If You Build It – They Will Shoot Lower Scores!

 

 

 

 

 

 

With the current trend toward many marketing that they provide "custom club fitting" services, somehow another important part of the equation – for helping golfers play better – can get lost.  And that part is creating golf clubs at the precise specifications that came from a great fitting.

This is not to devalue the importance and art of being a great clubfitter.  But every great fitter that I know is also a great club builder.  Why?  Well, because the "fit" does not result in a one-size-fits-all set of club specifications.  So after the fitting is done, the equally important part of creating the golf clubs to the fitting specifications is necessary to create a "wow" set of clubs for a golfer.

An example would be building a set of custom fit irons for a player.  Here are some of the tasks that the fitter / builder must accomplish to make the fitting a reality:

1.  Take the test clubs from the fitting and get all of the specs from them.  Length, loft/lie, shaft flex, shaft type, club MOI/swingweight, grip type and size are some of the more important ones.  Then obtain the components you need for the set you are going to build.

2.  Check the lofts and lies of the iron heads, and be sure they are at the specs desired from the fitting.  If not, bend to the right lofts and lies.  Also measure all of the club head weights.

3.  Do a shaft flex profile and weight sort for all of the shafts that will be used.  For a set you will typically want all of the pre-cut shaft weights to vary by less than 3 grams.  And many of us AGCP fitters use a iron flex profiling system, taught to us by Keith Chatham, AGCP master club fitter.  Using this system we ensure that the shafts we use in the set will produce consistent performance results.

4.  Build at least one test club, sometimes two, so that the golfer can confirm the results from the fitting.  If small final adjustments to the club specs are needed record these and use them in the final build.

5.  Do a "blueprint" build for the full set of irons – to determine how much each head weight will need to be – for a given club length – to get the right set MOI/swingweight to match that from the fitting.

6.  Do the actual building of the set of irons.  Make sure that all of the key parameters – particularly club MOI/swingweight, shaft flex, club length – are within the specs desired to produce the results from the fitting.  Usually – when using parallel tip shafts – for me acceptable variations will be less than .5% difference in MOI across the set of irons, less than 1 cpm variation (1/10th of a flex) in shaft flex across the set, and about 1/16th inch variation in desired club lengths.

Yes – a lot of work!  But it matters – the golfer gets clubs that fit him and produce great results, AND he gets clubs that all feel and perform the same.  Custom – right?

Rooting For YOUR Golfing Success!

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