PGA Merchandise Show: Custom fitted club sham continues

Well, you're right and wrong. 99% of the garbage pedaled by these pathetic former golfers turned shills is useless to anyone, much less the high handicapper. But getting the length and lie of your club right is very important for everyone. It won't make you a good golfer, but the wrong length and lie can certainly keep you from becoming one.

I'm a 6'2", 10 handicap that plays 1/2 extended 4 degrees upright. If I take a standard length and lie set of clubs and try to play a round, I play to about an 18. For very upright or very flat swingers, trying to play with standard lie clubs can be a very frustrating experience.

But yeah, all that other stuff is pure snake oil. Every time I see those 'Perfect Club' commercials, I find myself doing my Peter Kessler impression all day. What a goof.

I used to dream about 6'2", but fell short by five of those inches. So Chris and I can swap clubs, even swap sides of the ball, and come out even. I will take umbrage with one issue: golf shaft stiffness. You GOTS to get it right. If your get your macho on and go X-S, you'll be foul ball-right all day long. Too soft and you'll be hooking on Rodeo Drive. What about puring the shaft? What's your 6th sense on that one?

I would have said as you prior to owning the business I do. You have a lot to learn about golf equipment. Call our customers and ask them if it mattered or even better give me a call and I will change your mind after 15 minutes of talking about your game.


Custom fitting makes a HUGE difference and the thing is you guys think is only about your height. That is actually one of the things that we change the LEAST often. It accounts for only about 10% of custom fitting a golfer.

ANALOGY FOR YOU: When you buy $400 suit do you get it tailored in just the length or in other areas?

Then why when you spend $1000 on a set of clubs do you not get it properly tailored to your body?

I like the concept of the blog. While I think tayloring clubs to fit you is overdone, there is something to be said about it. I have Titleists that are standard length and lie. Would I be better if they were perfectly fitted to me, I doubt it.

My take is that people should spend that difference (the extra money they put on fittings) on lessons, and getting their swings down. Then once they have gotten under a 10 handicap, worry about customization.

Ron, good call on swing speed. Much agreed with that.

Custom fitting is not a panacea; it is, however, one leg of the golf improvement "stool." Let one is instruction, leg two is practice, and leg three is clubs that are properly fitted to the player. As a teaching professional, it has been proven out time and again that properly fit equipment will improve your ball flight. I do agree that lab coats and blinking lights are not the answer but a substantive fitting from a qualified instructor who understands the dynamics of ball flight will help the average player. With the new restrictions placed on technology by the USGA, the only frontier we have left is fitting. Besides, you can get custom fit clubs as the same price as you would pay to buy them off the rack these days, so what do you have to lose?

Sean Sheppard
President
Magique Golf

While you may think that custom fitting is "pure snake oil" for all but the better players, even beginners will find benefits of equipment that matches them more precisely. When you at everything from length, loft, lie, shaft weight, swing weight and shaft flex, you will absolutely play better with the right equipment. More importantly, EVERY club in your bag should be matched to your swing. Think about it....this is the only sport I know of where you use 14 clubs (or mmore!!) to hit one golf ball. The chances of all of them matching YOUR swing are slim and none. I will be happy to give you any one of our 7,000 customers that we have custom fit and see if it made a difference to them!

Dan Sueltz, Founder and CEO
D'Lance Golf Performance Center
Littleton, CO
303-730-2717

Your view of custom-fitted clubs and the benefits derived from a properly fitted set are quite ridiculous. You obviously have no faith in your ability to repeat your golf swing and have no experience with a proper club-fitting. You must be combfortable in the dark and have no desire to improve. Good luck and enjoy your mediocrity.

SORRY. you are WAY OFF on this one, Chris. There is a $$$/power play going on in this industry and you and your friends are the end victims.

1)The majority of golf club manufacturers love what you have said here. (And by the way, they are controlling this agenda.) As long as they can "pretend" to have clubfitting systems, or have the public believe that clubfitting is bogus, the average golfer will continue to buy lots of clubs that end up in their closet. And the manufacturer can avoid serious training costs for fitters and cost of building sets to meet individual specifications. (And research shows that golfers who have had genuinely correct fittings keep their clubs for 11 years... oooops....)

2)The average club pro and golf teacher love what you wrote. That way they never have to take responsibility for their service and lessons -- It can always be the consumer's fault that they can't be better golfers and their handicaps don't go down. And the pros can avoid the costs of providing excellent equipment and teaching training and service. Most golf teachers are teaching their golf students to "compensate" for their ill-fit equipment and under pressure, those compensations evaporate. The Pros could actually make more money by learning to fit and teach to the individual, but they just don't want to work that hard... or they just believe your line of thinking...

3) The golf magazines love what you wrote -- golfers will keep buying their mags, trying to change their swing with monthly tips, when 70 - 80% of their ball flight problems could be cured by better fit equipment. And of course the mags love that the equipment companies contiune paying the mags to run their HYPE advertising

The TRUTH is that a "state-of-the-art" equipment analysis will positively change a golfer's game forever. For years we have seen it every day, over and over again....

You are invited.... Come on out to Scottsdale, visit with me and Gary Blaisdell, one of the very best equipment specialists in the industry (including Putters) and experience first-hand what our combined 50 years of experience in this can provide any golfer.... State-of-the-art Equipment Analysis and prescribing Individual Specifications IS available... the club manufacturing industry does not want us to let the TRUTH out, but IT IS AVAILABLE NOW. Come see for yourself -- you will hit a club that you KNOW is better fit for you... and you won't go back...

And THEN, Chris, you can write an "informed" column on golf equipment.

Kerry Graham
Past National President, LPGA Teaching and Club Professional Division
Gary Blaisdell, CEO
Blaisdell Performance Systems

Great subject for debate, I Think it's not just the tayloring of clubs but just about the whole industry. It never ceases to amaze me what miricals the latest driver, lob wedge, putter - et al, will perform. I have golf friends who easily succumb to this "fareway robbery" and needlessly spend £100's every year trying this and that trying to straighten hooks or slices or whatever else plagues their game. My advice find a set of clubs you like buy them then don't change them till there falling apart. I can remember Jack Nicholas breaking his three wood in the Open, when he finished the round the commentator asked " I suppose you will be getting another Three wood for tomorrows round, it was explained to him the great man would not take a new club out unless he had hit at least 3000 practise balls first with it. There is a lot to be said for familarity.

As for the idea that only the latest flashy gimmick will suit your game one of my regular golf buddies (4 handicap), has played for ten years with a putter purchased for £10 from Argos (America Walmart) he would'nt swap for anything else that should tell you all you need to know.

After reading the coments on custom fitting and having bought many clubs through the years I can only tell you what I have seen what a good club fitter can accomplish. A golfer comes in and hits his Oem irons with an outside in swing and hits a fade slice with every shot. The clubfitter changes his iron to one he has made up. His swing stays the same but ball flight straightens out by changing shaft flex, Kickpoint and lighter clubhead