mynerds

Thanks for the review Dave! Quick follow up: one of the themes I've seen in the negative reviews on the M20 is a potential lack of insulation. Some folks reported the ice melting in ~4 hours, even in shaded or cool conditions. This isn't what I'd expect from Yeti, or at this price point. Can you share your experience on it's insulating properties, especially in comparison to your Hopper Flip 12? It would be a shame if the cooler held enough beers for beer-a-hole but couldn't keep them cool for the entire round.

Last night’s beverage: Old bay beer

Well you forced me to look at the TS2's. After additional discount with "EXTRA15", tax, and (free) shipping, I snagged a mint standard length 4 hybrid and 5 hybrid for $126.42 out the door. Two nearly new clubs for cheaper than some of the hybrid fittings out here? I'll take the chance!

Amazing deal, correct side of the ball for me, but probably not forgiving enough for my game. Thanks for sharing!

Fun fact: I generally play matte finish balls and the dry erase marker ends up being absorbed into the ball cover and not imprint on the club. On a related note, I have a single golf ball with a big black cross on it that will not scrub off . I may switch from matte balls to gloss specifically for this reason, despite how much more I like the look of the matte finish.

Not going to lie, had to look this word up. Remind me to never play scrabble with you. Heck of a post, and can't say I disagree with any of it particularly as someone who has LTDx clubs being built for them now. Marketing and PR crafts their words very carefully. So long as the engineers are doing their best on the back-end, I don't care what color lipstick the pig has.

Sorry to hear! I'll send you a bottle of Malort, an iconic Chicago delicacy, to keep in your bag for sharing with folks like this in the future. They should get the message, or they'll lose the ability to taste good food for a day. Win win in your case though!

Fine by me! Maybe I'll request it as a new forum badge for future members Will do! Do you have any experience with foot spray versus impact tape? I don't really care what happens with the soon-to-be-old clubs, but I'll try to be as kind to the new clubs once they arrive. I'm not sure how well the foot spray cleans up or any goo that impact tape adhesive might leave behind. Thanks! I've said before, I'm a scramble team's best friend if I can be carried (no pun intended) to within 100 yards of the hole . Putting is my favorite part of the game, and it's less "I need to improve on putting" and more "if I'm going to be playing with my putting mat anyways, let's work on 7 feet and out." I'm also going to move the pressure putter around on the mat and confirm whether the baseline misses are legit or if I really do have a groove in the last foot of the mat.

June update: I ended up purchasing the clubs I was fit to during my Club Champion Fitting from Fairway Jockey at the beginning of the month. Honestly, I only gave them a shot because of @fixyurdivot's posts. Given that they're owned by True Spec, I'd figure more people on the forum would have posted about them. Guess I'll break up the monopoly on Fairway Jockey info . I reached out with my engineering specs from Club Champion and had to follow up to get any response. They gave me a 10% off coupon for sending the spec sheet from a competitor on top of being substantially cheaper in the first place. After discount, tax, and shipping, the same build from Fairway Jockey was ~22% cheaper than Club Champion. The build time was estimated at 4-5 week and we're just finishing up week 3 of waiting. I'm hoping to have the new clubs in hand sometime in July. I finally spent time making a putting baseline to track improvements from my virtual lessons. I'm practicing on a puttout mat with their pressure putt trainer, so I tracked both "perfect putts" and makes/misses: Weirdly, I was perfect through 5 feet and missed one put at 6 feet for a 59/60 made putts. At 7 feet and beyond, I consistently missed my putts with the ball being dead on the painted puttout line but veering off in the last foot to miss one cup length inside (right-to-left miss as a lefty). I'm not entirely convinced I haven't worn out a groove somewhere, but I'll take this as a baseline and spend more time practicing puts outside 6 feet. I picked up a Rapsodo personal launch monitor for use with the Sporina SPG8 net test. I'll elaborate over in the test, but the reality for me is that hitting only into the net doesn't provide the feedback I'm looking for in terms of improving my game. The launch monitor with the hitting net has been tremendously beneficial to my my hitting sessions and validated my belief that my biggest struggle is with my irons. Here's a snip of Rapsodo's analysis on a session where I hit a dozen balls with each club: I may not be the smartest guy here, but even I can see where I suck the most. I'll be spending more time with my 7i-5i to improve there as well. I've spent some time finding lessons in my Me and My Golf subscription to help with my irons and will focus on those in the coming weeks. It should also be interesting to compare this bag striking baseline with the new set of clubs once they arrive. As a data fiend, the thought pleases me greatly! There is a mud wasp that is trying to set up shop in my garage. It is apt to get smacked with a club or a fog of Raid should it invade my personal bubble. Nothing will come in the way of my indoor hitting bay.

One issue I noticed on mobile is the indented sections don’t wrap correctly in portrait or landscape (note the clipping on the right side): This is on an iPhone using Safari. Happy to provide detailed version numbers if needed. Additionally the star ratings are not easily readable, but this is also true for non beta areas:

I've been getting more practice sessions in thanks to the Sporina SPG8 test. For the past week or so I've been playing with different grip positions with my irons, as they've far and away been my worst clubs in the bag. Lately I've been choking up on my existing clubs since I was fitted at -.75" length and my existing clubs are (allegedly) standard length. I've found my striking to be MUCH improved when my pinky is ~2.5" away from the end of the grip/shaft. If anything, it's validated that the shorter club plays better with my current tendencies. It's also added value to my view of the SPG8 (which I'll add to the review) as I wouldn't had the time nor inclination to travel to the range just to play with my grip position. I also, out of laziness, tried swinging without a glove and had great results. I'm dangerously close to following in Hogan/Couples' footsteps at this point. If there are any glove-less converts out there, please let me know your experiences!

Less bought, more gifted a new Taylormade Supreme Cart Bag for Father’s Day. It replaces my second hand Lynx bag I picked up 6 years ago at play it again sports. I’ll do a deep dive once the beta review area is up and running. Overall though, it’s AMAZING and Moose-approved!

Lots of really good points in this thread that I will try not to repeat. Here are some of my thoughts as a relative new-comer to the forum: The "Most Wanted" series is what introduced me to MGS (having realized that other publications were rating new equipment based on aesthetics and demand which seems asinine to me), and from there I found the forum. I was enticed by the testing opportunities but I mostly was looking for a community where I could write and converse with others who share my interests. One positive thing about the relationship between the main site and the forum is that it served as a trickle of water for me before trying to drink from the firehouse of knowledge that is the forum's expertise. A personal example: at the beginning of the year, I wanted to buy a new set of clubs. The main site introduced concepts like game improvement vs plays irons, forgiveness vs distance, and the like. If I were to have just based my purchasing decisions based on the main site and the most wanted posts, I would have blindly purchased a PING G425 MAX driver and Mizuno JPX 921 Hot Metal irons. However, because of the forum I decided to do a fitting before making a purchase. I tried to be as educated as possible even as a high handicapper because of the forum. I ended up trying both the Ping G425 MAX driver and Mizuno JPX 921 Hot Metal irons during the fitting and they were awful for me. If it wasn't for the forum, I might have bought a driver and iron set that was a bad fit for me and blamed the MGS Most Wanted series for the poor fit. As an extension of that, one potential minority opinion of mine is that the testing opportunities I'm most interested in aren't of the big OEMs but of the smaller gizmos and gadgets. I'm not as engaged with things like club reviews because they really seem so user specific that even controlling for club speed and handicap seems dubious. The official and unofficial reviews that have helped me make purchasing decisions have been for things like launch monitors, speed training, hitting nets, hitting mats, etc... While individual differences in hitting speed and handicap may yield different benefits, there isn't' a barrier to entry in those products like there are with clubs. Lastly, the biggest thing I think that the forum could improve upon is usability. Oh Mylanta, I would deeply love for this to come to fruition. It is so hard to find reviews even when you know what you're looking for, official or otherwise. More broadly, I think the forum would benefit from a reorganization much like @jlukes mentioned. While that may not be the topical structure I would recommend, I think this is a classic example of why User Experience designers are in such high demand right now. A more intuitive structure to find or browse information may not drive initial engagement, but it certainly would help maintain engagement (much in the same way social media breeds addictive ongoing use, for better or for worse). For driving initial engagement, SEO needs to be a priority if things like the current tests aren't showing up in search results. That's the proverbial "leaving money on the table" if you've got existing manufacturers sponsoring content and even people who are actively looking for that content can't find it.

Good luck, and looking forward to the review! Where are you getting fitted? Any preview based on the back and forth in the build a bag thread on what you're hoping to end up being fit to? I saw you mention both the one-length forged tech and the JPX Tours. I feel really silly for not having looked into Cobra more seriously before my fitting. I'm not to the point where I can handle the Forged Tech but I did end up fitting into the LTDx irons. I fully expected to end up with Taylormade, Callaway or JPX and the Cobra's were far and away my favorite. If I can be so bold, make sure you check out the Cobra LTDx and LTDx LS since you seem to be most open on the driver. I spent the weekend in a YouTube hole watching reviews of the LTDx line (as I await the arrival of my LTDx MAX) and the reviews of those with swing speeds in your neighborhood was overwhelmingly positive. Plus, as a righty you'd be able to pick from their limited edition alternate paint jobs if specific aesthetics are your thing. @chisag picked up the black edition over in the CHA thread and it looks clean.

Ordered a CCE 3’x5’ mat from Costco to use with the SPG-8 XL test. To say it’s an upgrade of the mat I picked up from Dick’s Sporting Goods a few years ago (left) is an understatement of epic proportions.

I am just now discovering this thread and I can't... I want to break a club from the vicarious emotions alone. The amount of heartbreak is palpable in here. Of course, now I have to follow the thread as a guilty pleasure . Like watching a train wreck, I can't turn away!

Ha! Glad to be of help / sorry for making you consider a long drive to Chicagoland! To reiterate, I can only speak for the positive experience with my specific fitter (Roger Paiz) at my specific location (Willowbrook, IL). I can't imagine there isn't another competent fitter closer to you, nor can I imagine that there are other equally good fitters at the Club Champions in Grand Rapdis or Detroit. However, I can't offer the mynerds Stamp of Approval™ for those options Great questions! For the latter question, I have a beat-to-snot Rescue 4H that I may start calling Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: Appropriately, it either treats me very well or turns into a monster. I didn't have a FW for quite a while and now find myself reaching for a 3W where I would have typically gone with the 4H - generally limited to the fairway. For less than ideal lies, I could never get it to cooperate with me. Perhaps that's a function of it being a rescue hybrid, but I don't know what I don't know. I'm open to revisiting if I get new clubs and spend time with them on the course. As for the potential gapping overlap, I don't have a clue actually. I didn't specifically ask about why I should stop at the 5-iron, and it was recommended after I hit my driver but before I asked about fairway woods. Perhaps it is duplicative? If anyone has any other thoughts, here are the carry, total, and trajectory charts:

Hand to heart, the reason I listed a 25 is because this wasn't permitted: I picked 25 because I didn't see a higher value listed during my lurking here. As stated in the first post, I don't have a clue what my actual handicap is: I've adjusted my profile to a more appropriate number to reflect my skills, my love of Dragon Ball Z, and of internet memes. Hope this clears up the confusion! Cheers!

Thanks for the positive feedback - It's really appreciated! Oddly, probably the club I will benefit the least from - the MW3 wedge. I have a $99 "credit" from the Golf Galaxy fitting that is applied toward a new club purchase. If I can use it towards a single wedge, it will give me the chance to try out the light weight graphite shaft on a club I'm relatively confident over for the least amount out of pocket. I don't know the details or restrictions of the deal though and if the fitting fee has to be applied to a club I was fitted towards (e.g. only an iron set since its an iron fitting, or only an iron I tried during my fitting) then I don't know what I'll do. I really, really liked the shorter shaft length and the irons would probably be the first true purchase, followed by the driver. A matching 3 Wood would be nice, but my current gamer is a recent pick up from a reseller and does good-enough for now. The little help with the draw bias on the 3W was nice though.... Last will be a 60 degree, if ever. I'd love to get my swing to a point where it makes sense to have three MW3's in the bag. I think they're a great looking club, but not so pretty for me to buy two more just to look cool. Couldn't agree more! Roger spent 15 minutes on the pre-fitting discussion while we sat on the couch drinking coke with the PGA Championship on TV. That relaxed attitude set the stage for a relaxed fitting. My pre-fitting discussion at Golf Galaxy lasted, conservatively, 2 minutes and happened as we were walking from the front of the store to the fitting bay. Further, I've already gushed over having the dual engineering specs, but its hard to overstate how helpful it's been to see to compare the no-upcharge build against the fully custom, twice as expensive build. I wouldn't have had that chance if I hadn't asked up front. If you have the willingness to look up the shaft specs, it becomes harder at my level to justify paying twice as much for similar performing clubs. For those looking for a specific performance spec (e.g. mid spin, low loft, medium weight), I get that a custom build makes sense. That's not my game, and my fitter was completely supportive of that. Again, can't say enough good things about having the right fitter for the job!

Updated with a few more May activities, including Club Champion fitting, PuttOut purchase, and putter regripping. I'm glad I found the 3W that I did at Play It Again. I really think it benefited me to have had a baseline club to compare against at the fitting. I'm feeling optimistic about June, and am hopeful for nice weather this week for another round.

Fitting Results: Driver: Cobra King LTDx Max - 10.5; Mitsubishi C6 Red '22 50-R Flex (Custom) OR UST Helium Nanocore 50 R (Stock) Fairway: Cobra King LTDx Max - 3 Wood - Mitsubishi C6 Red '22 60-R Flex (Custom) OR UST Helium Nanocore 50 R (Stock) Irons: Cobra King LTDx Irons - 5-PW - Fujikura Vista Pro 2021 Iron 50 Regular (Custom) OR Project X Catalyst 60 R (Stock) - Minus .75" Length, 0.5 Flat Lie, Standard Loft Wedge: Taylor Made Milled Grind 3 Chrome 54.11 (Optional additional 60.10 as desired) - Fujikura Vista Pro 2021 Iron 60 Regular (Custom) OR Tour Issue S200 (Stock) - Minus .25" Length, 0.5 Flat Lie, Standard Loft Background I am a high handicap, social golfer that has been trying to make the game a more regular part of my life. I’m not looking to get good, but I am looking to get better. I’ve been diligently following online lesson plans, hitting the range multiple times a week, and playing progressively improved rounds as my friend group is available to play. I’ve known of club fittings for a while, but it seemed like something only “good” players benefited from. After digging further, it seemed possible that high handicappers could benefit from a fitting, and I wanted to see if that held true for me. I had a poor experience during a fitting at Golf Galaxy this year that I detailed in another post. I don’t need to repeat the post here, but I walked away after a poor experience and seemingly limited options in product selection. Since these were my two biggest pain points, I decided that if I ever did another fitting, I would evaluate it based on those two criteria. I considered booking another iron fitting later this year at a different venue recommended by @ChitownM2. When I got the email from Club Champion last week offering a full bag fitting for almost half of the price of an iron fitting alone, I jumped at the opportunity. Because of my previous poor fitting experience, I wanted to go into the process somewhat educated. I knew going in to expect sticker shock from custom built, pured clubs. I knew to set the expectation with my fitter that I didn’t want to spend piles of money on super game improvement clubs. I knew it would behoove me to be brand agnostic, but to be aware of potential brands and options both in club heads and shafts. I read up on the latest Most Wanted reports, looked at the custom component lists to familiarize myself with brand names, made a Google Keep note with my findings, and readied myself for the fitting. I even took time to limber up before the appointment with a pre-round routine. I genuinely don’t think I could have done anything else to better prepare for the fitting. One note on the trackman readouts below: I've been intentionally taking back my swing speed in an attempt to gain some control. I've never swung particularly fast, but the disparity between my listed profile swing speed and the trackman is recognized, accurate, and intentional Fitter – 5/5 knowledge, 5/5 experience One comment I’ve seen repeated in nearly every fitting discussion is something to the effect of “your experience will depend on the individual fitter.” I’m sure there are exceptional fitters at Golf Galaxy/independent shops/etc… I’m sure there are less-than-stellar fitters at Club Champion/True Spec/etc… Without a referral from someone else who has gone through the process with a specific fitter, it’s hard to know how your experience will go. When booking my fitting, I selected the option for Club Champion to pick my fitter and was assigned Roger Paiz. I searched around to see if I could any fitting reviews and saw a few positive reviews with no negatives before confirming the booking. Hoping for the best, my fitting was scheduled for this past Saturday. I arrived and Roger started the appointment by asking about my game and my goals during the fitting. I said that I’m a relatively high handicapper that has been grinding out time at the range in the hopes of improving my experience when on the course. The metaphor I used was that if I’m training for a marathon, I know I’m going to have to train for a while, but I should probably make sure I’m at least wearing the right size shoes to begin with. I mentioned everything in my bag (minus my putter) is second hand and I don’t know if it’s the best thing for me to be trying to improve with. I really struggle with my irons in particular. I also mentioned that I didn’t want to do anything exotic because I was so relatively inexperienced. Lastly, I asked for advice on my bag composition – where would I benefit from hybrids and fairway woods over longer irons? Roger agreed that this was a good approach and said he would create two builds: one like any other fitting with all options on the table and another that matched the “best” spec for me with OEM, no-upcharge options. During my appointment, it was clear that Roger was the man with the answers. On multiple occasions, other fitters quietly came by my bay with other fittee’s strike tapes and stats asking for advice. Unlike the outside visits at Golf Galaxy, these were handled quickly, quietly, and didn’t disrupt my experience in the bay. He answered all of my questions, and kept the atmosphere positive and lighthearted even as I struggled through the early stages of the fitting. I’ll detail more of our interactions but overall I couldn’t have hoped to be paired with a better fitter. Irons – 5/5 product selection, 5/5 experience Before starting in the Trackman, I mentioned that my favorite clubs during the Golf Galaxy fitting were on the lighter side of the scale. I took some initial warm up shots with my 9 iron and worked my way up to 6-iron after about 10 balls. Like I’ve said before, I really struggle with my irons. I’ve shaken my tendency to top the ball for the most part, but that’s morphed into a real struggle with a shank of the hosel. Weirder still is that the issue either shows up for an entire range session, or not at all. Again, I had prepared as best I could but nevertheless was anticipating another poor experience due to my own swing faults. Despite my disappointment to not have many quality shots (as you’ll see on the trackman report) my fitter was unphased. He laughingly said “I’ve been doing this a while, there isn’t a swing that scares me anymore,” which immediately made me feel much more comfortable. He dialed in on a few playable shots as a baseline and moved on to trying new setups. The fitting started with cycling through shafts first, then moving to clubheads. I believe we started with a 45g, Amateur flex and “worked our way up in weight and flex to find the right spot” as the fitter put it. We quickly landed into a 50g regular flex graphite shaft. The initial shots were taken on the Rogue ST Max OS but nothing looked or felt exceptionally good. After about 15 minutes of bad shots with different configurations, he watched my shot from the front and made a similar recommendation as Golf Galaxy to move the ball back in my stance to be about a half ball forward from middle at address. Different from Golf Galaxy was an explanation of why though. He noticed that I have an “interesting move” where my hands are decently far forward at contact which delofts the club. Apparently, there were a few strikes of my 6-iron where my dynamic loft was down in the neighborhood of a driver. After the small setup change, I was getting strikes to at least appear on the strike tape. I’ll try to maintain this change at the next range session and see if the benefits stick. Roger then paused and said “you know what, let’s skip forward a few steps. I’ve got an idea.” We started playing with length and lies to see if we could help move the ball closer to the center. I have to say, intentionally hitting the club against the hard strike plate a la hitting a ball of the cart path goes against every rational part of my body. If there’s a golf equivalent of nails-on-the-chalkboard, that’s the experience for me. We started seeing consistent hits on the club face and had playable shots after some trial and error. We then started cycling through clubheads including the previous Rogue ST Max OS, Stealth, and JXP 921 Hot Metal. Interestingly, the Rogue ST Max OS and Stealth didn’t play well at all like they had previously. Then we tried the PING G425. The first swing was right on the button. My fitter was on the other side of the room at that moment and said “when I heard that, I knew it was gone.” The smash factor was something just shy of 1.5. The fitter measured that specific clubhead and we tried all of the remaining clubheads with its specs to give everything an equal fighting chance. Despite having the single best hit of the day, the G425 lost out in dispersion to the Cobra LTDx of all things. Based on reviews and previous experience, I had anticipated being fit into the Rogue ST Max OS or the Stealth irons. The Cobra are significantly less… attractive than either of those and I was caught giving them a thorough examination. The fitter asked me how I felt the Cobra LTDx irons looked and I said “I don’t care if it’s the ugliest clubhead in the world. If I can hit it well, I’ll take it.” The fitter laughed, agreed I had the right attitude, and we moved to the big stick. Driver - 5/5 product selection, 5/5 experience Second only in weakness to my irons is my driver. I explained to Roger that only until the last month or so have I been able to use my driver at all. I mentioned that I really struggled to catch the ball on the way up for a very long time and am not to the point where I care so much about left to right dispersion. I hit my existing driver, saw typical results, and we had our baseline. We tried the Ping G425 Max, Rogue ST, and Stealth drivers. As far as I could recognize, there were no shortage of leftie options. Based on most wanted reviews for low swing speeds, I thought the Stealth HD would win out. However, far and away the smallest dispersion circle was with the Cobra LTDx Max. I liked the adjustability and potential for the club to grow with me. Chalk two wins up for Cobra. One more note on the Stealth: I’m pretty good at feeling my misses in my clubs. I suspect that’s because I have a lot of practice feeling my misses. With the Stealth, I didn’t have a clue where I was missing the ball. Especially for high handicappers like me who may be all over the face of the club, this seems like a real detriment to improvement. I really wanted to like the Stealth, but it was clearly not the club for me. Fairway - 5/5 product selection, 4/5 experience Given the results of the irons and driver, my fitter and I agreed to jump straight to the cobra 3W. I mentioned that I was comfortable hitting a wood off the deck or the tee, which prompted the fitter to swap out the plastic tee for a flat nub. He said the tee I had been using for the driver was “way too high for a wood” which was odd to me because I’ve hit my existing wood off a similar height before. Maybe that’s something I shouldn’t be doing, but I ended up not hitting a wood off a tee’d up ball. I hit a few with the Cobra 3w that I knew weren’t perfect, but I also knew I was losing gas and wasn’t swinging consistently any more. We called it “good enough” based on the dispersion gaps and moved on. 3 wins for Cobra! In hindsight given the extra time we ended up having, I think I would have preferred to try a few more club heads for the experience. I also should have tried a few hits off the tee, but didn’t ask to swap the tee back into the hitting surface. Wedges 4/5 product, 4/5 experience For wedges, the fitter again asked how I tend to use them currently. I’m used to using my PW in most circumstances from 75 yards in and only bring out my SW when in a bunker. I said I wasn’t sure if that’s the best or right way to go about things, but I have pretty good control and results with just finessing distance with those two clubs. He had me try the set-matched LTDx SW which worked well enough, and then offered to show me a few others for kicks and giggles. I tried the stock Taylormade Milled Grind 3 Wedge 54.11 and really liked it even with the heavy stock iron shaft. I also played with a 60.10 that I enjoyed. It is a really pretty club and decided that if I was going with wedges outside the set, the MW3 were for me. I looked at the black and chrome options – while the black is prettier new, I suspect the chrome holds up better over time. Easy choice! Unfortunately there weren't any graphite shafted MW3's to try which was a little disappointing. I think I would be ok with the stock steel shaft but I would have liked to try a lighter shaft to compare with my existing wedges. Small minus for availability and experience there, but nothing that would ruin the day. Gapping – 5/5 experience During the wedge fitting, I brought up my bag composition question again and asked if I should consider adding or swapping any irons with hybrids, or which wedges to consider. My fitter brought up the dispersion charts for the driver, the 3w, and the 6 iron. He pointed out that even in situations where you might want a rescue hybrid to help with a poor lie, its probably going to be just as easy to take a 5 iron or 6 iron out of the bag with similar distance as a hybrid. From a gapping perspective, it wouldn’t make sense to add a hybrid but I could always add it if I felt more confident with the feel or looks of it. As for wedges, the fitter said it was mostly preference and how I wanted to use it. He recommended a 54 degree for my SW and said the 60 degree could be a fun toy but not necessary for me at this time. Overall, that left me with a recommendation for 10 clubs: Driver, 3W, 5i-PW, 54 degree SW, and putter. I have to say, there is an appeal to being able to bring almost my full bag in my Sunday LOMA onto the 9-hole municipal course instead of my cart bag and pushcart. Simplicity is probably better for me at this point anyways! Putter – 4/5 product, N/A experience At the beginning of the session, I asked about trying some LAB putters. I was curious about them with the current test in progress and wanted to better understand the process the testers are currently working through. The fitter said he didn’t think they had a lefty LAB putter, which was disappointing to hear. Otherwise, it looked like they had a wide range of options in the putter areas. Unfortunately, a putter fitting was scheduled as I finished up the fittings of my other clubs. My fitter apologized for the scheduling conflict and offered to bring me back in any time in the future to finish off the fitting. It’s about a half hour drive to Club Champion from me so it’s not trivial to come back in for a putter fitting that was paid for as part of a full bag fitting. On the other hand, I’m at least content with my current putter so it’s not a huge loss to just take the putter fitting as a loss given the discounted fitting. It feels unfair to give this a 0/5 rating for the experience as I didn’t have a bad experience and a makeup was offered to me. If I end up going back for the putter fitting, I’ll update this post and the scoring. Grips – 5/5 product, 5/5 experience Boy you wouldn’t think that having a variety of grips available to hold or advice on grip size would be a selling point, but you’d be surprised! My fitter was surprised to see jumbo grips come out of the bag, and the CPx’s at least appear larger than normal grips anyways. To the shock of no one, he did not agree with the recommendation for jumbo grips and after checking my grip with a midsize CP2 pro (emphasis added for this revolutionary idea), agreed that they were a good fit. He then took me over to the wall of grips and asked what I liked about the CP2 Pros. After talking about my preferences for feel, tackiness, and softness he showed me a few Lamkins that didn’t spark joy and one that did in the Lamkin Sonar. I mentioned I liked the feel of the Sonar and the small alignment guide on the CP2 pro but wished the alignment was larger. He pointed out the grip could be installed logo down, which made better use of the lines on the bottom as a pseudo alignment aide. And just like that, now I want CP2 Pros, logo down on all my clubs! I really wish I knew that was an option for me a few months ago! Finally, I mentioned I was looking for a larger putter grip since I felt like I was always trying to man-handle my stock Odyssey grip. We tried a few options on the available putters and I immediately gravitated towards the Super Stroke Flatso 2.0. They didn’t have any available onsite for installation, so I had my putter regripped the following day at Dick’s Sporting Goods. Based on a quick test drive on my PuttOut mat, it’s a game changer. Overall – 66/70 (94%) Can a high handicapper benefit from a fitting? I think so, but your experience absolutely depends on the fitter and even so, you should come prepared. I think this is true for any skill level that goes through a fitting though. At a minimum, I would recommend: -Watch a fitting on YouTube, ideally for the type of fitting you’re interested in and at the venue you’re being fit at. Know what the process is before you arrive, and be prepared to hit a LOT of balls. -Know the following club terms: length, loft, lie, shaft weight, shaft flex, and swing weight. -Know the following launch monitor terms: carry distance, total distance, club speed, ball speed, smash factor, dynamic loft, descent angle. -Know that there are different “off-the-shelf” shaft options that may better fit your game. Bonus points for knowing if you like lighter or heavier shafts going into the fitting. -Know your budget and prepare to manage expectations accordingly. If you have the funds to go nuts with exotic shafts, go for it! Don't be afraid to have a budget and consider no-upcharge shafts if that's your need. For me, the experience of a full bag* fitting at Club Champion at $100 was a home run. Even with the missing putter fitting, I’m happy with the experience and outcomes. I can’t say enough good things about my fitter. If I can continue to improve my game to the point where a new fitting is warranted, Roger will be my fitter of choice. If you’re in the Chicagoland area and need a fitting, I would highly recommend him. Will I end up buying the clubs? Certainly not all of them up front, and probably not from Club Champion themselves. I see the value in their work product, but I’m just not good enough to warrant upcharges on clubs that may warrant being replaced as my game continues to improve. If I was playing 100 rounds a year with players distance irons like my neighbor, I could see the potential cost-benefit. For a casual golfer with a budget and game-improvement irons, it doesn’t make sense for me. My fitter didn’t push the custom clubs though and even provided me with an engineering spec of all-OEM options with no-upcharge shafts that were “pretty close” to the more exotic shaft options I swung with. Again, this was extremely appreciated and I likely will purchase some if not all of the OEM-available configurations over time. I walked away with a tremendous amount of new knowledge and expectations for my equipment and for my game as I continue to progress. I was surprised to be able to feel the different between clubhead swing weights and even more surprised to see the significant different in how the clubs felt to swing. I was significantly less convinced of the value of a fitting after my Golf Galaxy experience. Now, I really do think there can be a benefit for high handicappers to be fit for clubs, assuming you have the support of a quality fitter.

What, the club? Or the self control to stop buying new clubs? On a related note @ParFore74x, how do you know when you’re done buying clubs? Asking for a friend…

Picked up an orange whip at Play It Again for $60 on my way to Costco. I really need to stop “poking my head in to see what’s new” every time I’m within a county mile of the store . I will say, there are few things more satisfying than deep cleaning a dirty item. The top of the whip was obviously due for a scrub but the grip gave off a serious amount of grey goo. Yuck!

For what it's worth, the transparency of the process was helpful and insightful to me as a relatively new member. If you look just at the raw numbers of sign ups, it can feel like an impossibility to be selected for testing. Learning that forum activity influences the chances of being selected and that ~98% of testers have less than 50 lifetime posts makes the signup volume of 5000+ entries significantly less daunting. I'm not sure which mod posted the raw numbers in the LAB signup thread, but I recall it being less than 150 applicants or so. I stumbled upon what appears to be the previous version of this thread from 2013, and it seems like some of the challenges and attitudes towards testing selection remain. My condolences to the mod team I think anyone would take ~1:10 odds versus ~1:5000 odds, and it seems like an effective carrot to keep people who are motivated to be testers active, and providing positive contributions (if things like reaction-to-post ratios are evaluated) in exchange for increasing their selection odds by two orders of magnitude. It also seems like an effective, natural filter for those who see it as a raffle and not a different opportunity to contribute to the community.

Thank you MGS, Titleist and Vokey! My 2 year old will unfortunately be repeating "All done golf. No like. Baby shark?" much in the same way she did for the Masters. I'll tell her she can blame you all for this!