Fred Gets Fitted for New Clubs

Golf Smarter number four hundred five, published on October eighth, twenty thirteen.

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So now we're going to change a conversation. A lot of people don't know what a four wood is anymore. You have three woods, and everybody has a three wood in their bag or thinks they should. Most people do anyway, and a lot of people have three and five wood's. The four wood's kind of a forgotten item. Certain manufacturers carry them, some don't, tailor made kind of hides theirs. It's a high launched three wood, but it's a seventeen degree.

Come on and join me as I get fitted for new clubs with club fitter Nick Manzano. This is golf smarter. You can walk into a department store and buy a coat off the rack and it may fit you well because you kind of know your size. But if you were to walk in that department store and get an expert to help you, to measure you, to make it fit for you, to custom fit it for you, but it's still a department store, you're going to feel a lot better about it. You're going to be more confident,

It's you know, it's not important for everybody. For people who want to better their games and to make it more enjoyable and have more fun out there. You know, sometimes it's the archer and sometimes it's the earrow, and tailoring a golf club to somebody's swinging abilities is very.

Important if you want to progress with the game. And what is the process of getting fitted.

Would start out with an interview and some kind of discussion and background is to what the person's experiences and what their attitudes are towards certain brands or certain clubs, and how fast of a learning curve they're on. They're just playing and practicing, and you know, once a month or something, you know you might fit them differently if

I get emails from listeners all the time saying, I'm just starting to play golf and I know it's important to be fitted, but I want to get my swing going first. Are they right to wait to be fitted and do it on their second set of clubs or from their first set of clubs? Out? Is being fitted going to make a difference, going to enhance their confidence in their game.

That's where you know, ideally you would have if they're starting out and they're taking lessons from a golf professional, then ideally that professional would give them that guidance and you know, give them an idea at what point they can take that off the shelf seven iron and progress.

Onto something else, maybe at.

The practice range. And that's where you know, ideally, you know, a good club fitter would be willing to work with a professional and you know, coordinate that fitting. But as long as they can repeatedly hit a shot, you know, seventy eighty percent of the time, then you can begin to start fitting. The difficulty with instruction is when the swing changes. Most people start out pretty stiff when they swing.

They don't have a lot of athletic background.

Saying softball or tennis, and when you get into lessons, their whole posture changes, and then the fit of the golf club changes.

So does it make sense as somebody progresses over the years to be fitted multiple times each time they're ready to change their clubs.

And not necessarily over the years, but over progression of skills. You know, as they get better, better than the fit

Well, it's been about five or six years since I've purchased any clubs, and I wanted to upgrade on my driver, hybrids, my fairway woods, so I thought I would get fitted to do that. Instead of just seeing what other people are playing, I want to know where my game has changed and if I'm either playing the right clubs or I do need new ones. So that's why I'm here today and we're going to go through a fitting process with Nick.

Right now, what's your index? So what do you usually shoot?

I'm My average score right now, according to my index is eighty eight point nine, so you're just about fourteen and a half.

Dead on average golf slightly. I am an average golfer for slightly better than average.

Probably very slight if i'm yeah, because I am under ninety and.

You probably it's probably an honest index, not one of those ego and no, this is based on my sandbagger and yeah, this is definitely based on my gin. So let's start out loosening up a little bit and we'll start with a six iron, Okay, just to lay down a benchmark. We did talk earlier and you mentioned that your four iron and five iron somewhere between there you you know, have a little bit more difficulty repeating your sots.

Now, what does this machine you're having me stand in front of right here which no one can see, but.

Well, this is a high speed camera system based launch monitor and software package that's accurate to within about a half a mile an hour in your swing, about a quarter degree on angles, and at the end of the day, with uh your clubs, it's going to be within about two or three yards.

We go.

It's all working, good, good, A couple more, just just a couple.

There so many, so many little things that need to remember about every part of my swing. It's like from back up in the top in the center meeting the hips and then got to get rid of that when I'm playing. But it's always it's in.

My sleep and set up the swing. You just got to kind of feeling.

Yeah, all right's take another one. See what happens.

Yeah, it's looking pretty good. Let's just get one more.

So what are we looking at back here on the monitor?

We're just watching the ballfly right?

So base what the launch monitor is? Picking up the software? Yes, picking up the ball flight and give a target. Man, I'm looking at a big white screen. Am I supposed to be aiming for something? Or just sure to hit the ball. Why didn't you step away and just on this last shot? Since we need one more anyway, just sort of imagine the target, use the lines of the mat to coordinate that, and pick the target and visualize

So take down, aim at that pin out there?

Got away all right, And that's one of the mist hits.

So much for targeting.

Yeah, right, exactly, good idea, friend, That is that the spot right there?

Okay, Now that was really important. Here is just to take a deep breath and reboot. Oh absolutely, so I absolutely staked as many in here as anybody.

And well I don't what I don't do is just drop a ball and hit it. I'll definitely go through the whole preshot routine again in my normal game. But that was that was on tape.

So that's I'm going to go over and delete that because that would, thank you, I appreciate that would throw off our numbers.

Tell me when.

Fire and ready, Well that was worth it. That was the best shot yet. Oh you know, sometimes you gotta sometimes you gotta hit bottom before you fly back up. So they're coming over to the monitor.

For a second, coach, Okay.

So on the monitor here we have all the numbers of rate out here. We have a club head speed very consistent on average, seventy three miles an hour.

And that's great.

So in regards to fitting, which you were talking about, when somebody has a really consistent swing speed and they repeat pretty good, it's now possible to do a very nice fitting.

A swing speed seventy three and they're talking about some of the pros are up in the one hundred and twenties and thirties.

That's drivers okay, good, So that does change from club to club.

Your your club hit speed.

Six irons are much shorter and they don't swing as fast.

Yeah, okay, good, good, no, thank you.

So seventy three mile hour club speed translate to about one hundred and seven mile an hour ball speed. You have a launch angle of eighteen point three. Your average shot was one point five degrees offline to the right in inner twenty six RPMs a side spin, so it was fading off to the right in addition to starting off to the right. Yep, and the back spins fifty four hundred, and we'll skip the total spin to centangle forty four degrees. That's really good, forty four forty five.

Now, we took the six h iron out because you asked me what's my one hundred and fifty yard club?

I did, Yep.

You said which club do you hit one hundred and fifty yards before? And I said.

That was a different conversation.

Yeah.

The reason why I take the six iron out is just because we have optimization charts. It's smarter people than I have put together over the years, and they know for any given ball speed, and that's why that column is important. It's good to have a certain launch angle, and it's good to have a certain amount of backspin to be able to have a good playable trajectory so the ball takes off, doesn't balloon up too much in

Oh that's good. Who finish it for them? Dan Sex?

Well, so you use one of the best.

I'm hitting off of a mat. How different would these numbers be if we're hitting off of grass?

It would be probably a lot harder to get them. The mats very forgiving.

Right, Practicing off of a mat seems very different than hitting off of grass. When you're practicing too.

Yeah, the difficulty in studio, and that goes back to One of the reasons why we have our ninety day warranty is when you can't see your target when you're hitting off a turf and you're in a real, you know, encore situation, people might hit the ball completely differently than they do here just because of where they're at mentally, how they feel in studio compared to out in the course, their home course compared to an unfamiliar place the ter

We'll take the feedback.

In that point in interview, you know what's working, what's not working, and then we can adjust and refit if necessary based upon you know the actual results, and make a small adjustment. And then we're there.

So a little bit off center here, but so I know that I have a fade, and I play my fade. I've never hit a drug. I don't even understand it. But when somebody goes out for ninety days and they have a fade but they don't like it, what if they come back and go I'm just every shot I keep fading the ball. It's like, well, good, then you're consistent, aren't you. I mean, isn't that consistency?

Well, I mean, who's the best player in the world, well, number one ranked?

I guess that would be Tiger Well of all time, of.

All time, big question, Tiger Nicholas. Time will tell yeah, exactly? Who is one of the best iron strikers of all time?

Hogan? Hogan of more recent times. I'm bad at these quizzes.

Probably Miller. Okay, well, at least he thinks.

So yeah, right, I'll tell you that. He'll be the first time to tell you.

But no, a lot of people would agree. But the Nicholas played a fade, and Miller could play a fade and really respect and talks a lot about Nicholas's fade. So you know, it all depends on what the expectations of the customer are.

At the end, he explained to me, what you're doing now.

So what we're doing is we are setting up a lieboard and we're seeing if the fade is entirely your problem or if it is a small adjustment on the iron.

Because your little plexiglass board with a couple of lines right down the middle. So then you put some what you put a tape on the bottom of my clothes.

It's called Impact eight, okay, and we put it on as centered as possible. Take a swipe with that. Let's see what the reading is and let's see if that fade is all yours or if your swing has changed slightly since you're fitting five years ago with Dan.

Okay.

So in fact, you see the darkest one right there, it's almost dead on center. Then it kind of slid off the board, is what happened there. So let's do one more just to verify that. Sure, you felt pretty good about that swing though, yeah, okay, again it's probably right on. We won't see much different here, but we'll take one more for the.

Books like that one more?

That was nice, Yeah, and you can see where they were. So you're actually marking probably half a degree to the heel, So that means your heel is down just a little bit dynamically through impact when you swing the club bows sure, and your body shifts and for you this is actually slightly toe up.

And that's something that I've recently been working on because I've been trying to and I don't know if you know some position, but trying to get the club more upright and flat on the ground because I always had a tendency to have the toe up, so it was a new thing for me to try to get it. But I'm clearly when I come back through impact, I'm not there.

Yeah, And that's a subtle fitting thing. So going back to what you were saying about fitting and the importance of fitting, that's one of the things you shouldn't have to unnaturally try to get the club to swing flat. The club should intuitively swing flat, and for two reasons. One is the center gravity. When you rock the soul of the club up, the center gravity, it's designed into that golf club for its particular use and it's appropriate fit for you. When you rock it up in the heel,

No uphill lie is gonna go to your left, So you come around right. Okay, do you know why because your your swing is shorter? Because no, because that was a trick question. No, I don't.

Most people don't. Most people don't know that answer. When the club's flat in the ground and going back that center gravity thing. If the toes down, if the toes up in the air and the heels down, the center gravity rises up and the club becomes less efficient. At the same time, if we square this to that line on the board that's pointing pretty much ninety degrees straight down the middle, right, correct, Now, I got my leading edge square to that line the same way. Where are we pointing?

Uh, you're pointing way left. Yeah.

The compound angle of the face of the loft and the lie angle. When that club is up in the air, you line up your leading edge, you're visually distracted the face is actually pointing left.

Okay, So that that explains when you have an uphill lie why it's.

So so your club was marking on the heel. We can flatten that out a little bit and make that fits you more perfectly and make it more efficient. It'll drop the center of gravity, but what you need to be aware of is it will possibly leak a little bit more to the right.

Oh god, that's because as we dropping a little bit, this is the center and I'm hitting towards the heel.

But you can play that fade. And that's where you go back and forth between fitting and instruction. Now you go back and you work on that release in or the ball position, and then you work with your swing coach and you try to get that worked out so it's more neutral and you have the ability to fade or draw and demand and take it to know the level.

See now, I mentioned you that I'm getting frustrated with my five because again I'm trying to lay the club flat on the ground. Because the way I always did it before, I was down on the heel and the toe was up. So I'm trying to position myself on my address with my hands a little bit higher.

Hold on just one second, friend, I'm gonna put a different screen out here. Okay, Yeah, I've got so many thoughts in your mind right now.

No, my mind is generally the same all the time. Empty. Wow, that was nice.

No fade there.

I was riding up the line.

Huh, missed the line by a couple of feet.

Oh, life sucks. What can I tell you. I'll try it again, see if it was an anomaly.

Another pretty good one a little farther.

Huh.

Those are three pretty good swings.

Thank you.

Last when you miss hit just a little bit. Yeah, that's not bad at all. And do you carry four iron or not?

I do not. I do the hybrid when I get past the five.

Five five is the last one. Yeah, let's just try one more. Okay, Yeah, you're getting that five pretty good today.

Yeah, I'm gonna go out and play later, coming.

Over to the computer for just sure it. So what you have if we go back to your six iron for starters and you surely we'll take that off. Thanks miss hit there, So you got an extra three miles an hour longer clubs translates to an extra four and a half miles an hour of ball speed. But we're gonna look here is the difference is in. And look, by the way, with that one extra shot with your six iron, as I guessed, your backspin came down below.

Fifty three hundred.

So that's looking pretty good as far as how that's set up with the lofts and lies and the shaft pndpoint. So on your four iron you had a variance five I'm sorry, your six iron. On your six iron, you had a variance in yardage of one hundred and fifty to one hundred and fifty nine yards round it, so she had nine yards front to back on you. That's carry on Kerry distance. On your five iron, you had a variance of one fifty to sixty six. She had a sixteen yard difference.

Wow.

So it just shows you that when you go from you know, that higher lofted, slightly shorter club to the next club in the line, just in those four shots versus those four shots, you're just a little bit less consistent. And so that's where we determine where the cutoff is for the irons in your bag. Interesting on the offline, on your six iron, you were twenty two yards right to four yards right, so you had an eighteen yard spread if we go to your.

Average of just under fifteen offline. Fifteen yards offline.

Yeah, but the spread is what we're looking at right now, So it's an eighteen yard spread or variance. And on your five iron you go from minus one yard to plus sixteen.

It's seventeen.

So with those four shots, In those four shots, your five iron is almost as consistent as your six iron. It's a hair more consistent online and just the hair less consistent on the distance. So you know, it appears your five iron is almost as consistent as your six. I think keeping that in your bag is probably a

So good to know because I always think, oh I'm one hundred and sixty five yards out five.

Iron so that matches the reality.

So the reality is I do know the distance of my clubs, so our monitor actually works, is what you're saying, or I do something works, but it's important. It's good to know your distances in.

A fitting in the whole process that the customer buys into the technology we're using. People ask all the time about what's the latest technology. And some of the best technology we have here at the Golf Mart is a launch monitor and using it properly, and it also helps with a customer. If they know they're five irons one hundred and sixty five yards and this launch monitor says it's flying one hundred and sixty four and a half yards, well then they're confident. Yeah, and you know they can

Sounds like I'm saving some money on my irons, So the flex is correct.

Probably right, Yeah, you're dead on the middle of regular flex and Dan did a nice job for you. The Dynamite Gold and the Dynamical super lights for most recreational golfers are great shafts because they save a bit of weight, so aniguewise.

At the end of the round, he also moved me to the metal shaft versus the graphite. I had graphite before this, and he said, you know, a regular, regular stiff on the on the metal flex was a better better for me than the graphite.

Yeah, as you progress and get to be a little bit better golfer, the torsional properties of the shaft. Steel shafts only twist two degrees. Graphite shafts twists three to four degrees, and so you can be much more accurate with a steel shaft over a graphite shaft. But that's changing. Some of the steel fiber shafts by Aerotech, for instance, they're being used on tour, are just about as accurate as the steel shafts.

Now, wow, Well it's your comment about as you progress and improve in your game. But here I am in the age where we're both getting a lot older, right and quickly, So you had to go there. Huh yeah, most likely not it's stayed the same or not. I mean, I'll probably be losing distance over time, and just because of aging process, catching.

Up technology and fitting can still help you with that, and you know, I fit, and some of it's conditioning to I can't tell you how many sixty seven year old guys I fit. They're still knocking drives or I've helped fit for a long driver and they're knocking them two fifty two sixty, two seventy two eighty all right, Well, even one guy here butch I think is his name, to the titleist driver and you can knock at three hundred yards.

Still, Okay, he's a big guy though. Okay, three fifty though, right, So here's our benchmark.

One hundred and sixty four hundred and sixty five yards. That's or five iron. So what we're going to do right now is we're going to go ahead and shut this down. Go over here, and we're going to go to customer fairway and I'm going to have you hit a couple with your fairway wood and let's see how it.

Appears to work for you.

So we got our starting point with a five iron, we'll jump to your three wood, four wood.

Well, this is the now, this was one of the clubs that was made for me by Jesse Ortiz.

Personally understand yes he did.

He said, go get fitted for clubs. This is when I had to replace my last set because airlines. And he said, I'm going to give you this seventy teen degree and it's more like a four wood, but you can tell people it's a three wood. And I love hitting this thing off the tee.

Well, you know, most people don't even know what a fourwood is. And I think Jesse or Tz did you a great service that way. And my experience here, more people than not fit into a seventeen degree four wood or high launched three wood better than into a fifteen degree. Wow, And so I think you did a great job. And maybe a tough time to fit you out of that, but we'll give it a whirl.

Okay. And shaft wise, it's.

Shaft wise, it's a pretty standard shaft. You can do some amazing things with shaft but that depends on budget. A year over year, shaft manufacturing tolerances have gotten better and better. So the shafts made today are so much more consistent than shafts made two, three, four years ago. How old is your club? Four or five years? Four or five years?

Yeah, So I think.

Most of the newer shafts are probably going to give us a little bit better spin rates and that'll help out with the distance. But I'll share how that works in a minute. Swing away. Okay, the long fairway club, the three or four wood, is probably the hardest hit, hardest club to hit in the whole back off the.

Tea, even a really really really low tea. And that's what I do with this club. I don't tee it up very high at all. It's very different than when I'm hitting off the deck. I seem to have missed every one of those.

It's better just try one other thought. You were asking earlier about the mats versus hitting off turf, and the mats are a petroleum product. The plastic grass is incredibly slippery. The foam underneath is pretty forgiving. Now, why don't you sort of psych yourself out and say, hey, it's okay to hit you know, half inch behind the ball. See what happens?

Okay, Yeah, I feel like I'm hitting a way that's your best yet.

No, Yeah, yeah, so we're onto something there. Tried a couple more. I'll delete to earlier ones, but that's uh, that's a pretty good start right there.

Yeah. It's been a lot alone where it feels like don't know why, and that one ballooned.

That's actually looking good because we can take the two of those and average them together. Okay, it was slightly thin, one was slightly thick. What would be ideals if you just flush one right now? Okay, let's see what we can do. Relax, no thoughts, just swing more or less.

Did that?

There we go? That's all we need for numbers. Really, yep, I still don't feel like I hit one that I liked. Well, Like you said, every day is different. Yeah, if somebody's having a hard time struggling and they are not making great contact with a given club that we're trying to do a fitting, you got to work with what you have.

And a line wasn't thrilled with the chefs that Jesse put on these.

I'm not going to go that far for you. It may be a little bit too soft, So I would agree with Dan that way. But you know, Jesse Eertiez is designing for a certain target market that he's selling these two, and it works great for a lot of people, especially it's slightly softer swing speeds.

Is it relevant that Jesse never saw me swinging club He just saw the numbers that I delivered from of pretty much the clubhead speed, the launch angle, and the spin. I think that's all I sent him.

He was doing a rough fit based upon fitting feedback from whoever you said, somebody fits you, and then he did this, Dan fits you, and he took Dan's information and puts you into this. Yeah. You know the only thing I might have done differently is I might have put you in the stiff lex because the stiff lex would have firmed up and because the shaft to so

Off the deck? Two ten? But I know that on the off the tee I can go two twenty okay, And so.

A perfect hit off of this, that's what you would expect, and you pull it out if you had two hundred and twenty, yeah, you know.

Or more to go, and that's what you would go with. You use this if it's more than two twenty, Do use.

This off the deck a lot? Or do you go to your three hybrid?

Both? I do. I use both, and I do like the three hybrid off the deck for a two hundred yard shot. One hundred yard.

Shot Okay, So now it is I guess playtime. So let's see if we can do a little bit better than one hundred and eighty five to twenty. Okay, let's see if I get one really nice shot off the tee, see what that distance can be. Okay, there you go. Yeah, what a difference to teammates. I told you we Wow. I feel like you hit that pretty good.

Yeah. I mean lately I will first three or four holes, I won't even pull out the driver, and I'll hit this and feel much more confident, much more comfortable. And then if I'm hitting this well, then on a part five pull out my driver. But yeah, this this gets my game started.

So what I did over here at the launch monitors, I eliminated your first thin hit, So you had one slightly thin hit, one flushed one, one slightly thick one. Now we've got better numbers. Now our best shots two hundred on a fly probably two ten was rollout, maybe as much as two twenty. So now we're in the ballpark of what I think your experience out in the course, and the our average is around So let's see you have any brand you want to try.

First, Tailor Made seems to be awfully popular. Okay, I don't bet I have. I like Taylor made a like callaway, but I've never played ping, and everyone talks about ping. Nike is definitely in the game to play right now, And.

So just while getting familiar, we do the same thing. But I'll have you hit one off the tea first, and then we'll hit a couple off the turf.

Okay, And and what am I holding right now?

We are holding a rocket ball's stage high launch three wood, which is seventeen degrees just like yours, except the club heads a bit lighter, the shaft's a bit longer, the shaft's a bit sturdier, and uh, you've got their wonderful speed pocket on the bottom, so you get spring off, the springs off the whole bottom of the face and your thin hits. You get just as much pop off the face as you do in a dead center shot.

Oh that's always good to know, should I? Boy, did that sound like an explosion? Oh and hmm, look at.

The ballmark is just a hair low, just a hair Even though you caught it a bit thin, it sounded like you caught it dead center. That's the way the that's way that speed pocket. Interesting, the whole bottom of the face is it almost bring.

The speed pocket that he's talking about.

Right here.

You can see there's that slot right here that you can go inside.

That's a little bit of a fade. Let's see, let's try one more. There you go, it's right down the pipe. We so, whoa, that's what Rocketball Stage two is all about. Wow, So you just carried both of those. The first one was a slight mishit, yeah, slight, and the second one you put a nicer turn on it so that your mishit. It flew a one yard further statistically, the same yardage as as yours, and then the last one flew another nine yards, ten yards beyond yours. Spin rates actually aren't

Yeah.

So but that's off the tea. Let's see what happens off the turf. So we'll leave that good one in there.

So this would be because now I'm hitting this one off the deck. This is the tailor made right the RBZ.

Here we go, looking pretty good.

Yeah, that looks really neat. Well, this is a fun video game.

Every Man cave should have one, even if you're not a golfer.

That feel better. Yeah, I'd say so.

So you're talking about hitting your three wood off the tee starting out the round. For hitting off the tee, I'm not sure if there's a better fairway wood in

Wow, And.

Those are off the turf. Our launch angles on the low side, Our spins a little bit in the high side, but it's the club had speed the balance of this club, the extra length of the club, the pop off the face. It's just blowing away your fairway right now, even though the numbers aren't perfect, and the way it got there, because it's launching a little bit low, spins a little bit high. Just the first one we tried right here. On average, instead of one hundred and ninety two yards,

Wow.

And uh best against the best. We have two twenty one against one ninety nine. You picked up twenty two yards best against best. Carry carry distance. Yeah, now I use a carry distance. I don't use the total distance because there's an imaginary fairway. The computer program has an algorithm and it calculates the rollout. We have pretty plush turf conditions around here, and I'm guessing in the courses you play here, you're not going to get quite as

Interesting, very interesting. And the offline on that club versus my club, it's like there's a offline.

It's a little bit a little bit, a little bit more to the right. So if you'll notice here you have the area of shaft, that's probably because the shafts a little bit longer. Yeah, and just the head design you have a slight more right bias. So this club you probably would have to play with a little bit more of a fade, and you would put up with

It is a three wood or is this a forewood? Is this equal to the being the forewood?

It's a high launch threewood high launch. The tailer made's vernacular okay, which means what means it's a forewood? Okay, Just like I said, we're looking for a fairway driver for forget the numbers. It's a great example of so this is a keeper. I think we'll put this one aside.

And is that the club that you'd say, you know what, but before you walk out the store with that club, I think you need a different shaft on it. Or would we walk out with that?

Yeah? Absolutely, So the option on that, because the spin rates are as high as they are.

That is a low launch, a high launch, low.

Spin shaft that they have on that, but it's creating a bit more spin than I think is ideal. It works for you because you're launching on the low side, so this it starts out low, but the spin takes it up in the air. The dangers under windy conditions, it might be a little bit harder to control because that high spin rate, if you're going into the wind, would balloon way up in the air and you'd lose a ton of distance. So if we can bring that down a bit, it would.

Probably don't take that to bend in dunes.

Maybe not yeah, un those three days a year when it's perfect out there.

So but an alternative would be or else would you send.

Me, Well, you'd mentioned you wanted to try the Nike Yeah, so here's a Nike covert. Now, the Nike covert. They don't have a four wood in the standard one in the in the tour model, they do have an adjustable three wood in five woods we can make into four woods. But so what we have here is just a fifteen degree but it's got a really hot face, doesn't have the speed slot on it. But here we have a cavity back design and real good heel toe waiting, the

BA all right, well, and you get to see this too. So this is the The Nike covert feels very different off the face until it felt heavier when it made impact versus I don't know how I'm describing as heavy but thicker than I mean. I guess the cavity on, the speed slot on the and the other one makes a difference. I don't know, it felt it definitely felt different. But let me swing some more.

I mean, it's a part of club head design these days is the acoustic tuning and making a club feel lively to mentally keep someone in aged in the game and feel like they hit a better.

Shot that one went to the right, I can tell.

But so you got plenty of distance that's longer than yours as well. Let's try it one off the tee.

Okay, I felt real good.

That looks real good right down the middle. Yep, I think you caught that a little bit thin. Perhaps really didn't he like you didn't have as much carry. But so here we go. It's right in there with the tailor made. You're not getting as much clubhead speed out of it as a tailor made, but your launch angle went up a little bit, your spin went down. Remember I said that the Nike covert head design is a low spin head design.

It's your spin dropped.

It really is, your spin dropped one thousand rpm. The shaft also could be part of that. The Mitsubishi Kurakagi red is a very good shaft also, So right there with the tailor Maid within one and a half yards. And this thing statistically isn't that accurate. So you're in a dead heat right now, your best against your best. Though the tailor Maid still is a two twenty one versus two eleven, so it appears the tailor made when

So that may not be the best one for you because it's about the tailor made with that sheft with that because you were commenting, this sheft probably enhanced.

Yeah, that would be a most of it, though, is I would guess in the head design, by moving the weight forward you can lower spin, And by digging out the cavity in the back of the club and moving more the weight forward, that's probably as much or more of the difference in spin. Tailormate actually isn't that much different with all the extra metal with the speed slot. But you know, sometimes you just don't know where it

Okay, immediately, it's got a very different grip. It's got a very it's a thicker and softer grip.

Yeah, that may take a bit of getting use to. I just pulled out the demos we had here. Yeah, so in your flex in that loft, that's the one I had, so hopefully.

And see how it feels kind of neat. I actually kind of liked this softer feel. Well, I never understood what to look for in a grip.

Go go, go, there you go. I like getting off the tea, went off the tant.

Gonna give me the one? Huh Okay, that was so much fun, all right? So another swing with the ping off the deck now.

Way right again, and sometimes too when I see somebody hitting it to the right, and and I'm not sure if you're doing this or not, but if you have some steering thoughts in your head trying to redirect that, no, why don't you play step back away for sick and just pick a spot left to center and just just play a five to ten yard shade, okay, and just be comfortable with it and swing.

Ook at it.

Sometimes when you do that and you take those steering thoughts out, you actually swing and you swing free and release and you lose a lot of the fade just a little bit. So that was that was pretty dead

One was it's it's it's it's.

A little bit straighter there.

Yeah.

So the last one, that's a big one. I'm gonna unless you love the Nike, I'm gonna scrap that right now.

I would scrap. Okay, just keep in mind the shaft you like. And uh so what do you want to try next? What do you got?

Well, looks like you got always one of those. It seems like a four or even a five wood might be the fairway driver of choice for you.

And why would you go five wood on the uh callaway versus what you were doing with the others?

Me put a little bit of tape on. Sure, Sure I didn't do that before we started today.

Uh well, not necessarily on the.

Callaway only, But because you're launching consistently slow low with all of these clubs for your fairway driver, my recommendation might be to put you into a five wood hmm. And and if we if we do that and the company can re swing away the club and lighten it up to like a three wood, and we can build it to three wood length, you'd have a super high launched three wood, and that might be the longest thing for you.

Callaway ex hot. Now I've got a white shaft which is really distracted. Alright, this one I'm hitting off the t dead straight. Oh my gosh, that is going right down the line and hit the line and it's rolling down the line. Oh okay, I need to hit more when you're not here, Nick.

I did that on purpose, especially, it's all part of the fitting. I'll disappear again.

Don't do that.

That wasn't me at all.

No, it wasn't because that was going right up the line too, and farther a little bit off, a little bit off, and.

I'm going to delete the ping right now.

Oh really?

Okay, yeah, yeah. The numbers on the ping clearly the both the tailor made and the callaway for you seem to be straighter and longer and more consistent. You really did hit the line on that other shot, didn't you.

I literally bounce and then just rolled on the white as it was a yo yo or something.

You know. I think their fitting's over. Oh that's the club.

This is the club.

That's the club.

Would have an over show. Tell me more.

Callaway so slightly slower swing speed than the tailor than both than the tailor made, and even just a hair slower than the paying Okay, but the key is see that launch at twelve four. Yeah, that's the highest launch. It's the closest one to yours. So what we're looking for is at thirteen to sixty ideally, and this is it twelve four. So you're at twelve four. Your best one was at thirteen to seven, so that was off

Off of my club, significantly lower. So this is great.

So the Callaway also carried seven yards further rounded than the tailormaid and.

Almost twenty yards further than my club.

Yeah, and it rolled out another three yards on top of it or four yards on top of it, and you got eleven yards over the tailor made and twenty three yards over years.

And to me, the most graphic thing that we're looking at here comparing my club to the tailor made to this callaway or wait, we're looking at the ping.

I didn't change.

Okay, so this is the callaway? Is that my offline numbers?

Straight down, straightly down there, You're straight down the middle.

Straight down the middle on this one.

So longer, longer, straighter, longer on a carry, straighter, better trajectory, more roll out everything. Wow, I'm not sure if we can beat that. Yeah, I mean I was making a bit was over because you hit the line, But it appears that is indeed done.

Yeah, on that absolutely. Although really find this shaft distracting? Why the white care? Get used to it?

According to the numbers, you weren't distracted or whatever you were distracted thinking about certainly worked. Maybe the shaft distraction I took you out of your own head and you put down a better swing. Who knows.

Okay, so get over it. It's like that's not going to be the thing that stops you from making a purchase. Right is the color of the shaft.

I don't think we need an optional shaft. It's a great shaft, good clumbhead is working great and both off the tee and off the Okay, I think.

So we've we got it on the fairway with now where we go, So it's so much fun.

Now we go over here and we'll go ahead, we can delete your fairway information. We don't need that, and we go over here and delete the tailor made. We no longer need that. And so now we have one hundred and sixty four yards on in your five iron, and we have two hundred and twelve yards here. Now we need to fill in the holes.

Yeah, yeah, so that would be the hybrids.

Yeah, that'd be two or three hybrids. Okay, because we need to go thirty five forty seven, forty seven yards, So if we go fifteen fifteen fifteen, probably two hybrids if we could hit, if we could hit one eighty and one, a couple of hybrids, and.

That's what I would pull out for the hybrids that I have. You would, yeah, I mean those are the numbers that I would look to. Yeah, one eighty and yeah.

Yes, So you want to hit a couple with your let's start with the uh this one here.

Okay, this is the four hybrid. This is mine, So.

With a fairway? Would I was fitting you mostly for distance because I know that's what most people want. Yeah, but but I want I've been, we finish up with the accuracy.

Yeah, I mean the accuracy distance is great, But as long as I know what my distance is, I'm fine now.

But accuracy is far more important now. With the hybrids, it's not about distance at all. We don't care how far you hit it. We want to hit a number, and we have different lofts to hit those numbers. With the hybrids, it's all about accuracy. So what we want is a couple of hybrids. And intuitively, you can stripe off the fairway and hit straight just like you would hit your arms right right. So let's see how this stacks up.

Okay, Yeah, it didn't feel so great, but it went straight up the middle.

That was a very nice one.

Actually. Wow, it went from the center line and went on the right side of the line, then crossed over on the left.

That's to me, that's a draw and I don't do that. That was the torque effect of a toe hit.

Okay, No, that was definitely off the toe. Yeah, that felt off.

So we've got three, and you know, partially because we had such great success with the callaway. With the callaway, let's jump right over there and see what happens.

Okay, callaway ex hot come.

We went.

Okay, fireman ready.

Oh why do you say?

Uh, you just carried it a bit beyond yours, but also went offline. But let's try again. Okay, so we got our three shots. Let's take a look at the numbers. What was happening with your hybrid is it was launching on the way in the high side and with quite a bit of spin, so it was ballooning up and the wind. I think your hybrid would not be uh that reliable. So by comparison on the x hoot, instead of getting seventy seven miles an hour, you got eighty three, so.

Picked up six miles an hour on the swing speed. He picked up some serious speed.

Your launch was eighteen eight, which was compared to nineteen seven eighteen four twenty three launched a little bit lower, so it was much more ideal trajectory.

And the spin again the.

Shaft in the callaway xhot wow, twenty four hundred RPMs a spin. If we take the tape, you might pick up a little bit more on that, but not really significant. And see the descent tangle of forty one. So that's coming down at a pretty good trajectory.

But where did the descent of the ball flight. Is that what that is? Yeah, we've not discussed that number.

That means we did initially with the irons. If you recall, okay, so.

That the descent angles once it reached the peak coming down. Yeah, okay, okay, So.

You got one ninety five to two hundred and three, so it's about ten to fifteen yards short. That would fill right in, and we're twelve yards right of center on average compared to twenty six forty one on average, you're about twenty thirty yards right of center on your hybrid. So we got you straighter, and we got one of

And can we try a different brand? Yeah, we can try another one, because I mean we went with the Callaway in this one because I had such success on the three would.

Well and there was the reason I went with the Callaway too. I ever noticed the offset. Okay, So by have example and that obviously that allows me to hit straighter. Probably our best hybrid in the store is going to be the rocketballs and take out their five and give that a whirl.

So this got this this swing slink that.

Yeah, that's the rocketball Stage two rocketball and it has the as the speed slot.

Speed slot, that's what it is.

I think that's what they call it.

Okay, that's what you're calling it.

Something like that. We'll get letters. That's not what they call it.

Like that one. There you go. Now we're gonna hit it out the deck. It's good to see there's other people trying out clubs here.

Yeah.

I hit that h and I felt like I didn't hit it.

You're actually in that one really straight. Yeah, So coming over, we'll compare those gallaway really quick. And as you can see, your swing speed's about the same. Yep, your launch came way down to thirteen eight And is that a good thing with the hybrid for you? That's on a twenty five degree hybrid. That's that's pretty low. And you'll hear spin went up to forty one hundred.

RPMs from twenty four hundred.

Yeah, you're better off launching high with a little bit less spin. Yeah, And so that and my distance was down. That's why your distance fell off twenty yards hybrid's hybrids are bones in it down the line you were, that's the trade off. Intuitively, it's probably even though this doesn't have the offset, it's tailor made's black face white. It's their trademark and one end, and some people scoff at it, But a lot of people do see the line off

To be the best one. Okay, I'm gonna try something else.

The other one that a lot of people really intuitively set up with well m is actually the older.

The older pings, they look more like.

The They look like an iron.

Yeah, but they also look at when when the Hybrids first came out and they were called rescue clubs, they kind of had a face.

Like this, didn't they some of the original ones, the nick Kents and the original Atoms, right exactly, we're very similar and the can't more or less is no more. And then Adams has gotten away from it, and the new clubs look a little bit different. H wow, there we go.

Didn't love it, didn't love the hit, but the direction seemed to go very well. That felt good, It felt good, and it looks good. Oh my gosh, it's gonna hit the weight line and it missed it.

Okay, we it's just a little bit offline.

She looks, look at those numbers.

Let's see these numbers.

So our club had speed dropped a little bit. And I believe that is because after a bit shorter. Okay, so it's a bit, it's a bit easier to control. And uh, actually it's also because that first hit was seventy four. You catch that a little bit fat, so we could redo that off the tea. In fact time, we go ahead and scrap that one because that was a bit of a mishit.

So then our clubhead speed is do you want me to hit one more.

Yeah, let's hit one more off the T. I to feel about that one?

I liked it? Okay, how did it feel about me?

Pretty darn good? Just a little bit longer. That perfect hit off the T just what we needed.

Good. So now let's see the numbers.

Now we'll go look at the numbers, and so what we have is, on average were dead center. Wow.

Wow, that's closes.

And the speed's just about the same or hair lower than the rocket ball. It's in the same ballpark. Actually, your launch angle is in between, so it's launching higher than the rocketballs. And even though you launched it on here two point six degrees left, you had three hundred RPMs and right hand side spin which brought you back to center. Your spin numbers are in between. So you have a little better green holding ability than the callaway. And but you're not gonna blooon up like the tailor

So you think I should stay with my five iron the way it is, or replace that with a hybrid or.

Kind of like you know, we just we just did a few shots because we're limited by time here. You know you're gonna know the answer to.

That, Okay, all right, well let's let's move with that over time. That would probably be the choice then from the hybrid side, right.

Yeah, things, I think these pings intuitively you set up and line them up just great. Yeah, So I think the older ping g twenties because we're not looking for distance, we're just looking for an older club too. We're looking for dead straight. So you get a really good value here. Awesome, all right, can we do a driver on the driver take years out hit a couple.

And this again is my Jesse Ortiz Bobby Jones. Definitely gonna have to put a different tea up.

How's that one look perfect?

I actually tee it up based on a spot on my finger, so I know it's the same every time.

Whatever gives you that consistency, right, It's all about confidence, right, Okay, so this was my driver. Now you said earlier you often start off any of your three woods off the take, and then when you get kind of loose and comfortable, right, get to your first wide open hole, then you take out a driver.

Yep.

Okay, so you're not overly confident in your driver.

Not every day, some days.

Unbelievably, that was pretty good. So come on over, yep, and we'll take a look at those numbers. So in your driver we go back over to the same optimization chart we'll use for the quote fairway driver or your callaway forward in this case, but this was designed originally for a driver. So we have one hundred and thirty five mile hour ball speed puts us in the regular flex range. But in the higher side your best swing was one thirty eight, so it's a shy the stiff

So we're launching at eight point four.

We're four four and a half degree shy of the lowest decent launch angle to optimize a driver, So your driver loft is actually killing your distance. Where'd your driver go? So you have a ten to five there? Okay, So let's start out with a Nike just because it's probably

Once it's set, you're done. If you have all your numbers correct, you.

Have all your numbers screen. The only thing is, like you mentioned bandon or if you're playing into scramble, you want to go for that long drive or something, you can drop your loft down to keep it out of the wind.

Is this a problem that there's tape stuck on here?

That's pretty good.

So this is the one I was telling you about. A friend of mine had and I just I don't usually do this, but he had just won this in a contest and I said, oh, let me hit it. And I didn't take a big swing. It was like, take a nice, easy swing and it out drove my two best drives of the day by twenty five five yards.

Wow. Yeah.

I was like, Okay, I think I need to go get fit again and see if this, in fact I do it. On is the wrong driver for me.

The only thing I want to do is if you play a fade with yours normally on this one, I just want you to target it right dead straight.

See, sometimes sometimes I hit it dead straight. I mean I'll lame for dead straight, and sometimes it happens.

That's well, when wet and the bias built into this, maybe I hit it a few more times.

That one we got right.

So we'll take it up to these three about the same clubhead clubhead speed and the same ball speed. You know, the face inserts are kind of controlled by the USGA, so you're beginning about the same speed and the same pop off the face and the difference here we went from eight four up to ten four. We gained a couple degrees of launch, and that included the ones that

This one straighter.

So you hit it straight there and further and without better launch. It's five degrees.

Interesting, but maybe there's something better. Yeah, you seem to keep doing this.

Try the titleist.

Okay, now we're going titleist.

We'll just stay with the titleist and then I'll get the table and makes money.

All right? Well yeah, m we the offline was good on that. The distance wasn't bad either. Let's try again. Don't try to kill it either, mkay. Let's try the R one Okay, and this being the next Tailor made R one, the white the painted white head. You can see the line better as it's making the contact. That white really stands out. Interesting.

Well, based upon the three hits, I don't think this is the one for you.

Yeah, I didn't like it.

We'll give it one more, Troy. There you go. It's the longest one. Yeah, that's the reason why Tailor made is number one driver and golf.

Interesting.

So let's speak of those numbers and see what we got here. So first off, I'll go over to this screen here so you can just see what the trajectories are. The white one is down kind of low right there. Let me see our shot circles right here. Noticing the tailor maid has got the one. Well, we didn't delete the one. We didn't well, we deleted a bunch, but taking your two best shots, you still had the biggest shot circle by far of all the clubs and going

Thing paying the covert who were oh we different did a Calloway driver did?

No, we didn't so yeah, And looking at the numbers, the tailor made you seem to be all over the map and have had an awful t hard time hitting Yeah, for whatever reason. It could have been the balance could be the colors could be your you're worn out and we won't want to finish this another time. But both the both the titleist and the Nike were longer than yours. And the biggest change is loft, right is you need?

Yeah, okay, titleist is in the lead right now, and we have one more that we can give a shot.

And that one more there is to make sure I got this set about right. So set square. We're gonna give you a little bit of a left bias, okay, so you don't have to worry about your slice. You can try going right down the middle. And actually this one we've got SS for square see is for closed. It was for open light up the two lines. This is here we have a slight left side bias and we have eleven and a half degrees, which would be about right for you.

And now we go with the ex hot on the callaway. Didn't love the swing.

No, it's not right there, we're just run seck. I went over. Yeah, take it look real quick. There's our twelve eight thirteen degree launch. There's a twenty four hundred RPMs to span two twenty two a Carrey. It just smoked everything. And I didn't love the swing, and you didn't love the swing? Wow, I do one more yep, wow, Yeah, you just don't know what's gonna work best.

Sometimes it's amazing. It's amazing that these clubs are not all the same.

But that's the beauty of having access to all these brands and fitting cards as opposed as opposed to just having you know, one line of equipment that I'm on staff for last thing of the day. I want you to play a little draw on this. Start this out a bit right, because you appear to be hitting a really nice draw without that driver, right wow.

Yeah, okay, so let's compare the numbers and wrap this puppy up.

Yeah, so I don't know you're pretty good at the numbers at this point.

The ball speed well, the clubhead speed same as mine. Right, yep, ball speed, faster, angle right where we wanted. A twelve right.

Thirteen probably would have been better, but real close.

Backspin twenty eight one hundred, twenty nine hundred lower than right smack in the middle. I want to be and better than all the other clubs.

Yeah, five hundred better, six hundred better, and nine hundred.

Better than on mine.

Yeah, so better launch, the second best launch far, best spin rate and carry distance gave me even though you're thirty two yards left to center. Yeah, that's the way I had the head adjusted, so we can adjust that. So we can adjust that back out. But your shot dispersion was within one yard of each other. You hit the same line each time.

Okay, so that's just an adjustment of the club.

Yeah, right.

And then the distance I smoked everybody on the carry it was almost thirty yards more than my.

Club, twenty seven yards further than your club on the carry, and twenty seven yards twenty eight yards rounded on the crawl out.

Wow, so this doesn't take a lot of adjustment, but you would say this would be my club.

Yeah, just adjust it back to neutral. I wouldn't change the thing.

Other than that, Wow, So I think twenty to thirty yards longer.

How many times have you heard that clim yeah.

Right exactly on TV but never run this. So basically, I think that what we've learned is that these the fitting is critically important to really learn the difference in all the clubs because they're so radically different that it's really important to get fitted to find out what's best for you. And we're all over the map. We're on Callaway Ping PINGA, the hybrids, Calabrids and Callaway D and the driver.

But it's important to have an open mind, yeah, because for different reason. There's so much technology and there's so much performance built into these drivers. But everybody's different. They see something different, they put it down, they swing different. They something about the club bugs them or they like it. The balances are slightly different, the shafts are slightly different.

That was awesome. The key is you need to get fitted. Clearly, every club had a different reaction to my swing, different results, and we found the clubs that work best for me. Got to get fitted for your clubs. Never let me know you al anyway. M