87% of golfers who get custom-fitted for their golf clubs improve their handicap by 10%.
That can make a massive difference for your game. It could be the difference between breaking into single-figure handicap territory for the first time, becoming an elite player by moving your handicap below five, or helping you to break 100 for a round of golf consistently.
Custom fitting for golf clubs is the process of using technology and an experienced fitter to analyse how you hit the ball and build a golf club or clubs that help to improve any shortfalls you have in your game.
If you are considering booking a fitting session, you’ll benefit from the experience, but is there anything you need to do in advance to ensure you get the most from it?
Our guide provides lots of useful information to help you prepare to enjoy a custom fitting session fully.
We’ll break this down into three sections:
- What You Should Do Before Your Fitting Session
- How Being Open-Minded Will Improve Your Fitting Session
- What To Expect After The Fitting Session
What You Should Do Before Your Fitting Session
You might not know what to bring if you haven’t been to a fitting session before.
So, let’s start with the simplest thing: Remember to bring your existing golf clubs with you. It may seem obvious, but many people forget to bring their clubs!
Why is bringing your golf clubs important?
The fitter will want to collect baseline data to understand how you hit the ball and how effective your strike is. When it comes to improving performance with new golf clubs, metrics such as spin rates and launch angles are just as important as clubhead and ball speed to improving distance.
Fitters will also want to understand the difference in performance between a well-struck shot and a poor strike. Understanding the strike location of a poor shot is also taken into account when considering what new equipment can improve your game.
Inconsistent ball-striking can also affect shot dispersion. How wild will your ball veer off line with a strike anywhere other than the sweet spot?
Having your golf clubs with you also allows the fitter to see your existing setup.
- What shafts are fitted to your existing clubs, and what flex are they?
- Are your existing clubs standard lie, or are they flat or upright?
- Do you carry long irons, hybrids, or lofted-fairway woods, and if so, what lofts are they?
- What does your wedge setup look like?
- What loft do you have on your existing driver?
Technology moves quickly, so you could be missing out if your clubs are over five years old.
The fitter will also ask for your feedback on your existing golf clubs, which we’ll discuss in more detail shortly.
Other items to bring with you for use during the custom-fitting session are your golf shoes and glove.
Fitting sessions are carried out indoors and on a mat, but hitting shots wearing your golf shoes and glove helps replicate what you experience and feel on the course.
Understand Your Game Better: Gather Data
If your booked fitting session is several weeks away and you’re likely to get a few rounds in before you go, take the time to record some stats.
Concentrate on the area that your fitting session is booked for.
If you are coming in for a driver fitting, record the number of fairways you hit during the games you play before your fitting. Pay attention to details like:
- Do I miss the fairway more to the left or right?
- Do I miss the fairway by much, or am I wide of the mark?
- If I miss-hit a drive, does the strike favour the heel or toe of the face?
You can also pay attention to the typical trajectory of your drives. Do you hit the ball high or low? These metrics can play their role in robbing you of ultimate carry distances.
Recording your driving performance over several rounds makes the stats more accurate. If you only record stats for one round, you're not getting a full picture of your driving performance, as you may have an exceptionally good or bad day with the big dog, or the weather could play a factor.
You can carry out the same analysis for your greens in regulation. Pay attention to the types of clubs you are typically hitting for your approach shots or tee shots on par threes. If you are reaching for longer clubs and not hitting many greens, you may be better served by hybrids or lofted fairway woods.
Making many up-and-downs can be crucial for crafting a good score by building or maintaining momentum. What do your stats look like after playing a few rounds of golf before your fitting?
Keeping stats and understanding your misses is helpful for the fitter who can utilise that information and analyse the relationship between your club head’s path into impact and what the resulting shot does.
How Being Open-Minded Will Improve Your Fitting Session
Curating your stats in the buildup to your custom-fitting session will help you gain a clearer picture of your strengths and weaknesses.
Working with a high-quality launch monitor will support what you may see out on the course.
The launch monitor also doesn’t lie about your playing prowess. Many golfers still believe they hit the golf ball a lot longer than they do, so they can initially be disappointed when they see their carry and total distance numbers.
The benefit of custom-fitting is that numbers can be improved, so you could end up hitting the ball further than you first thought.
It’s common for golfers to get uptight if they’re not hitting the golf ball well when they come for their fitting session. They’re hitting in front of a stranger, with the launch monitor providing data on their shots.
So, should you only come for a fitting when you feel like you are hitting the ball well?
The answer is no. If you have a session where you happen to strike it as purely Scottie Scheffler, that’s great, but it doesn’t happen that often in our experience.
Hitting bad shots during a fitting session is positive and helps the fitter understand how to build a club that can more effectively manage poor shots.
If you watch any fitting session of top players on YouTube, they’ll call out when they hit bad shots to the fitter, proving that even the very best don’t catch it out of the middle on every shot.
Brand Loyalty
Some golfers swear by playing a certain brand. Maybe they’ve been using a manufacturer’s clubs for several years that have served them well previously, or they want to follow in the footsteps of a favourite tour player who is a staff player for a certain brand.
When it comes to custom-fitting, you have to be open-minded to the idea that what produces the best results might not be the club or clubs from your favourite brand.
As an independent fitter, Nine By Nine Golf looks to provide the widest range of key manufacturers, such as Callaway, TaylorMade, Titleist, and PING. These manufacturers produce excellent products for elite-level golfers and higher-handicap players.
However, we also stock golf clubs from brands you may be less familiar with, such as Miura, Fourteen, or ProtoConcept. In our opinion, these are high-quality, precision-made clubs that can offer viable alternatives to the mainstream brands.
Keep an open mind that those clubs that will work best for you might be different to what you may have expected.
The Numbers Don’t Lie
Another aspect that can be a real eye-opener for golfers is the specs of the clubs that will work best for their games.
We see golfers who have been wedded to 9.5-degree lofted drivers forever, only to discover during the fitting session that switching to a 10.5-degree loft can increase their carry and overall distance.
If you are looking for better cover between your three wood and longest iron, be prepared for the fact that your best fit could be a seven or a nine wood. High-lofted fairway woods are becoming increasingly popular. World number one, Scottie Scheffler, carries a seven wood, and Tommy Fleetwood has added a nine wood to his bag this year.
The biggest change you may see with your irons is the inclusion of hybrids that can replace five or even six irons. Opting for hybrids comes down to them providing improved trajectories and stopping power compared to five and six-iron equivalents.
Former Masters champion, Fred Couples, one of the best ball strikers in his prime, now has his seven iron as the longest iron in his bag simply because he gets better numbers and performance from hybrid replacements for his long and mid irons.
Adding an additional wedge to your arsenal can improve distance gapping at the bottom end of your bag, giving you better options for approach shots or more versatility around the green.
Dialling in the correct bounce and grind will give you more confidence from improved ball striking.
What To Expect After The Fitting Session
A custom fitting session provides an excellent opportunity to learn more about your golf game.
Working with a highly experienced fitter and launch monitor will deliver precise details on how you make contact with the golf ball and the types of shots you produce.
As the fitter prepares clubs for you to test, you’ll see firsthand how a small change can make a massive impact on your game.
At the end of the session, the fitter will give you a detailed explanation of what head and shaft combination will work best for you and why that is the case.
You now have all the information you need to make an informed decision that the investment you’re about to make will benefit your golf game.
Your clubs are custom-built to tour-quality standards to your exact specification, and when they arrive and you take them out on the course, you’ll notice the difference.
Your new golf clubs can improve your game by:
- Giving you more distance to carry the bunker off the tee, you could never get past before.
- Hit towering long approach shots that are unaffected by the wind and hold the green
- Attack pins on par threes you would never dare to with your old clubs.
Knowing how your golf clubs perform when you are playing good or bad is one of the main reasons why you’re likely to see your handicap tumble quicker than opting for off-the-shelf options.
You also now have a team to whom you can return repeatedly if your game improves and you want to see if your clubs still match your improved performances.
If you want to join the 87% of golfers whose handicaps have dropped by 10% from using custom-built golf clubs, book a fitting session with Nine By Nine Golf, and we’ll help you take your game to the next level.
