Curious About Driver Fitting Experiences- Please Share

[gibbyfan]

In full disclosure, I am a massive sucker for driver/shaft combo hype. It is without a doubt my drug of choice. In the back of my mind I know the truth, but nothing is as fun as a new driver with an interesting shaft.

 

However, over the last 6 months I have casually worked with my instructor on improving my iron play and putter. Those are the two areas that I thought were the weakest areas of my game. Through my work, I have improved my full iron swing. Honestly, both areas are improving based off of sound technical instruction and use of technical data. From an equipment point of view, I have lengthened my irons and changed shafts. I have shortened my putter and adjusted the lie. While those areas are improving, it is very apparent that my driving game is also a massive weakness. My spastic driving is putting a lot of pressure on my iron play to keep me in the round. However, since I have started my swing work, I have seen the merits of fitting and what information can do to help you improve. So, I am ready to abandon my hype- following-self and get fit for a driver.

 

My question for the community is, what was your driver fitting experience like? What sort of mindset did you have before your appointment? Did you view your fitting a success? Did you purchase the combo that worked well ( either through your fitter or OEM)? How did you check your ego or preconceived ideas? What did you learn from your experience? Finally, what improvements are you seeing from your fitting.

 

Thank you.

[FourTops]

Who needs a fitter? It becomes fairly obvious what shaft flex works after a couple hundred hits. Go to a store and tell the annoying sales person to point you to the shaft options....hit as many shaft / head combos as possible before they kick you out.

[Chef23]

I did a fitting recently and frankly I was looking for a few more yards not more consistency. My fitting wound up telling me there was no magic bullet and the fitter actually told me to stay with my current driver.

 

I did enjoy the fitting though. The fitter could match my driver performance with some different head/shaft combos and I ruled out some things I thought might have been a match. At the end of the day I left with confidence in the club I had. I went prepared to buy a new driver and left just paying for the fitting.

[FourTops]

I did a fitting recently and frankly I was looking for a few more yards not more consistency. My fitting wound up telling me there was no magic bullet and the fitter actually told me to stay with my current driver.

 

I did enjoy the fitting though. The fitter could match my driver performance with some different head/shaft combos and I ruled out some things I thought might have been a match. At the end of the day I left with confidence in the club I had. I went prepared to buy a new driver and left just paying for the fitting.

 

A few more yards is like not worth $400. Some guy on YouTube was talking about how all driver faces have a maximum rebound when a ball is fired at the driver face....like 83% of the incoming speed. That means they're all the SAME. So now you're down to shaft type.

[Auditor_Kevin]

All driver heads are not the same. Not even close. MOI and a drivers COG matter immensely in how accurate and log each club is.

[Clemente80]

I've been taking lessons too and have been improving my overall full swing. I got new irons a few months ago (after fitting) but recently did a driver fitting. Actually, I did 3 driver fittings - Club Champion, True Spec, and PGA Tour Superstore Tour Van. And I also took a suggestion above and hit a ton of head/shaft combos at PGA TSS. In terms of your questions:

 

What was your driver fitting experience like? It varies by fitter. Club Champion starts with one head and tries a bunch of different shafts to see what works, then tries a bunch of different heads with the best shaft, then once you've locked onto a head/shaft combo, you go back and try a couple of the other heads or shafts just to make sure the best/best combo actually is best. True Spec talks to you a little more about what you're looking for, sees you hit some balls with your current driver, and then they suggest 3-5 combinations and you try them. You will not hit a Rogue with 15 different shafts, then an M3 with 15 different shafts, etc. PGA TSS Tour Van Fitting is sort of a hybrid - you might try a Rogue with a Hzrdus then next try a G400 with a AD DI. So you might hit 100 balls at Club Champion, 40-50 at True Spec, and 150 at PGA TSS. I'm a very high spin driver so all 3 recommended the Rogue Sub Zero, but they had different shaft recommendations. At the end of the day, I went with the shaft that felt the best to me, not totally based on the best numbers, since my swing varies from day to day.

 

What sort of mindset did you have before your appointment? I just wanted to get a driver that would keep me in the green stuff and not in the woods. I want to say that I was open to all possibilities, but I really thought I would like the G400 series better. Ultimately, the Rogue Sub Zero was the unanimous recommendation for my game. Figured I'd trust the experts.

 

Did you view your fitting a success? I think it was a success for me. I feel comfortable having done multiple fittings that I'm buying a driver that is going to work really well for me. Is it ultimately the absolute best driver? With the 30,000 combinations that these fitters offer, maybe there is one that is better than what they recommended. And maybe a $1000 shaft could help my game. No club is going to get me to the tour, but I'm pretty sure the recommendations will help my game (currently using a 9 year old driver).

 

Did you purchase the combo that worked well (either through your fitter or OEM)? I did buy the recommended driver from one of the fitters.

 

How did you check your ego or preconceived ideas? This is hard. I thought I needed maximum forgiveness, so I thought I'd get the G400 Max or Rogue. At the end of the day, I think people should come to me for my expertise in my day job, so I didn't think I should overrule the guy who does this for his day job. That being said, the fitters I went to were the best at each location (based on my sources).

 

What did you learn from your experience? The key is to find a good fitter. Talk to sources or use GolfWrx forums to find recommendations on fitters in your area. Even when you're not swinging well, a good fitter will do one or both of the following things: 1) tell me I'm just having a bad day and offer to reschedule (which one of the fitters did, free of charge), or 2) tell you how a club can help offset your bad shots when your swing isn't there (for me, bad days mean pull hooks, so I could consider adjusting the club to somewhat open).

 

Finally, what improvements are you seeing from your fitting. The club was just ordered a few days ago so I haven't gotten it yet.

 

Hope this helps. Best of luck.

[Bar_Stroll]

Very similar to above. I just got fit at True Spec. I went in having just started playing golf again after a very long hiatus and the driver I had was just given to me by a friend, an R15, since my other driver was from when I played last, 2009 Taylormade Tour Burner. I have always been high spin and add loft so I thought I'd be in the Sub Zero or G400. I was leaking everything right when I got fit and I usually hook so that threw things off and the fitter did not give me the Sub Zero thinking I may not get it closed. I ended up hitting the M4 the best, the dispersion was way better than anything else.

 

My M4 will be here Tuesday. I ordered straight from Taylormade with an Aldila NV 2kvx 65 Green X-stiff. I was fit for a Rogue Elite Green 65 X-stiff but they are only available to club builders and being that I needed a whole bag I am not in a position to spend $800 for just a driver. So I ordered something I found to be in the same ballpark and have a Grafalloy Red X and Rogue Silver X to swap out. I'm sure one of the 3 will get me very close to where I need to be, the rest is on me.

 

I am in a position where the new heads are going to be much more forgiving than what I have so I have a high level of confidence my game will be much improved. For me, with an inconsistent swing, there was a dramatic difference in how well I hit each head. That had a lot to do how I perceived them visually and how they felt in my swing which were not all the same. It was an interesting experiment if nothing else.

[Gmack1973]

A fitting can definitely help some players, the results on this video are pretty impressive.

 

[mwink822]

I was just fit for a new driver this spring (917D3) and after trying the offerings from Taylormade, Callaway, and Ping, I wound up back at Titleist. I got the most consistent results with it. Now, I hit a few shots with the others a good bit further, but the side to side dispersion was wider and the front to back dispersion was greater as well. The next closest contender was the Rogue Sub Zero, and I hit a few monster drives (at least for me), with it and seemed to have a tiny bit more club speed with it, but the average of shots wasn't as good. Hit the Titleist offerings second, wound up with a 917D3. We went through all the shaft offerings that this particular fitter had in the cart in an X flex (Diamana D+ 70, Speeder Evolution 757, Tour Green 75, Speeder 74 Tour Spec, and Rogue M-AX 75) as well as the Rogue Silver 80 Tour X that I had been fitted for in the 915. Of the options we tried, we wound up settling on my Rogue 80 Tour X. Luckily, the pro shop had a 9.5* D3 in stock so I bought it and bolted my Rogue into it.

 

Now going into this fitting, I was really hoping to get into a shaft that had a little more lively feel than the my Rogue, but no dice. I did discuss an issue that I have with the Rogue 80, and that being that it becomes a bit of a chore for me to swing late in a round during the hottest of the dog days of summer (I walk my home course and carry my clubs), so he recommended I track down a raw length Silver 70 Tour X and he'd swap out the shaft wit the stiff flex that I bought. Tracked one down and had the fitter/builder install it into the adapter off of the original shaft in the club I bought from the pro shop. Happily prices on the Rogue 125 MSI have dropped immensely from where they were a couple years ago.

 

If I provide full disclosure, I imagine that a lot of the better consistency with the Titleist drivers is attributable to the fact that they have a shorter standard length than the others 45" v. 45.75 for the Ping and 45.5 for the Taylormade and Callaway.

[gibbyfan]

A fitting can definitely help some players, the results on this video are pretty impressive.

 

Thank you for the link! The video, as well as many other TXG videos, was very interesting. If you are on the fence about a fitting for yourself. You absolutely need to check out the TXG fittings. Really great videos and explains a lot!

 

 

Thank you everyone that has shared their fitting experiences and what you have taken away from the experience. I think the benefit of my fitting ( scheduled for this afternoon) is that it will be with my instructor as well. Therefore, he will have an idea of my improved swing, but also an idea of my flaws. From a cost standpoint, I hope that I can use something that I already have with a minor adjustment, but the results will dictate the direction. I will post something later about the experience.

 

[Mdemuth]

I've had a few fittings, but none have compared to the results I got with Club Champion. for the best results you definitely want to be able to replicate your swings/contact.

 

For myself, I need to work on better replication for my driver, but I was fit into a new shaft that added 18 more yards with tighter dispersion.

I found through all my driver fittings, you should definitely get better dispersion.

 

However, I'm pretty good with my irons and hybrids. I didn't get new irons he just corrected my lies and degree gapping. never hit them better, that alone added 5-10 yards more depending on the iron.

 

the real insanity was with my hybrid. I have a callaway apex 20* hybrid, would hit it 180-190 before. I tried some other hybrids, but none felt as nice, and they were adding more spin. We went through a few shafts, and man.... I was hitting 215-220 straight and tight cuts with the perfect shaft for me...

 

may not get the same results but for me, it was well worth it. They are still going to work with me to decide if I should go with a 23* hybrid as well in place of my 4 iron, but I think its awesome they want to make it all work for me, and not just sell me things.

 

Besides, fittings are fun and you learn a lot.

[larrybud]

I did a fitting recently and frankly I was looking for a few more yards not more consistency. My fitting wound up telling me there was no magic bullet and the fitter actually told me to stay with my current driver.

 

I did enjoy the fitting though. The fitter could match my driver performance with some different head/shaft combos and I ruled out some things I thought might have been a match. At the end of the day I left with confidence in the club I had. I went prepared to buy a new driver and left just paying for the fitting.

 

A few more yards is like not worth $400. Some guy on YouTube was talking about how all driver faces have a maximum rebound when a ball is fired at the driver face....like 83% of the incoming speed. That means they're all the SAME. So now you're down to shaft type.

 

Weighting of heads are completely different, and you certainly can't get landing angle, spin rate, and roll-out visually.

 

If you don't believe in driver fittings, go to the 2016 Gear Trials on this site and you can see the differences. 20-30 yard differences with the same shafts, different heads. We're not talking about 3-5 yards. You'll also notice that several players has completely different combos which was best for *their* swing. If heads didn't matter, we'd all play the same head, right?

 

http://www.golfwrx.com/352108/2016-gear-trials-best-drivers-club-test/

 

I would never buy a driver without a fitting, makes zero sense to me, and if you have a decent fitter, you can tell within 4-5 shots if the combo you're using is in the ball park. So you can whittle it down to 3 or 4 combo that are close to optimal and put a few more balls into the dataset and see if there's a large enough correlation to choose just based on results or if you just "like" one over the other (perhaps feel and / or looks).

 

I don't need to hit 200 balls to find "the" club.

[Jackrwesty]

Don't spend $500 for an extra 4 yards.. Make sure the results are a great improvement to spend your $, don't feel like you have to buy something cause you spent up their time .your choice in the end !

[JCULL]

You want a few more yards have your driver pured. You’ll never look back. Some may argue but it’s proven. You’ll also gain accuracy aswell.

[1Mordrid1]

Don't spend $500 for an extra 4 yards.. Make sure the results are a great improvement to spend your $, don't feel like you have to buy something cause you spent up their time .your choice in the end !

 

Agreed. 4-5 or even 10 yards is not enough for me to justify the price of new drivers. At one time I was in that never ending vortex looking for a few extra yards. But after my M1 fiasco, I changed my mentality to favor consistency and disperion over distance and even sound and "feel". Since then my scores have been steadily dropping.

[gibbyfan]

Again, thank you everyone for the comments and advice. I agree that only a few yard improvement will not warrant a large price tag. I was able to get a "fitting" in this afternoon. However, my pro/fitter, did not have all of the tools to get me fit. In short, one of the employees helps with OEM demo days and took a number of the shaft bags. So what I was able to fit into was very limited. However, he was able to quickly rule out some of the shaft and heads that will not work for me. I am in the low percentage that actually needs to add spin to my driver and I already hit up on the ball. He was frustrated by the lack of materials that he didn't bother charging me. He did make some notes about shafts and two different heads he wanted to try out. So, it wasn't what I expected, yet. But, I didn't pay for anything either.

[FourTops]

Folks...keep in mind the "one driver head hits farther than the other" is marketing.

 

All drivers must conform to a Coefficient of Restitution (COR) measurement, meaning they shoot a ball at a driver face and the rebound speed must not be more than .83 of the incoming speed. The shaft is where folks get the most improvement.

[Howard_Jones]

Folks...keep in mind the "one driver head hits farther than the other" is marketing.

 

All drivers must conform to a Coefficient of Restitution (COR) measurement, meaning they shoot a ball at a driver face and the rebound speed must not be more than .83 of the incoming speed. The shaft is where folks get the most improvement.

 

 

Its true that max COR value or CT is limited by the rules, but it vary alot from head to head how large the face area that gives max ball speed is, and how directional forgiveness is on hits outside VCOG.

 

Saying "all heads is equal" based on rules for max COR or CT, is a large misunderstanding of reality.

[gibbyfan]

Who needs a fitter? It becomes fairly obvious what shaft flex works after a couple hundred hits. Go to a store and tell the annoying sales person to point you to the shaft options....hit as many shaft / head combos as possible before they kick you out.

Folks...keep in mind the "one driver head hits farther than the other" is marketing.

 

All drivers must conform to a Coefficient of Restitution (COR) measurement, meaning they shoot a ball at a driver face and the rebound speed must not be more than .83 of the incoming speed. The shaft is where folks get the most improvement.

 

Thank You Four Tops for keeping this thread going..haha.

I agree that the COR is limited on all heads. But like Howard said above there are a lot more variables within the head that would lead any player to take advantage of the COR. You are also correct, the shaft plays an important role. One shaft that is on my fitter's list for me to tryout is the new V2. It's a $60 shaft. If I can keep the same head and a $60 shaft improves my launch, little more spin, and more consistent, then it is money will spent. If a different head, like the M4, improves my areas then it too is worth the change.

[FourTops]

Who needs a fitter? It becomes fairly obvious what shaft flex works after a couple hundred hits. Go to a store and tell the annoying sales person to point you to the shaft options....hit as many shaft / head combos as possible before they kick you out.

Folks...keep in mind the "one driver head hits farther than the other" is marketing.

 

All drivers must conform to a Coefficient of Restitution (COR) measurement, meaning they shoot a ball at a driver face and the rebound speed must not be more than .83 of the incoming speed. The shaft is where folks get the most improvement.

 

Thank You Four Tops for keeping this thread going..haha.

I agree that the COR is limited on all heads. But like Howard said above there are a lot more variables within the head that would lead any player to take advantage of the COR. You are also correct, the shaft plays an important role. One shaft that is on my fitter's list for me to tryout is the new V2. It's a $60 shaft. If I can keep the same head and a $60 shaft improves my launch, little more spin, and more consistent, then it is money will spent. If a different head, like the M4, improves my areas then it too is worth the change.

 

Not really trying to keep the thread going so much as to point out limitations. Sure, some larger heads will provide better off-center hits, but the dead center hits will not result in more yardage assuming tested drivers are all at 0.83, using the same shaft. OEMs design drivers for common off-center hits, which is why some drives will go farther than others. Folks might be better off with less distance on off-center hits when heading towards OB.