jefframm

Welcome - I'm close by - in Six Mile (we're on Lake Keowee).

To your question, PULLEDABILL, I would have to think the answer is yes based on his behavior. There was another guy getting a fitting in the bay next to me - and at one point he went outside to call his wife to get "clearance" to buy whatever it was the fitter had proposed. While he was outside, my fitter said to the other guy "went to call the wife, huh"? and it sounded EXACTLY like the kind of banter you hear sometimes among car salespeople. I had read a number of reviews about both of the individuals that were fitting that day (my fitter and the other guy) and with one exception where a guy was upset about after the sale customer service - they were really strong reviews. Of course there's no way to tell if they were real reviews - but my gut says they were. I've decided to give the guy the benefit of the doubt - maybe he's under a lot of pressure or something. I learned a lot - and the discussion here has given my clarity on next steps. I had hit the Srixon's prior to the fitting and really liked them - so I'm going to proceed with those and approach the rest of the bag a step at the time. Happy Sunday!

So I'll add two new twists to the mix. 1) CC guy responded to my email and changed everything except irons to stock shafts based on my "balk" at the price. Haven't really dug into it yet - but clearly he was able to "get close" with stock shafts (his words). 2) More interestingly - I had bought my son (30 year old) a Ping G400 for Xmas. Told him we would go back to PGATour Superstore and have him try the LST, SFT, etc so that he got the one he really hit the best. We did that this morning - and he ended up with a G400Max (yes, I'm a pushover dad who paid the $100 for his present "upgrade"). But the most interesting part is that I hit the G400Max with their stock shaft and the dispersion and distance were equal to and for 3 swings better in distance than the Titleist TS2 + $400 shaft. I also tested 3 of the 4 options for stock shafts on the TS2 and the PGATour Superstore guy (and the data) said the G400Max was a better option for me. My conclusion is that the approach described by Steddygolf and others is likely the way I'll go. Having read the thread about Fitting/Lessons vs Off the Rack, I can confidently say that I'm that "very motivated guy" in terms of improving my game. The club we've joined has incredible practice facilities and they are literally a 5 min drive from my house so I have no excuses not to improve. I'll take all the data from the fitting - be thankful for what I've learned there, and here from you fine folks - and piece together a set that should work great for at least the next couple of years as I work hard on my game, with lessons and lots of practice being key for me. That - and I'll send my current clubs back to the Smithsonian so they stop calling.... Thanks again for the thoughts and guidance.

I greatly appreciate the replies and all the perspectives. The advice on lessons is spot on - and I should have also told you that I'm already signed up for lessons with the head of golf instruction for our club group. I'm clear that it's a lot of the "carpenter" as opposed to the "tools". But I do think my tools are way off. One thing that came out from a "quicky" session with the PXG rep at our club - which was confirmed by the CC fitter is that I need 1/2" longer shafts in my irons. As I mentioned in my original post - there was a lot of "good" in the fitting experience - meaning that I now know which irons I like best, and that I need a lighter weight graphite shaft - and have a sense for the specific shaft weights and types that felt the best and produced the best result. Having had a look at both the Srixon site and Titleist site it's clear that there are lots of "no up-charge" shaft options and I think I can get close to the specs from the fitting. Since I also have the Trackman data, and know what the dispersion and distance looks like for the driver and 6 iron (key test clubs in the fitting), I'm going to do a little experiment of my own at PGATour Superstore and hit the Titleist TS2 with the shaft that most closely matches to the one he spec'ed at a $400+ upgrade charge. Two of their four shaft options for the TS2 look like they have potential. I doubt they have the exact shaft choice for the irons that I saw on Srixon.com - but who knows - I may get lucky there. In fairness to CC and my fitter, I think "in the moment" I was shocked enough at the pricing and the pressure (after reading reviews that said "no pressure to buy") that I didn't think to propose alternatives that would drop the pricing - so have now sent the guy an email asking him to reconstitute the "bag" with lower cost shaft options, as I'm curious to see what he'll come up with. Again, thanks for the help and I'll report back as I progress.

Fair enough. Frankly being away from golf for a good while, I had no idea that shafts could cost as much as the driver (as an example). I'm still curious for perspectives on shaft comparisons - assuming weight, torque, flex, and "kick point" are very close - would an 18-20 handicap honestly see/feel any difference? FWIW, I did just send the fitter an email asking for additional options - so we'll see what that brings too.

Apologies for a long post. I'm 59, and just got back into the game after 20 years of 2-3 rounds a year. At my best I was a 13 and now after starting back (about 8 rounds so far) I'm averaging low to mid 90's, but improving at decent rate. Clubs were 20+ years old - so I scheduled a full bag fitting at Club Champion. It was a very interesting experience - but I walked away at the end feeling like I had been at a used car dealer. The press to buy immediately was stronger than I expected - and I suspect that the fitter basically spec'ed me as a guy that can afford anything I want (he asked what I do and I told him that I own a consulting company) - so the full bag came to $7500 +. I didn't establish a "budget" going in - nor did he probe much on that front - and I didn't want to rule out things like PXG without a try (maybe my core mistake?). When the fitter realized that I wasn't going to buy on the spot, he said "what would it take to get you into the irons today?" I completely hadn't expected any pricing flexibility or high pressure and frankly was turned off by the way he handled the price discussion overall. So that's the bad part. The good part was I was surprised (pleasantly) about how the approach helped me get an idea of what might work best for me. For irons the Srixon 585 and PXG 0311XF were my favorites - with the Srixon having slightly better control - but about 8 yards on average less than the PXG's. I'm torn on whether the investment in PXG is the right answer - still open to it - but not convinced. Both irons were fit with a KBS Tour Graphite 80g shaft. The shafts added $85 to each iron cost from Club Champion. Where things got really crazy was driver, 3 wood, and hybrids. The driver that worked best was a Titleist TS2 - but he had me hitting a $405 upgraded shaft (Fujikura Speeder Evolution V) - which basically makes the total driver $1000+. For the 3 wood and hybrids, I preferred the Srixon Z F85 (3W) and H85 hybrids, but again the shaft upgrades were $315 for the 3W (Fujikura Atmos Red 6) and $165 for the hybrids (each) (Fujikura PRO 2.0 Hybrid). So just in driver, 3W and two hybrids we were at $2500+. Here's my dilemma. I'm going to buy new sticks for sure - and am frankly ok with spending a lot of money (but well short of $7500). What I'm not clear on is whether a guy that's shooting 90-95 currently is honestly going to get value from these high cost shafts. I do have a bad enough taste in my mouth about the guy that I can't see going back to Club Champion - so may explore a club builder that could work with all the data from the fitting (as I have all of it from the Trackman). Alternatively, I'm curious if there's a simple way to "map" the core characteristics of the shafts he spec'ed to the "stock" offerings from Titleist and Srixon, as again I find it really hard to believe that I'm worthy of the higher cost shafts. For example, Titleist offers 4 options in the TS2 - and I realize I can look at the specs and try to compare them to the specs of the Fujikura (as an example) but have zero idea if that approach even remotely makes sense. I suspect the PXG guy that comes to our club can likely spec that KBS shaft in a fitting - so if I can get my head around the price point and brand of PXG, that might be an option on the irons at their standard price without the Club Champion uplift for PXG. Srixon appears to have a lot of "no upgrade cost" options available too. I'd appreciate hearing from you folks on what you might suggest as a next step. My gut says that if I pick a stock graphite shaft in the Z585 offerings that's close to what he spec'ed - that it's likely to be very similar - but having read a lot of the forum posts I know how learned many of you are with respect to these things. Given my current abilities, I just have no feel for whether I could tell any real difference between 2 similar spec shafts that vary widely in price. Thanks in advance for any coaching or suggestions!