What A Club Fitting Does Not Do!

I purchased a couple of the grips you recommend. Which clubs do you suggest I try them?

I know from having a fitting it does not correct the improper execution of the PPGS swing or any other swing. Doc is right on the money with this one just like all his videos. In my humble opinion.

I'm not going to assume anything here and so I'm going to state what has come before me about grips. First, I am not the one that has recommended any grips. I don't do that without fitting someone. Secondly, if you have purchased some grips to try, then pick your favorite clubs and try them on those.

Doc, I recently bought a new set of clubs and thought I got them fit to me at the golf store but after hitting them for about 3 months I realized they were all wrong, I was hitting them 2 to 3 clubs less than my old clubs. So I went to a very good club fitter and found that the new clubs were way to heavy and the shafts were totally different than my old clubs so the gentleman in question redid my clubs to the proper weight and length along with the proper shaft and now I hit them the proper distance. I no longer loose distance with my clubs and hit the ball right down the center of the fairway. You are totally correct that new clubs will not by themselve fix your game you still have to fix your swing faults and practice but having your clubs fit to you make it a lot easier to hit the ball properly. You hit the nail right on the head with your video. Enjoy your videos.

I just have to tell you all my story. I decided to take a bus from London Ontario Canada to Columbus SC to have my clubs checked over by Doc to see if they were correct for me. We don't have any club fitters in our area let alone someone certified in PPGS fitting. One bus from Detroit (with my clubs on it), all the way to Charlotte (where the bus broke down). They made us wait inside the terminal while they transferred everything to another bus. Just to set this story up ... I would arrive about 6pm. the day before my 11am fitting with Doc . There was a bus going back at 2pm the same day as my fitting, so I booked it. When we arrived in Columbus ... NO CLUBS!! A frantic call back to the Charlotte bus depot ... no, no clubs here. I left my hotel number and checkout time and Doc's number with the bus depot attendant. I was told that there wouldn't be another bus until 10:30 the next day (one half hour before my fitting time). No call came so I took a cab to Doc's place and told him my situation. We decided to do a fitting as if I was going to buy all knew clubs. It started well and then frustration about the possible loss of my clubs started setting in and I couldn't hit anything proper after that. Doc was very patient with me. He kept my fitting stats for a few days giving me a chance to go back home and decide what to do. I arrived back at the bus depot at 1:30pm and low and behold what was waiting for me...MY CLUBS. The attendant ( a new one) had been phoning my home in Canada rather than the hotel where I was staying. At least I had my clubs back but the entire trip was ruined. I wrote a long letter to Greyhound asking for a refund of my trip cost including hotel cost. Their response was that " they were not responsible for the depot attendants who worked there" and they hoped that my experience would not hinder me from travelling with them again!!! After I pealed myself off of the ceiling!!!..... I appealed the decision ... one year later have not heard a word. I can now laugh about it. The good news is that I decided to have Doc build me a driver and 2 hybrids. They are fantastic!! That's my story and I hope someone got a bit of a chuckle out of it.
Tom

Doc: Thanks so much for doing this video - it is a true classic! One of the guys that plays in our senior league thinks that he can "buy" a great golf game. He is always buying/trying different clubs, but his game, well, it never, ever gets any better. And of course, it is always the clubs' fault. I'm sending him this video - hopefully he'll get the idea, get a good fitting, and realize he needs to make some swing adjustments to compliment his new arrows. Again, a GREAT video!!! R2

Doc

Great points, as usual. As my dad used to say, "Some people will complain, even if you hang them with a brand new piece of rope." Clubs that fit us make it possible to play better golf, they don't make us play better golf. As the doctor was putting a cast on my arm, I asked him if I would be able to play the guitar once my arm was well. He said of course I could. I said that was incredible, because I could not play it before I broke my arm. Same principal applies with fitted golf clubs.

I had a guy get all ticked off a while back because I told him I would probably spend an hour to an hour and a half doing a fitting for him. He told me that he had a guy who would do the fitting in half an hour. I told him to go use that guy, because if he can do a fitting averaging 3 minutes per club, he must be a better fitter than me. The guy came back to see me the next week and had me do the fitting. The other "fitter" had him hit 2 shots with the 5 iron, 2 shots with the 9 iron, and 1 shot with the driver. All the shots went fairly straight. All the shots, except the driver, were hit off the grass on the driving range, without a lie board or monitor. The "fitter" then told him that the clubs fit him just fine, and they were done. Some times in life, you really do get what you pay for. Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it.

You also brought up a great point about the trade off of distance for accuracy. When I got my new Tit 913 driver, it came out of the box at 46". I hit 10 drives with it several times. I cut it down 1/2" and hit it several more times. I did that every 1/2" until I got down to 44". In the end, I lost on average a little over 4 yards. The trade off was I hit almost 90% of my fairways, and the other 10% are usually just out onto the first cut. I also used blue tape on the face at each length for several shots. At 44" the tape shows an oval about a ball and a half wide in the middle of the face. At 46" it looked like the blue tape had a bad case of the measles. My club head speed went down a bit with the shorter driver. But, hitting the ball on or around the sweet spot made up for most of it. Every 1/4" we miss the sweet spot steals a lot of power transmitted to the ball. And, hitting the ball all over the face leaves us guessing where the ball will go.

I will give up 10 yard to be in the fairway or in play every time. For me, that choice is a no brainer.

Thanks for the house call Doc.

I will take two Aleves, and call you in the morning,
Dick

Surge Nation

I have more great news. We just finished the regional tournament for the boys. 2 of our boys are going to the state finals. They will be playing next week.

So, our little school out in the sticks has 1 girl and 2 boys going to state.

I got the chance to work with the boys today on their short game. They were flipping their wrists when chipping around the green. They were doing ok, but of course were having a consistency problem. I showed them how our short game wizard, Kenny, teaches it. In about a half hour they had it down pat. The coach could not believe how quickly they picked it up. He said he had tried to explain it to them, but they could not seem to "get it." I asked him if he had tried to show them how to do it right, and he said no, because the short game is not his strong suit. He also gave his stamp of approval for me to work with the kids during the off season, and to have the 7th and 8th graders come practice with us so we can have them ready "before" they show up as freshmen.

I am loving it, so far. I will keep you posted on how it goes.

Dick

I had Doc build me a driver. I have really started paying attention to my performance and what I need to do to get a correct swing. When I do my part, I have noticed I can aim at specific points and the ball goes there. This is my 3rd summer using the PPGS and I think I have finally got through my head about swinging within my ability and not trying to overswing and kill every shot.

I am not athletically gifted, so I have to work at what little I can accomplish. I can't hit long drives, but I have played rounds where I hit every fairway. I also miss a few sometimes, but the misses are real close. I am having more fun playing golf now than I have had since I started in 1995.

I like the driver Doc built me for another reason. It has a black metal face and I always clean it after every shot because when I hit my ball, it leaves a faint rubber print where the ball contacted the face. I love how many times it is right in the middle of the face.

I play in a seniors dogfight 2-3 times a week. We have a $5.00 bet for each game and we use a modified Stableford scoring system and are scored based on our handicap. The last 4 rounds I placed in the money 3 times and won first once so I have added over $50.00 to my little stash of bet money. As my handicap goes down I will give some back but I have never had so much fun being able to win once in a while.

**NOTE** to Doc: I haven't forgot you, I have some things in the works right now that if they succeed, I will be up to see you for the new set of the rest of my clubs.

Surge and Kenny have helped my game, Doc has given me good arrows. It just doesn't get any better.

Glad to hear about your students going to state Dick. Please keep us posted on their progress. You know we will all be pulling for them.

Heading out now for my Thur morn 9 hole league. We usually play an extra 9 after to get the full 18 in. I'm hoping to play better today than I did yesterday, nuff said about that. Short game is improving though, so I'm expecting some lower scores soon.

My question is about driver lenght If from my wrist to the floor is 33 1?2 inches as a general rule how long should my driver be? I am in Michigan and do not have a PPGS fitter close to me. Can't get a new driver fit to me at the moment so I am wondering how much to choke up on my current driver. Driver is a taylor made R9 Forty Five Inches. Thank You In Advance

Hello Doc, I listened with great interest to your video. You mentioned that you built a set of clubs for someone who had a less than proper golf swing and he was unhappy with the results. My questions are these: do you build a set based on the customers present swing, on an expected improvement on their respective swing, or some other criteria? It seems to me that in the first part, I don't care what kind of clubs you build for a less than acceptable golf swing, it won't help, so why bother? As for the second part, if, and, unless the golf swing improves, how do you know how the swing will ultimately end up, in which case the clubs you just built will be improper based on the new, and improving golf swing. It seems logical to this guy that it would have been better if the golfer with the improper swing was advised to receive golf swing instruction and then build the clubs. I've played with golfers who went out and spent thousands on clubs, but they couldn't hit them because of their swing flaws, thinking that the equipment was going to be the answer. And, of course, they weren't properly fitted. But why bother when they had all sorts of swing flaws. They all should spend their cash on lessons, develop a proper swing with the proper mechanics, and then get fitted. It seems to me that you did a disservice to the the golfer you built clubs for. I've been a loyal watcher, student, and disciple of Don and his swing theories and lessons, as it's done wonders for me. I also appreciate the videos and the information that you provide to us viewers, but this video sort of left me confused as to why you'd build a set of clubs to someone you knew it wouldn't help. Just an observation.

First, fitters don't fit to a type of swing or the ability of the swing. Let's go back to the analogy of the archer and the arrows. Having crooked arrows will pretty much ensure failure but straight arrows does not ensure success. You still have to have skill and whether the arrows are straight has nothing to do with how the archer shoots them. So, the type of swing or the skill level has little to do with a fitting and the end resulting clubs. The dynamics of the swing that are measurable are there regardless of the skill level. Now, you say that if the swing is so bad that proper equipment is of no use. How is that? What if the swing is bad due to clubs that are too long, too heavy, too stiff, too flat, too whatever and the clubs have caused the player to have to compensate for them? Ok, what if they clubs don't make the player make compensatory changes in order to hit the clubs? Then, chances are putting him in proper equipment won't make a difference anyway and he should probably take up another sport. Ok, golf isn't for everyone, and fitting may not be for them. But, I can say without batting an eye, it's hard to play your best golf with equipment that doesn't fit, period. Now, when I fit and build equipment for a player, how am I to know at that point whether or not he will improve, seek to improve, or just what will happen? I think you have done me a bit of an injustice by making a statement that I would build a set of clubs for someone knowing it wouldn't help. In fact, I have seem people that I told I thought it would be better if they didn't get new clubs. I hope this clears up the confusion.

Hi Doc,
> I visited you a couple of years ago for a fitting. My experience and your explanation of what a fitting is not resonates. It would seem that a fitting might be a waste of time if the swing
> flaws are such that it wouldn't make much difference what clubs were used. The corollary is that if the swing is solid and repeatable just about any set of clubs would produce acceptable results, though not necessarily the optimum. From this I would conclude that a set of fitted clubs would make sense if, and only if, swing instructions were part of the fitting process. Otherwise ingrained bad habits would continue and results would negate any benefit from the new equipment. So, the question becomes a chicken/egg conundrum; swing instructions first or a change of equipment first. I would venture that the answer might be swing instructions and as the swing improves changes in equipment would follow and the process repeated for as long as improvement is obtained and further tweaking indicated. What say you?
> Regards,
> Gerry Roelants
> PS. You are right! The KBS driver you built for me may produce less distance, but the dispersion is tighter and the flight is a more consistent draw. However, I found that I can swing a 3 wood with pretty much the same results as far as dispersion and distance.

A very good video on a subject that was long over due. For years the marketing people have told us all we have to do is use their product and we will be more popular, richer or a better golfer.
I was one of those people that thought a fitting would give me a better golf game-better equipment maybe, but not necessarily a better game.
So I was dissapointed when I got my new clubs and they did not perform the way I expected.
I think it was Lee Trevino that said "it is not the arrow ,it is the Indian" so very true.
A fine video Long Overdue.

Doc:
Great job as always. Just plain ol common sense. Surge: Great job with your daily videos. The one about firm wrist was a big help - I have used that as my swing thought the last two times out and have really hit it well. DJ - keep on working hard, the results will come.
Jerry - Warren MI

Once again I would like to thank Doc Griffin for travelling "down under" last year and providing me with the first proper fitting session. I am hitting the ball more consistently now as I have "unlearned" some bad compensatory habits and I am happy that I have the right tools for the job. A bad tradesman blames their tools but a good tradesman uses the appropriate tool for the job which then allows them to become a better tradesman. I do not understand the counter argument.