Bob Pegram

Ken Venturi said Hogan had very long arms for his height. Venturi said many golfers can't replicate Hogan's positions. They are impossible for somebody with shorter arms.

I used to work for a Golf Digest rated Top 100 Club Fitter until he moved from California to Indiana. I later worked as a fitter at PGA Tour Superstore. In both locations we made efforts to help the customer with his/her swing so we would be fitting their best swing. The reason for that is so that, as they improved with the new clubs, they would be rewarded because their new clubs would fit that better swing. The new clubs would contribute to that improvement. The alternative would have been fitting their inferior swing. In that case, when they improved they would end up fighting their new clubs that were fit to their old inferior swing. By the way, if your clubs are getting too heavy you may want to try graphite iron shafts in your fitting to see if they work better. They are available in all the same flexes and lengths as steel shafts. They tend to reduce the shock of impact compared to steel shafts. That is really obvious if you hit a shot thin on a cold day. In addition, there are other specs that can vary more by graphite shaft model than with steel shafts. The variations can also be more precise. Those include torque and bend point. Torque is the amount a shaft twists. More torque makes the shaft feel softer for the same flex. However, if you square up the face at the last instant before impact the face won't come around as quickly when you turn your hands if a shaft has more torque. Each shaft model (graphite or steel) has specific torque specifications. The other factor, bend point, varies by model for both graphite and steel. There are more choices with graphite since each shaft model can be designed for specific desired characteristics. In other words, graphite allows more exact specs and more variations available due to the way graphite shafts are made. Steel has more limited options due to its physical characteristics. That is assuming the person giving the lessons knows custom club fitting. Many golf teachers do not understand how club specs affect the swing and resulting shots.

The course makes more money when they rent more carts. I like walking beeter too. Play better walking also.

I bought a set of Callaway RAZR X Forged irons several years ago on the Callaway pre-owned site. They had Project X shafts. I bought the set with those shafts because I knew they sell for the most on Ebay. I pulled the Project X shafts and reshafted the heads with the graphite shafts I wanted that were in my old irons. I used to work for a fitter and have the equipment to do it myself. By the way, the heads were the ones Furyk used to shoot 58. I didn't find that out until I had the irons for months. I love the irons.

Why not buy it with the best wrong shaft, get it pulled, get the correct one installed, and then sell the pulled shaft? It is a nuisance, but you would get some of the money back to pay for the shaft you want.

Yeah. I play worse in a cart. It wrecks my rhythm of my game. Walking off the yardage while walking to the ball, having all my clubs with me and not worrying about leaving a club or two behind, having my towel with me, etc., etc. lets me concentrate on the golf, not grabbing things I will need when I get to my ball, having to walk sidewys to my ball, the fast, slow, fast, slow, start, stop of a cart.

I am 73 and always walk and carry my bag. I have run to stay in shape for years until a medical condition that has since been fixed stopped me. Now when I run my back hurts and feels compressed vertically. I can bicycle though. Resting pulse is 55, one more than when in my 20s.

My most memorable round is memorable for an unusual reason. It was in the mid 1970s. I didn't warm up and hooked my first shot into the driving range fence along the left side of the first hole. I had to punch out, hit a wedge and missed the 10 foot par putt. I managed to birdie one hole on the front nine and parred everything else. On the back nine I had one birdie and one bogey and parred everything else. Par 70. Lipped out birdie putt on 18. Would have shot a 69. Santa Anita Golf Course in Arcadia, CA - east of Los Angeles. Because I was concentrating on my game I kept forgetting to ask a guy I had been paired with by the starter about his voice. It sounded very familiar, yet I didn't recognize him. He was built like a body builder but it looked natural, not from a lot of weight lifting. I finally remembered to ask him on the 17th tee. He asked if I had watched TV in the 1950 as a kid. I had. He said I would figure it out. It dawned on me later that it was Clayton Moore, the "Lone Ranger." I hadn't realized how big/broad he was. He was just over 6 feet, but looked like he weighed around 230 and wasn't fat. He said he swam laps every day. Another "memorable" round was playing at Elkins Ranch GC with my Dad when the wind must have been 30-40 MPH. On a 425 yard par 4 into the wind I hit a driver off the tee, another driver off the fairway, and a 5 iron into the green. Two holes later on a 511 yard par 5 with the wind I hit a driver and pitching wedge and was pon high. I couldn't score under those conditions, but it was fun.

I still walk. It helps get me warmed up faster. It also allows me to have all my clubs with me everywhere on the course even at the side of the green. I also get a better survey of the course by walking and I can walk off the distance from a yardage marker as I walk to my ball if I am not using a GPS.

I used to work for a Top 100 rated custom fitter. Almost all of those getting fitted wanted to know the 'why' of each step in the fittings. Leith Anderson, who I worked for, had that as his usual method. We were in Silicon Valley which may be atypical. Later, when Leith moved to Indiana, I worked for PGA Superstore. There a bigger percentage were not interested in the details of the fittings. However, the vast majority still wanted to know details. Because explaining the details was my default, that may have skewed my perceptions. I still don't understand why people wouldn't want to know the 'whys' of the fittings. I would run into the same differences when fising people's computers and/or tutoring them. I would offer to show them how to do their own software maintenance and call me less frequently and a few still didn't want to know how to save themselves money by calling me less.

Tutelman explains a lot of the more technical details in golf. For example, when photos are taken of pros hitting driver shots it looks like the shaft is bent WAY forward towards the ball before impact. However, that is a function of the way a digital camera operates. It takes each line of the photo sequentially so for each line farther down the photo there is a split second delay and the shaft is farther towards the ball. If the digital camera is turned sideways, the photo doesn't show that erroneous shaft bend toward the ball before impact because it isn't really there.

Hwew is an example of a very thorough engineer's approach to golf: https://www.tutelman.com/golf/ It is the most thorough analysis of the golf swing, golf clubs, etc. I have ever seen. It is excellent.

Yeah. C.C. is expensive. I interviewed with them on the phone and I got that impression just from the interview. Later reviews proved my impression correct. I stressed proper fitting and enough time with each customer which I guess they didn't like. I wasn't interviewed by a fitter. I was interviewed by somevody in HR.

Just so you are aware, it can vary a lot depending on which fitter you are working with, especially in a big box store. I was more thorough than some. An independent fitter has to be good or he goes out of business.

Since we were in Silicon Valley, we catered to scientifically minded people like you. We would explain until you understood. A few customers didn't want to know, but they were the exception.