So What Is/Not A Proper Fitting?

[Middler]

I had an unsuccessful driver fitting at Club Champion, and got beat up here for “not knowing better” when I tried to explain where I think it went wrong. From what experts here have told me after the fact, the methodology CC used on me was wrong on several counts. How I was supposed to know better than a paid fitter is still beyond me...

So maybe it would be helpful if the experts here shared what one should expect in a quality fitting - how to know during the fitting and course correct if possible.

For example:

• How many shots needed to establish meaningful distance and dispersion?
• How to choose/what to do with outliers?
• Shafts first then heads, or vice versa?
• How do you know when your form is breaking down, yielding bad data? Number of shots, duration, other?
• Other things for look for?

In my unsuccessful CC driver fitting they tried different shafts first, then different heads - some experts here told me ‘everyone knows you decide on heads first.’ [If true, I’d expect CC to know that] They threw about 10 shafts at me, 4 shots each - in retrospect, and with experience in statistics, 4 shots is nowhere near enough to establish distance or especially dispersion. The CC rep threw out some obvious outliers, but there were others I wasn’t sure why he threw out. I was tired at the end of a driver fitting, so who knows if the last few shaft/head combinations were representative. I can’t imagine a whole bag fitting in one session.

Just thought something useful could come from my unsuccessful fitting...

[RickyBobby_PR]

For example:

• How many shots needed to establish meaningful distance and dispersion? 3-5 shots per setup is what the majority of fitters use to determine if a combo is working. Anything more and golfers have the tendency to manipulate their swing to try and get a combo to hit certain ball flight numbers 
• How to choose/what to do with outliers? A fitter can tell when a bad shot is not something normal for a golfer usually established with the getting to know the golfer, their tendencies and their misses. The ball flight and or launch monitor numbers will indicate this.
• Shafts first then heads, or vice versa? Both are viable options but the majority of fitters and fitting businesses use head first and shaft to tune. It all depends on the training and philosophy of the fitter.
• How do you know when your form is breaking down, yielding bad data? Number of shots, duration, other? For me it’s when I’m seeing more movement in the ball side to side because my fatigue level is causing me to change my swing mechanics. But it takes me a lot of swings to get to that point. 
• Other things for look for? Understanding your swing, understanding what your normal distances are and not the one time you hit a certain club with the perfect swing and contact. Understand that a fitting isn’t normally going to fix a swing flaw and that golf is played in varying conditions from round to round which will have an impact on what a ball does. Understanding the overall fitting process from what the fitters philosophy is, that fittings are meant to optimize ball flight conditions for the person but that in the end even with a fitted club the golfer still has to execute the swing. 

[Golfspy_CG2]

2 hours ago, RickyBobby_PR said:

 

For example:

• How many shots needed to establish meaningful distance and dispersion? 3-5 shots per setup is what the majority of fitters use to determine if a combo is working. Anything more and golfers have the tendency to manipulate their swing to try and get a combo to hit certain ball flight numbers 
• How to choose/what to do with outliers? A fitter can tell when a bad shot is not something normal for a golfer usually established with the getting to know the golfer, their tendencies and their misses. The ball flight and or launch monitor numbers will indicate this.
• Shafts first then heads, or vice versa? Both are viable options but the majority of fitters and fitting businesses use head first and shaft to tune. It all depends on the training and philosophy of the fitter.
• How do you know when your form is breaking down, yielding bad data? Number of shots, duration, other? For me it’s when I’m seeing more movement in the ball side to side because my fatigue level is causing me to change my swing mechanics. But it takes me a lot of swings to get to that point. 
• Other things for look for? Understanding your swing, understanding what your normal distances are and not the one time you hit a certain club with the perfect swing and contact. Understand that a fitting isn’t normally going to fix a swing flaw and that golf is played in varying conditions from round to round which will have an impact on what a ball does. Understanding the overall fitting process from what the fitters philosophy is, that fittings are meant to optimize ball flight conditions for the person but that in the end even with a fitted club the golfer still has to execute the swing. 

Great post, can't add too much more to that.

Other than maybe, ASK questions throughout the whole process.  I know when I go to the Dr. for my physical, I ask questions, when I take my car in for a repair I ask questions.   Both, just like the club fitter are professionals and know their business better than I do....if I've picked the right one    But that doesn't mean I don't want to educate myself and learn from them.     If a Dr. tells me to take a certain medication, I'll ask why and what can I expect from it.   If a fitter tells me I'm fit for a certain shaft, I may ask what about that shaft fits me or works well for my swing...etc.

 

[cnosil]

Just to add to the conversation, mark crossfield provides his perspective on the hack it out podcast. I can tell you that the hosts don’t agree with the CC model.

[RickyBobby_PR]

4 minutes ago, cnosil said:

Just to add to the conversation, mark crossfield provides his perspective on the hack it out podcast. I can tell you that the hosts don’t agree with the CC model.

The shaft first approach CC uses seems to be unique to them. I’m not aware of any individual fitters, haven’t seen any oem reps or other businesses like CC that use the shaft first approach. 
 

Ive seen people across forums and Facebook groups happy with the results from a CC fitting so it works.

[cnosil]

The shaft first approach CC uses seems to be unique to them. I’m not aware of any individual fitters, haven’t seen any oem reps or other businesses like CC that use the shaft first approach. 
 
Ive seen people across forums and Facebook groups happy with the results from a CC fitting so it works.

It is more than that.

[RickyBobby_PR]

3 minutes ago, cnosil said:

It is more than that.

What else? I don’t listen to that podcast or pay much attention to Crossfield s anymore 

[Middler]

1 hour ago, RickyBobby_PR said:

The shaft first approach CC uses seems to be unique to them. I’m not aware of any individual fitters, haven’t seen any oem reps or other businesses like CC that use the shaft first approach. 
 

Ive seen people across forums and Facebook groups happy with the results from a CC fitting so it works.

Of course it works for some people, for others it does not - categorically saying "it works" is misleading. 3-5 shots per shaft is not enough to establish distance or especially dispersion for inconsistent players, that's pretty easy to confirm statistically. If you hit 20 drives, with the exact same driver, ball, etc., the distance and dispersion for each set of 4 (1-4, 5-8, 9-12, etc.) will vary some - probably significantly for inconsistent players. Even with obvious outliers eliminated, the sets of 4 will not overlay exactly, that's one area where CC's methodology can yield faulty recommendations for less consistent players. That leads CC to recommend shafts, and eliminate shafts, where other factors may have strongly influenced those data sets. And outliers aren't black and white, a judgement is being made (or not) on gray hits.

[dlow206]

One thing I don't like about certain fitters is when they have a hidden (are not so hidden) agenda. I swear everyone I ever heard about that gets fit at my local CC (not saying all CCs are like this) comes out with Oban steel shafts and VA Composites wood shafts. Coincidence that those work best for the full sample of people that I have met that got fit at the local CC? Pretty sure those shafts are either some of the highest priced shafts they sell or the ones with the highest kickbacks. 

[RickyBobby_PR]

45 minutes ago, Middler said:

3-5 shots per shaft is not enough to establish distance or especially dispersion for inconsistent players, that's pretty easy to confirm statistically. If you hit 20 drives, with the exact same driver, ball, etc., the distance and dispersion for each set of 4 (1-4, 5-8, 9-12, etc.) will vary some - probably significantly for inconsistent players.

Fittings are to 1) optimize the ball flight characteristics for a persons swing 2) this optimizing of ball flight is to reduce the amount of a persons miss side to side and long and short. Someone swinging a combo 20 times is going to change their swing multiple times to try and get a different bal flight this is why fitters limit the number of shots. When comparing numbers from the baselining using the golfers current setup the fitter can compare the numbers from that to the combo the golfer is hitting. They then use that to show the golfer what the combo is doing compared to the baseline and when they change the combo why they are changing and what they hope to accomplish. 
 

The output of the launch monitor data shows the circle of where each ball finished  and is used to show how they combo performs compared to the baseline.

A good fitter also has an understanding of the swing and can see when a person made a swing that was different from their normal swing and that’s where outliers get tossed and also allows them to fit the golfer to a combo that will reward their good swings and minimize the penalty for a bad swing

 

[Middler]

^^^ I give up, you don’t know what you don’t know...your understanding would optimize a shaft for a robot, or a very consistent player. That description doesn’t apply to all of us.

[cnosil]

What else? I don’t listen to that podcast or pay much attention to Crossfield s anymore 

The podcast is hosted by crossfield, Scott Fawcett, and Lou Stagner.

Things that I remember is that it takes a lot more shots that 3-4 to determine if clubs fit. They were sayin you need hundreds to really assess dispersion and distance.

That you need to test more than 6 iron since lie angles vary across the set

Coaches are in a better position to fit clubs than fitting only places. They believe it is a skill that all coaches/instructors need that skill.

[RickyBobby_PR]

9 minutes ago, cnosil said:

The podcast is hosted by crossfield, Scott Fawcett, and Lou Stagner.

Things that I remember is that it takes a lot more shots that 3-4 to determine if clubs fit. They were sayin you need hundreds to really assess dispersion and distance.

That you need to test more than 6 iron since lie angles vary across the set

Coaches are in a better position to fit clubs than fitting only places. They believe it is a skill that all coaches/instructors need that skill.

Interesting. There’s not a fitting studio or independent fitter that’s going to have a customer hit hundreds of balls with one combo then switch. They all used a handful of shots (txg uses 5-6) and will determine if the combo is working or they need to tweak the setup of switch to a different combo. Some of it could be from a business perspective it’s not feasible financially to do multiple sessions with a customer to go thru several combos 

Ian dives into this a little in the what to expect video. He also gets into making drastic changes to affect ball then dial it back rather than make incremental changes 

Its been awhile since I watched any of their high and mid handicap fittings but from what I recall the one guy they did a full bag fitting with they got his driver dialed in within just a few changes that got him longer and straighter. 

[cnosil]

1 hour ago, RickyBobby_PR said:

Interesting. There’s not a fitting studio or independent fitter that’s going to have a customer hit hundreds of balls with one combo then switch. They all used a handful of shots (txg uses 5-6) and will determine if the combo is working or they need to tweak the setup of switch to a different combo. Some of it could be from a business perspective it’s not feasible financially to do multiple sessions with a customer to go thru several combos 

Ian dives into this a little in the what to expect video. He also gets into making drastic changes to affect ball then dial it back rather than make incremental changes 

Its been awhile since I watched any of their high and mid handicap fittings but from what I recall the one guy they did a full bag fitting with they got his driver dialed in within just a few changes that got him longer and straighter. 

Don't disagree with your statements.  They were saying that that number of shots was really needed to determine if a player was really consistent.   I would guess that once you had your patterns you would then tweak the clubs to better fit what you are looking for.   Definitely not something that a fitting studio could do,  but would work well with a coaching setup and a player to optimize the equipment.  

As you know, the reason we see less than 5 shots is that players start to adapting to the equipment.  I am pretty sure that most fitters would have you come back and fit equipment to make the necessary tweaks.

[RickyBobby_PR]

4 minutes ago, cnosil said:

Don't disagree with your statements.  They were saying that that number of shots was really needed to determine if a player was really consistent.   I would guess that once you had your patterns you would then tweak the clubs to better fit what you are looking for.   Definitely not something that a fitting studio could do,  but would work well with a coaching setup and a player to optimize the equipment.  

As you know, the reason we see less than 5 shots is that players start to adapting to the equipment.  I am pretty sure that most fitters would have you come back and fit equipment to make the necessary tweaks.

Agree the ideal thing would be fitter and coach being the same person and it being a long term thing but we know the number of coaches that do fittings is very slim and with many coaches being on staff those that would do it are going to be pushing a single brand. 
 

In my experience the fitters that understand the swing provide a better experience than someone who just sees numbers and doesn’t understand what’s causing them. These guys can get someone in a good setup that will have some improvement in distance and dispersion over something that wasn’t fit previously. 
 

We also know that a good number of players are only focused on getting longer with their clubs and don’t pay as much attention to dispersion or only look at either side to side but not long and short or vice versa.

A lot of times fitters and golfers aren’t looking at standard deviation to see where there might be improvements in consistency even if the distance and/or dispersion didn’t change much

[dlow206]

In my mind, putter fittings are the most flawed, even when using a Quintic or SAM. From the putter fitting I had on a Quintic, all putts were from a single distance, so distance control doesn't really come into play after a few putts. Also, the putting green was rectangular, so its more likely you will automatically align properly. And then given you putt like 5 balls with each putter you try, I don't feel like that sample size is enough. I may just be having a lucky day and make 5 in a row and make a good stroke with a mini golf bullseye putter in that controlled environment. 

[cnosil]

8 hours ago, Middler said:

For example:

• How many shots needed to establish meaningful distance and dispersion?
• How to choose/what to do with outliers?
• Shafts first then heads, or vice versa?
• How do you know when your form is breaking down, yielding bad data? Number of shots, duration, other?
• Other things for look for?

In my unsuccessful CC driver fitting they tried different shafts first, then different heads - some experts here told me ‘everyone knows you decide on heads first.’ [If true, I’d expect CC to know that] They threw about 10 shafts at me, 4 shots each - in retrospect, and with experience in statistics, 4 shots is nowhere near enough to establish distance or especially dispersion. The CC rep threw out some obvious outliers, but there were others I wasn’t sure why he threw out. I was tired at the end of a driver fitting, so who knows if the last few shaft/head combinations were representative. I can’t imagine a whole bag fitting in one session.

Here are my opinions

Meaningful distance and dispersion would have to be done over hundreds of shots;  that would be to establish your pattern with the equipment.   For a fitter to determine if a combo will potentially work for you would be the 3-5 shots per combo as the fitter is looking at how you  deliver the club to the ball and what basic performance will be.  In my fitting once we narrowed things down,  we retried a couple of the combos to validate what we saw.   

If it is an outlier,  it was probably a bad swing and not representative of how the combo would perform.  repeated bad shots would not be outliers and would indicate that the combo doesn't work for you.

Heads first then shaft.  I know this isn't exactly how CC does their fitting.  They start with something close to your club, find some shafts that work with your club and then add the head and tweak the shaft again.    This approach could work as the fitter would have knowledge gained from experience on what combos would work based on the numbers being seen.

Every player is different;  you should know when you are getting tired or the swings aren't representative of what you normally do.  

 

As for things to look for/do in fittings, hit your clubs as part of the fitting.  This will help quantify any performance improvements that are shown and also help you validate that what you are seeing on the monitor is representative of what you see on the course with your current club.   

I know you are a proponent of taking lessons prior to the fitting and that is an option.  However,  my opinion differs from your about the swing characteristics changing.  The player would swing better but how they load the shaft won't change. 

[cnosil]

3 hours ago, dlow206 said:

One thing I don't like about certain fitters is when they have a hidden (are not so hidden) agenda. I swear everyone I ever heard about that gets fit at my local CC (not saying all CCs are like this) comes out with Oban steel shafts and VA Composites wood shafts. Coincidence that those work best for the full sample of people that I have met that got fit at the local CC? Pretty sure those shafts are either some of the highest priced shafts they sell or the ones with the highest kickbacks. 

I would be willing to be that a majority of golf shop employees are on staff with some manufacturer.  I know the ones in my area are.     I think you will find similar trends across the board.   Maybe CC pushes specific brands,  but fitters also get comfortable with certain manufacturers and how their components work with different swings.   The cost factor is part of being an educated consumer;  people don't generally walk into a car dealership and ask the dealer to tell them what car to buy.  

[cnosil]

8 minutes ago, dlow206 said:

In my mind, putter fittings are the most flawed, even when using a Quintic or SAM. From the putter fitting I had on a Quintic, all putts were from a single distance, so distance control doesn't really come into play after a few putts. Also, the putting green was rectangular, so its more likely you will automatically align properly. And then given you putt like 5 balls with each putter you try, I don't feel like that sample size is enough. I may just be having a lucky day and make 5 in a row and make a good stroke with a mini golf bullseye putter in that controlled environment. 

I think the initial process is okay with putter fittings,  but what they miss are that the recommendation from SAM is done by a computer program.  Try a different putter and you are likely to get a different result.    Just like a regular club fitting the best putter fittings utilize the data to understand how the player swings the club.   I haven't done a Quintic but I would like to see how it works.  SAM is about the putter and Quinitic is about the ball; meaning SAM will help you find the putter characteristics that work for your stroke and Quintic will help you optimize to get ideal ball conditions.  

[dlow206]

15 minutes ago, cnosil said:

I would be willing to be that a majority of golf shop employees are on staff with some manufacturer.  I know the ones in my area are.     I think you will find similar trends across the board.   Maybe CC pushes specific brands,  but fitters also get comfortable with certain manufacturers and how their components work with different swings.   The cost factor is part of being an educated consumer;  people don't generally walk into a car dealership and ask the dealer to tell them what car to buy.  

Agreed. A large percentage of the guys that like to buy the newest equipment at my club but are not equipment research junkies, they all play a Callaway Mavrik driver. Some of the guys have their bags stored at the club, so the bags are lined up so they are ready to go for a member's round, i see a line of bags with Mavrik drivers. Pretty sure the Pro sold them into the Mavrik driver. 

[RollingGreens]

14 minutes ago, dlow206 said:

Agreed. A large percentage of the guys that like to buy the newest equipment at my club but are not equipment research junkies, they all play a Callaway Mavrik driver. Some of the guys have their bags stored at the club, so the bags are lined up so they are ready to go for a member's round, i see a line of bags with Mavrik drivers. Pretty sure the Pro sold them into the Mavrik driver. 

I would say that is why the BST on Golf WRX can be like going to a toy store for an avid golfer. Most don't do the research which is fine, but many are quick to sell to recoup money. Leaving a lot of great products on the market for those that know what they are looking for.

[Middler]

9 hours ago, cnosil said:

Here are my opinions

Meaningful distance and dispersion would have to be done over hundreds of shots;  that would be to establish your pattern with the equipment.   For a fitter to determine if a combo will potentially work for you would be the 3-5 shots per combo as the fitter is looking at how you  deliver the club to the ball and what basic performance will be.  In my fitting once we narrowed things down,  we retried a couple of the combos to validate what we saw.   

If it is an outlier,  it was probably a bad swing and not representative of how the combo would perform.  repeated bad shots would not be outliers and would indicate that the combo doesn't work for you.

Heads first then shaft.  I know this isn't exactly how CC does their fitting.  They start with something close to your club, find some shafts that work with your club and then add the head and tweak the shaft again.    This approach could work as the fitter would have knowledge gained from experience on what combos would work based on the numbers being seen.

Every player is different;  you should know when you are getting tired or the swings aren't representative of what you normally do.  

 

As for things to look for/do in fittings, hit your clubs as part of the fitting.  This will help quantify any performance improvements that are shown and also help you validate that what you are seeing on the monitor is representative of what you see on the course with your current club.   

I know you are a proponent of taking lessons prior to the fitting and that is an option.  However,  my opinion differs from your about the swing characteristics changing.  The player would swing better but how they load the shaft won't change. 

Much appreciated, thanks. Though my fitting at CC was rote and therefore ineffective, I’ll be better able to hold up my end of the bargain when/if I have another fitting one day. Since I was paying them above and beyond any clubs, I trusted CC to know how best to do a fitting, evidently not every CC rep really understands what it takes.

Though I’ve mentioned it before, it may bear repeating. I assume most players go for a fitting to increase distance and/or optimize launch (many just getting the ball in the air). I don’t have a distance or launch problem, I hit further and higher than almost all my peers. I went to CC solely to see if there was a shaft that would reduce my side to side dispersion, and made it clear to the rep I didn’t care about more distance. Of course the rep said CC could help me, but I had to remind him throughout the fitting as he kept noting ‘you hit this shaft x yards further.’ I can well understand how a fitter could distinguish distance and trajectory with 4 shots per shaft for almost anyone, but I don’t think that’s possible with dispersion.

I may have set myself up for failure going to CC to reduce dispersion. Their standard methodology, as applied to me, is not appropriate for dispersion for most players IME. And that’s probably also been a source of conflict in the threads I’ve participated in here...where other posters are assuming distance or launch as fitting goals, I was only interested in dispersion.

[tchat07]

For example:

• How many shots needed to establish meaningful distance and dispersion? 3-5 shots per setup is what the majority of fitters use to determine if a combo is working. Anything more and golfers have the tendency to manipulate their swing to try and get a combo to hit certain ball flight numbers 
• How to choose/what to do with outliers? A fitter can tell when a bad shot is not something normal for a golfer usually established with the getting to know the golfer, their tendencies and their misses. The ball flight and or launch monitor numbers will indicate this.
• Shafts first then heads, or vice versa? Both are viable options but the majority of fitters and fitting businesses use head first and shaft to tune. It all depends on the training and philosophy of the fitter.
• How do you know when your form is breaking down, yielding bad data? Number of shots, duration, other? For me it’s when I’m seeing more movement in the ball side to side because my fatigue level is causing me to change my swing mechanics. But it takes me a lot of swings to get to that point. 
• Other things for look for? Understanding your swing, understanding what your normal distances are and not the one time you hit a certain club with the perfect swing and contact. Understand that a fitting isn’t normally going to fix a swing flaw and that golf is played in varying conditions from round to round which will have an impact on what a ball does. Understanding the overall fitting process from what the fitters philosophy is, that fittings are meant to optimize ball flight conditions for the person but that in the end even with a fitted club the golfer still has to execute the swing. 

The only thing I would add to this is I had a fitter tell me that the best method for a fitting is shaft first then head then shaft again to be sure that shaft-head combo gets the best results.

Sent from my SM-G950U using MyGolfSpy mobile app

[cnosil]

Much appreciated, thanks. Though my fitting at CC was rote and therefore ineffective, I’ll be better able to hold up my end of the bargain when/if I have another fitting one day. Since I was paying them above and beyond any clubs, I trusted CC to know how best to do a fitting, evidently not every CC rep really understands what it takes.
Though I’ve mentioned it before, it may bear repeating. I assume most players go for a fitting to increase distance and/or optimize launch (many just getting the ball in the air). I don’t have a distance or launch problem, I hit further and higher than almost all my peers. I went to CC solely to see if there was a shaft that would reduce my side to side dispersion, and made it clear to the rep I didn’t care about more distance. Of course the rep said CC could help me, but I had to remind him throughout the fitting as he kept noting ‘you hit this shaft x yards further.’ I can well understand how a fitter could distinguish distance and trajectory with 4 shots per shaft for almost anyone, but I don’t think that’s possible with dispersion.
I may have set myself up for failure going to CC to reduce dispersion. Their standard methodology, as applied to me, is not appropriate for dispersion for most players IME. And that’s probably also been a source of conflict in the threads I’ve participated in here...where other posters are assuming distance or launch as fitting goals, I was only interested in dispersion.

I am continuing to learn the nuances of playing better golf and by learning more about course management I learn more about dispersion patterns, distance, and the swing itself. My thoughts continue to evolve the more I learn.

I hit lots of balls as part of most wanted testing and we give subjective feedback as part of the process. While I know dispersion is important, I mostly fall back on distance as a separator between clubs. I am not willing to give up distance because I know it influences my next shot.

Players have big dispersion patterns when they get to the course and to understand you pattern you need to hit lots of shots. Again with most wanted the more shots I hit the better I get because I am adapting to the club. The ideal approach would be to hit about 30 shots a day taking a break between shots and then look at the pattern after about 10 days. This will give you a great indication on how you hit the ball. As Scott Fawcett talks about in decade, PGA players have a 60 yard wide dispersion pattern with driver and on any given shot they don’t know where the ball will be in that pattern. Obviously that strategy if fitting isn’t sustainable as a business practice.

Next is swing. Players are generally pretty consistent with path; the problem is controlling the face. The estimate is that face deviation is twice path deviation. Looking at my data I would say that is actually pretty accurate. To fix dispersion You have to fix your swing. Lessons will work to narrow those deviations. Fitter/coaches are good option to help combine what you are doing. When fixing those deviations, there generally isn’t a lot of change to the club and shaft as you won’t change the underlying tempo and speed that you swing. The biggest impact might be to tweak loft and lie angle. Granted there are exceptions but I think those would be the result of massive swing changes over a fairly significant period of time.

All of that said the methodology of most fitting locations has to be distance over dispersion; as it is seen the quickest and hits what most players want to see. Dispersion is more about grossly misfit. There are club shaft combinations that simply don’t work and that can be eliminated quickly. While you communicated what you wanted and CC probably did it’s best to accommodate there probably wasn’t a good match.

[Shapotomous]

If the fitter has you hit some with your gamer to begin then I think in a general sense the shaft is chosen first based on swing speed and transition.  Not an exact shaft but at least the starting point for the flex and kick point in the first iteration of testing.  Then whichever flavor of clubhead you want to try with that starting point and then changing the shaft selection after that.  Then using the clubhead adjustability of the weight or loft & lie after that to dial it in further. 

That's the self fitting process I go through and it's not a 1 session exercise.  It takes me a few range sessions as well as multiple times playing it on the course to get the patterns down.