Yesterday was a BEAR of a day for my wife and I. Every year we drive to Rochester NY to see her family for Thanksgiving, and we take 2 days to drive back. From Columbus, Ohio to Tennessee was one solid wall of hard rain – very difficult driving conditions.
When I had time to do some searching on the internet, I read a post from someone who suggests that the only way to do true custom clubfitting is to do it outside. It seemed like, with the really lousy weather we are having right now, that discussing this topic is timely.
First of all I want to say that there are lots of VERY good fitters that do all of their fittings outdoors. There is in my mind absolutely nothing wrong with that, it can be made to work well.
I made the decision a number of years ago to do the majority of my fitting efforts indoors. There has been one big reason I made this decision – Control Of Testing Conditions. While yes outside you can see how the club reacts with real grass and can truly see ball flight, you cannot control wind conditions and cannot control the golf balls you are using(unless you have lots of bucks for golf balls that are of one type). So for me it has always been an easy decision to fit indoors.
However……..often at the end of a fitting I will still take the player outside to hit the club that we put together from the indoor fitting data – since I have a range available at Centenial Golf Course. And, when I build test clubs for people (irons mostly) I do this final testing outside. So while I do the majority of testing inside, I do some of the final testing outdoors.
This is about to change, or at least I will be comfortable with doing all testing indoors. I thought that Santa would be bringing me my new Flightscope X1 Launch Monitor today, but for sure it will be here tomorrow. And he (Santa…) did bring me, today, a computer projector that I will use with the Flightscope. This combination will improve the ball flight data that I will have, and allow me to show players – using the projector – how their shots are flying indoors. The quality of the ball flight data from the Flightscope will be good enough to rely on it for all parts of future fittings if I desire to do so.
So the "weather outside might be frightful" – but the indoor custom clubfitting can still be delightful!
The Fit Is IT!!
Tony