Custom Fitting – Syndication Server

TaylorMade’s Performance Decision Kit could be a great golf ball fitting option, but you can’t buy it

This is exactly what many golfers need.

With its namesake mountain looming in the background, twilight descending, and the empty, emerald-green fairway laid out in front of me, the 18th hole at Superstition Mountain Golf Club in Golf Canyon, Arizona, was the perfect place to have a little fun.

No one else was around that evening, so I dropped five or six three-ball sleeves of the newest golf balls on the ground and started hitting approach shots, pitch shots and chip shots until darkness made it too hard to see. I made little notes on a pad about how each ball felt and flew, how much it appeared to spin (I didn’t have a launch monitor), checked-up on the green and which balls seemed to end up closest to the hole.

It was the first time I’d really tested golf balls, and it has become a yearly ritual that starts my season every year, although, sadly, Central Connecticut is not as pretty as the Arizona desert in late March.

I have encouraged Golfweek readers to buy three-ball packs of newly released balls at the start of every season and test them against the ball they currently play on several occasions, so when I recently received TaylorMade’s Performance Decision Kit, I thought a brand had finally made the job of ball testing a little easier. Inside the box were six two-ball packs of each urethane-covered ball in the 2024 TaylorMade stable: TP5, TP5 Pix, TP5x, TP5x Pix, Tour Response and Tour Response Stripe.

One box, three different balls in both white and in each ball’s visual-technology version.

The TaylorMade Performance Decision Kit includes six two-ball packs of TaylorMade balls. (David Dusek/Golfweek)

But when I reached out to TaylorMade to find out when the Performance Decision Kit was going on sale to the public, I got the bad news: This unique box will not go on sale to consumers. It was created for select members of the media and influencers to make them aware of TaylorMade’s new offerings for 2024.

[anyclip-media thumbnail=”https://cdn5.anyclip.com/ZGzRs40B4tYbd-8K-MC9/1708119517843_248x140_thumbnail.jpg” playlistId=”undefined” content=”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”][/anyclip-media]

I recently went to TaylorMade’s golf ball manufacturing plant in Liberty, South Carolina. I have also visited Callaway’s facility in Chicopee, Massachusetts, along with Titleist’s golf ball plant in New Bedford, Massachusetts, several times. These state-of-the-art facilities turn out millions of dozen boxes of golf balls every year thanks to lots of proprietary systems, customized machines and other automated processes. The assembly lines are built to make thousands of the same ball at a time, paint them, number them, add them to sleeves and then get those sleeves into dozen-ball boxes.

I assume creating something like the TaylorMade Performance Decision Kit involves a level of small-batch work that would be difficult to do at scale. In fact, it would likely fall to the custom golf ball department that handles corporate orders and other small-batch projects. Still, that doesn’t mean I don’t want TaylorMade and other brands to make dozens of boxes like this available to everyone.

For the last 20 years, the percentage of golfers who buy their clubs after going through a custom fitting season has dramatically increased because while a good-quality custom fitting session can take time, the result is a club that is ideally suited for the player. Once players go through a fitting for a driver or irons, they never buy “off the rack” again. Custom fitting for putters and wedges still lag behind woods and irons, but those numbers are going to climb.

Golf ball fittings? Almost no recreational golfers get fit for the ball they use, which is why a multi-ball pack sold as a fitting tool is something we need. It would make the process easier if you could buy a dozen box and get a sleeve of:

Bridgestone Tour B X, Tour B XS, Tour B RX and Tour B RXS
Callaway Chrome Tour, Chrome Tour X, Chrome Soft and ERC Soft
Srixon Z-Star, Z-Star XV, Z-Star Diamond and Q-Star Tour
TaylorMade TP5, TP5x, Tour Response and Soft Response
Titleist Pro V1, Pro V1x, Pro V1x Left Dash and AVX

Any time I talk with a brand about helping golfers find the right clubs, they all say custom fitting is the key. If you don’t get custom fit for your woods, irons, wedges or putter, you are almost certainly leaving some performance behind. The same thing holds true with golf balls.

Unfortunately, TaylorMade’s Performance Decision Kit may be an example of a great idea that is not ready to become a reality for most golfers.

Ping PLD Milled Anser, Anser 2D, Oslo 3, DS72 and Ally Blue 4

Ping is expanding its PLD Milled putter family with new blades and mallets with customization options.

Gear: Ping PLD Milled Anser, Anser 2D, Oslo 3, DS72 and Ally Blue 4
Price: $485 each
Specs: Milled 303 stainless steel
Available: February 13

Who It’s For: Golfers who want tour-inspired looks and elite levels of feel and precision in their putter.

The Skinny: Using feedback from tour pros, Ping is expanding its PLD Milled putter family with new blades and mallets while also expanding the personalization and customization options.

The Deep Dive: Two years ago, Ping launched a three-level putter program that brought tour-level clubs to the masses and allowed consumers to customize their new Ping putters like never before. The four PLD putters were straight-from-the-bag of players like Viktor Hovland, but now Ping is releasing a line extension that includes five new PLD putters, the Milled Anser, Anser 2D, Oslo 3, DS72 and Ally Blue 4.

Like the first PLD putters (PLD stands for Putting Lab Design in homage to the company’s putter testing facility inside its Phoenix, Arizona, headquarters), the new Anser, Anser 2D, DS72 and Oslo 3 are each milled from a solid block of 303 stainless steel in a process that takes about four hours to complete. They come standard with a gunmetal finish and a deep-milling pattern in the hitting area that creates the sound and feel that tour players prefer.

The Ping PLD Anser 2024 is the latest version of the most-copied putter in golf. (Ping)

Anser – This classic heel-toe weighted blade comes at a standard weight of 350 grams with 3 degrees of loft.
Anser 2D – This is the Tony Finau putter, a wider version of the original Anser. At 365 grams, its added weight and size make it more stable.
DS72 – The Viktor Hovland putter, this compact mallet is suited for golfers with a straight putting stroke. The gap in the back flange can help players align the face more easily.
Oslo 3 – This semi-circular mallet is a favorite of Tyrrell Hatton and has a higher moment of inertia to increase stability.

The fifth putter, the high-MOI Ally Blue 4, is a mallet with an aluminum body, stainless steel soleplate and aluminum hosel. Its size, shape and weight distribution help it resist twisting on off-center hits and keep mis-hit putts rolling on your intended target line.

In addition to announcing the release of the five new PLD putters, Ping is allowing golfers to personalize their putters more deeply by utilizing an online tool on ping.com called PLD Milled Plus.

Customized Ping PLD Milled putters for 2024. (Ping)

Instead of going with the standard features that come on the PLD putters, PLD Milled Plus lets golfers select their own alignment aids, paint fill, custom graphics and paint-filled grips. For instance, if you want a single dot added to the topline of your DS72, filled in red, no problem. If you want two alignment lines added to your Anser, one in purple and the other in golf, you got it. Laser etching also always allows golfers to add stars and stripes or Mr. Ping logos.

Once golfers are done designing their putter online, they can take their unique design specifications to an authorized where the custom order is placed before Ping’s custom shop builds the club.

Below are several close-up looks at the 2024 Ping PLD putters and some customized putters created in the Ping PLD Milled Plus program

Obit: After buying his first drill with green stamps, Carl Paul created a golf club making revolution

“(Carl) had incredible instincts, took calculated risks and hired the best people he could find.”

AUSTIN, Texas — Before cell phones became an essential part of daily life, folks trying to track down Carl Paul on a Sunday knew exactly how to do it.

“It was easy — you just had to call his work phone,” said Barry Rinke, Paul’s son-in-law. “He was always at his desk, even on Sunday. He loved what he did. It was never about money for him. It was about loving what he did.”

What Paul did was take an avocation — a knack for custom-producing golf clubs — and create one of the biggest forces in the world of golf, Golfsmith. Co-founded with his wife, Barbara, Golfsmith started in the family’s two-bedroom apartment, forcing the couple’s daughters to move in with them. But by the time it was sold in 2002, Golfsmith grew from that bedroom to 35 brick-and-mortar retail stores across the country, employing 1,200 people and boasting a catalog distribution of 30 million per year, making it the biggest golf retail and component catalog in the world.

But to know Paul, who died on January 12 at the age of 83, was to understand that his passion was always around building a community. Family was essential to Paul, and so was his extended family of clubmakers that stretched out over the globe. When Carl and Barbara started the Golfsmith clubmaker’s school in Austin, Texas, they often invited those taking the weeklong seminar into their home.

“Years later, we started hosting a conference, and we’d have 500 customers from all over the world in Austin,” said Rinke, who worked for the family business for 17 years. “A huge percentage would say, ‘Yeah, I remember staying with Carl and Barbara in their house.’ It truly was a family. He touched so many lives.”

Incredibly, Paul used S&H green stamps — a rewards program from a bygone era — to purchase the drill that got the process started in the couple’s New York City-area home. At the time, Paul worked for the Federal Power Commission and was moonlighting in the club-making business.

Carl Paul moved to Austin in 1973. The co-founder of Golfsmith died at the age of 83 on Jan. 12. (Photo: contributed by Paul family)

Paul offered his brother Frank a one-third stake in the business, and soon after, he decided to quit his job, move the family to Austin and turn his hobby into a career. The move paid massive dividends.

“Carl was an advocate of taking calculated risks. That’s what he did with the move,” Rinke said. “And as things started to grow, he kept this a family business. He had incredible instincts, took calculated risks and hired the best people he could find.

“He was just a guy who lived by his gut feelings. And when he started fixing and building clubs, he would see how other people had the same desire to fix and build their clubs, and how it could become a small business for many of these people.”

Rinke became part of the family by marrying Beth Paul, a golfer who starred at Westwood High School in Austin before playing for the University of Texas. In 1985, Rinke recalls talking with Carl Paul about the company’s 108 employees and then booming $8 million in sales.

“We thought, ‘Oh gosh, this just can’t get any bigger’,” Rinke said.

But when the family sold the business in 2002, sales were closing in on $300 million per year.

Paul is survived by Barbara, with whom he was married for 58 years, and daughters Beth, Kelly and Marnie.

In September 2016, Golfsmith filed for bankruptcy. A month later, Dick’s Sporting Goods acquired Golfsmith for about $70 million at a bankruptcy auction, according to a Reuters report.

[lawrence-auto-related count=1 tag=1864]

PXG is wagering $100 its driver is longer or straighter than your gamer

There’s nothing to lose with this new PXG promotion.

For years, Golfweek has been extolling the virtues of custom fitting and working with experts who have a launch monitor, plenty of shaft options and experience studying ball flight and club performance. Just as custom-made apparel will always fit better, custom-fit golf equipment will match your swing and perform better than the club you buy off the rack.

Starting Tuesday, Parsons Xtreme Golf (PXG) is running a unique promotion to get more golfers to try its newest drivers – the 0311 GEN6 and 0311 XF GEN6 – and if they don’t prove to outperform your current driver, PXG is going to give you $100.

Here’s how it works:

Schedule a free PXG GEN6 Driver Challenge fitting by going to the company’s website.
Bring your driver to the custom fitting, and after you warm up, the fitter will have you hit five shots with it while capturing data on the shots using a TrackMan launch monitor. The average of your three best drives will become your baseline.
After that, a PXG master fitter will run you through a PXG GEN6 driver fitting. Once it is complete, the fitter will have you hit five shots and use your best three to compare the PXG driver’s performance against your gamer.
If the PXG driver fails to produce more average distance (combined carry and roll) or a tighter dispersion, the golfer gets a $100 Mastercard Rewards card.

Your swing speeds must be within 3 mph of each other and you have to use the same ball for all the shots and there is a limit of one challenge per person.

While the percentage of golfers who are getting custom fit for their drivers has been rising over the years, far too many people still fail to work with an expert to ensure they are using a club with the ideal loft, shaft weight, shaft flex and bend profile. With that in mind, maybe PXG’s Driver Challenge promotion won’t bankrupt the company’s billionaire founder, Bob Parsons.

Regardless, any golfer can learn about the dynamics of his or her swing while going through a good custom fitter, and this program is a clever way to expose more people to PXG’s offerings.

Really, for golfers, there’s nothing to lose. The fitting is free, and the process result could verify that you are already playing a well-fit driver. It might reveal that PXG can build you a better-performing driver than the club that’s in your bag.

[lawrence-auto-related count=4 category=1364]

Ping’s PLD Custom program provides custom fitting, tour-level personalization and a premium price

Players can customize every detail in a new Ping putter-fitting program, but such tour-level personalization comes at a price.

Two years ago at the 2020 Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill, a week before the world changed and the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in the United States, I snapped a photograph of Viktor Hovland’s putter. In fact, I photographed all his clubs while he worked with one of Ping’s PGA Tour reps on the range, but that putter is unique because, unlike nearly all Ping clubs, it was covered in rust.

Over time and with exposure to air and water, Hovland’s DS 72 putter slowly developed a patina of brown pocked with orange, and gearheads on social media loved it.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CL4uC5ygcx8/

I reposted that image after Hovland won last fall, and once again equipment lovers responded. But the emails and comments overwhelmingly mentioned the same request: “Hey Ping, make this available to the rest of us!”

Ping just released the four-model PLD Milled series of putters, and one of the clubs now available is Hovland’s DS 72 mallet. Still, suppose you want to go the full Hovie. In that case, the company’s new Ping PLD Custom program will let you recreate the putter of your dreams, whether that’s Hovland’s DS 72, a customized Anser or one of several other models available with a level of personalization that Ping has never before offered the public.

It’s a new ultra-premium service, and it comes with likewise ultra-premium price of $1,290. But paying that price means you won’t hear this, “Sorry, we can’t do that.”

At the heart of the PLD Custom program is custom fitting, done either in-person with a Ping master fitter or virtually using Ping’s proprietary iPing app.

Pros such as Hovland, Cameron Champ and Bubba Watson use the iPing app – which involves attaching an iPod using a plastic cradle to your putter, then hitting three series of five putts – when they have their putting stroke analyzed at the Ping Putt Lab inside the company’s headquarters in Phoenix.

In your virtual fitting, studying your stroke on 15 10-foot putts, the iPing app calculates things such as consistency of face closure, your tempo, the amount of shaft lean you average at impact, the average lie angle and your average impact angle. That data, to a master fitter, is like gold and allows your fitter to make a recommendation about the type of putter that could benefit you most in a pre-arranged videoconference. For example, if you tend to strike the ball with the shaft leaning forward, the fitter will recommend more loft than standard. If your tempo is slow and you putt on fast greens, he or she might recommend a heavy head.

After you and the fitter decide the type of putter you need, the sky is the limit. You get to pick the head shape from blades such as the Anser, Anser 2 and Kushin to mallets such as the Prime Tyne, DS 72 and Oslo. You get to chose the material from which your putter head will be made, either stainless steel or carbon steel, as well as the amount of face milling, the finish, the alignment features, the grip, custom stamping and paintfill colors. You even get to decide the shaft. In other words, you get as much customization as tour pros enjoy.

All of the putters sold in the Ping PLD Custom program will be milled, built and assembled by Ping’s Wrx team in Phoenix, the same people who build putters for tour players. Ping exects to be able to deliver PLD Custom putters about three weeks after customers place their orders.

As you might expect, this level of fitting, service and customization carries a premium price tag. To book a PLD Custom fitting with a master fitter or a virtual fitting, golfers are required to pay a $200 non-refundable charge. That amount is applied toward the purchase of the putter, which will carry a price tag of $1,290. It’s a big number, to be sure, but Ping aims to make this a tour-level, top-of-the-line experience. Nothing is off the table.

The four new Ping PLD Milled putters that are arriving in stores will make a lot of golfers happy, but for those who can afford it and who have always dreamed of having a customized, tour-level putter in their bag, the PLD Custom program now makes it possible.

Ping PLD Milled Anser: $449.99 at PGA Tour Superstore / $447 at GlobalGolf
Ping PLD Milled Anser II: $449.99 at PGA Tour Superstore / $447 at GlobalGolf
Ping PLD Milled DS72: $449.99 at PGA Tour Superstore / $447 at GlobalGolf
Ping PLD Milled Tyne Prime 4: $449.99 at PGA Tour Superstore / $447 at GlobalGolf

We occasionally recommend interesting products, services, and gaming opportunities. If you make a purchase by clicking one of the links, we may earn an affiliate fee. Golfweek operates independently, though, and this doesn’t influence our coverage.

Titleist golf ball fitting experiences range from an online survey to one-on-one evaluations

In reality, testing golf balls is every bit as important as testing clubs before you buy them.

[mm-video type=video id=01fpzw6w1z4tp5mz6nec playlist_id=01es6rjnsp3c84zkm6 player_id=01evcfxp4q8949fs1e image=https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/video/thumbnail/mmplus/01fpzw6w1z4tp5mz6nec/01fpzw6w1z4tp5mz6nec-e5a4e2ac2f136c823426e78a2d3588b5.jpg]

Over the past several years, slowly but surely, more and more golfers have started to buy their golf equipment after getting custom fit. Instead of walking into a golf retail shop or specialty store, grabbing a club off the rack, and heading to the register, they are taking their time to be sure the new driver, irons, or putter fits their swing and their game.

Most golfers, however, still do not take the time to test golf balls to see which might help them to get better performance on the course and shoot lower scores. They either instinctively buy the same ball they have always played or go with something that fits their budget and has exciting buzz words on the box.

In reality, testing golf balls is every bit as important as testing clubs before you buy them. Golf balls can create varying degrees of spin around the green, height on iron shots, and trajectories off the tee.

To help golfers find a ball that suits their needs, Titleist offers several different tools. The company’s website has a golf ball selector feature that asks users 10 questions, then makes a recommendation based on the answers. Golfers can also schedule a virtual, one-on-one golf ball consultation with an expert to determine which ball could be the best choice.

The highest level of golf ball fitting is an in-person, one-on-one experience that the company refers to as a Tour Level Fitting. Typically hosted by golf clubs, these events allow golfers to sign up for time (often 90 minutes) and work with a golf ball expert. Using a TrackMan launch monitor, players are asked several questions, then have an opportunity to try the Pro V1, Pro V1x, AVX, Pro V1x Left Dash and in some cases, the Pro V1 Left Dot. Just like a driver fitting, the numbers don’t lie and different attributes of each ball become clear.

Golfweek’s David Dusek recently had a chance to go through a Tour Level Fitting at the Titleist Performance Institute in Oceanside, California, and captured the experience on video. Watch the full evaluation above.

Ping’s Ballnamic virtual ball-fitting tool aims to help you find your ideal ball

Ping’s research and algorithms use data and user input to compare golf balls and reveal which could fit your game and swing the best.

Ping makes drivers, fairway woods, hybrids, irons, wedges and putters. The Phoenix-based company also sells golf bags, apparel and accessories, but you’re out of luck if you are looking for Ping golf balls.

However, that does not mean Ping has not conducted significant research on golf balls, how they perform and how they differ from each other. On the contrary, the company’s engineers, fitting experts and data scientists have quietly been working on something that might help you find the ideal ball for your game.

Ping’s new Ballnamic virtual ball-fitting experience was developed to help golfers and club-fitters more accurately match a player’s style and preferences with golf balls that are ideally suited for their game.

“Ballnamic represents our never-ending quest to innovate every variable of the custom-fitting experience,” said John K. Solheim, Ping’s president. “Our extensive knowledge library and engineering expertise led us down the ball-fitting path, and we’re excited to bring it to both fitters and consumers. The access golfers have to their data through launch monitors and other tools continues to grow and make advancements like Ballnamic possible. Since we’re not in the golf ball business, we’re able to conduct independent testing and offer this unbiased tool as another service for golfers to help improve their enjoyment of the game.”

After going to ballfitting.com and creating an account, golfers are asked a series of questions. What is their average total distance with a driver and a 7-iron? Do they want a high, low or mid-trajectory ball flight? How often do they play in windy conditions? Are they looking for more spin around the green?

For even more personalized results, golfers who have launch monitor data can enter their ball speed, launch angle and spin rates.

Along with the questions, the program explains how emphasizing one characteristic can often come at the sacrifice of other things, then allows golfers to make their decisions.

After the questionnaire has been completed, the algorithms go to work and reveal the player’s five best-fitting golf balls from more than 40 balls that are in the system. Detailed comparisons of how those balls will likely perform for the player are also provided.

For example, Ballnamic will tell you whether you should expect to hit a Titleist Pro V1 farther than a Callaway Chrome Soft X, whether a TaylorMade TP5 might give you more greenside spin than a Bridgestone Tour B XS and if a Srixon Z-Star XV will fly higher or lower than a Titleist Pro V1x when you hit into a headwind.

“It’s been eye-opening to see the impact that different balls have on dialing in someone’s fitting recommendations. While Ballnamic provides useful information as a stand-alone tool, we’ve also seen the benefits of combining club- and ball-fitting,” said Marty Jertson, Ping’s vice president of fitting and performance. “For example, using Ballnamic we’ve seen optimization benefits in players achieving greater distance while using a higher-lofted driver with better-matched golf balls. Our goal is to help golfers in working to match the best ball to their game, so they can have the most success on the golf course.”

Aside from golfers using Ballnamic themselves, Ping hopes that club-fitters will license the application and make ball-fitting an added component of driver and club fittings.

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.

Smart Fitting: Arccos and Club Champion partner to enhance the fitting process

By allowing Club Champion fitters to see a player’s on-course Arccos data, the fitting process can improve.

Working with a well-qualified custom fitter is the best way to ensure that the golf equipment you buy is ideally suited to your swing and the needs of your game.

Golfweek has been hammering that point home for years, and more and more golfers are listening. While most players immediately see the rewards of custom-fit clubs when they play, there can be an adjustment period and questions for others. Will a slice-fighting driver work on the course? Is the lie of a new set of irons just right? Does a player’s sand wedge have enough bounce?

Arccos and Club Champion announced a unique partnership on Monday, and it could make questions like those a thing of the past.

Arccos, based in Stamford, Connecticut, makes tiny sensors that screw into the grip of your clubs. The company also offers grips that already hold the sensors. Once the sensors are linked to Arccos’s smartphone app, the system can use the GPS feature in your phone to track every shot you hit using every club in your bag. Overlaying that data on maps of the holes and courses you play, Arccos creates data-rich stats that can reveal things like your average distance with each club, where you tend to miss and which aspects of your game are strong and which need some work.

Based on your tendencies, weather, elevations changes on the hole and how other golfers with similar abilities have played the hole, Arccos Caddie 2.0 makes real-time club recommendations.

Club Champion, based in Chicago, is one of the biggest and most reputable club fitting companies in the United States. It has 74 stores around the country and is brand agnostic, carrying equipment from every major company and several smaller manufacturers too. Thanks to a unique hosel system, Club Champion fitters can attach any shaft to any club head, allowing golfers and fitters to try scores of combinations. Using TrackMan launch monitors, Club Champion fitters can show clients exactly how different combinations of components work with the player’s swing.

Now, thanks to the partnership, Club Champion will not only sell Arccos sensors and Arccos-enabled grips, but the company’s fitters will also be able to track and see how a client’s gear performs on the course.

After golfers give permission for their Club Champion fitter to monitor their play, Arccos will provide data that lets fitters better understand the player’s game and track their performance after the fitting. The fitters have all trained and certified as experts in the Arccos Caddie platform and the Arccos Dashboard. The dashboard lets fitters see insights, visualizations and shot-by-shot history of a player’s round. They can also see club distance averages, gapping, clubs used, dispersion patterns, miss tendencies and more.

“Having access to our clients’ Arccos on-course shot data allows us to fully understand each player’s unique golf DNA,” said Nick Sherburne, the founder of Club Champion and one of the company’s master fitters. “The data is golden. It helps golfers and our fitters better track performance while gaining an unbiased understanding of where they excel and what they need to improve.”

While some golfers may see an element of Big Brother in this, golfers who get an Arccos system at Club Champion are not obligated to take part in the program. However, the benefits to the player could make it worthwhile.

For example, if a player who used to slice is now hooking the ball using his new driver, the fitter will be able to see the issue, reach out to the player and make suggestions that could solve the problem. Some players also hit shots differently in an indoor fitting studio than they do on the course. Allowing a Club Champion fitter to access Across data could reveal those differences too.

“With Arccos Caddie, every Club Champion fitter can get a contextualized picture of their clients’ games,” said Sal Syed, the CEO and co-founder of Arccos. “This can be a huge positive for the fitter-client relationship before, during and after each studio session.”

[lawrence-related id=778031680,778031659,778031610,778031577]