Custom Fitted Golf Clubs. What Are The Benefits For Your Game?

If you had no golf clubs and wanted to buy a set from scratch, how much would it cost? You wouldn’t be far off the mark if you answered that question with £2,500 ($3,000, €2,920). For spending that amount of money, you could get the following golf equipment made up from the latest releases by major manufacturers:

• Driver
• Fairway wood
• 2 Hybrids
• Set of irons (5-Pitching Wedge)
• 3 wedges
• Putter

Most of us agree that spending that amount of money is no light matter. But what happens if the clubs you buy don’t work for you and your scores aren’t improving? Have you wasted your money?

Sites like E-Bay and specialist second-hand golf club retailers are full of nearly new golf equipment that golfers have bought to subsequently find that their new purchase did not improve their scoring potential on the golf course.

There is one fundamental problem when we purchase “off the shelf” golf clubs - they are an approximation of what the average golfer could use. But it’s not that simple because we all come in different shapes and sizes and playing abilities as golfers.

If you are looking to invest in new golf clubs to have them improve your game, you need to have custom-fitted golf clubs.

In this article, we’ll explain why customised golf clubs can significantly improve your game and confidence on the golf course.

We’ll guide you through:

• Why Custom-Fitted Golf Clubs Work
• The Process of Custom-Fitting for Golf Equipment
• How Will Customised Golf Clubs Improve My Game?
• Tailoring Success For Every Level of Golfer

Why Custom-Fitted Golf Clubs Work

Does this scenario sound familiar to some of you? You’re in the market for a new golf driver, and you’ve just seen all the latest launches. It’s time to commit. You go to your nearest retailer and find all the latest clubs stacked up neatly, ready for you to look at. You’ve consistently played with a 9.5-degree loft and stiff shaft in your driver, so you hone in on that. You pick one out, assume your address position, do the waggle test, get the face taped up and hit a few balls.

The sales representative somehow manages to twist your arm into buying the new club with options of part exchanges for your old model and some golf balls thrown into the bargain.

Does the sales representative spend time with you, asking you questions about your driving game? Do they have launch monitor equipment and premium golf balls for you to hit? Do they have a selection of heads and shafts you can try if, for some reason, your trusted 9.5-degree, stiff shaft default isn’t producing results?

Putting aside golf equipment for one moment, custom-fitting is about understanding your game and how it works, the difficulties you face on the golf course, and what improvements can be made. This is a process that any golfer, from tour professional to high-handicapper, can go through with an experienced fitter.

Custom-fitting pairs with cutting-edge launch monitor technology to get the most accurate data on how you hit the golf ball. That data can demonstrate where gains can be made and give you some valuable insight into how your swing operates.

Most importantly, custom-fitting benefits every type of golfer because the process doesn’t assume that we are all the same build, have the same swing, and deliver the club head in the same way at impact.

The Process of Custom-Fitting for Golf Equipment

Custom fitting can be done for any golf club in the bag, from drivers to wedges. You can book a custom-fitting session to examine one specific area of your golf bag, or you can opt to change every golf club if you desire.

We’ll look at an example where you have decided to change your golf irons and are booked with us at Golf Tech UK for a fitting session. Take the time to analyse your iron game before your session. If you even get to play before your session, all the better.

Pay attention to things like:

• How many greens you hit in regulation
• What side do you miss the target on - left, right, long or short
• What is your ball flight like, high and spinny or low knuckle-balls

When the day comes for your fitting, this information becomes really useful to share with the fitter, who will want to build a picture of your game and where you need help.

At the start of the custom-fitting session, you’ll hit a selection of shots with your existing golf clubs to establish baseline numbers, which are recorded via our GC Quad launch monitor.

We use the GC Quad system at Golf Tech UK because it is the most accurate launch monitor from which to work. GC Quad is a premium launch monitor that uses photographic technology to provide exact information at the point of contact, which is exceptionally useful from a club fitter’s perspective.

GC Quad will accurately show carry distance and overall distance, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg, and no recommendations are based on these two data sets alone. To build up the most accurate picture and help you understand where your current game is, we also pay close attention to the following data:

• Spin rates
• Launch angles
• Trajectory
• Shot dispersion
• Efficiency of strike
• Descent angle
• Dynamic loft
• Club head delivery
• Closure rate

Once the fitter has a good set of data points to work with, they can present the numbers to you and highlight areas for improvement. From that point, the fitter will work with you to find the ideal head and shaft combination and measure the results against the original data to mark the improvements.

At the end of the session, you will receive a recommendation on what iron head, shaft, and grip combination best suits your game. 

From the session, you’ll also better understand how your swing works and how you deliver the club into the ball. You’ll also be able to clearly see how the recommended golf clubs can improve your game, giving you the confidence to purchase.

How Will Customised Golf Clubs Improve My Game?

We can summarise the benefits of custom-fitting in three ways.

• Improved Distance
• More Accurate Shots
• Better Distance Gapping

Improved Distance

Most golfers want more distance, whether with the golf driver or golf irons. Getting more distance boils down to getting the right spin and launch numbers, which will vary from golfer to golfer based on their clubhead speed.

Custom fitting is essential because we need to understand where your base figures are to work out optimal spin and launch figures.

Let’s go back to our earlier golfer, who had always used a 9.5-degree lofted driver with a stiff shaft. Through a custom-fitting process, we could uncover that this golfer is losing distance with this combination and would be better suited to a 10.5-degree driver, which gives them optimal spin rates, leading to improved carry distances.

Adding more yards is certainly achievable, but you can’t fully take advantage of that newfound distance if you can’t find the fairway or green, so we need to make sure we can maintain or improve our accuracy.

More Accurate Shots

Accuracy isn’t just about how wide left or right you might be from your intended target. Accuracy also incorporates front-to-back shot dispersion. If you’re playing golf and you really flush your iron shot, which you love, you might not be so in love with the fact the ball flew twenty yards further than intended, landing you in trouble.

Equally, you can rue miss-timing your shot and seeing it come up well short of your target, which can put you in more trouble. Being more accurate can depend on a combination of factors. With some drivers, fairway woods, and hybrids, we use their moveable weight technology to straighten shots out.

Alternatively, we can look to the new maximum MOI drivers, such as TaylorMade’s Qi 10 Max or Cobra Darkspeed Max drivers, to provide ultimate stability through impact for straighter drives.

But it’s not just about getting the correct head configuration. Fitting the right golf shafts with the proper weight, flex and balance point can improve shot dispersion in all your golf clubs.

Trying to swing a club too hard or with little effort to match an incorrect flex and weight will do untold damage to your golf game in the long run.

As fitters, we can look at shafts like the Fujikura Ventus family, which have an extensive number of weights and flexes and can be fitted to any player’s profile.

Two lesser-known areas that can improve accuracy are:

• Obtaining the correct lie angle for your clubs
• Correct grip thickness

We’ve already spoken about how we all come in different shapes and sizes, which is particularly important when getting the right lie angles and grip thickness on your clubs.

The more upright a golf club is the further left a club face points according to FPT (Face Plane Tilt) the opposite is true when the golf club is flatter the further right the golf club face points.  Dynamic lie is tracked on the GC quad and is always an important part of any custom-fitting session.

Golf grips can also play an essential role in shot accuracy. If your golf grips are too thin, it can make your hands more active, shutting the clubface down at impact and shots going left (for a right-handed golfer). If your grips are too thick, the opposite tends to happen, and the clubface can stay open at impact, leaving shots out to the right.

You should never compromise your setup or swing to work around an ill-fitting club. Getting lie angle and correct grip size can be equally crucial in straightening out your shots.

Better Distance Gapping

You’re out on the course, and you face a shot of 125 yards to the pin. Your pitching wedge goes 115 yards, and your nine iron goes 135 yards. Do you hit your pitching wedge as hard as possible or ease off on the nine iron to cover the distance? Either option can result in a miss-hit, leading to an inaccurate shot, and a promising position can turn into a nightmare.

Custom-fitting can banish inconsistent gapping between clubs. We commonly see this between your fairway woods or hybrids and your longest iron or wedge setup. We can add another golf club if there is room. Alternatively, we can alter the loft gapping to ensure you have better distance gapping between each club, meaning no compromises in shot selection on the golf course.

 

Tailoring Success For Every Level of Golfer

For some golfers, custom-fitted golf equipment is something from which only the best players benefit. The reality is that every golfer of any ability can benefit from custom-fitting.

Let’s take an example.

A scratch golfer and a 15-handicap golfer come in for a driver fitting. Although they are both after the same type of golf club, their recommendations will be very different based on their playing abilities.

The scratch golfer has no problem generating clubhead speed and is pretty accurate in their strike location. Their main concern would be controlling spin, allowing them to hit the ball as hard as they want.

This golfer will benefit from a low-spinning driver head like a TaylorMade Qi10 LS, Callaway Paradym Ai Smoke Triple Diamond, or Titleist TSR 3, coupled with a Fujikura Ventus Black wood shaft or the new Fujikura 2024 Ventus Blue wood shaft, offering more stability in the tip section to improve accuracy for the speed this player can generate.

The 15-handicapper might struggle with distance and consistency of ball striking leading to more fairways missed than hit with their current driver.

The 15-handicapper can improve distance and accuracy through the new TaylorMade Qi10 Max, PXG 0311 Black Ops, or Cobra Darkspeed Max, designed to maximise clubface stability through impact and are forgiving on off-centre hits. The golf shaft selection could be the Mitsubishi Vanquish, Fujikura Ventus Red or Project X Cypher shaft. These golf shafts come in lightweight options to provide more clubhead speed.

The fitter pays the same attention to detail to both players, each leaving with a recommendation that will be proven to improve their game. To summarise, the breadth and depth of golf equipment available to us today is better than it has ever been. This is a positive for golfers because golf clubs, more than ever, are designed to make the game easier for us regardless of our playing standards.

However, new equipment isn’t cheap, so it can become a significant financial commitment if we purchase new golf clubs. The danger is that if we buy “off the shelf,” the chances of these new purchases helping our game are small.

If we want to invest in our golf equipment to improve our game, getting custom-fitted golf clubs is the best option for success. At Golf Tech UK, we have helped golfers of all skill levels get more out of their equipment and shoot better scores after they come through our doors for a custom-fit session.

Look out for an article in the coming weeks in which we’ll share with you some real-life examples of golfers who have come to us for a fitting session and the results they have achieved. You can tailor your session to your exact requirements and sample the extensive range of custom heads and shafts we offer.

Using GC Quad, we can accurately pinpoint where we see room for improvement, and by the end of the session, you’ll clearly understand what setup will work best for your game.

You can book a custom-fit session via the Golf Tech UK website or by giving us a call. If you have any questions about custom-fitting, you can E-Mail us, and we’ll be happy to answer them.

The Golf Tech UK website also allows you to view our full range of customisable golf clubs and purchase your ideal club setup.