It's the Son of a Butcher podcast. We come to you every Wednesday. This week, don't get to a topic that we haven't really gotten to discuss. Club fitting. True Spec it's one of the big club fitting outfits here in the US, and we have their mobile fitting card here and Jordan Patrick as one of the fitters. He's helped me with my game and I just think so many players could benefit from getting fit properly. I think
a lot of players are scared to get fit. They think it's coln they think it's going to be a waste of money. But I promise you you make some serious, serious gains by getting club fit, by understanding what club fitting is all about. So let's get to it with Jordan Patrick. My guest today is Jordan Patrick. He works for True Spec. They do club fitting. Jordan, how many locations do you guys have across the United States?
Currently twenty four locations and for mobile unis and.
You're part of and you're part of the mobile team. It's been really cool to have you guys here on site here at the learning center at the Floridian. Clubfitting is something that I think a lot of golfers get scared of I think a lot of people think that there's some sort of kind of voodoo, kind of magic that clubfitters are trying to sell you golf equipment.
Right.
And then there's also golfers that think, listen, I'm not good enough to take a club fitting. But as you and I both know, I think every golfer, if you can get the golf ball airborne, if you're playing golf, if you're just not a beginner who's just hitting golf balls on a driving right, but if you're venturing out on the golf course, club fitting is vital for you
to get done for your game. I see it at the highest level on tour all the time, right, the difference between changing a shaft, changing lofts, changing a set makeup. But for the average regular golfer that's listening, what do you feel is the single most important thing that club fitting can do for a player.
So club fitting is not always going to be, Hey, we're going to gain as much distance as we can. Everyone wants to gain distance, but you know, just limiting to one miss is huge. It can take your scores down. But making it just that way, they're all the same throughout the set too, and that way you're not getting hand me downs, but that allows you to kind of have consistency throughout the set. Whether your tour first time playing can all make a difference.
I think a lot of golfers when they start out, they're getting golf equipment from parents, fathers, friends, other people, and they're getting golf clubs that they have. I mean it's a little bit like going to a pharmacy and saying that you've got an ill and they give you a pill box and you don't actually know what's in it, and you're just going to take it and you're surprised that you're not feeling any better.
Definitely. Yeah, So a lot of people they'll get a set of clubs and where they'll have a couple of clubs that actually do the same thing. So, you know, getting something truly fit for you is huge.
When we look at So let's go through the bag. I mean, obviously, I think most people are getting club fit. I would say for drivers more so than they are for putters, wedges or irons. Drivers seem to be, in my experience, the thing that people are changing the most people aren't. I don't see golfers on mask changing their irons on a regular basis. But putters and drivers seem to be the quick, interchangeable. They also seem to be the thing that all the manufacturers seem to come out
with yearly on a regular basis. So every year, all of the manufacturers that everybody uses, they're all coming out with new drivers, they're all coming out with new equipment. So let's start with drivers and work our way down to irons and then wedges and putters. From a driver standpoint, Jordan, I know it's it's it's hard to generalize, but you do this almost you know, three hundred days a year.
What do you see from a fit standpoint that would be a generalization, but that somebody can that's listening can learn with what do you see across the board that players are coming in and you're changing their driver because of what?
So most players think that just by going down on the loft, they're going to hit it further. But with that decrease in loft and most of the loft sleeves across the manufacturers, going down in the loft, we're also opening the face. So they just take that wrench, they crank it down. They'll be like, hey, I'm gonna hit it further.
So if you've got a ten let's say you've got a ten and a half degree driver. All the drivers now are adjusted. They've all got different settings to where you can adjust what the loft is right, So you've got the ten to five, you're hitting that kind of high week spinning shot, you think, or someone that's got an eight degree driver or a nine degree driver says, hey, I've got a nine degree and they hit it further.
Just turn the loft down. So how does turning the loft down make the face go more open?
So by going down a loft, the face is open about one to one ratio. So for every degree of loft we take off, the face is opening for that much.
So if you're a slicer of the golf ball and you're losing distance, which I think most people that are listening to this podcast, I think if everybody that's listening raise their hands, the majority of people, their miss is probably going to be some sort of miss to the right. I mean, that's the thing that I see giving golf lessons across the board over the course of a year with regular golfers, even even lower handicap golfers, the miss
tends to be to the right. Do you see that as well with the driver?
Yeah, more people right than like that.
High spinny right one. So if that's your miss, you then knock the loft down to eight degrees because you're losing distance. So now the face is going to come in more open, and if you're already swinging left in the path has already opened. The faces already open the death move. So how does the average golfer that's losing distance, that's slicing the golf ball to the right. What are some of the fixes that you as a club fitter can do from an equipment standpoint.
So we can go to something that is definitely lighter than what they're playing, because most average golfers they play something that's too heavy and too stiff. So by getting something that is going to be lighter, softer, it'll allow them to close the face and make a more natural move and having to work with something that's just not for them. But now all the heads are adjustable, so you have tons of flexibility to make them more upright, draw biased, move the center gravity back, make them hit
it higher but not actually spin it. Because that's the highest misconception is that a lot of golfers think just because I hit it hot, it's gonna spin. But you can still hit it high and not have it spin a ton and then it's not affected by the wind.
Right, So give me a life hack for the fifteen handicapper that's spinning it a lot missing it to the right, like you said, and again, I see this in golf lessons all the time. Right across the board. I think the average golfer has equipment that they fundamentally just don't they can't use. It's a little bit. I always look at club fitting and looking at getting a set of golf cours or getting golf clubs. Like cars like race cars, right,
Racing cars are designed a formula. When race car is designed to be driven at the speed that maxverstaff and drives it. If I try and do that, I don't know how to drive, so I'm going to crash the car. Golf equipment I see is very similar. I see a lot of golfers massively influenced by television. I see them massively influence Jordan by television and by what they hear on TV. I see that from a distance standpoint. I
know you guys see that as well. Talk to me about the misconception in how far players hit their drivers and what I'm always saying to drivers, and I think you'd agree with this. We need to give you usable distance distance. It doesn't matter if you hit the golf ball a long way and it's going offline. We need you to So what's a life hack for the slicer? Where do the weights need to be in the head?
All the heads now have interchangeable weight, So you're high, you're hitting it to the right, it's spinning a lot, and you're losing distance. So from a head makeup, what can players that are listening say, Okay, what can I do with the head of the driver if I'm slicing the golf ball? Where do I put the weights?
Yep, So for that player that's going to slice it, the first setting would be to get to an upright setting. So definitely don't want to go down and loft all those things. But since all the drivers in that middle category of you know your core models are going to have that adjustable weight, move that weight into the heel, let that toe close quicker for a right handed golfer, and then.
The weight, so a heavier weight in the heel a lighter weight out on the toe is going to help get that club to feel like it's closing. Yes, okay, And when we're looking at weights at the back of drivers on the head, that's affecting the CG of where that is talk to us. We hear that a lot. I think a lot of people get confused and don't want to go to club fitting because they hear terms of things with golf clubs that they don't necessarily understand.
So when we're talking about CG, that's the center of gravity in the head of the driver, how does that affect what the ball is doing?
So that's going to affect what the ball does because so if we have the center gravity further back in the head, it is going to be more forgiving, it's
going to launch higher. But then if you just take that same weight and move it to the front, you are generally going to get more balls being lower spin for those players just with the same headset up in the neutral setting all those things just flipping that can change your spin by you know, anywhere from four to six hundred RPMs and ad and forgive forgiveness.
The Holy Grail and driver fitting obviously is high launch, low spin. I mean, that's DJ. Last week we were looking at spin numbers. He's got a new driver in the bag this year, and where we know he plays his best when he's long. I mean, and here's the other thing. I don't think the average golfer listening realizes how much loft some of the best players in the world have in their driver. I mean, DJ is over.
I think he's probably right now close to eleven degrees of loft, which the average golfer would think that DJ would be playing with something that's kind of around the eight to nine range. So when you've got that driver and you're trying to figure it out the cg of where that is more forgiving to the back. So if if it has weights where you can put a weight at the front and a weight at the back, you're going to want to have the weight or what we
would call back weight that driver. Right. And then DJ, when he plays his best, spins it kind of in that eighteen hundred to two thousand range, right, and he's launching it at ten or eleven. That is very optimal if you have his type of speed. What we see a lot of the average golfer do is there the opposite with the driver, they have high launch or low launch and massively high spin. So if we can reverse that.
One of the easy ways what I hear you saying is listen, get that weight more in the heel so the toe's going to close, and then get that weight as far back as possible. Get the heaviest weight back.
Yep. Definitely at lower speeds, heaviest weight back, and don't be afraid to use the loft because quite honestly, the more loft we're adding, the easier it is to close that face.
Which is the opposite I think of what a lot of the people listening feel like. They feel like the way they're going to get that face closed is to d loft the driver, and that's going to shut it down. But as soon as they de loft it at address, it's going to set up open and then it's going to come in more that way. Talk to me Jordan about where players are hitting it on the face with
the driver. Again, generalizations, but if you have the generalize, do you guys see more heel strikes with the average handicapped golfer or do we see more toe strikes?
So I would say that it's definitely more heel strikes. But the one that goes I mean better for more people to know would be that high and low is more effective than hel in tow. So a lot of players strike it very very low on the face, which is going to be the spinniest driver. They all just want to te it lower, and they figure when they tee it lower, they're going to hit it lower, but really they're hitting it low on the face, so it's
spinning more, and then it's going to be higher. So t at higher, spin it and get more distance.
Again, I when we're watching players and I'm watching and giving golf lessons to the average golfer, one of the things, especially with the driver, I'm constantly telling them, T the golf ball higher. T the golf ball higher, which is so again, golf is counterintuitive. Everybody that I'm telling to t the golf ball higher already has the idiot marks
on top of the golf ball. They've already got marks on the top of their driver anyway, So the disconnect in their brain is like no, no, no, I'm already slicing it. I'm already hitting it high, it's already going short. I've already got a bunch of ballmarks kind of on the top crown of my driver. Now you want me to get more loft t it higher? That just doesn't sound logical.
Why does that work? So that works just because we are spinning it less and it's going to force them to hit up on it a little more. And a lot of golfers they just don't. They don't want to change their swing. They just want to change into a new product. But hitting up on it is going to be the easiest way for them to maximize their distance. So there comes a point of return where you can only put so much in and get so much out.
We're not just magically going to gain twenty five yards by use swinging the same swing and getting a new head.
I think that's another big misconception in driver fitting. Everyone is looking for the silver bull, I mean the magic bullet, right, Everyone's looking Marina Alex who I've had on the pod. Marina plays on the LPGA Tour. Marina's you know, under five foot five. She doesn't have a ton of speed. The holy grail for her is getting more distance. But
there aren't unicorns out there. And I think a lot of golfers think that their equipment is going to be this unicorn to where they're going to get a new driver, they're going to hit it thirty yards further. Let's say you're hitting your driver and you're spinning it at you know, you're spinning it in kind of the mid three thousands to four thousands. You're launching it low, it's curving to the right, and it's carrying you know, two fifteen to
two twenty in the air. How by all of the things that you've talked about, if we knock the spin off, so if the spin goes from thirty eight hundred with a driver to thirty two hundred, what does that mean in distance?
So that's gonna you might not necessarily notice it in the air, but once it hits the ground then it's going to start running. But adding that spin keeping it more straight, then it's going to be more consistent on a golf course. And that's what a lot of players don't realize is that, hey, hitting you know eight fairways out of twelve instead of four is huge.
Yeah. And the other thing that if you look at the best drivers of the golf ball in the world, then listen, I'm unbelievably lucky to work with two of them in Brooks and DJ. One of the things that they do when they're drive, when they hit the drivers, it's I always think of it like an airplane. The airplane is taking off, it gets up to altitude, and then it doesn't keep climbing. The average golfer has that driver swing to where the ball is getting up in
the air and then it's continuing to rise up. That's the other thing than when we look at trying to change it. If we can change the land angle, the angle of descent to where the ball isn't coming down like a like a lob wedge, to where it's getting out and it's coming down flatter, you're going to get more roll. That's one of the things when I watch you do driver fittings. I always hear you say, listen, that's going to roll. That ball is now going to
roll when it hits the ground. Because so many people with their drivers, they spin it so much and they hit it so high, it comes down basically soft like it would be on a really really soft green and has no roll. And again I've heard you say we can get you some more distance on the ground. What does that mean?
So you know, flattening that descent angle out. It doesn't matter where you play. The ball is going to carry away. It carries but allowing it to then roll out once it's on the ground, versus spinning more to the right. So you know, lowering that CG moving it more towards the ford, it might flatten the ball flight out a little bit, but spin is going to be your biggest factor. And a lot of people just don't realize that their height is not from them hitting it high, but they're
actually spinning it high. So then it's now we're losing on both ends.
For the regular average golfer, non competitive golfer in that kind of ten to twenty handicap range. Give us some numbers from a launch standpoint and from a spin standpoint that everyone listening could say, Okay, let me see if I can get on a launch monitor. Go get and see what would you like to see what would be optimal playability wise for you launch.
Spin wise, So playability wise launching from you know, anywhere from twelve to sixteen degrees is plenty high, and then the lowest spin we can have the better. So anywhere from twenty two hundred to twenty six hundred is very playable for the average golfer not swinging it, you know,
much higher than one hundred miles per hour. A lot of people just don't realize that they are being so left out on distance, but really what they're putting in, they can't get much more out of it, so tightening up that forgiveness, launching it high, hitting fairways is huge.
We've talked about the club head. More so than the club head, the biggest miss that I see with people with their drivers is the shaft. They are playing shafts that you mentioned it that are too stiff and they're too heavy. Why is that?
You know, it's like the old one, Like everyone just has those clubs that they've played forever, and times have changed. Everything's becoming so much more light and soft now versus heavy and stiff. So as we'll play something light and swing it faster, hit the center of the face more, and tolerances are just becoming so high from shaft manufacturers.
I'll give you. I haven't told you this story, and I'm sure Brooks wouldn't mind me. Toning is he played terrible on Saturday I Live and I watched him and he was missing fairways the first four or five holes. He's missing fairways by forty yards. Hen't do that there, He can't do that there, right, So he basically just hit three wood the rest of the round. So the driver that he was using the day before cracked broke, so he put a new driver in. You're not gonna
believe this. For some reason, he had a sixty gram shaft in his bag, and his gamer shaft is a seventy gram shaft. He just put the other head. So he took the head, the broken head off, put it on, and he didn't even think and he just grabbed the sixty. So halfway through the round he realizes she using a
sixty gram shaft versus a seventy gram shaft. Now, for everybody that's listening, that's basically like choosing a car that's got You're in a race and they tell you the car has got three hundred horsepower, and all of a sudden, you get in and it has two hundred. At his speed, that ten gram difference is enormous because now the driver becomes much more unstable at the speed he's swinging.
That for sure, at his speed, that's a huge change.
I mean, we got done, and the three of us sat there and we went I think that's a first for us, and it's not one that you would think because you're just not thinking right. And it's out of all the things that driver. I mean, Ricky Elliott always is counting how many clubs he's got in the bag Brooks's caddy, and there was one time that Brooks was tested. This is probably eight years ago. Brooks was testing a driver and they put it on and they didn't click it all in place, so we hit it. It kind
of moved. So now it's mandatory for Ricky before every single all the woods, he's going to go through with the wrench, and Brooks makes him do it. He says, hey, check all the woods. So checking the shaft is just not something you're not going to think that you're going to have a different shaft in, but it had such
a major effect on it. So my point behind that is if if ten grams of weight affects the best player in the world, if you're playing with something that's got that's too stiff and too heavy, again, if you're a slicer of the golf ball, the golf club, the club head has no chance to catch up and close itself without you having to do something with your hands for sure.
I mean not enough people ever think about like letting the club close.
So but technology, now, the shaft technology in the last I think in the last five years, the way that you know, the auto flex shaft some of these really really ultra light shaft that have some kick at the bottom. When we talk about flex points and kick points, we're always hearing that there are shafts that are kind of low spin shafts, and then there are shafts that are
going to have a little bit more high spin. What does that mean in Layman's term for the average golf if somebody says, hey, that's a low spinning shaft, or that's a high spinning shaft, what does that mean?
So basically what that means is a shaft is broken down into three categories, so like the tip, the middle, and then the butt. So where that is flexing for that particular shaft is going to determine more or less on paper what that's going to be higher, launch, loading, spin, all those things. So generally a stiffer tip is going to be lower spinning than something with a softer tip. But the biggest thing that plays into that too is for the where you need the flex is going to
be how hard you load the golf club. So somebody that loads it super hard is not generally going to have super success with a off their mudded shaft. They're going to lose awareness of where that club head is.
The other thing that I don't think people listening with shaft technology realize some of the best long drivers in the world are not using stiff shafts. I mean, I mean Kyle Berkshire's shaft isn't what you would think it would be. Bryson has talked a lot about that. Bryson has said, listen, you know when I was doing long drive, I was trying to get as whippy shafts as I
could get. You wouldn't think that that would be the case because you would think, at the speed he's trying to hit the golf ball, he's going to need as much stability at the bottom. But the long drive guys, they're trying to get as much load and they put a lot of force on the handle, so they need the golf club to be a little bit more flexible and have that kick at the bottom.
Definitely, they're looking for that rubber band effect at the bottom, which is what just letting that club head passed the hands at impact, and if the tip is too stiff, that thing is never going to pass.
When we hear another term that I hear a lot of people that is out there is are we going to tip the tour? They're always talking about if if a player on tour is going to get a driver shaft made, the builder is the first thing he's going to say, are we are we? Are we tipping this or are we not? What does tipping the shaft mean from a driver standpoint? And what is it? What effect does it have?
So tipping the driver's shaft is just basically going to be when they install it, they're going to cut extra off the tip. So basically, when a manufacturer sells us a shaft, they say, hey, you want to cut half an inch off the tip, and then from there it's we're adding stiffness to that tip section and then the rest is cut from the butt.
So the more you cut off the tip at the bottom, the stiffer.
The stiffer it's going to get, okay, and then we can cut off the butt just for the length, but it's not really changing the profile of the shaft.
Where's a grip is if we take any length. So let's say someone's got a forty five degree driver and they want to get a little bit more control, role go to forty three. You could cut off the top and it's not really going to change the shaft profile at the bottom or in the middle on how it.
Works, correct, It's just going to change that length. But tipping it will change how that shaft affects.
So obviously all of the bombers, guys like Gary Woodland, all the guys with big speed they need they want to tip.
They want to tip it.
So if they need it stiff at the bottom.
Yep, so they'll tip anywhere from an inch to two inches on most of those guys drivers.
That's crazy.
But a lot of the amateurs are like, hey, you know so and so's tipping it. Well, really, you're swinging fifteen miles per hour slower than he is. You don't need that shaft to be any stiffer than it is.
So you helped me get a new driver and we worked on the shaft and one of the shafts you put me in that new Vanquish.
From miss Specie.
Okay, that type of shaft. I think everybody's building something like that in that range. Now, that type of shaft is doing what.
So it's allowing the tip section to be softer than the rest of the shaft, allow players that do early extend all of those things get the clubhead to come through the impact zone.
Because that was something that in talking to Dave Phillips, who've had on the podcast before from the titleist performance, that they were looking at, you know, when that new Vanquish came out, they were you know, Jimmy Walker was crushing that thing.
He was playing the auto flex.
Yeah, he was playing the auto flex and he was crushing that. He's got a lot of early extension. But the way that club loads and the way it comes into the ball, Dave was saying, it was almost like
it was an anti thrust fixer. You could still thrust, but if you've got a shaft at the bottom thrust, meaning when we when we when we're setting up to the golf ball, if you think about where your lower body is on the downswing, if the pelvis is moving closer to the ball you're extending, then the upper body has to go back. So there are guys that do
that Jimmy Walker is one of them. So a little bit more kick at the bottom again helps square the club face up at the bottom without you feeling it's the player like you have to do it so much with your hands.
Yeah, and it doesn't necessarily feel soft in any means, but allowing that to close is huge for a lot a lot of golfers to gain distance and ball speed and at the end of the day, spin it lass.
And I think since the auto flex came out, you know auto Flex, Korean right technology, you know pink shaft, you know twelve and what's it like? You got to you gotta get a new mortgage for your house to get one of these shafts, right, But what I think the market and all the manufacturers have gone, okay, let's take that and let's put a version of that in
our lineup. So I think all the shaft manufacturers are making something that's going to have a little bit more kick at the bottom, so that if you are someone that needs distance, or you are someone that needs that face to close, that would be what if you're that player? Right, what model of shafts should be players be looking at if they want, if they if they're slicing it if they want a little bit of distance and they want that bottom part of the shaft at the bottom to
square up. Give me some names that that shafts that people could look at.
Yeah, so it's definitely definitely different for any kind of speed. But in that average golfer range, you can go auto flex Missubgie Vanquish, like a C six red from Missubichi Chemical. There's a lot of good options. I mean, each line has a good option. And generally, when you look at a shaft wall, the ones that are colored in red are generally going to mean that throughout the whole shaft manufacturing thing. So anything that's red is generally gonna be
a little softer. That tip's gonna close all those things.
Obviously, all the tour players, Brooks plays the Black Blacks seventy X, I mean, that's as stiff as I mean, yeah, and it's funny Brooks has got a really stiff driver. I mean, DJ's use that forever, right, I Mean, that's just there are players that play with the same shaft all the time, and then there are players that kind of move around. I think in DJ's case, it's just I think it's a comfort thing more than anything else.
Right.
I think it's he's Brooks is the same, right. I mean you could try and get him out of the driver shaft that he was working with, right. Brooks will mess around with lofts and heads and stuff like that, but the one thing that he will not budge on is the shaft. And anytime any of the manufacturers that he'd been with have talked to him about, hey, you know, maybe we try a little bit different shaft and stuff, and he always says the same thing. The shaft in
my driver has won me five majors. I'm not changing it, okay, But for the average golfers it's almost the opposite. Don't be afraid to go try. So what questions from a driver fitting? For everyone listening if they are going to get fit, what question should they be asking you guys as the fitters. So I think that's something that's massively important. I've said that before. I gave a pod I think last year on how to take a golf lesson as the player what you should be asking and looking for
from the instructor. So for everyone listening, if they are going to get club fit, what are the questions they need to be asking the club fitter.
So one big question is, hey, what is actually achievable for what I'm putting in is a lot of people want to get that super extra distance, but really that speed that they're at, they're maxing it out. So at that point we need to get forgiveness and be realistic that, hey, I might not gain all the yards, but hitting something more in the middle consistently across at the course of the round is huge. Another one is, hey, what is
a good spin rate for my speed range? And then a good Another thing that a lot of people don't think about is set makeups the board is like, just because hey, go into a three wood, Hey we're going to hit it further, we might not just because the five wood launching higher, spinning higher.
Yeah, So that's the next part of this. So and I think the most forgotten part of club fitting are from where the irons end and the driver begins. So whatever your last iron in your bag is and then where you are in your driver, what is in between there?
I think for everyone listening that is looking to improve their scores, hybrids, five woods, three woods, to me, that's a lot of low hanging fruit because I see a lot of players that their putters are good, the wedges, the irons, the driver, but what they've kind of got in between is just garbage and it's not not helping them.
So again average goal for loft wise, and the modern three woods, you know this, the longer the hitter, the harder it is to find a three wood, because the three woods today go way too far, which you would think would be great. But like DJ says, they give him sometimes three woods and he's like, that goes as far as my driver. I have no possible way to use that because if I do try and hit it
into a par five, I can't hold the green. So from a three wood standpoint, and again DJ's got a shit ton of loft on his three wood, but I see fifteen twenty handicappers have thirteen degrees three woods, and I'm like, what what are you going to do with this? You're certainly not going to get in the air. So from a three wood standpoint, where do you think that you think most people have two They don't.
Have enough loft in the three where they don't have enough loft, and a lot of people turn those three woods down too opening the face. I mean, you got to be able to launch it. So I mean a lot of the manufacturers this year did make three hls, which is gonna be like a sixteen sixteen and a half degree three wood versus a fifteen. But definitely a lot of amateur golfers come in with something that's twelve thirteen degrees and I'm like, that's really your driver.
So with the three wood with the ball now being on the ground, not on the tee, so obviously, I think what everybody needs to realize is there are two swings in golf. Right there is the driver swing and there is the iron swing. The iron swing the ball is on the ground, you need to have an angle of attack to where the angle of attack is down. You're hitting down on the golf ball. Hitting down on it is going to get it up. When we hit a driver, we put it on a tee. If we hit down on that.
It's still gonna go up.
It's still gonna go up, but it's going to spin a lot. So with the driver, you're trying to hit up on it. And unfortunately, and I know you see this, I think I see over a year, I see more golfers have a driver swing with their irons. They don't take dibbots. They don't get the golf ball in the air, and then they have an iron swing with their drivers where they're skying it. They're hitting it off the top of the driver. With the driver, you're trying to swing up.
With the iron, you're trying to swing down. But three woods Jordan are so hard for the average golfer to hit because I think they don't realize the golf balls on the ground if you try and swing up on it, it's not on a tee like the driver. Most people would be surprised that some of the best players in the world, and you know this, with the three wood, they take a little bit of a divot because they
are hitting down on it. So if you don't have enough loft on your three wood and then you're trying to hit up on it and it's not on a tee, that is a recipe for top spin. Four hands basically barely get over the neck, so higher loft in the three wood.
Don't be afraid to play a seven either. I mean, if you're going to go up in your three, then having a three, five and seven there can be some overlap there.
So this.
Don't be afraid to skip one.
Dustin Johnson currently has a seven wood and a nine wood in his back. Why because the irons that are replacing that he hits them so flat that he can't hold the green. So the nine wood in the seven wood allows him to come into greens softer and not have just low kind of head height bullets iron replacements
handicap ranges to get. I mean, I don't have. The longest iron I have in my bag is a six iron, right, Because I've tested you and I have gone through this, You're like, dude, you hit this hybrid way more consistent than you hit the five hybrid way more consistent than you hit the iron. And you've told me, with the limited amount you have to practice and as little as you play, you need as much help as possible. So I have a five iron hybrid, I have a four iron.
Talk to me about hybrids. What handicap range would you say for a player? Hey, bro, you need you need to take the ego out of this equation and we need to start to put more head covers in the bag for.
You for sure. So that's that's a fine line for that breaking point of a lot of players, is hey, is it a five iron? Is it a six iron, where our descent angle starts to become below forty degrees, And that's the biggest deciding factor is once that gets flat, you're not gonna hold it on a green, so you might as well just take some loft. Get a hybrid. Center gravity is lower, it's going to be better out of the rough, more forgiving hit it higher, land it softer.
Shaft wise, when we start going into hybrids, what do players need to be looking at with regards to what they're playing Obviously and their driver, their three, the other there are other woods, and then what they're playing in their irons.
So I would say driver and fairwoods are going to be pretty consistent between those two. General we're going to go up and weight in our fairway woods, and then we're also going to go up and wait in our hybrids. But our hybrids are going to be more similar to our iron shafts throughout the bag, just because that is playing like a three or a four iron for most players.
And again everyone that listens if you are hitting a hybrid, take a divot. It's basically, if you've got a hybrid in your bag, you need to play it like it's an iron. The same type philosophy. You don't need that. If you've got a hybrid in your in your bag, you do not need that golf bowl way up in your stance like you would with your three wood or your driver. It needs to be very similar to where it would be for an iron so that you can hit down on it. Iron technology, game improvement irons. It's
so funny. There was I can't remember the fitter's name, but he was a longtime fitter out at a TPI and they had the Chinese national team in right, that the entire and the best kid on the Chinese national team. So they're fitting him for irons, and they're going through an interpreter, right, because the kid doesn't speak English, if you heard this story. So they're going through an interpreter.
And this kid wants he wants a title. He wants the Adam Scott titleist blades, right, he wants I mean, he wants something that looks like it's from nineteen seventy one, right, because he's the best player, right, And they're trying to fit him into something that's got a little bit more of kind of like a cavity back thing like that, and he's going back and forth, and they're like, this is the one, and that's through the interpreter back to
him and the kids getting more and more. So finally the fitter says to the interpreter, He's going to hit the golf ball. Bet what is the problem? And the kid, in perfect English says too much offset and the top line is too long, And the Fitter's like, now you speak English, because I'm trying to get you into something that's going to be a little bit more forgiving. So my point around that story is, I think everybody wants
to play a blade. They want something that does and have a lot of offset, that doesn't look clunky and big. What are the advantages versus a forged blade type, you know, the type of iron that Rory uses, the type of iron that Scottie Scheffler DJ, I mean Brooks has gone to that Srixon cavity. But what is the advantage for everyone listening in game improvement irons? What does offset do?
So offset is going to allow the player to close the club face quicker. So now that irons have gotten so so strong and loft compared to the stuff that those guys are playing.
And that's the other thing that everybody lists the best players in the world want the golf clubs to go the shortest. They don't need the distance. They're not looking for rockets. I mean, I've said to Ben Showman at Cobra. I've had them look at players and I say, hey, what if we get this iron in his head and he's like, he'd hit that too far, have no ability to control the distance. And I'm thinking nobody thinks that
that would be what a problem would be. So, but the average goal for needs that they need the forgiveness. Offset means what closure? Right, So the player is looking down at an iron, if the iron is offset, what are they going to see.
They're going to see where the leading edge meets the hozzle. There's going to be a little bit of an angle there, right.
So it's ball designed through impact again, same thing we're talking about with the weights in the driver to get that toe of the driver to close at the moment of contacte gapping in irons. What should people be looking at from their nine iron to their five iron in an ideal world? What would we like.
To see In an ideal world, We're going to see anywhere from twelve to fifteen yards differencing gap between each iron. So they're I mean, if we're getting to where you're hitting your seven iron and your nine iron only ten yards apart, we either got a loft problem or we just need to change.
It shaft wise for irons. Again, what are we looking at for the regular golfer? What are some of the things that they want to stay away from from an iron fit shaft wise?
So a big thing now, like we said that with all the clubs getting so so strong, you still have to be able to launch it and spin it. So a lot of players are now able to play a lighter shaft. It's higher launching, higher spinning just because those heads are so strong, But you still have to be able to hit it high. So just because they're you know, you're playing a stiff driver shaft, doesn't mean you have
to play a stiff iron shaft. Just the technology in that graph height, we can make it so light but so so stable you might as well take the clubhead speed when you can get it.
Yeah, And that's so when players are looking at the difference between steal and graphite in their irons, what are the advantages and what are the gains and the wins that going to graphite could do for a player.
So by going to graphit, we're able to move where that shaft is kicking a lot easier. But I think you're.
Talking about with the driver at the bottom with the tipping conversation, right.
So by moving that weight, the flexibility to move that weight with graphite, we can really, you know, fine tune where it's distributed and where it's going to kick.
Cavity back irons versus more blade irons. Is there a cutoff for you on handicap range or is it player dependent?
I would say it's definitely player dependent. But we are seeing more and more players get away from those traditional blades. With all the new models that we have, they are beginning to look better in that player's cavity players distance.
I do think that all the manufacturers, you know, I've been with Kroba for a long time now, I love their quit I've said to the guy, the game improvement stuff is starting to look more and more like the player's irons, and that's I think that's huge, right, Yeah, Because as golfers, again we're massively influenced by television. We want to be using the stuff that our heroes are using. But you've just got to be careful in going down that rabbit hole of having an iron in your bag.
That again, I always say that in golf lessons, we're trying to improve the miss. You guys in the club fitting world are trying to do the exact same thing. You're fitting for the miss, not the good shot. And that is a big thing that I think is important for everyone. Everyone thinks they're going to go into a club fitting and go, Okay, my good shots are going to get better. You guys are coming to it from the angle the same angle that I'm coming to it from a golf lesson. No, no, we're going to try
and make your bad shots better. We're not gonna try and make your good shots better.
I would say that's the biggest thing that we see as a player will be in front of us and they won't accept their true miss, and you and I both look at it and we say, hey, you're going to hit it this way every time, but they're like, no, I really actually miss it to the left. But you know they're across it with a wide open face and it's slicing. So it's really just accepting what you do and making the most of it.
Parents that are listening for kids, golf equipment is expensive that and I'm sure you get a lot of these those those juniors that are in the they were playing golf clubs that were too long and too heavy. They got into kind of that US kids range of golf clubs.
But now they're looking to get out of that. I see so many young juniors playing with golf clubs that are just so damn long for them, Jordan, and because they're so damn long, they're too stiff, and then we start to see their bodies break down because of the golf clubs. When we're looking at players, parents especially, how do we future proof the fit So your son is trying to get out of kids clubs and get into more real, regular golf equipment. But they're going to be
growing there. If they're going to keep going, they're probably going to need another set of golf clubs in the next two to maybe three years. How do we future proof golf clubs for juniors so that they can give the parents a little leeway financially, so that they don't have to go spend money for a new set of irons this year and then go, Okay, my son grew, I gotta go spend another boatload of money on another set irons.
So one way would be just when they're moving that jump from the kids clubs up to the new ones, make sure you get into a good head because we can't take that good head and then shift it. Yeah, so then you're not out you know, the full set every time. And chefts, I mean you're only gonna need
six or eight of them, so moving across that. But once we're into a good head, chaft weight is huge for those kids, Like, don't put them in something too stiff, don't cut Dad's clubs down because that's just changing the whole flex point of that shaft and they're gonna have to alter their swing at the end of the day to fix that.
Yeah, And I think it's something that I've seen more junior golfers get injured and be on not playing because they're playing with golf equipment. At one they asked for for Christmas because Tiger Rory, DJ John Ram they use that. They don't make a lot of the stuff that the players on tour using junior sets like that, they don't make them, so then it's hard to get John Rahm's driver when you're five to one and you weigh one
hundred and something pounds. Yeah, and you're I mean, I can't tell you over the course of the year how many junior golfers I see using forty five inch drivers.
And at the same point, they don't have enough speed to play most of those products because they're not creating the angles to make it spin and launch high enough. So by going to that, it's yeah, you're just setting yourself back more trying to play the products that they play.
Lastly, wedge fitting to me, that is again low hanging fruit. There are a lot of players using wedges where the bounce configuration. Bob vok At titleist was the first one to kind of come up with the term of digger versus slider, but digger being more back in your stance, hitting more down on it like a bump and roll slider. Where the tour players are playing closely Moan Augusta type runoffs into the grain, they're playing the ball more neutral,
so they're sliding the club more on it. Bounce configuration. If you are going to be someone that's going to be more of a bump and run back in your stance, you need more bounce or less.
Bounce, so more bounce there. So what bounce is going to do is bounce is going to help you exit the term. So for that player that is very steep, we need to get out of the turf.
So that twelve to fourteen range. And then if you are someone that's a little bit more of a competitive player, you're gonna want give me a wedge that is from a bounce standpoint, that is that can do both. That would be a good kind of starting point for a player that's not going to be a ton of bounce, but it's not going to be little What range is that for you?
So that one would be anywhere from an eight to a ten bounce And obviously each manufacturer has a different soul for that is, so you can kind of have a little bit of bounce. A good example would be a vokey like eight M. It's going to have that little bit of crescent soul where it's going to have bounce, but give you that versatility to open it up with the trailing edge relief and really make the most best of both worlds there.
Yeah, and I and then gapping with wedges, I mean again, I come in sometimes and I look, I'm like, yeah, I mean, who fits you for this setup when we're looking at so give me a range for the So, if you've got a lobwedge in your bag, lob wedges are going to be anywhere between.
Fifty eight fifty eight to sixty two sixty two.
Does anybody that is a regular high handicapped golfer need to be above sixty degrees in the loft?
No, because that's going to only create a bigger gap between our pitching wedge in there. Right.
So then so if you're sixty, what are we looking at, are you, guys? Because the four kind of degree increments. So if you're sixty, the sand wedge should be fifty six. Then the gap wedge should.
Be generally fifty two or fifty right, depending on where your pitching wedge's at. But a lot of these newer iron sets, you have to be careful because our pitching wedges are getting so strong they're going to pack two more wedges in before you get to the gap wedge.
So, like most of the new stuff in game improvement, pitching wedges degree wise are at what.
Now forty three forty four, So from there to get to sixty, we have to do it within a reasonable amount of wedges without having you have too many that you're like, hey, which one do I hit for this?
And then you have to start saying, okay, well, then I need to look at taking other clubs out of my back for the for the regular average goal, for how many wedges do you think would be beneficial for them to have in their back. So starting at the pitching wedge and going from there.
So generally I would go pitching wedge and then keep a gap wedge with your iron set that's going to be anywhere from forty eight to fifty two, and then follow up with maybe a fifty four to fifty eight. So really four wedges across the board is going to be suffice for most If you.
Go fifty, you're keeping within that four degree range.
Yep, fourty five degrees is great.
Turf interaction with wedges. I think that's one of the main areas that I see that the average golfer just struggles so much with is the way the wedge is interacting with the ground. They're already steep on it, they're already hitting down on it. Talk to me about how the sole configuration, because every manufacturer now across the board is going to have a different not only different bounces, but different soul configurations.
Yeah, so grind options are going to give the different players versatility to really match that to their angles that they're creating through the turf. So whether you need trailing edge relief, heel and tow relief, or center gravity that's higher or lower. And they do make game improvement wedges
too that a lot of people shy away from. They're like, oh, I'm not going to get as much spin, but going to that product, it really fits how you deliver the golf club is going to make around the green so much easier.
So if you could change you only had what So if a player came to you, and obviously this would never happen, but if a player came to you and you watch them hit golf balls and you said, okay, okay, watching them do everything that they're doing in their golf swing, I can change the irons, I can change the driver, I can change the fairway, would make up change the
wedges if they said okay, you'd only change one. What would be your choice to say, hey, you want to knock some shots off your game, let's change this.
I would say the irons are probably going to have the biggest effect there because most people are playing steel shafts all those things. So really naturally thought you were going to say driver.
I really thought you were going to.
Say no, you'd be surprised, like and I am.
Surprised by that because Mike, now that now that I think, and here's the other thing, you're going to hit a hell of a lot more iron shots than you aren't going to.
Hit one hundred percent. I mean you figure almost every hole you're hitting at least one. And then Part three is even just to launch it high and spin it enough to you know, have it land and not hit on the front and roll off the back. That's the most deceiving part. And how far your distances actually are for the players. A lot of players will say, hey, you know, I hit it one hundred and seventy yards and then we get up onto a part three and it's one seventy one to carry the water. That ball's
not getting over the water. So really realizing Carrie versus total is huge for a lot of players.
Yeah, I know, I think that's that's really really great stuff. If people wanted to come check out truspect, where do they go?
So I would go to our website. We are across the US. There's five locations here in Florida. So if you ever find yourself here here dot com, respect dot com.
Anybody wants to come get club fitted at the at my place here at the Floridian. Jordan is here. Jordan, thanks for talking to us. And uh listen, man, you've you've helped me a lot for as little as I play golf. One of the things that you did we tested, going back to the reason why I use one lengths, the Cobra one lengths. I mean, we've gone through this, We've tested everything that all the new stuff from Cobra, the one lengths for me, they work for me. They're
based off of what my body does, what my body. Listen. I'd love to use the irons Ricky Fowler uses. I'd love the black I mean those ones that he came out with a coup. I mean, I love I get all the cool stuff, right, I get it all and it looks cool and I want to use it so bad. But I've got the new Cobra one length dark speeds a lot of offset and it helps me hit the golf. Ball more solid, and listen, my ego is very very small, you know that. What I just want to hit it
straighter and I just want to hit it further. So everyone listening, don't be afraid to get club fit.
Thanks Jordan, Thank you so much.
So some really good stuff there from Jordan Patrick from TRUSPEC and I think we got into a lot of good talks about a lot of different subjects there. But get club fit. I mean, if you're using golf clubs that you've just bought, that you were given, someone gave you as a gift, they're not helping you. I mean you have to get I mean, it's like winning the lot of If someone buys you a set of golf clubs and just gives them to you, that they're going
to work for you. If you are serious about improving your game, if you were serious about getting better, if you're serious about lowering your handicap, one of the easiest ways to do that is to get equipment that is fitted for you and your game by someone like Jordan that has the experience and the knowledge and that can help you get the right equipment. It really really does make a massive, massive difference. I want to thank everyone
for listening some of it. Butch comes to you every Wednesday. We will see you next week.
