Custom Fitting- The Evidence Base (VERY long post)

[Crow]

I think you make a good point there, why would companies offer custom fitting for free at heir own expense to help you use their equipment better if it was pointless. Why does every tour pro get fitted for their clubs? Go on a YouTube channel called TXG and maybe you could learn a thing or 2 about custom fitting. There is a good one on there where an older every day golfer gets fitted for a driver and the difference the shafts make. Or go on Mike Newton Golf and watch him doing shaft comparissons. Or any of a thousand YouTube videos with people getting fitted and the difference it makes.

But being a child and saying about cutlery is a little bit of a stupid arguement don't you think. But hey go troll someone else cause I really could not give 2 ............. about what someone like you has to say if they can not even form a sensible arguement.

There are certainly gains to be made, but unless you're physically very much different to the average, how great are those gains?

What sort of difference will it make to your score?
Several shots a round?
A shot a round?
A shot over four rounds?
This is where the grey area is and nobody seems able to give an answer. Unless you're clubs are hopelessly unsuited to you, IMHO the gains won't make much, if any, impact on your score.

In any case, it's not all about the score.

 

[MadAdey]

There are certainly gains to be made, but unless you're physically very much different to the average, how great are those gains?

What sort of difference will it make to your score?
Several shots a round?
A shot a round?
A shot over four rounds?
This is where the grey area is and nobody seems able to give an answer. Unless you're clubs are hopelessly unsuited to you, IMHO the gains won't make much, if any, impact on your score.

In any case, it's not all about the score.

of course it’s not my old friend. But I’m not standard size and really struggle with off the shelf clubs.

 

[harpo_72]

I had a fitting, I think I needed to. I was pretty dialled into my numbers but my perception of what was good was pushing me down the wrong direction.
Now I have something suitable and I am set up I can just get on with it.
It’s what you want to take away from it that’s all. I get it’s pointless if your a complete random or on a massive improvement path , but having played the game for over 30yrs my swing has developed and settled .. it’s not perfect but I know what I am capable of with it, so fitting it just makes it even better… or at least I hope!!

 

[chrisd]

These days, we all go and get measured up and fitted for our cutlery, and bring it with us when we go out to a restaurant or to dine with friends. We are hardly going to risk using some fork or spoon of some random size and assume it will meet our needs. We are all different, have different size fingers, and lengths of arms, levels of dexterity and coordination. Of course no one size of knife or fork can suit everyone and we all accept that. It would be impossible to eat effectively. We would stab ourselves inthe cheek with the fork, fail to cut our meat through at all, or end up stirring our tea all over the tablecloth. There would be no weight balance on the fulcum of the fork in our hands to food on the end of it, and we would end of dropping it and making a right mess. I wouldnt ask my wife to use my cutlery as she would find it impossibly unwieldy and it would ruin her enjoyment of her meal. So she has her own. Cutlery fitting is simply essentail to eat correctly.
I think you know where I am going with this.

I think the accurate answer does exist, in that club fitting has never proven its case. What you cite are a list of false analogies - faulty instances of an argument from analogy which is weakened by low or unestablished relevance and similarity. That club fitting resorts to, and people accept, such weak or false arguments in its justification I find damning in itself, highlighting the lack of genuine evidence. And put it in the same bracket as the advertising blurb selling this years latest club 'upgrade' where it is loaded with even more 'tech'. We all know it is nonsense, and accept it as such. Club fitting just has a little more smoke an mirrors going on that some people are still taken in by it.

Maybe your argument falls apart a little with the fact that , although I'm a fast eater I definitely do not swing my desert spoon at 93 miles per hour like I do my driver

 

[GB72]

I think you make a good point there, why would companies offer custom fitting for free at heir own expense to help you use their equipment better if it was pointless. Why does every tour pro get fitted for their clubs? Go on a YouTube channel called TXG and maybe you could learn a thing or 2 about custom fitting. There is a good one on there where an older every day golfer gets fitted for a driver and the difference the shafts make. Or go on Mike Newton Golf and watch him doing shaft comparissons. Or any of a thousand YouTube videos with people getting fitted and the difference it makes.

But being a child and saying about cutlery is a little bit of a stupid arguement don't you think. But hey go troll someone else cause I really could not give 2 ............. about what someone like you has to say if they can not even form a sensible arguement.

I actually think that there is a benefit to promoting custom fitting even if it does achieve little or nothing (not saying that is the case). By marketing the fact that everyone is so unique that they need clubs designed to their specific needs you are, effectively, reducing the second hand market, something very attractive to manufacturers as these are club sales that they get nothing out of.

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

Like my earlier question, surely this is a complete contradiction of custom fitting ? Or an example of it complete bunkum ? Is its premis not that you indeed keep swinging with you 'old' way of doing things, and that the clubs are fitted to your way ? Sounds like rather than being fitted with clubs that optimise your swing, your have been seriously set back and now have to adapt your swing to the clubs ? Money back time with the 'fitter' ?

Well, a couple of weeks on and the tweaks to stance and grip that my pro has had me working on since I got new ‘woods’ plus two wedges finds me hitting these clubs well...with not much time yet having to be spent on the range - so things can only continue to get better. My pro knows the basic faults he had to fix with me no matter the clubs and so has fitted the clubs to what I have to be. He has not had me changing anything about my swing that tweaks to stance and grip will not by themselves bring about.

 

[The Dog.]

My mate has a golf shop, a big one, and I invited him for a game last year. After a couple of holes, he made an observation about the shafts in my irons (which I bought off a mate), explaining they were entirely unsuitable to both my home course and my style of play. He said he knew the precise shafts I should have and would keep an eye out. Two weeks later, he rang me and said to get down to his place as the perfect set had just been traded in and they were like new. I duly arrived, was set up on his trackman with my irons vs. his recommended ones and he was right. Half a club longer, way better dispersion and a lower ball flight which I was very keen on. We did a deal and since then my handicap has halved from 4 to 2 which is a lot in category one. I am definitely hitting more shots closer to the hole on approach and my Shotscope watch and tags prove this as well. I also feel like I can still improve with them and am loving having an old school 3 iron in the bag too as it is superb off the tee and really rewarding.

If any shaft junkies are interested, the change made was from True Temper Elevate 95 shafts in stiff, to Nippon Modus 105 shafts in extra stiff.

 

[JustOne]

2014 (Ballochmyle) - 20.6 > 20.7 > 19.1 > 18.2 > 15.5 > 15.2 > Clause 23 > 13.4 > 13.5 > 13.6 > 13.7 > 13.1 > 13.2 > 13.3
2015 (Ballochmyle/Playsport) - 13.4 > 13.5 > 13.6
2016 (East Renfrewshire) - 13.6 > 13.3 > 13.4 > 13.5 > 13.6 > 13.0 > 12.4 > 12.5 > 12.6 > 12.7 > 12.8 > 12.9 > 13.0 > 13.1 > 13.2 > 12.3 > 12.4 > 12.5 > 12.6 > 12.7
2017 (East Renfrewshire) - 12.9 > 13.0 > 13.1 > 13.2 > 13.3 > 13.4 > 13.5 > 13.6 > 13.7 >13.4 > 13.5
2018 (Troon Welbeck) - 13.6 > 13.7 > 13.8 > 13.9 > 14.0 > 14.1 > 14.2 > 14.3 > 14.4 > 14.5 heeeelp
2019 (Loudoun Gowf Club) - 14.6 > 14.7 > 14.8 > 14.2 > 14.3 > 14.4 > 14.5 > 14.6 > 14.7 > 14.8 > 14.9
2020 (Loudoun Gowf Club) - 14.6 > 13.1 > 13.2 > 13.3 > 13.4 > 13.5 > 12.1 > 12.2 > 12.3 > 12.4
2021 (Loudoun Gowf Club) - 12.6

Dave, seriously?

7yrs and you've only dropped .8

You gotta come visit uncle James

Have you tried practicing?

 

[Backsticks]

Snatching this from the I bought today thread not to take if off track,

It was for irons, measure wrist to floor and then 5 swings with the club that collects all your swing data and it tells you which clubs you should use. I only did it to confirm my clubs were right for me which they were, exactly the same. Unless the fitter remembers me from a year ago I would assume its all pukka and it was free. Only took 10 minutes so I had a look at the driver because I'd heard good things and wanted to try different shafts because I thought I was between senior and regular and went for regular. I am hitting the new driver for miles and straight down the middle so I really can't complain.

Have always thought a major hole in the fitting schtick was that any fitting isnt like the above.

The club-fitted often report how they enjoy the fitting process and trying different combinations. But that process is very much at odds with the fitting positioning of itself as being scientific and systematic. Instead, spinning it out into an hour of hit and miss - lets try this one now - how did that feel, more stable yeh? - lets just take it down a degree - etc.

A truly scientific fitting paradigm would just take a few key measures in two minutes, take the key measures from a swing....and predict the solution. For you sir, a Stealth 10° with regular Proforce 65 and 45.25 length. Yes, I know you have hit any of those, but thats fitting - we know what will work for you. Yes, I know you had a Ping in mind, but that is just your irrational mind being swayed by advertising stories and what others are playing. Buy the Stealth. If not you have wasted your time, and should have just bought whatever colour appealed to you in the first place.

The whole try this try that process, while people enjoy the pseudo scientific personalised custom just undermines it as labour intensive sales patter.

Not sure how much AI is in the above (can you buy anything these days that hasnt 'AI' tacked onto it ? What next, AI bog roll?), but the concept sounds more gogent than anything that involves a 'fitter' or golf pro.