andrew Moores explained that Jacobi was doing a lot of things well. His clubhead speed and spin rate were good, and his launch angle was not too bad. However, the shaft in Jacobi’s old driver was a bad match because of one key characteristic.

“When a shaft is too heavy and too stiff, you can’t get the head through, and the clubface stays open,” Moores said.

Moores and Jacobi tried six shafts at lower weights and learned an Accra FX 2.0 140 M3 shaft, which weighs about 45 grams, was ideal when set into a driver at a slightly flatter lie angle.

After finding the ideal shaft, Moores said, “You can see that his face-to-path measurement is almost 0, which means it’s square.”

Next, they started exploring heads. Jacobi liked Ping drivers, and a 9-degree G410 Plus with its adjustable hosel set to +1 proved to be the best fit.

Final impressions: The combination of the Accra FX 2.0 shaft and the Ping G410 driver helped Jacobi increase his ball speed by more than 4 mph, which resulted in 9 more yards of carry distance and 14 more yards overall. His dispersion pattern also tightened, and his drives flew straighter.

“Honestly, after tinkering and going through the fitting, that driver feels right,” Jacobi said.

“I think his distance is going to go up when he’s fresh,” Moores said after the fitting concluded with a slightly tired Jacobi. “When we started with this shaft, he was swinging 2 or 3 mph faster, so with his improved smash factor, that could be another 5 or 6 mph of ball speed.”

Player: Jerry Song
Age: 48
Handicap: 4.8

Before: Song is a steady golfer who plays two or three days a week. He loves the look and feel of classic muscleback blades, and like many accomplished players, Song is slow to make changes to his gear. He bought his irons seven years ago off the rack, but then about four years ago Song went to a Club Champion store for a whole-bag fitting. He likes a heavy iron, so the fitter added lead tape to the back of the heads.

“I hit a really high ball, so I’m looking to see if technology can help me hit it a little bit lower,” Song said before his fitting with Darrell Wyatt.

The Fitting: Trackman data revealed that Song’s typical 6-iron was flying a respectable 169 yards in the air with an apex height of 97 feet. Song believed he was hitting the ball too high, but Wyatt explained that his trajectory was close to ideal.

“His ball flight and height were not really too high for his standards. It felt high to him, but we were in a pretty good spot,” Wyatt said.

After testing various shafts, Song and Wyatt discovered that Oban CT 125 X steel shafts kept Song’s ball flight in the ideal height range while enhancing feel and delivering more ball speed.

“It just felt better in my hands, and I did not feel like it was dragging coming through,” Song said. He also said the shaft encouraged him to swing more smoothly and easily.

Wyatt saw that the stiffer shaft made contact more solid, and that helped Song’s efficiency.

After settling on the shaft, Song and Wyatt tested iron heads. He loved the look of Mizuno’s irons and discovered that the MP-20 MMC irons were a great fit on the Oban shafts. His ball speed increased 6 mph, his dispersion stayed tight and the ball came down more steeply, so approach shots would stop faster on the greens.

Final impressions: Song went from a muscleback blade to an iron that is forged from carbon steel with a copper underlayer, tungsten in the sole and titanium in the back of the heads. He loved the looks and those hidden technologies, but even good players can have misconceptions about their shots, and Song learned a few things.

“I’m a big weight guy and like my irons to be a little heavier, but understanding that I can go to an extra-stiff shaft, even though I’m getting older, was interesting,” he said. “But when I swung that shaft, it was easy. I didn’t have to muscle it. Everything went through crisp and I gained 9 yards!”

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