In an ideal world, all golfers would have equipment that is perfectly fitted for them to squeeze every last ounce of performance out of their game. But unfortunately there is a belief system in Golf that you have to be of a certain standard before you can be custom fit. I often hear the expression ‘I’m not good enough to have custom built clubs’. To me this logic is completely flawed. Surely if you are a ‘weekend warrior’ with perhaps a few mechanical flaws, it would make more sense to have equipment fitted to you to help minimise those flaws.
That being said, equipment should never be used to compensate for poor technique. The R and A put measures in place to ensure that to dramatically improve your golf, you must increase your skill set, not purchase the most expensive golf clubs.
The one pitfall I believe all golfers need to be aware of when being custom fitted, is not to think of it as a long drive contest. Simply standing in a range and leathering the ball to see how high you can get the total distance up to, is not very relatable to how you play golf. Sure there may be occasions when you need to open your shoulders and give it a rip, but you also need to see how the club performs when you are just trying to find the fairway and how it performs on an off centre hit.
Another tip when being custom fitted is to be sceptical if all of a sudden you are hitting it 20 yards further. It could be the fitter doing a great job (as it often is) however, one way to increase distance is to reduce backspin. Many manufacturers release lower spinning driver heads. The advantage of these heads is if you keep the launch high and reduce backspin, the ball will usually carry further. The key factor you need to be aware of is what that reduction of spin will do on an off centre hit. The less backspin the ball has, the more the horizontal spin will affect the balls flight. Therefore you may be sneaking more yards from your centred hits, however your off centre hits may be now losing you golf balls, which obviously isn’t going to help you score lower which should always be your overall goal.
The bottom line is if you are serious about improving your game, 1 to 1 tuition is the only way to go, but if you are going to buy equipment, absolutely get custom fitted and use it as an opportunity to understand more about your game i.e your club head speed, your swing path and how you control the club face. As well as helping you select the equipment that is going to improve your game, this information can then be relayed to your coach and used to help improve your performance.
