There\u2019s a lot of good information that comes out of club fittings, which makes it unfortunate that there\u2019s often so much confusion around them.<\/p>\n
Golfers talk themselves out of fittings for all sorts of reasons: They\u2019re changing their swing. They\u2019re not hitting it well. They\u2019re intimidated. All things that aren\u2019t true (we\u2019ll get to that) and worse, stop golfers from getting better.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why I wanted to get two of my Golf Digest colleagues, Chris Powers and Keely Levins, on the podcast. Both just underwent a full through-the-bag fitting at Golf Galaxy ahead of a high-stakes match against each other (which you can watch right here), and shared some good advice along the way:<\/p>\n
1. You don\u2019t need a perfect swing <\/p>\n
Chris said he got fitted with the shanks once, and he turned out fine. It was a blessing in disguise, in some ways. You\u2019re going to miss-hit shots during a fitting just like you do on the course\u2014the point isn\u2019t to chase your one perfect swing, it\u2019s to optimize the ball flight you actually have.<\/p>\n
2. Don\u2019t wait until you\u2019re \u2018playing better\u2019 <\/p>\n
Keely said in the past she kept putting off getting new irons\u2014hers were a decade old\u2014because she figured she\u2019d upgrade once she was playing more. Months turned into years, and now the new iron tech wasn\u2019t there to help her when she needed it most. Stop trying to predict the future. Getting fit now is what puts you in position to play better later.<\/p>\n
3. Fitting and swing work go together <\/p>\n
A lot of us think that we shouldn\u2019t touch our clubs until our swing gets into a position we want it to. But Tour players have their club reps and swing coaches all talking at once. Think of them like parallel tracks. They work together, and evolve at the same time. You don\u2019t switch one side off and the other on.<\/p>\n
4. Don\u2019t overlook your wedges and putter <\/p>\n
These are the most overlooked fittings with arguably the best return on investment. Lie angle matters even more as loft increases, and your bounce and grind should match how you actually use each wedge\u2014not be one-size-fits-all.<\/p>\n
5. Keep an open mind. <\/p>\n
Keely had a gapping disaster at the top of her bag. There was a huge zone that she had no clubs for. Her fitter fixed it with a higher-loft 3-wood and a 9-wood. Keely said she had never considered it before\u2014and a lot of golfers would probably shake their heads at the idea. But no, she swears by it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels as easy to get up into the air as a wedge from 175,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
It plays into a nice principle: every club but your driver should land at roughly the same descent angle, which is why a lofted wood holds greens a long iron never could.<\/p>\n
6. The adjustment period is shorter than you think <\/p>\n
Keely replaced 12 clubs and was terrified it\u2019d take two years to feel comfortable. Instead it was instant. Remember they\u2019re built for your swing as it is right now. The adjustment period is shorter than you think.<\/p>\n
7. Go in with the right goal <\/p>\n
Your goal isn\u2019t to use clubs to fix your swing (spoiler: they won\u2019t) but to \u201cturn my big miss into a small miss.\u201d Chris fought snappy hooks that brought double bogeys onto his card, and well-fit clubs didn\u2019t rebuild his swing\u2014they just tightened his dispersion. As the old cliche goes: Don\u2019t let perfection be the enemy of the good. Or, in this case, progress.<\/p>\n
Once again, you can listen to the full pod right below, and see how Chris and Keely\u2019s match ended up right here.<\/p>\n
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s a lot of good information that comes out of club fittings, which makes it unfortunate that there\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27948,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[459,44,460,1069],"class_list":["post-27947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-article","tag-golf","tag-golf-digest","tag-how-to"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27947\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}