Hckymeyer goes for an iron fitting

[hckymeyer]

I went back to Totally Driven in Edina, MN for an iron fitting on Wed.  I mentioned it in my putter fitting post, but one cool thing Totally Driven has just started is the "Fit for life" program.  If you get fit for a particular segment of your bag and follow Totally Driven's recommendation then you are considered fit for life.  This allows you to be re-fit once a year for that same segment and get free loft/lie checks and preferential pricing on regripping.  Kind of cool that I don't ever really have to pay for an iron fitting again and I can go get my loft & lie's checked at the start of every season.  On to the fitting...

 

I got fit with Jon again and we started off the conversation around what I was looking for, what my misses are, what my good shots are like.  He took various measurements like height and wrist to floor and then got started with the Mizuno shaft optimizer.  I've been playing KBS C-Taper S+ shafts for two seasons now and they were kind of a shot in the dark when I installed them.  So I was very curious what the shaft recommendations would be.  After checking the specs on my current set we started hitting some shots.

 

 

Turns out I was in the ball park.  The Mizzy optimizer recommended Project X 6.0 or a soft stepped X flex in either Dynamic Gold or KBS.  So my C-Tapers were just fine with Jon and after seeing the height of my ball flight they quickly turned into his first choice for me.  He then put impact tape on my current 6i and we noticed I was hitting everything towards the toe.  Nice grouping, but not in the sweet spot.  He put together a test club for me to hit and I was all over the face with that one.  Then he made another adjustment and suddenly I was right in the sweet spot 3 shots in a row.  We learned that my current 6i had a swing weight of D8, I was all over the face with a D2 swing weight and D5/D6 gave me great groupings right in the middle.

 

This was kind of good news/bad news for me.  Good news in that D5 is what I build all of my clubs at.  Bad news in that I built my 6i to be D5 and it turned out to be D8.  So the first thing I truly learned in my fitting is that I need to be much more precise in my club building

 

Another thing Jon noticed after watching me hit my clubs is how high I hit the ball.  I was averaging 117' with my 6i.  The PGA average is 90'.  I was 9yds higher than average which can cause some issues when playing on a windy course.  My home course is a links course with lots of wind so I was paying close attention.  The first question I asked was if this was an equipment issue or a swing issue.  Unfortunately for me I have a steep angle of attack and Jon said it was mostly my swing.  He might be able to bring my ball flight down with a different set of irons, but 9yds is a long way to go and he didn't thing we could get there with just equipment.  I was getting good distance though so he said it's just more something to be aware of than a huge issue.  I will just need to adjust more when hitting into and with the wind.

 

 

The last thing we looked at was lie angle.  My miss is usually left and usually a pull.  I play a pretty straight ball flight and my pull is pretty consistent so I can play it.  Jon explained though that for a right handed golfer adjusting a club flatter should bring the ball to the right and adjusting upright should bring the ball to the left.  So he put together a demo club with a flatter lie (adjusted about 1.5°) and my shots were much closer to the center line.

 

After that we did the same thing with my new-to-me Scor wedges.  I've always pulled my wedges and usually aim 5-10yds right of my target.  I hit a few with my 54° the way it was and this was the result.

 

 

About what I expected, all pulled left.  Then he took my wedge to the bending machine and worked his magic.  Not only did I hit everything much closer to the center line, I also picked up 6yds just by adjusting the lie to something that fits me.

 

 

We talked wedge shafts after that Jon is a firm believer in matching wedge shafts to your iron shafts.  He likes to have the same grips and shafts follow through the entire set so I'm having them install C-Taper parallel shafts into the wedges and they will use the frequency machine to make sure they tip them to match the rest of my irons.

 

So my final specs are C-Taper S+ shafts 1/4" over (38.25" 6i), standard lofts, lie adjusted off a 61° 6i which is about 1.5° flat from the standard for these irons.  Grips are my regular PURE grips with 4 wraps of masking tape. 

 

Getting fit at Totally Driven was again a great experience.  They have a complete selection of all the current iron and wedge offerings (all the big OEM's plus Miura, Scratch and Edel) and really take the time to answer any questions or concerns you have.  If you are in the area and have the time it's a great place to check out and it gets my stamp of approval.

[whiskey golf]

Sounds like another good experience, that's good that you didn't need to make super drastic changes with your clubs.

[fozcycle]

Great review hckymeyer.  I was impressed with the detail they provided you along the process.  I always thought that getting fit for irons meant they wanted to sell you a new set of irons.  Sounds like they just want you to use the correctly aligned equipment.

 

How ling did it take, and did you hit all the clubs in your bag?

[hckymeyer]

Great review hckymeyer.  I was impressed with the detail they provided you along the process.  I always thought that getting fit for irons meant they wanted to sell you a new set of irons.  Sounds like they just want you to use the correctly aligned equipment.

 

How ling did it take, and did you hit all the clubs in your bag?

I went in knowing I wasn't buying new irons and let Jon know my goal was to verify my current choices and make sure any changes needed to have them fit me best.

 

The whole process took about an hour and I mostly hit 6i and 54° wedge.  When I go pick them up I will end up hitting each iron to verify lie angles.

 

One other note that I found interesting, not once did I actually hit off a lie board.  Jon said adjusting lie angles is much more about ball flight and contact than what a piece of tape and lie board can tell you.  Lie boards can lie.

[JBones]

My fitter doesn't like lie boards either.  He draws a line on a ball with a sharpie and it leaves a mark on the face, it's either straight up or tilted to one side or another if the lie needs adjusted.

 

Hope it works out well for you, Hcky.........when you get to play in another 6 months.

[GolfSpy Barbajo]

Outstanding work hckymeyer!  Did an AimPoint class at Totally Driven with Andy Thompson a few weeks ago (writeup coming) and it was first rate.  They do a great job there!

 

I fight the lefts as well -- am due to delve deeper into irons at 2nd Swing, so I'm guessing a lie adjustment is in my future too.

 

Did you check out the gym at Totally Driven?  

 

Excellent write up!

[hckymeyer]

Outstanding work hckymeyer!  Did an AimPoint class at Totally Driven with Andy Thompson a few weeks ago (writeup coming) and it was first rate.  They do a great job there!

 

I fight the lefts as well -- am due to delve deeper into irons at 2nd Swing, so I'm guessing a lie adjustment is in my future too.

 

Did you check out the gym at Totally Driven?  

 

Excellent write up!

What's a gym?

 

I took a quick tour with Jon during my putter fitting and posted a couple pictures of the gym there.  Looked pretty nice and a wide range of machines, plus a separate little workout room for doing dryland types of training. 

 

Another kind of cool thing is they just got in 5 new Trackman units, so you can see swing data from a bunch of different hitting stations now. 

[revkev]

What a great write up and experience for you.  I see this type of shop as the wave of the future - love the fit for life concept especially since my doc said my heart is good for another 50 years.  Nothing else may be left of me after 10 but at least I have that going for me.

[The Dansome]

This is a great write up. Really neat to hear about the improvements with the wedge bending.

[Undershooter]

Great write up and that facility looked awesome in your putter fitting pics. They seem to do top notch work! Jealous there isn't one around me. Also I fight a steep angle of attack as well so I know the troubles you fight with the wind. Thanks for sharing!

[Mr_Theoo]

Awesome job on the write up. Pretty cool to see that your shaft choice was spot on.

[PlaidJacket]

I enjoyed reading your review hck. I was so inspired I just fired off an email to my fitter requesting an appointment to get a new driver fit and hybrids fit. I hope to get down there in March. He's about 200 miles from where I live. I'm already excited thinking about it.