Adventures in Club Fitting

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I decided last last season that it was time to get some new irons this year.  Coincidentally, one of my long-stated goals is to get a club fitting.

Perfect.  At least until it started to unfold anyway.

I’m not an “off the rack” guy when it comes to irons.  I typically play them longer and more upright than standard and I also use mid-size grips.  Because of this, I know that when it’s time to get new irons, I need to order them.  That means they get put together at the factory to my specifications.

That also means that it takes anywhere from two to six weeks to get new irons, depending on the manufacturer.  Since I wanted to have them for the start of the season, when the calendar flipped to March, I knew I needed to get moving if I wanted to get a fitting first.

So, last week, I scheduled a fitting at a great golf shop in King of Prussia, PA, called Golfdom.  Most of you who live in this region will no-doubt have at least heard of it.

I scheduled a fitting for Sunday with Buck in the Callaway Performance Center, which I found out at the time is only one of six in the country.  I arrived on Sunday and we got to business.

I was impressed with all the technology in that room.  I was hitting into a big image of the 18th at Pebble Beach on the wall and when I did, two big monitors at the back of the room were tracking my club and the ball, and showing the ball flight on an electronic version of the same hole.  Every conceivable part of my launch characteristics was being measured.  It was awesome.

Until I started hitting balls, that is.

I felt like that scene in the movie Tin Cup, after he qualifies for the U.S. Open and he’s back at the range in Salome hitting balls one night with his caddy Romeo.  He shanked the first ball and laughed it off.  Then as it happened again and again, he fell into a pit of golfing despair as he realized the problem wasn’t going away on its own.

When I stepped up to the first ball, I made what felt like a decent swing that turned out to be a low duck hook, into the Pacific ocean.  I laughed it off just like Roy McAvoy and raked over another ball.  Same thing.  Again.  And again.  And again.  I was in my own pit of despair.

I was kind of stunned at what all that technology was telling me.  My club head (which was my own 6-iron, by the way) was approaching the ball from a staggering 10+ degrees from the inside and was anywhere from 1-3 degrees shut at impact.  There is simply no way to not duck hook the ball when doing that.

What’s strange is, I asked Buck before we began if we could save a few minutes for me to hit drivers to see what my launch characteristics are, just for the sake of knowing.

That was a completely 180-degree switch.  I was hitting the ball with a club head speed of about 110 mph and was approaching the ball from about one or two degrees from the inside.  On top of that, I was hitting the ball with a slightly ascending blow of about one or two degrees.  A couple of degrees more of an ascending blow at impact and my launch conditions would have been close to optimal.

At least I had that going for me, but it was kind of a slap in the face that I’d butcher my irons but somehow be able to hit the driver well.

Buck and I agreed that we were wasting time with the iron fitting because we weren’t going to get an accurate picture that would allow me to buy clubs suited for my swing, because my swing didn’t make the trip with me.

I got home late in the afternoon and was totally dejected, but my brother talked me into playing golf, so I figured I could at least slap the ball around the course for a while and work on my short game or something.

We went by the range on the way to the first tee to warm up and as I hit a few balls, my brother said, “What’s with the Jim Furyk swing,” after watching me duck hook yet another ball.  I thought he was kidding and asked for more detail.  As he replicated what I was doing, I had to resist laughing because it looked so comically ridiculous and my swing was at stake after all, but I got a bit of a sinking feeling as I realized what was happening.

One of the biggest things I had worked on with my pro last year was keeping from taking the club way too far to the inside to start the swing.  That led to me getting “stuck” and hitting – you guessed it – duck hooks.

I was making great progress last year and had the problem mostly beat.  Regular readers will remember that I injured my knee at the height of my re-tooling process and was mostly done for the season.  I’ve gotten in a handful of rounds in the late fall and winter, but basically had to put my work on hold for the past six months.

As my brother pointed out my wacky swing move, it became apparent that I was correctly moving the club more down the line to start the swing, but it was getting way too upright and then I was re-routing WAY inside to start the downswing.

I was getting stuck with the 6-iron and coming from too far inside and shutting the face down.  I’m guessing he noticed my wacky move and didn’t mention it because he assumed that was just a normal bad swing that he sees dozens of times each week.

I took a few practice swings to try and feel what my pro and I worked on last year, and I actually got that good on-plane feeling on my last few range balls, but there was no way I could take it to the course and as I expected, I suffered out there with my irons.  Most amusing was the fact that I was bombing my drives down the center, duck hooking my second shots, and then because I worked on chipping and putting for an hour or two the day before, I was recovering well to save a number of pars.

My big mistake was trying to get fitted on the tail end of winter.  Normally, it’s not an issue because the swings we have grooved will return quickly.  In my case, though, because I was in the middle of a swing change when I got hurt, I was in an unstable spot.  It’s somewhat natural that my swing could go either way in the few playing sessions I managed to find during the winter.

Buck and I agreed that the best course of action is to give it a month or so and try to get myself into in-season form so that we can get a useful handle on my game.  So, the club fitting is on-hold for now, until probably mid-April.  I’m not going to go back until I’ve had the chance to work with my pro and to get the fix grooved this time.

What a weekend.