Piece
Tour Winner
Warning ... Long review and story!
On another thread under "Ask the Experts" I was asking some heads up on driver shafts to suit my swing. Ethan gave me some ideas and recommended a local specialist fitting company called Precision Golf. Having had a few duff fits for the big stick and seeing the benefit of a proper fit for my irons, I thought I would take a look at Precision. I read their website and all seems above board, in fact, I gave them a ring and asked some searching questions about what they do, etc. I know from other reviews that they are expensive but that doesnt worry me if they do a solid job. Twenty minutes later i was booked in for today, Friday 3 Feb 2012.
Their location is off J11 of the M25 in Egham, just past the Ferrari dealership :thup: in two industrial units. The area isn't the prettiest but that's fine as I'm only here to *** some balls into the net. The first impression is that it is a good setup, having a decent reception area and two large hitting bays each with a TrackMan. The most impressive area is their club building and measurement area Big area with modern equipment with loads of shafts and club building stuff around. You can see from the walls adorned with famous testaments, that these guys should know their stuff.
I was here for a driver and woods fitting. Jason, my fitter, took my driver, three wood and hybrid to measure their length, weight, real loft and frequency. I was asked what I wanted to achieve from today. I replied that I thought my driver was not suited for me being too opened faced and maybe a wrong shaft. Plus I wanted to check my 3 wood and hybrid for consistency. After some 6i warm ups and I was asked to hit some balls with my driver (see signature for current setup)...averages are...
Club speed: 109. Ball speed: 159. Carry: 249. Total: 272. Spin: 3140. Launch: 12.5
Jason made several observations. The first one was with my swing and after putting some tape on the face, it became clear why I hit a lot of fades with this driver. I was hitting a lot out of the neck because my swing was trying to catch up on impact due to the shaft length. Apparently this Ping is long which wasn't helping so a shorter shaft was the first recommendation. The next observation was spin rate; this needed to come down. We addressed this by trying different shafts and shaft weights - unexpectedly to me, we weren't looking for heavier shafts but shafts that were a perfect balance between lighter weight and frequency! We tried shafts from Accra, Diamana, Aldila and Graffaloy looking at the ball stats as each shaft was giving differing characteristics. The long and short of it is that the best from today was the Aldila RIP 60 Alpha Stiff giving:
Club speed: 110. Ball speed: 160. Carry: 264. Total: 289. Spin: 2700. Launch: 12.2
The second most interesting aspect of the fit was the quality of shafts you get independently compared to those you get as made for. Jason said the majority of shafts off the shelf are batch shafts, made in their 1000s, designed to be cheap and thus are weaker and of a lesser quality. Probably not news to most of you, especially Ethan.... Even the 910 made for shafts aren't quite what they seem apparently. What was the most interesting part? That almost all driver lofts are 2 degs weaker than they say on the club, apart from Bridgestone clubs! My Ping was 11.5 compared to 9.5 on the tin. Jason said that is purely marketing spin to have stronger lofts.
After working on the shafts we looked and head weight and shape. We tried various head weights and biases. There was only one winner and that was the 910 D3 At the end of the driver fit we settled on:
Titleist 910 D3, draw setting, Aldila RIP 60 Alpha X stiff, length 44.5, weight D3.
A quick examination of my 3 wood and hybrid showed that everything was ok apart from shortening the 3w length by 0.5" to make the swing weight consistent.
Final part was getting the grip size and make right. I won't bore you too much (I doubt if you've read this far anyway ) but near midsize, Golf Pride VDR non tapered.
So at the end was it worth it? The honest answer is that I won't know until I hit the new club. However as an experience I feel that it went to a level of detail that you will never get at a shop or range fitting. The range of shafts they have to try is amazing, probably over 200, all fittable into a weight adjustable head. Jason knew his stuff and understood what makes a good flight into a better flight through the marriage or shaft and head. The experience lasted two hours and left feeling that I was looked after well addressing my needs. OK the cost isn't cheap, as I am paying for fitting, new driver, direct from factory pured shaft, and weighted, but my current view point is that I am buying a driver every 18 months but am getting no further to liking one. Thus perhaps doing a proper fit gives me driver longevity and eliminates the false economy of constantly changing the big dog.
On my experience today, the fit was excellent and made sense. I met a previous customer on my way out who was coming in for another session- he said he would go nowhere else. Let's see in a few weeks when I hit whether the results deliver the theory. Oh and if it doesn't, I can go back for tweaks..
Hope you are still awake. Thanks for reading.
On another thread under "Ask the Experts" I was asking some heads up on driver shafts to suit my swing. Ethan gave me some ideas and recommended a local specialist fitting company called Precision Golf. Having had a few duff fits for the big stick and seeing the benefit of a proper fit for my irons, I thought I would take a look at Precision. I read their website and all seems above board, in fact, I gave them a ring and asked some searching questions about what they do, etc. I know from other reviews that they are expensive but that doesnt worry me if they do a solid job. Twenty minutes later i was booked in for today, Friday 3 Feb 2012.
Their location is off J11 of the M25 in Egham, just past the Ferrari dealership :thup: in two industrial units. The area isn't the prettiest but that's fine as I'm only here to *** some balls into the net. The first impression is that it is a good setup, having a decent reception area and two large hitting bays each with a TrackMan. The most impressive area is their club building and measurement area
Big area with modern equipment with loads of shafts and club building stuff around. You can see from the walls adorned with famous testaments, that these guys should know their stuff.I was here for a driver and woods fitting. Jason, my fitter, took my driver, three wood and hybrid to measure their length, weight, real loft and frequency. I was asked what I wanted to achieve from today. I replied that I thought my driver was not suited for me being too opened faced and maybe a wrong shaft. Plus I wanted to check my 3 wood and hybrid for consistency. After some 6i warm ups and I was asked to hit some balls with my driver (see signature for current setup)...averages are...
Club speed: 109. Ball speed: 159. Carry: 249. Total: 272. Spin: 3140. Launch: 12.5
Jason made several observations. The first one was with my swing and after putting some tape on the face, it became clear why I hit a lot of fades with this driver. I was hitting a lot out of the neck because my swing was trying to catch up on impact due to the shaft length. Apparently this Ping is long which wasn't helping so a shorter shaft was the first recommendation. The next observation was spin rate; this needed to come down. We addressed this by trying different shafts and shaft weights - unexpectedly to me, we weren't looking for heavier shafts but shafts that were a perfect balance between lighter weight and frequency! We tried shafts from Accra, Diamana, Aldila and Graffaloy looking at the ball stats as each shaft was giving differing characteristics. The long and short of it is that the best from today was the Aldila RIP 60 Alpha Stiff giving:
Club speed: 110. Ball speed: 160. Carry: 264. Total: 289. Spin: 2700. Launch: 12.2
The second most interesting aspect of the fit was the quality of shafts you get independently compared to those you get as made for. Jason said the majority of shafts off the shelf are batch shafts, made in their 1000s, designed to be cheap and thus are weaker and of a lesser quality. Probably not news to most of you, especially Ethan...
. Even the 910 made for shafts aren't quite what they seem apparently. What was the most interesting part? That almost all driver lofts are 2 degs weaker than they say on the club, apart from Bridgestone clubs! My Ping was 11.5 compared to 9.5 on the tin. Jason said that is purely marketing spin to have stronger lofts.After working on the shafts we looked and head weight and shape. We tried various head weights and biases. There was only one winner and that was the 910 D3
At the end of the driver fit we settled on:Titleist 910 D3, draw setting, Aldila RIP 60 Alpha X stiff, length 44.5, weight D3.
A quick examination of my 3 wood and hybrid showed that everything was ok apart from shortening the 3w length by 0.5" to make the swing weight consistent.
Final part was getting the grip size and make right. I won't bore you too much (I doubt if you've read this far anyway
) but near midsize, Golf Pride VDR non tapered.So at the end was it worth it? The honest answer is that I won't know until I hit the new club. However as an experience I feel that it went to a level of detail that you will never get at a shop or range fitting. The range of shafts they have to try is amazing, probably over 200, all fittable into a weight adjustable head. Jason knew his stuff and understood what makes a good flight into a better flight through the marriage or shaft and head. The experience lasted two hours and left feeling that I was looked after well addressing my needs. OK the cost isn't cheap, as I am paying for fitting, new driver, direct from factory pured shaft, and weighted, but my current view point is that I am buying a driver every 18 months but am getting no further to liking one. Thus perhaps doing a proper fit gives me driver longevity and eliminates the false economy of constantly changing the big dog.
On my experience today, the fit was excellent and made sense. I met a previous customer on my way out who was coming in for another session- he said he would go nowhere else. Let's see in a few weeks when I hit whether the results deliver the theory. Oh and if it doesn't, I can go back for tweaks..
Hope you are still awake.
Thanks for reading. 
