Thoughts about Driver Fittings

[adamflowers]

My personal experience with a driver fitting has been negative overall. This is not to say that the actual fitting process or the fitter was bad, only that the ultimate outcome was me moving on from the fitted driver within six months.

 

I recently got back into golf after not playing since high school, and, even back then, I wasn't a consistent or dedicated golfer. I worked on the range for about a month in order to get my swing back in sync and get used to hitting balls again. After I felt comfortable, I scheduled a driver fitting. I came into the fitting hitting the ball about 230 with a slice; I finished the fitting with a new driver that I consistently hit 260 with a fade. I was ecstatic with the results.

 

Unfortunately, after taking the driver home, going to the range, and playing a few rounds, I just couldn't hit the driver. The results were nothing like the ones I saw during the fitting. I went back to the fitter, and they reassessed the fit, but I could not come close to replicating my previous results. I left with a new shaft and, still, poor results. After a few months, I moved on to a different driver that I could hit better and felt more comfortable with.

 

All of this is to say: my main mistake in getting fit for my driver was not having a consistent swing. I was just getting back into golf and, although I felt my swing was consistent within a session, it changed between sessions. Therefore, my driver was fit perfectly for my swing on that day, but quite poorly for how my swing developed. After golfing for six more months, working on my swing, and lowering my handicap to 13, NOW would be an appropriate time for me to get a driver fitting. I made the mistake of thinking that the fitting would improve my game without a real understanding of the inconsistencies in my swing.

[Brian A]

Fittings if done right, by both the player and fitter are essential in my opinion. I know that in indoor fittings, I sometimes feel off my swing due to the room feeling smaller than the freedom of the course. Also trying to change your swing to fix things for the fitting is a bad idea I've known people to do. Swing your swing how you'd play on the course and a fitting should improve your game! 

[RickyBobby_PR]

3 minutes ago, Apes44 said:

Fittings if done right, by both the player and fitter are essential in my opinion. I know that in indoor fittings, I sometimes feel off my swing due to the room feeling smaller than the freedom of the course. Also trying to change your swing to fix things for the fitting is a bad idea I've known people to do. Swing your swing how you'd play on the course and a fitting should improve your game! 

I’ve had indoor lessons and one fitting. Even knowing there’s room all around I always had that thought in my head of don’t hit the wall or ceiling on the follow thru.

Ive been guilty of the change your swing during a fitting. When a fitter would tell me launch and spin if it was out of the range where I’ve know to have the best results I would adjust stance or alignment and try to force a swing to try and get to numbers or the I’m going to swing as hard and fast as possible to see how much distance I can try to get. I’ve stopped that approach and let the club do the work. I’ve also stopped having fitters give me numbers after each shot and focus more on giving my feedback on where I felt like the strike was, how the ball flight is compared to what I see when I play and let the fitter use what he sees in the ball flight, compare it with the monitor if he chooses and let him use that and my feedback to make a change. I also try not to hit more than 3-5 balls with a setup so that I don’t start making changes to my swing based on the flight. The titleist thursday fittings I have done along with my last 2 ping and tm fittings all the fitters made a change in the 3-5 swing range.