General Information

Club Fitting Terms

 Should you get fitted for clubs? Or do the ones they are selling on the rack work just fine?
The better you are, the more important a good fitting becomes. Just like any sport, proper equipment suited to your physical abilities and attributes (age, height, etc...) will make a difference. To a beginner, a fitted set of clubs will make a small difference in comparison to the larger difference in the basic level of ability. To an advanced player, the ability to see a small difference in the benefit that a fitted set of clubs will be seen is greater. Let's talk about the fitting features and what it does for you, and you will see the benefits.

SWING WEIGHT
This is the weight of the clubface in respect to the weight of the whole club (shaft and grip). The bigger the swing weight, the more the head of the club feels heavier. Juniors and ladies clubs want to have a lighter head to make it easier to swing, but they will not be able to hit is as far. Men will want a heavier head to get the benefit of the power as long as they are strong enough to control the weight. So, you evaluate your abilities to swing the heaviest head that you can control. Simple things can be done to change the swing weight, like putting lead tape on the club head. You can put on lighter grips, or shorten the shaft length. All these will affect the swing weight.

LIE ANGLE
This is the angle that club and shaft have when resting on the ground in respect to the uprightness or flatness of the shaft pointing to your body. A flatter lie angle will point lower on your body, towards your belly button. And an upright lie angle will point more to your chest. This is a benefit to the height of the player. The taller the player the more upright the angle should be. I am 6'2" and I use a +2 degree upright lie angle. A person of 5'10" would generally use a -2 degree flat lie angle. The reason for this is that when the ball is struck, the bottom of the club wants to be flat to the ground to in line with the intended target line. If the club is digging it's tow into the ground deeper then the heal, then the actual club face angle at impact will be pointing open (or right for right handers). And the reverse is true. If the heal is lower, the ball goes left. So club fitters tweak your lie angle by placing a piece of tape to the bottom of your club(s) and let you swing on a hard mat. They look at the scuff marks and can see what is the lowest point on the club. Ping's are famous for their color-coded dots that tell you what lie angle they are set at. (I just wish they kept the same codes, they changed then somewhere in the late 80's...I don't know why).

LOFT ANGLE
This is the angle that the club has in respect to the impact of the ball being more or less lofted making a normal lofted club go higher or lower. This is seldom fitted except in the professional ranks. Tiger has his clubs 2 degrees "stronger", which means that they are less lofted and that makes the ball go lower and further. His 2 iron is really a 1.5 iron which is why he doesn't carry a 1 iron, so he can carry an extra wedge. Most players get normal lofted clubs because it is expensive to change this option. I don't know of any manufacturers selling irons with different face angles. You see a lot of woods and wedges with variable face angles, but the irons are always standard.

CLUBFACE OFFSET
This is the amount of distance that the impact faceplate of the club is placed at or behind the shaft entry point to the clubface. (Phew!) Offset clubs allows the ball to be struck with the hands and shaft more ahead of the ball which is a good thing since you want to use all the mass accumulated during the swing to be used at impact. The minute you flip the hands closed to cause the face beat your hands to the ball, you loose the mass of your hands and shaft that you could have had because the face is the only thing making contact with the ball. Putters are the most common clubs to use this benefit. You always want your hands in front of all shots, especially putts. Flip those hands and who knows how far that ball will go. Players with incurable slices benefit from offset irons and woods because they slice by flipping the hands and the offset "offsets" this and helps the slice.

CLUBFACE TYPE
There are 2 basic types: Perimeter weighted cast iron, and forged blades. I have seen forged perimeter clubs, but not cast iron blades. What perimeter weighting gets you is a bigger hitting area by putting more weight on the outside part of the club face and take away that weight from the middle. Your missed shots are more solid and go farther because there's more weight in the missed area to hit the ball with. Forged blades are less forgiving for the missed shots, but the solid shots are better then the solid shots of a perimeter-weighted club. Better players tend play blades and beginners tend to play perimeter clubs. But that is all up to your preference and style. If you like to move the ball left to right and right to left a lot, it is harder to do the with perimeter clubs because they are designed to counter that action.

SHAFT LENGTH
This is designed to allow a taller player to not have to bend as much over the ball and a shorter player to not reach as much. I play 1/4 inch longer clubs being 6'2". This has a small affect of making the shaft more flexible. So I play a stiffer shaft to counter the affect. A longer shaft allows the ball to be hit a little further as well. Drivers get the most common benefit from a longer shaft. You will have a harder time controlling the longer club so choosing length over accuracy is the decision here.

SHAFT FLEX
This is ability of the shaft to either flex more or less which causes the club head to rebound back to square during the downswing. A stiffer flex is preferred by faster swings because a shaft that flexes too much will cause the head to rebound past parallel and close the face shut and hook, or not close at all and stay open and slice. Slower swingers use more flexible shafts that allow the shaft to flex and rebound creating more club head speed. The drawback is that a more flexible shaft is less accurate then a stiffer shaft because it has a greater range of potential for error. That is why it is better to get the stiffest shaft you can flex to reduce the error level.

FLEX POINT
Shafts can have different flex amounts at different points. Both steel and graphite are able to place these flex points to benefit a type of shot. The lower the more flexible part of the shaft is, the higher the ball will go, but the more the error level (again any flex causes errors). But if you are having a problem hitting the ball high, then a lower flex point is more helpful. Drivers want to hit the ball low and run, so that should have a higher flex point. If you look at a steel shaft, you can generally see the flex point by the width if the step patterns. The closer they are, the stiffer it is. (Can't do this test to graphite, you have to trust the maker).

SHAFT COMPOSITION
There are so many out there that it is hard to keep up with all the innovations, but here is the general makeup: Steel vs. Graphite (and throw in Titanium). Steel is heavier then graphite and Ti but less expensive. Since the swing weight of a club is determined on the whole weight of the club, then the more weight you take away from the shaft and grip, then more can go into the head giving it more power at impact.

GRIP WIDTH
This is to fit the size of your hand. A smaller hand will have a difficult time swinging a larger grip and generally cause the ball to slice. And a small grip on a big hand will cause the hands to be too active and cause hooks.

There is a huge scam in club fitting that is easy to get sucked into "Let us fit you to our "specialized" clubs that are made for you. It will knock off strokes. You get fitted to their equipment only. You think you are getting options to what clubs to buy, but it is only their stuff they are offering. Be aware and get independent fittings that don't have manufacturers associated with the process.