Club Fitting Experience

[QTIP]

I recently did an iron fitting and the results are confusing the heck out of me, so I thought I would get your guys opinion on this. To give you guys a background on the fitting, It was done indoors with a SkyTrak Launch Monitor at my local country club. (Far from a TXG experience, I know) I am a single digit handicap and a decent weekend warrior but nothing special. I am also 300 miles away from any Club Champion or top 100 club fitting facility, so my options are some what limited.

The Pro had me start out by hitting my current 7 iron, (Srixon Z745 w/DG S300 shafts) and Skytrak registered my carry to average around 175 yards with 77 mph club head speed and 115mph ball speed . The pro saw the carry distance and immediately told me that I would need an X flex shaft. It was a very quick assumption by him, and that surprised me because I am not the fastest swinger and am not all that comfortable hitting X Flex shafts since I never warm up prior to a round. He then had me hit the Mizuno Shaft Optimizer. The carry was around 178 yards, with 78 mph club head speed and 118 mph ball speed. The Optimizer recommended all light weight (<100 grams) regular flex shafts. (Tempo 4, Toe 3, kick 5, Release 3) I have a fairly slow and deliberate tempo and I don't generate a ton of club head speed, but again I was still surprised by the light weight regular flex recommendation.

What I find to be crazy though is that the club pro and the Optimizer were recommending shafts at opposite ends of the spectrum. One X Flex and one R flex.  I know that an initial recommendation by anyone or anything is just a starting point, and then you test from there, but I am not sure anyone would have the stamina to test such a wide range of shaft flex's and weights during an hour long fitting. What if there had only been a club fitter and no Optimizer? I probably would have been fit into something like a DG X100.  What if there was the Optimizer and no club fitter? Then I would have probably been fit into something like an R300 DG 95. That is a 35 gram and two flex difference!

My questions are, do you think it is ok to trust the shaft Optimizer? How can there be such a difference in recommendations? Could the launch monitor data be wrong? There are still a lot of human elements involved in a fitting, so how does someone determine they are getting an accurate fitting? 

[DiscipleofPenick]

I would trust the launch monitor data, and not so much the optimizer. Carry distance really doesn't have much to do with shaft flex, so I'm not sure what the pro's train of thought is there. A stiffer flex could reduce spin or bring down a ballooning ball flight. The need usually is based on swing speed.

Maybe the pro just thinks everyone with swing speed X should hit X. Then the next range is And so on down the line. Did you hit both the X and the R? What felt better to you?

[GolfSpy_APH]

6 minutes ago, QTIP said:

I recently did an iron fitting and the results are confusing the heck out of me, so I thought I would get your guys opinion on this. To give you guys a background on the fitting, It was done indoors with a SkyTrak Launch Monitor at my local country club. (Far from a TXG experience, I know) I am a single digit handicap and a decent weekend warrior but nothing special. I am also 300 miles away from any Club Champion or top 100 club fitting facility, so my options are some what limited.

The Pro had me start out by hitting my current 7 iron, (Srixon Z745 w/DG S300 shafts) and Skytrak registered my carry to average around 175 yards with 77 mph club head speed and 115mph ball speed . The pro saw the carry distance and immediately told me that I would need an X flex shaft. It was a very quick assumption by him, and that surprised me because I am not the fastest swinger and am not all that comfortable hitting X Flex shafts since I never warm up prior to a round. He then had me hit the Mizuno Shaft Optimizer. The carry was around 178 yards, with 78 mph club head speed and 118 mph ball speed. The Optimizer recommended all light weight (<100 grams) regular flex shafts. (Tempo 4, Toe 3, kick 5, Release 3) I have a fairly slow and deliberate tempo and I don't generate a ton of club head speed, but again I was still surprised by the light weight regular flex recommendation.

What I find to be crazy though is that the club pro and the Optimizer were recommending shafts at opposite ends of the spectrum. One X Flex and one R flex.  I know that an initial recommendation by anyone or anything is just a starting point, and then you test from there, but I am not sure anyone would have the stamina to test such a wide range of shaft flex's and weights during an hour long fitting. What if there had only been a club fitter and no Optimizer? I probably would have been fit into something like a DG X100.  What if there was the Optimizer and no club fitter? Then I would have probably been fit into something like an R300 DG 95. That is a 35 gram and two flex difference!

My questions are, do you think it is ok to trust the shaft Optimizer? How can there be such a difference in recommendations? Could the launch monitor data be wrong? There are still a lot of human elements involved in a fitting, so how does someone determine they are getting an accurate fitting? 

First off welcome to the forum!
I can't speak to SkyTrak as I have never used one and don't know the tendencies of its data to give you a good assessment there. However I have a lot of experience fitting and working with the Mizuno Shaft Optimizer. When you used that it should have given you a list of different shafts to try. Usually top 3 that it would recommend and then you can work off that. 
That piece of equipment I do truly trust. In terms of ball speed we have similar numbers, so I feel I can give you a decent general recommendation. I currently use Nippon Modus3 105 Stiff. Love them... however Mizuno fit me into the 120 however at the time I wasn't comfortable using a shaft that was that heavy. Now since that fitting I gone through superspeed and would be more interested in trying the 120 or even X in the 105, but thats me. Given both recommendations you were given why not try a lighter weight (may help keep club headspeed up) in a stiffer profile? 

[RickyBobby_PR]

. The optimizer is a great tool and used by many fitters. Not a fan of skytrak for fittings and wouldn’t trust their data

The first thing to do is compare the data from your current iron with the data from the x flex shaft and the data from the shafts recommended by the optimizer. This will give and idea of what’s working for you and what wouldnt.

A slow and smooth swing typically isn’t going to be an xflex shaft but depending on how you deliver the club and what the launch numbers are it’s possible that the shaft would help reduce spin and launch if they were too high. But this is why the data has to be compared. You could hit the same distance with the different shaft but get it from different methods like low spin and higher launch, and so on

[ChitownM2]

What was the actual result of your fitting?  In the end, it doesn't really matter what the fitter's initial guess on shaft was or what the optimizer said, it only matters what the final recommendation ended up being.  Were you happy with the results you saw with the shaft you were fit into?

Also, someone else should chime in but a 175 carry with a 77 mph swing speed on a 7 iron seems off.  I have a 100mph driver swing speed and my 7 iron speed is around 80-82 and all of those distance charts out there have a max carry of around 155 for my 7 iron which is about right if I strike it well.  Either you've got something crazy going on with your ball flight to get an extra 20 yards with a slower swing speed or, more likely, something is way off with the skytrak. 

 

 

[myherobobhope]

9 hours ago, ChitownM2 said:

What was the actual result of your fitting?  In the end, it doesn't really matter what the fitter's initial guess on shaft was or what the optimizer said, it only matters what the final recommendation ended up being.  Were you happy with the results you saw with the shaft you were fit into?

Also, someone else should chime in but a 175 carry with a 77 mph swing speed on a 7 iron seems off.  I have a 100mph driver swing speed and my 7 iron speed is around 80-82 and all of those distance charts out there have a max carry of around 155 for my 7 iron which is about right if I strike it well.  Either you've got something crazy going on with your ball flight to get an extra 20 yards with a slower swing speed or, more likely, something is way off with the skytrak. 

 

 

Ha, I was wondering the same thing… I’m at around 96 mph with my 7 iron and 180-190 with my 7… my ball flight isn’t phenomenal, so I was wondering if maybe he just has a really low launch or something?

in terms of the actual fitting… trust but verify. Hit a 7 iron with the r300, s300, s400 and x100… see if you can feel a difference and then figure out which has the better dispersion and acceptable distance numbers… I went off just numbers and didn’t love the results… my last fitting was a blend of numbers and feel… and if my Clubs ever arrive, hopefully I like them.

[PMookie]

I’m not using anything from distances Skytrak says to fit for clubs only. I’d warm-up, use the shaft optimizer, maybe even get two series of numbers, then look at the three shafts it recommends, THEN go to the Skytrak/eyeball on the range and pick from that. I’d even laser some targets on the range and hit toward one you think would be in 7 iron range for you to help with eyeballing. I would trust the optimizer and eyeballing over Skytrak.

[JonMUSC08]

I wonder if he was using the skytrak more for shot shape (ballooning as someone else mentioned)? Those DGS300 prolly get recommended for like 75% of people haha. Great shafts for a long time now. Can't necessarily go wrong in them i guess BUT you seem to be a better player and ,i would bet, want to get dialed in even better.