Welcome to golf Clubfitting 101, where I will now begin to reveal theories and practices that will guide the future of golf club fitting (and swinging) and turn around decades of ineffective methods that have likely contributed to the game’s decline in recent years. In certain areas details will be added or explained better to help supplement what is already available, some of which is good, but in other areas
I will be blunt. There are several things about golf I have grown to dislike, and under the right conditions I would leave the game behind in a heartbeat. Even before I say the following I regret it, but I say it anyhow because there is just so much truth to it. If golf were in essence one of the
Before beginning what I will label “Clubfitting 101” after a couple more posts, I want to reemphasize here how critically important the proper fitting of golf equipment is in order to get the best, most consistent results out of anyone’s golf swing and playing performance. At the same time, however, I must also sadly restate
Besides club fitting services for golfers offered by independent operators, ranging from individuals to major club manufacturers, organizations exist that have been founded specifically to help teach and promote golf-related occupations, including the custom clubfitting trade. From these bodies, one might obtain
Ralph Maltby and Tom Wishon have been two of the more familiar promoters of golf-related information and products over the last two to three decades. Mr. Maltby’s Golf Club Design, Fitting, Alteration, and Repair, first published in 1974, opened up a new era in the study of golf clubs. Roughly a decade later, Mr. Wishon first notably appeared on the scene, generating his own materials and gaining a following. Both men may be considered
Consider for a moment various occupations that surround golf clubs. There are players of course, who must use clubs to perform their best. There are those who assemble and/or repair golf clubs, and then those who possess the ability to help fit clubs to golfers, which is altogether different than repairing clubs. Next there are golf club designers, which may embody complete golf club design and performance or can focus solely on the design of individual components of club heads, shafts, and/or grips. I assure you, one can be a good designer of clubs and yet know little about
I have mentioned more than once that I did not take up golf earnestly until I was into college. My younger days were spent like many other middle-class aspiring athletes, passionately pursuing a baseball career. My family could also better afford that. A big part of this was playing organized ball at free parks. I swung a baseball bat what seemed like more than a million times, working on my hitting technique and also experimenting with many different bats during both practices and games to try to get the most out of whatever talent I had. One foundational bat element is the diameter of its handle. I selected what handle size to use at any given time based preeminently on
In my last entry, I presented statistics showing there is a very small range indeed between the minimum and maximum values of golf club specifications when analyzing the preferences of the entire spectrum of golfers, legitimizing the slightly true statement that good golfers can often play with “anything.” On the other hand, it has also been proven over a really long period of time that
Across a table from one another, each with their own chair, I seat a golfer, lacking any clubs to utilize, and opposite to him a set of golf clubs, at which point I investigate as to which one is willing and able to play the game of golf and play it better. I instruct the golfer to go play in accordance with certain rules and I giggle as I watch him swat at a golf ball barehanded to try and get it into a hole some four-hundred yards away. Still,
Most people within the independent custom clubfitting business are quick to blame their lack of notoriety and insufficient numbers of customers on