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My Driver "Fitting?"


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13 hours ago, RickyBobby_PR said:

The retail price of a club is X. That price is for the head and the a no upcharge shaft. Plain and simple. When you order an upgrade shaft you are paying the price of a component. Like any other after market component for any product that price is going to vary based on where you buy it. If you buy it strait from the course your are going to save money compared to buying it form a dealer.

I don’t know if club champion gets a club play head or if they are shipped just the head but they pay the full price for the club either way that is why they charge the customer the price of the club plus the price of the price for the upgraded shaft and that applies to all clubs including iron sets. 

Just to be clear, CC does not pay full MSRP for the clubs. They pay wholesale (based on volume) just like any other golf retailer. My guess is they pay more than a PGA SS or GG and less than my local course pro shop based on the volume they purchase. CC chooses to charge full price for the fitting, full MSRP for the club and full MSRP for the shaft. That is their choice on how to run their business and they are free to do that, but it is also the reason why I see a ton of people saying that they took their specs from the fitting and went to purchase somewhere else. I'd love to see the numbers, and I bet they would sell more clubs if they credited back 50% of the fitting cost or charged less than MSRP on upgrades. One thing they could certainly do which would be nearly free, would be to throw the stock shaft that came with your club into the box when it leaves their assembly shop. 

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Just to be clear, CC does not pay full MSRP for the clubs. They pay wholesale (based on volume) just like any other golf retailer. My guess is they pay more than a PGA SS or GG and less than my local course pro shop based on the volume they purchase. CC chooses to charge full price for the fitting, full MSRP for the club and full MSRP for the shaft. That is their choice on how to run their business and they are free to do that, but it is also the reason why I see a ton of people saying that they took their specs from the fitting and went to purchase somewhere else. I'd love to see the numbers, and I bet they would sell more clubs if they credited back 50% of the fitting cost or charged less than MSRP on upgrades. One thing they could certainly do which would be nearly free, would be to throw the stock shaft that came with your club into the box when it leaves their assembly shop. 

I may be wrong but I’m pretty sure he meant they pay the same price weather you order a stock shaft or not, not that they pay full MSRP. I’d bet the majority of their customers don’t care about getting an extra shaft. They order it as they fitted it for you. If you want the extra stock shaft, it’s as simple as asking. They will order it with your head and add the aftermarket shaft to the order, Simple.

Fitting is all they do so offering them free or discounted would not be profitable. At the end of the day, it’s a business that deals in the higher end of their industry so their is a cost to that. Nowhere else can you find the selection that they have and that’s a ton of $ in overhead cost.


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On 5/29/2020 at 2:59 PM, Middler said:

I did a driver fitting at Club Champion in Feb, got my new pured shaft-adapter-grip in Mar. The only paid fitting I'd ever done before was pre launch monitor, but I have hit on launch monitors at Golf Galaxy, PGA Superstore and a small independent golf store (also used the Mizuno Swing Analyzer there). I made it very clear I was looking to hit more fairways, presumably tighter dispersion. I told him I didn’t care about distance, I’d even give up distance for more fairways. He said he understood - though he kept highlighting when I was getting more or less distance. Here's my experience and preliminary results FWIW.

Fitting

I warmed up, to my satisfaction – though in hindsight it’s possible I should have hit a few more.

I first hit 5-6 shots with my driver as is. The dispersion was pretty bad, though I didn’t have any frame of reference until the fitter showed me all the dispersion's to come. I don’t recall if he threw out any of my baseline shots. [I will always wonder if that base line stock driver dispersion was bad because I was less warmed up than for subsequent shafts and heads.]

The fitter chose a current model driver head most like the 2018 model I came in with (a reasonable place to start). He told me we'd start with shafts and told me 80% of the result would come from getting the right shaft.

I then hit 4 good shots (bad shots were thrown out, fitters judgement…) each with 7-8 different shafts. One clearly had a tighter dispersion than the others.

I then hit 4 good shots (bad shot thrown out) each with 3 other heads. They were no better than the first head.

The Club Champion fitter recommended a new head, shaft and grip. Since the CC fitter had told me at the start that the right shaft would give me 80% of the desired improvement, I opted to buy just the new shaft-grip-adapter with my almost new 2018 driver head (replaced a few months ago). The list price for the new head was exactly the same as MSRP for the stock driver with the same head-stock shaft-adapter-grip, no reduction for omitting the stock shaft-adapter-grip --- that seems unfair to me.

Preliminary Results

I’ve now played 10 rounds with my new shaft and I have averaged 7 of 13 fairways on my regular course – I hit 10 fairways once. My last 25 rounds prior with the old stock shaft I averaged 8.1 of 13 fairways on my regular course – and hit 11 fairways 3 times. The new custom fitted driver does not feel any different to me, and my dispersion hasn't changed at all that I can see. There has been no change in distance, but I wasn’t looking for any.

Discussion

Unless you’re a very consistent ball striker, I would contend that 4 shots is nowhere near enough to establish dispersion with any combination of shaft and head, no matter how good or bad your swing is. I’ve seen several articles using from 30 to 70 shots to establish dispersion, though I realize that’s not practical for a fitting especially with 8 shafts and 3 heads. But 4 to draw meaningful conclusions???

I would contend that if I hit 28 consecutive shots with my previous stock driver, and grouped every 4 consecutive shots into 7 dispersion sets, they would a) not be the same even though nothing had changed, and b) one would probably be tighter than the others just out of pure random chance.

So I strongly suspect the shaft that seemed to perform the best that day was more by chance than anything else. I could have gone another day and hit all the same combinations in the same order, and another “best” could have easily emerged.

Every once in a while people go to fitters and their stock setup is as good or better than anything else the fitter puts in their hands. That might also be just chance, unlucky for Club Champion. Again since you establish a base line first with your stock driver, odds are you will hit better as you go, while using a shaft-head given to you by CC.

I will continue to play with the new driver, and reserve judgement until I’ve played 20-25 rounds, but so far it doesn’t appear there was any value added with my driver fitting at Club Champion. I wouldn’t have gone and paid for a fitting if I wasn’t hoping I’d actually see an improvement - I certainly didn’t want the exercise to fail.

While I am sure there are shaft-head-grips that best suit each of us that will improve our results (a little in most cases, a lot in a few cases) --- I don’t think the methodology above is a reliable way to find it at all. If MGS ever did a Buyers Guide of Club Fitters, that could be very interesting...but I'm not actually recommending it, way too controversial.

 

1. Fittings, good or bad, don't make you hit fairways.  Good fittings provide a tool capable of enough power and enough precision.  In other words, fittings provide a tool best suited to the task.  Strategy/Golf IQ lessons help you make decisions to put the ball in play and training helps you to aim or align to increase your ability of hitting  the ball where you require.  

2. Shafts are not 80% of the equation.  Heads matter most, shafts fine tune.  Once this was shaft thing was stated the opportunity for a good fitting was over.  Therefore, switching heads but keeping the shaft would have compromised a tour level fitting.  

End of Story!

Soap Box Moment - the drivers on tour have a 50+ yard wide dispersion cone.  How big are fairways?  Stop the madness about fairways!!!!  If you don't understand but want to, please contact me!

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3 hours ago, edteergolf said:

1. Fittings, good or bad, don't make you hit fairways.  Good fittings provide a tool capable of enough power and enough precision.  In other words, fittings provide a tool best suited to the task.  Strategy/Golf IQ lessons help you make decisions to put the ball in play and training helps you to aim or align to increase your ability of hitting  the ball where you require.  

2. Shafts are not 80% of the equation.  Heads matter most, shafts fine tune.  Once this was shaft thing was stated the opportunity for a good fitting was over.  Therefore, switching heads but keeping the shaft would have compromised a tour level fitting.  

End of Story!

Soap Box Moment - the drivers on tour have a 50+ yard wide dispersion cone.  How big are fairways?  Stop the madness about fairways!!!!  If you don't understand but want to, please contact me!

So in other words Club Champion is incompetent. I am certain the guy who fitted me didn't come up with the process he used by himself, it's all scripted by Club Champion. I've seen others reporting they were fit the same way I was.

And the new head I didn't buy was a standard Callaway Mavrik, the head I kept for use with the CC recommended shaft-grip-adapter is a Callaway Rogue. Based on TXG and other sources, they're not radically different. Most reviews I've read said they wouldn't spend the money to upgrade to a Mavrik from a Rogue...

And yes, I regret ever starting this thread. Won't happen again.

 

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3 hours ago, ChitownM2 said:

 

Just to be clear, CC does not pay full MSRP for the clubs. They pay wholesale (based on volume) just like any other golf retailer. My guess is they pay more than a PGA SS or GG and less than my local course pro shop based on the volume they purchase. CC chooses to charge full price for the fitting, full MSRP for the club and full MSRP for the shaft. That is their choice on how to run their business and they are free to do that, but it is also the reason why I see a ton of people saying that they took their specs from the fitting and went to purchase somewhere else. I'd love to see the numbers, and I bet they would sell more clubs if they credited back 50% of the fitting cost or charged less than MSRP on upgrades. One thing they could certainly do which would be nearly free, would be to throw the stock shaft that came with your club into the box when it leaves their assembly shop. 

 

2 hours ago, LeftyRM7 said:


I may be wrong but I’m pretty sure he meant they pay the same price weather you order a stock shaft or not, not that they pay full MSRP. I’d bet the majority of their customers don’t care about getting an extra shaft. They order it as they fitted it for you. If you want the extra stock shaft, it’s as simple as asking. They will order it with your head and add the aftermarket shaft to the order, Simple.

Fitting is all they do so offering them free or discounted would not be profitable. At the end of the day, it’s a business that deals in the higher end of their industry so their is a cost to that. Nowhere else can you find the selection that they have and that’s a ton of $ in overhead cost.


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This on both accounts. When one goes to CC, TXG or similar place you are paying for a service. Whether you but from them or not it’s  the same price. Local pro shops that offer to take the fitting off the price of the club is to get a sale. 

Driver: PXG 0811 X+ Proto w/UST Helium 5F4

Wood: TaylorMade M5 5W w/Accra TZ5 +1/2”, TaylorMade Sim 3W w/Aldila rogue white

Hybrid: PXG Gen2 22* w/AD hybrid

Irons: PXG Gen3 0311T w/Nippon modus 120

Wedges: TaylorMade MG2 50*, Tiger grind 56/60

Putter: Scotty Caemeron Super Rat1

Ball: Titleist Prov1

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56 minutes ago, RickyBobby_PR said:

 

This on both accounts. When one goes to CC, TXG or similar place you are paying for a service. Whether you but from them or not it’s  the same price. Local pro shops that offer to take the fitting off the price of the club is to get a sale. 

When I was running my academy, demo days were free and I was there helping the fitting.  Outside of that, I had a fee for fitting and the club was not discounted or offset by the fitting fee.  I was good and good often comes with a fee.  I also never made false statements like a driver will make you hit more fairways and I would refuse to sell a club that went farther but lost accuracy.  Some exceptions but not many!

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1 hour ago, edteergolf said:

When I was running my academy, demo days were free and I was there helping the fitting.  Outside of that, I had a fee for fitting and the club was not discounted or offset by the fitting fee.  I was good and good often comes with a fee.  I also never made false statements like a driver will make you hit more fairways and I would refuse to sell a club that went farther but lost accuracy.  Some exceptions but not many!

I doubt that’s the norm. Finding a great fitter is probably like finding a great financial advisor, the odds are against you...

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Amen to that.

I hope that if anyone can take anything away from this thread it's that you need to do your homework before starting your journey to getting the clubs you want to fit your game. It's OK to ask loads of questions before you buy! And if you're not happy with the answer - don't buy, it's that simple. 

Go out, demo as many clubs as you can, ask around, check credentials, seek professional advice and come up with an idea of what you want to achieve - never go blindly into a fitting and have a sense of entitlement if you haven't put in the groundwork first. The old saying is (like most things in life) : you will get the type of fitting in keeping with the amount effort put in by yourself. If you take the lazy big box store route to finding the right fit, then expect the kind of fitting that your effort deserves. 

Lastly - you get what you pay for. If you want to go out and buy the raw materials yourself, then that's fine by me - but if you want them fitted and assembled then you pay for my time and expertise. The odd thing is - it tends to be cheaper in the long run.

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13 hours ago, jaskanski said:

Amen to that.

I hope that if anyone can take anything away from this thread it's that you need to do your homework before starting your journey to getting the clubs you want to fit your game. It's OK to ask loads of questions before you buy! And if you're not happy with the answer - don't buy, it's that simple. 

Go out, demo as many clubs as you can, ask around, check credentials, seek professional advice and come up with an idea of what you want to achieve - never go blindly into a fitting and have a sense of entitlement if you haven't put in the groundwork first. The old saying is (like most things in life) : you will get the type of fitting in keeping with the amount effort put in by yourself. If you take the lazy big box store route to finding the right fit, then expect the kind of fitting that your effort deserves. 

Lastly - you get what you pay for. If you want to go out and buy the raw materials yourself, then that's fine by me - but if you want them fitted and assembled then you pay for my time and expertise. The odd thing is - it tends to be cheaper in the long run.

Well said.  IMO - be careful with credentials.  Often credentials or certifications are simply sitting through a class and then continuing to pay a monthly fee.  It is the application of the  what is learned that is important and the willingness to be a little bit of mad scientist and try stuff out and see what happens.  There is more science and means of measurement than when I was doing to frequently.  My years of 'trying' were always way more useful than the classes or other resources.  

One of the biggest problems with fitting is that the majority of players really don't understand their game very well.  Our memories are skewed to what we want to believe and often time a players problem has little to do with the tool in their hand than it does the application of skill to the golf course.  Both are relevant to a good fitter.  Unless incredibly useful and accurate stats are kept by the player the fitter has nothing more to go on than the players word and their perceptions. 

Lastly, some fittings can be 100% correctly done and can still be wrong.  Years ago as I was becoming proficient as a fitter there was a time when 100% correct was valued more than a useful fitting.  A local player came to me who was a true 1 handicap but wanted new clubs.  His old ones were very worn and it was causing control problems.  We used them as a model and we both the next clubs to very similar to his current ones.  Essentially I delivered a nearly identical set except for a small change in the shaft.  He liked the feel in the fitting and they performed as good as his old set.  We even weakened the lofts to get the exact yardage numbers he preferred.  When we tested lie angles, the demo club I had constructed had a similar lie angle to his current set and they were measured to be about 3* too upright.  We had some evidence in a controlled environment that the getting the lie angles correct would prove helpful.  I give this guy credit, he played 7 rounds and couldn't hit the broad side of the barn.  This is a guy who routinely hit 15 or more greens a round!  Turns out his simply new how to control 'wrong' lie angles.  He played 7 rounds because he said impact felt perfect and way better than his old set.  I bent the club back to his old spec and he was thrilled.  Played great, felt like he had more control with a slightly better trajectory.  He did miss the solid feel but he would rather control his golf ball.   A 100% technically correct club fitting doesn't always work!

You do get what you pay for and it usually is cheaper in the long run.  I can assure you that next year's model simply won't provide a life changing amount of performance.  

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19 hours ago, edteergolf said:

1. Fittings, good or bad, don't make you hit fairways.  Good fittings provide a tool capable of enough power and enough precision.  In other words, fittings provide a tool best suited to the task.  Strategy/Golf IQ lessons help you make decisions to put the ball in play and training helps you to aim or align to increase your ability of hitting  the ball where you require.

I missed this the first time, tells me I was misguided in paying for a Club Champion fitting to tighten my driver dispersion - I wasted almost $400. It also further confirms my suspicion that the 4 shot dispersion groupings I got had little to do with the shafts I hit, and more to do with random chance. I didn’t schedule a fitting for more distance - and in hindsight 1) the distance I got was almost the same with every shaft and head I hit, and 2) my smash factor was very high according to the fitter - so he had nothing to offer distance wise if I’d wanted that.

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46 minutes ago, Middler said:

I missed this the first time, tells me I was misguided in paying for a Club Champion fitting to tighten my driver dispersion - I wasted almost $400. It also further confirms my suspicion that the 4 shot dispersion groupings I got had little to do with the shafts I hit, and more to do with random chance. I didn’t schedule a fitting for more distance - and in hindsight 1) the distance I got was almost the same with every shaft and head I hit, and 2) my smash factor was very high according to the fitter - so he had nothing to offer distance wise if I’d wanted that.

I understand your frustration.  I have heard or seen many tour players go to Club Champion for their club work.  The important thing to note is that they are going to a specific person and they would go to them if they did fittings at Dick's Sporting Goods.  It is more about the person than the company.  It is very difficult to get uniformity across multiple locations of one company.  Chick-fil-A has probably the best model for consistency of food and level of service.  That is why they are so far past the competition. 

I didn't get many fittings wrong.  When I did, I fixed it.  One of the reasons is the vast majority of my fittings were from my students, many of whom I had coached for months or years.  I have played golf with them and had launch monitor or observational data to help guide the process.  As a group we succumb to the marketing machine of massive improvements that a fitting or custom club build will provide.  Remember, success leaves clues.  When you find out info for tour level fittings, they are often about solving a singular problem or having to play new clubs but getting them to perform exactly like the old ones.  Amateurs seem to have an approach that is a bit different.  

Listening to the forum groups or even MGS provides anecdotal information at best. Not out of bad intent, but people are individuals and their nuances make equipment perform differently for you then they would for me.  It is very difficult to provide information that is truly applicable to each individual. I'm sure we will see some less than complementary ball data when the full test i published.  Regardless, there is some player who is out there shooting par with it.  

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