Hi, This is Peat Makepeace calling from Solihull in the United Kingdom and I play at Stonebridge Golf Club. This is golf Smart number.
Four hundred and eighty four, published on April fourteen, twenty fifteen.
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Within the series Golfers that are out there, there's a definite faction who look at this possibility of non conforming equipment playing simple level of cheating. Well, okay, it is cheating if you use it in a real competition, even if it's anywhere from your Saturday morning sweeps to the
club championship to the County diameter to the Staumeter. And but there's a whole bunch of people who probably would never play in those things simply want to go out and just get it a little bit better than they do.
Right now, nice side is recording a little different because I've watched how the whole business model is that all the big golf companies go out and they do their engineering and they develop their new clubhead technology, and then they build their golf clubs so they're all the same length, same loss, same lying angles, seem everything, so that they can be shipped into all the retail stores to more
easily be sold off the rack. That's how you sell four hundred million dollars where the golf clubs a year. But the point still remains, golfers are as different in our size, our strength, our athletic ability, and especially in our swing characteristics. Standard made clubs are not going to help every single golfer play to the best of their given ability. That's where custom fitting can step in and help people play better and play more.
Surprising information on how to cut seven to ten strokes from your handicap using proper fitted clubs with Tom wish On.
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Here's your host, Fred Green. Welcome back to the Golf Smarter Podcast. Tom.
Thanks very much, cred it's a pleasure to be back to talk about golf.
We could talk about golf, we can talk about golf clubs, we can talk about custom club fitting. We can talk about the state of Actually we are going to talk about all of those things. Okay, how is the state of the golf club industry. Let's get right to it. How is the state of the industry from your perspective right now?
Well, it's very interesting. You know, the industry's big major player,
tailor Mate, took a gigantic hit last year. They were down like twenty nine percent in sales, you know, largely due to the fad of white driver heads being over so that went away from them, but also because you know, there's been a little bit of a backlash from some of the major retailers in golf that they're you know, not real happy with the way that the big giant companies have been bringing out new models every six months and how difficult that is to manage on a retail
inventory standpoint, you know. So, you know, right now it's you know, up in the air. You know, it's hard to say exactly what's going to happen to the golf equipment industry. Participation in the game continues to sag, you know a little bit for all of the post recession reasons you know that are out there. Games expensive, takes too long to play. The millennials, you know, are not
impressed with playing their father's game, so to speak. And so you know, we're living you know, with about five ten percent, well actually won that twenty percent fewer golfers and we had ten years ago, you know, with that, So you know, but the game is still the game. It's still the greatest game there is, and you know it still is something that you know is going to live forever though.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's interesting as we're talking right now, we're in day two of the Masters twenty fifteen and Jordan's speaf Is is kind of running away with things here. He's having another amazing round after yesterday's. Is is someone like a Jordan's Speef do you think? Is he the kind of character he does? He have the what it takes to be a person that will get the millennials back on the golf or to the golf course, you know,
the way Tiger. You know, when Tiger was at his peak, everybody was building golf courses left and right, and everyone was happy, and we were coming out with new clubs every few weeks. And now you know, that kind of died away and everyone started leaving and everyone's waiting for the next Messiah. Could Jordan Speed be that character?
Well, I think he can have influence on younger kids, you know, let's say twelve seventeen year olds, you know, to maybe get more into the game or start to play the game. But I'm not really sure. You know, among the millennials.
He's too young, no, a different attention span.
Let me put it that way, you know what I mean, they're the kids, you know, they're the generation that's grown up going nuts. If they walk out the door without a smartphone in their pocket, you know, it rules their life. And you know, and from that, you know, most of the things that I think an awful lot of millennials do for pleasure and enjoyment are things that don't take them very long. You know, to do workouts, you know, cycling,
you know that sort of thing. And to be into golf, you've got to make a long commitment, you know, for practicing to get to the point where the game can be enjoyable. And then when you go play the game, you know, it's you know, four or five hours if you're going to play eighteen holes plus cost. So you know,
I'm not sure. I mean I had a discussion at one point with Jerry Tarti, the editor of Golf Digest, and and you know, I noted that Golf Digest has changed their look, you know, of their magazine to try to appeal more to the millennials. And my point with him was, well, that's fine among the millennials who already do play golf, but the biggest segment of our population that is not playing golf and appears to not want to have anything to do with the game are the millennials.
So you know, you know, what about things that need to be done to try to attract those people to the game, to get them to start playing, you know,
for it. And you know, I made the suggestion to him, you know, just tossing something out of you know, why don't all the big entities in the game who have money, the PGA Tour, the PGA of America, the Augusta National Golf Club, the United States Golf Association, you know, throw some money in the pot and start making some commercials to put on television which feature celebrities and stars, well known sports heroes who love and play the game, and get on the commercial and tell people this is why
this game is so great and why you need to play it.
You know, for that and you know, yeah, where's justin Timberlake when we need him?
Yeah, exactly, things like that, you know, or any of the you know Steph Curry, you know in basketball, who's a great player.
And oh is that right?
Loves tremendedly you know for that. Yeah. I mean he's a three four handicap and plays extremely well.
Did not know that? That's interesting? Yeah, he's uh, yeah, he's very special. What's what he's doing this year in basketball? Uh? Their attention span? You're absolutely right. They want to they want to be able to play well because they can do it on their video games. So why can't they just translate that onto the golf course. Why does it have to be so difficult?
Yeah, well, you can play eighteen homes in a video game in a half an hour.
Yeah, right, exactly. You know, I live next to a golf course. We've talked about this because I Marine Country Club, which you your mom lives near here too, so you're familiar with the golf course. And just last week they
they did an experiment. They had two pins on each green and one was a regulation size hole and the other one was a fifteen inch hole good for them and yeah, and they just as an experiment to see how people liked it to be able to get the kids out on the golf course with the family because it's a very family oriented country club, and the feedback they were getting was an hour faster to play and
seven to ten strokes per per person was saved. Now, I don't think this is going to be the future of the game as far as tournament play, of course not. But for fun, why not.
I think, you know, all of those things like that are okay, you know, I mean for a little bit of a boost to play. But at the end of the day, you know, for golf to continue to grow, the game has to attract people for what it brings
and what it has always brought from day one. You know, with that, you know, a chance to be you against yourself, you against the golf course, to master a skill that it's difficult to master, you know, to be able to spend time with friends in a social environment where you're
you know, you're also playing a game. And then the pure enjoyment of the fact that you know, all these different golf courses around the country and around the world, they're all different, they're beautiful examples of how we can shape land into you know, gorgeous agronomy. And it's fun to go out and play all the different kinds of courses out there. You know, those are the things that have to draw the people you know into the game to play, you know, play the game the way it's
always meant to be played, you know, for that. So yeah, I mean I welcome the Badiach Cup, of the fifteen inch Cup, you know, in that for you know, the occasional fun thing to get a few people out who may not have been coming out regularly. But it's not the answer for long term.
No, I don't think I don't think so either. I don't think so either. But you know, even if there is a fifteen inch hole it and it saves you an hour and it saves you some strokes, hitting a golf ball, not putting, hitting a golf ball is still not an easy thing to do, no doing it well.
Yeah, yeah, you know, and that's it takes time to get to the point where you can hit it well enough that you can go out and have fun, right.
Right, It takes years for it to be fun, because it's not really fun until you get good.
Yeah, either that or else you play it strictly for the social side, which is tremendous, you know, and so regardless if you don't score well, you're out there with good friends, laughing and having a good time outside.
Right, What can the equipment industry do? And I'm sure they would spend quadrillions of dollars, whether it be advertising or R and D. But what can they do to make it easier to hit a golf ball? Do you think there's something that is in their hands that would help.
Well, there's nothing that can be done to get to the point where you hit you know, ninety eight percent of your shots in the air. That's you and your neural unpet system and proper instruction followed by practice, you know, to get to a point where you can make a good swing to hit the ball airporn, you know, as far as getting people a little bit more distance or
hitting the ball a little straighter. You know, there are some people in the in the world golf industries who are starting to look at this and say, you know, for those people who strictly play for fun, who would never play in serious competition, why shouldn't we manufacture non conforming clubs? You know that would you know, just simply be out there to add to the fun in the game. Not that long ago, I think in the month of February, the Japan Golf Manufacturers Association came out with us with
a statement saying that they were in favor of this. Okay, they got criticized heavily because, you know, one group of people said, well, the only reason that the Japan manufacturers want to make non conforming clubs is so they can
sell more clubs and make more money. Okay, Well, there's another side of the coin, you know, where you know, there are apparently an awful lot of people over there who don't hit the ball as far as they would like to, who don't play in serious handicapped competition, and they feel that maybe this could keep that group of people more interested in the game, you know, for that So, you know, because we can design drivers that hit the ball ten fifteen yards further by exceeding the rule in
the game for the coficient and restitution for the spring face capability of the face, we could also design shafts which self correct during the swing basically and could and ad and reduce the slice just you know, or hook depending on how the shaft is made and how it's installed into the head. You know, we also have you know, the aspects of what I work in every day, you know,
professional custom fitting. So you know, if people can get into a situation where they understand that they're better off going to see a professional club fitter to be fit and you know, for their their clubs rather than buy them standard off the rack and big stores are online, that too, you know, can make a difference to help people you know, play better, score better, and enjoy the game more and then potentially keep coming back and playing.
You talked about the Japanese companies that are suggesting why don't we make a a some clubs that are non conforming, that are against the rules, because these are for people who are just out there to have a good time. They are not going to necessarily post their score or get their you know, their gen number going. And then can you say people are like, oh, you're just in
it to sell more clubs and make more money. Yeah, well, and that's a problem for a company because why you know, I don't you know, I don't see that as being the issue, you know, I mean.
I mean, I've been in the golf equipment in se for a very long time now, and I'm very well aware of the fact that within the serious golfers that are out there, there's a definite faction who look at this possibility of non conforming equipment uh with great anger, condemnation,
you know, and playing a simple label at cheating. Well, okay, it is cheating if you use it in you a real competition, even if that's anywhere from you know, your Saturday morning sweeps, playing for pro Shop credit, to the club championship, to the county Amateur, to the state amateur and on up. You shouldn't do that. You need to be playing with conforming golf clubs if you're playing that
kind of competitive golf. But there's a whole bunch of people who you know, probably would never play in those things. And you know a number of people who simply want to go out and just hit it around, have fun, hit it a little bit better than they do right now, you know. For that. So you know, that's where the
Japan Manufacturers Association is coming from. You know, my side of the coins a little different because I've watched how the whole business model of the golf equipment industry has evolved over the years, and the standard you know, the business model is that all the big golf companies go out and they do their engineering and they develop their new clubhead technology, and then they build their golf clubs.
Uh so they're all same length, same lofts, same lie angles, same weighting, same grip size, same everything, so that they can be shipped into all the retail stores to more easily be sold off the rack. That's how you sell four hundred million dollars where the golf clubs a year. You can't do it if you're going to build one set at a time. I'm for one golfer at a time, each one custom fit. But the point still remains, golfers
are as different as fingerpints. You know. We're all different in our size, our strength, our athletic ability, and especially in our swing characteristics. And that's you know, a situation where standard made clubs are not going to help every single golfer play to the best of their given ability. That's where custom fitting can you know, step in and help people you know, play better and enjoy it more and continue to play more.
Absolutely, I've been playing golf for getting getting up to twenty years now and I don't ever see myself playing in any sort of competition. I just that's not who I am. I love to play on the weekends with my friends, and if we put a couple dollars into a pot, you know, before the round, okay, I'll do that. But mostly I'm out there trying to beat myself each time, you know, just because that's the way golf is. You just know that, Oh I can do better. I want to got to do this again. I want to do
it better. How close are we getting or will we ever get to the point where there's two sets of rules for tournament play and for everybody else.
Yeah, well it's interesting. I don't think we're anywhere near close to that yet, but there certainly are who discussed that. You know, it goes on in other sports, you know out there. You know, baseball has metal bats in you know.
In college, right school college.
You know, wood bats in the major leagues. You know out there, you know, there are some people who feel that because of the extreme distance that the tour players hit the ball now, that this is going to render a lot of the classic golf courses obsolete. There are only so many of those courses who can keep lengthening. You know, their their golf courses, you know, to accommodate you know, guys with one hundred and twenty five miles an hour clubhead speed. You know, you hit it three
hundred and forty yards. You know, out there, the game has evolved, you know. I mean you go back to the to the year nineteen hundred, okay, and the game converted from a gut of purchare golf ball to a rubber core wound ball, and immediately everybody picked up twenty five or thirty yards, and those golf courses that were you know existing before this were rendered obsolete. Well, new golf courses were built, you know, that were longer to accommodate the new ball and all that, and so you know,
the game survived that here. Now maybe because of the economic reasons, it's not quite feasible to think that we're going to go out and build a whole new stable of golf courses that all could be eight thousand yards long, so that we could, you know, so that they could host a PGA Tour event and you'd still see players hitting you know, three iron into a power four hole. Yeah, that may be unrealistic, you know, out there. But you know, it's you know, it's just all part of the evolution
of the game. We just have to get used to the fact that there are a lot better golf athletes now and that these guys out there all have an average driver clubhead speed it's ten miles an hour higher than it was twenty five years ago. Because they're better golf athletes, they know how to train, you know, to you know, maximize their you know, their swing speed out there. That's just all part of it.
So interesting. What why do we well when when they when they made that change in the ball around the turn of the century, there how much resistance was that too? You know, wait, that's wrong. We shouldn't be you know, like we're getting the resistance now.
Yeah, it was kind of funny. You know. I'm, of course, I'm not old enough to have lived for that, but you know, I haven't done and of research to read through all of my old collections of magazines from that era to know if there was a protest to it. I'm not aware that there was. You know, at the
same token, there was definitely a protest. When the steel shaft was invented, the game's ruling bodies were not sure they wanted to to rule, you know, to accept that and rule the steel shaft to be conforming, you know. So yeah, I mean there's evidence from the distant past in the evolution of the game that there has been resistance to change in the equipment if it was felt that it would make the game replace skill with technology.
Is the term, you know, is that the great fear?
Yeah, I mean, that's that's the us GAS credo. You know, when they when they look at brand new forms of equipment, you know, that are submitted to them for approval. Not everything that may be submitted to them may be covered
under an express current rule. So the U s g A has always had a provide so to where they could rule something to be non conforming if they felt it was not in the best interests of the game, or if they felt it was an example of technology replacing the skill with which you know, to play the game. You know, right now we're at a point we're golf
club designed where we're maxed out. We can't design clubheads to hit the ball any farther or hit the ball any straighter than they do right now, because we've reached the brick wall of technology part of that brick wall are some of the rules of the USGA which limit performance. We have a limit on the coefficient restitution, the spring
face capability. You know, the clubhead clubheads have been you know, at this cor limit for quite some time now, you know, with that, and you know now that we're you know, we've we're several years into the development of higher CEO are fairway woods and hybrids and irons, so those are now reaching their brick wall of potential performance. The only way you know, companies can offer golf clubs off the rack that hit the ball further is to keep lowering
the loft angles on the clubheads. And that too is going to have a limit because each time you keep lowering the loft of the clubheads, you've now rendered one more club as unhittable for the majority of golfers because it now has too little loft for the average players to hit consistently. You know, well, you know for that, so you know, at this point, we are really at this limit. Even though marketing is going to keep trying to convince golfers that the next design is better and
hits it further. You know, it's you know, it's the way marketing goes to try and generate demand. In reality, because the vast majority of golfers have always bought their golf clubs standard off the rack in golf stores, there is one technology left out there that the vast majority of golfers have never been exposed to, in which for at least seventy seventy five percent of all golfers could overnight send them ount with three to ten shots lower score.
You know what I'm talking about is full SPEC's professional club fitting, where the golfer is analyzed by a true professional club fitter who then custom builds their golf clubs one at a time for every single one of the twelve key club fitting specifications that make up a golf club. You know, most people have never had the chance to
go work with a professional club fitter. You know, Unfortunately, the big companies are marketing that their clubs can be custom fit by just walking into the big golf stores, and that's just not true. You know, what we're talking about. Custom club fitting is the same thing as the way a suit is made by a tailor, every single specification customized to that golfer and his size, strength, athletic ability,
and swing characteristics. Now there's a bunch of golfers out there who go, oh, hogwash, I'm not good enough for custom fitting to matter. I'm only a sixteen handicap. If I ever get good and start breaking eighty, then I'll think about custom fitting, because then it'll matter. That's one of the biggest myths in the golf equipment industry, and it is so wrong. It is, in fact the opposite the average players, the golfers who shoot low eighties and
higher up to one hundred. These are the people for whom professional club fitting will help the most. The people who are single digit and low single digit handicappers, they're really good because they're better golf athletes who've learned better swing fundamentals. Thus, over the years, as they go out and try different clubs, they find what works for them,
they self fit themselves. So professional fitting for like a two handicapper, about the o only thing you're going to achieve is a sense of confidence in the golfer that he now knows his club's are right for him. But professional club fitting for someone who's eighteen or a twenty six handicap most definitely can get them measurable improvement overnight. Because more than likely the standard made clubs that they bought off the rack are preventing them from being able
to play to the best of their ability. You know. But the problem is is that professional club fitting isn't marketed. You know. The entities who work within, you know, the professional club fitting arena just they're not big enough. They just don't have the money and the resources to go out there and shout this message to the millions of golfers that there is a better way, you know, for them to get their golf clubs so that they could play better and enjoy the game more.
This is so fascinating to me that you say that it's important for them, that it will help their game. But the amateurs that I talk to regularly, what they say is, I don't want to get fit now because I'm going to take a lesson or two and then my swing's going to change, and then the clubs will be obsolete at that point, true or fallow.
Well, that's okay, that's that's a noble thought, you know. I mean, here's forty years of experiencing golf. The number of golfers who think about taking lessons and working their tail off to really make major swing changes to really improve. That's great if you can do it, but the vast majority of people never get around to it. You know, it's best way plans of mice and men. Sure you know, you know, so you know this is one of the
reasons why the average golfer handicap never goes down. You know, they're just you know, there are people who would love to take lessons. They may start and because they don't get an instant success or because they don't have four or five days a week to hit ball, you know, under proper supervision to groop the new swing change, the lesson improvement doesn't happen, you know, for them. But you know, when we teach club fitters, you know the interaction you know,
with golfers. One of the things we teach them is right when they start with the golfer, to ask the golfer. You know, a whole number of questions, but one of them is are you presently taking lessons? If so, how much are you working on making your swing changes? And are you definitely starting to see these swing changes occur to the point where you're confident that you will make
these swing changes from the lessons you're taking okay. If they answer yeah, yes, then you fit the clubs for how they're going to be, or you tell them to come back after you feel and after they feel that they have grouped the new swing characteristics. But if you get any bit of doubt in there, you know that the golfer is not going to follow through with this, You know deep commitment that it takes to really be
taking lessons and improving through practice. Then you fit the clubs for how they are now you know, And that's how it's done at the end of the day. Here's the things like if you do have custom fit clubs and then let's say you go out and take lessons, here are the things that have to happen before those clubs don't fit you anymore. One, if you gain more than ten miles an hour in club headspeed, okay, then
your chaft flexes probably need to be stiffer. Two, if you all of a sudden somehow increase your tempo or your swing aggressiveness, potentially at this point, the weight of your golf clubs may need to be heavier than what they were before. The other elements in there, you know, in terms of lengths, lie angles, loft angles, no, you know, they you know, they can stay the same even if
you do make major swing improvements. You know for this, so you know, it's a little bit of a misnumber when somebody says, well, I'm going to be taking and so I don't want to be fitting out. Okay, fine, go do it. And if you do find you you know, get through it and you make swing changes, great, then go get custom fit. But because the vast majorities don't, you know, it's really a situation where go in now with your swing as it is now. The professional club
fitter will see all these things. And the way that you will improve is you will if you're fit properly. The new clubs are going to reduce the severity and the frequency of your worst shots. So what really good club fitting does. It doesn't sure you and all of a sudden you hit the ball straight. And further, it reduces the severity and the frequencies of your bad shots, so you're in play more often, you have more open shots to the greens, and the percentage of scoring better
improves as a result from that. You know, so most people, you know, those who shoot between low eighties and hundred from proper club fitting if they've been playing with standard clubs off the rack, it's extremely common to see improvements of three to ten shots from professional club hitting.
That's amazing, all right, So let's paint this scenario. You got a thirty year old guy who has recently fallen in love with the game and now he wants to play more. Except he's married, he travels for work, he doesn't get a lot of time to practice. He did take a lesson and learned a couple of things, but doesn't have time to do that again, and just wants
to get back on the golf course. You're saying that if he just with that kind of game and that kind of commitment, that if he goes and has a custom club fitter watch him swing, work with him, and develop a set of clubs for them, that they're going to cut seven to ten strokes off and they can hold on to those clubs for a long time and have success with them.
Yep, absolutely happens every day, you know, with the you know, the professional club fitters out there. You know, it doesn't happen to millions, It happens to thousands, you know, because professional club fitting is just so unknown.
When when you talk about how the courses they need to now they're going to need to be eight thousand yards. But there are no courses being built, are there? No?
Now there are more courses closing that are than our opening each year because of the drop in participation of the game that you know the thing. We just want to try and keep as many courses alive as possible.
Yeah, exactly, So what are these what are club makers? The major manufacturers, the ones that send just big boxes and say these will all fit for you. What are they going to do next? You can't They're going to paint the heads red and green and say they know what, the white didn't work for tailor made as you opened up with, or it works for a while, you know, I.
Mean there's still things being pushed out there. You know that, like for for example, right now, one of the current technologies a lot of the companies are all following is putting a slot into the heads, most frequently done on the sole of the club, very close to the out of the face. And the idea that they're getting at is to say, if you hit the you know, if you hit the ball, you know that slot flexes so you get more spring face. You know, you get better
ball street and distance. Okay, the problem is that, you know, you can't exceed the USGA CR limit of eight point thirty. You know, so most of the companies have already been designing heads with thin faces made from high strength alloys, which achieve as high have a CR as you possibly can. And not only that, when you make a thin face club, you can hit it low on the face, you can hit it on the heel side, the tow side, the
high side. The face is still going to get some flexing to get you a little bit more distance with a slot that only exists on the bottom of the golf club. What if you hit it towards a toe higher on the face, there's no slot over there, so the face camplex as much in these different areas. So, you know, here's an example of just how marketing invisible
technology to the eye can fool someone. And then, oh, by the way, they're still bought off the rack, so they're probably too long, the wrong weight, the wrong face angle, potentially the wrong loft, the wrong light angle, wrong grip size, you know, and there you go, they don't fit.
You know, from that standpoint, this is something that you and I talk about almost every time. But I continue to get questions like this, and that is the off the shelf driver that they're buying every three years, which isn't necessary with the longer shaft. Now, if I remember correctly, you're an advocate of shorter shafts for a driver for greater accuracy.
Yep, there's really a definite adage. There's a definite old adage that clubfitters learned right away when they get into the field goes like this. The longer the length of the club, the lower the loft of the club, the stiffer the shaft in the club, and the heavier the weight of the club, the harder the club will be to hit. Okay, with a driver, you've got low loft and you've got longer length, two things going against you.
The other thing, it's a fact, you know, the longer the length of the driver, the more stress or load it puts on your swing, the more it can break down weak elements in your swing to make you less consistent. There was no reason whatsoever the drivers needed to be increased in length from the forty three inches they were for decades to the point of they are today between
forty five and forty six inches in length. The reason it was done was because all the companies know that distance or the potential for distance, sells more golf clubs than any other factor in the go equipment history, and so people are associated with the thought longer length means higher club head speed, which means more distance. Problem means it's not true for all golfers, and it's not true
for the majority of golfers. You have to have a lader to very late unhinging of the risk coock angle on the downswing before a longer length can turn into higher clubhead speed. But even for those people who do have a late release, longer length puts more load on stress on the swing, and so the longer the length, the higher the percentage of off center hits will be. You miss the center of the face of your driver by a half inch, you've lost five percent of your
total distance. You miss that center of the face by one inch, you've lost ten percent of your total distance potential. So this is the double edged sword and the misinformation that the long driver lengths are perpetuating, and I think probably as I mentioned before, one of the biggest ways to try right have proved the golfers that these off the rack forty five to forty six inch driver lengths
are not right for them? Is that? For a very long time now, the average driver length on the PGA Tour has been forty four and a half inches, not the forty five to forty six inches that average golfers are being told is right for them. Why did the tour players play with shorter length drivers, even as good as they are, because they know they can't control the longer length driver, you know, as well as they can, you know, one that's shorter, it's no different for the
average player. And it's even more so. And I can't tell you how many golfers have been fit with forty three and a half to forty four inch long drivers and walked away with an immediate improvement in their t
shot game without losing a single yard. And in fact, for me, they gain distance because now they're hitting the ball more consistently on center and not losing distance from the off center hit, you know, for this, So I mean, if nothing else, you know, for most average players, if they just go get fit with a shorter driver that has loft, which is better fit to their clubhead speed, and which has a face angle which will counteract their
tendency to slice the ball or hook it. You know, the miles a hit than where they would have been just trying to buy something off the wrap.
That is so interesting. It's amazing how many myths are out there about what you should have in your bag. The other issue that always comes up in my conversations with people is, oh, man, a custom club fitter, it's going to be so much more expensive than if I just buy something over at the local retail store.
And that's not true really, you know, because for one thing, the custom club fitters are all under marketed. You know, very few people know they exist. Many custom club fitters, you know, they have a hard time going to living because they don't have enough customers because not very many
people know about them. And so you're going to find that the vast majority of professional custom club fitters are never going to end up charging you any more for your golf clubs than what you would have paid when you walked into a big box store and bought a big brand name club off the rap.
Okay, Tom, you've just given us an amazing lesson on the value of custom club fitters and why we should really seek one out. Please, give us a tip on how to find a custom club fitter fed you know.
For those who are interested in professional club fitting. You know, it is a buyer beware market. These guys, you know, are sometimes hard to find, so let me give you a little tip on how to find a good professional club fitter. Okay, go to Google, Okay, and in Google, you know, search for the Association of Golf Club Fitting Professionals AGCP club Fitter or search for the International Clubmaker's Guild ICG Golf Clubfitter. Both of these are the professional
organizations of serious professional clubfitters. On their sites, they both have search engines so that you can go in there and look to see who among the AGCP club fitters and the ICG club hitters are close to your area. Both of these professional club fitting organizations have certification programs just like a Mister Good Ranch for mechanics, So if you find an AGCP clubfitter or an ICG clubmaker near you, they will be good. They will know what they are
doing and you will get a good fit. My company, we screen the club fitters that we work with, so if people were to go to our website, which is wish on golf dot com Right in the middle of the homepage is a find a Clubfitter locator search tool. Click on that, put in your town, state, country, and will come. If we have a screened club fitter in your area, you'll find it right there. So those are your best options right now. I hate to be critical,
but you're not going to be professionally custom fit. When you go into a big box retail store, it doesn't happen