Golf Club Fitting Tips

Golf is Hard TV The golf show for the rest of us www.golfishardtv.com Golf is Hard TV #71 Club Fitter Insights Mark: Welcome back to Golf is Hard TV the golf show for the rest of us. The internet’s most passionate golf show, we’re here again with Ron Hihoff, got it right again. Ron: I got it. Two-for-two. Mark: Two-for-two. I’m your host Mark and Ron is a Nike Club Fitter, we’ve been talking about club fitting. What are some of the characteristics of you know that you look for that all end up having applied to my club fitting in terms of just club selection and what brand maybe I use and differences there? Ron: Yeah I club fit in several different companies Mark, Nike is one and tie the list you know Cobra, Callaway, and PING and they all have different kind of ways of fitting but the characteristics to getting back to your point was like you know outdoor fitting I think is really important, nothing against the indoor guys. Mark: Yeah. Ron: We know we’re in the northeast, we know we’re in the snow belt this is fantastic and we all get a little bit nervous in sitting on the coach kit in fact over winter but it’s really important to observe ball flight and a day like today is probably prefect where there’s not a lot of wind. I can really observe there’s a couple of characteristics you want to be aware of launch angle and where the ball actually is launching of your club. Mark: Okay. Ron: You know I’m usually in Layman’s terms. Mark: Yeah please. Ron: In spin ratio, if the ball is spinning too much or not enough those are things, if it’s spinning too much you know and you’re probably jumping the ball too high in the air you’re losing some yards but it’s not getting up high enough your losing some yards so that’s very important so I think the most important thing and if we look at your club you just pick up any— these are marked clubs. This is a tailor made you know company, it’s a club, it’s a light metal regular which means it’s a regular flex. Kick point occurs, there’s a kick point or it was kick point what does that mean, low and high and mid. Kick point essentially occurs 10 inches from the ferrule or the hosel to about 10 inches up to shaft. Mark: Okay. Ron: If it’s a low kick point, the kick is going to occur there meaning your actually going to kick you’re going to manipulate the shaft at the point and the shaft will bend and then release. Mark: Okay. Ron: Now if that kick point is low, a low kick point means the ball is going to be high. It’s going to go high in the air. Mid, is mid and high is low since she’s the opposite. Mark: Okay, alright, you’ll find a plain or something. Ron: Exactly like golf you know you hit it down along the zone. Mark: So it’s basically it’s a little bit like a thing that joke when you say, you know you shoot like say 120. Ron: Yeah. Mark: And you go I got a lot of value for my— Ron: Sure, oh no question yeah, yeah I had 120 dollars to play that’s right, exactly. Mark: It’s like shot. Ron: But this is a great club and this is probably you know have you said you got videos years ago. Exactly where you probably should have been. Mark: Yeah. Ron: And that’s fantastic. What’s nice about this club is it does have— this is like a notch in here, this has helped you get the ball up in the air and that’s really, really important for a higher handicap. Let’s talk about lying? Mark: Yeah. Ron: I mean we talked a little bit about before on how you come in to the ball but how does that actually work, what I’ll do is I’ll set up what I normally do with our customers that come to me and say I want to get fit, I want to get better and I tell them— Mark: You got a new piece of equipment is mad isn’t it? Ron: Yeah, this is fantastic and the reason why I think this is so important is often times when hitters do fittings, they put their live board up higher than the ground itself, so now we’ve kind of essentially brought you up maybe a half an inch or an inch. Mark: Yeah. Ron: We want you to be exactly like real you know conditions. Mark: Yeah. So what does this thing tell you? Ron: Well this I going to tell you a couple of things and what I’m going to do is I’m going to show you exactly how we— what we would if we take the club, I like to tape the club, I like to tape— Mark: Is this the right hook. Ron: Yeah. Mark: Alright. Ron: Essentially you could use a 9 or a 7 would probably be right where we want to be but let’s just do this for times sake. Often times I put a mark here. I like to see exactly where you’re hitting the ball. Mark: Okay. Ron: If you’re hitting it too far in here that means the club is too long. If you’re hitting it too out there it means it’s too short so what we have to do is we have to figure out exactly where we are in the length of that. That’s one, number two would be is what I like to do is I like to put, if you’re not doing this then they’re probably not doing the right fitting. Mark: Okay, interesting. Ron: So you like to put this right on the bottom and hopefully it will stick, right here is your heel and here is your toe and what I do is I put it along those lines like that and what I’m going to ask the customer to do is I’m going to ask him to hit 3 or 4 balls off the live board. Mark: Okay. Ron: And what will do is that will show me exactly where you are. If you’re right in the middle, money in the bank, that’s is what— Mark: So that’s the whole where you showed me the live angle. Ron: Yeah and on this company’s like Nike or PING. They put, here’s negative 2F that means 2 degrees flat okay that means that if you’re 2 degrees flat here’s your club we put it right on this shaft or whatever shaft that you desire. This happens to be a riffle 5.0. This is like a regular like almost like an R300 and True Temper it’s a yeah, we’ll go over that too that’s something I think is very important. Mark: R300 and True Temper is what I need. Ron: Basically like a regular flex but getting back to this we’re going to talk about that. I asked you if you want to hit a couple of shots you’re more than welcome. Mark: Yeah I think we should, let’s take a look and we’ll see what happens. I got a True Temper R300, I don’t know. Cameraman: Regular is stiff, it’s regular. Mark: It’s regular. Okay good. Ron: So as in the interview processes we talked to before I already know this, I already kind of have this in my head, I kind of wear this out already. Cameraman: Yeah, so you just hit the ball. Huh? Ron: Just hit the ball like you would exactly do, just hit it off the turf. Mark: No warm-ups at all here. Ron: Okay, well you look good everything’s fine. Mark: Oops he touched the ball here we go. Alright. Ron: You got it. It stayed; sometimes it just doesn’t want to stay. Mark: Alright here we go. Ron: That’s pretty good right there. So let’s just say we hit 3 balls. Mark: Yeah, say I hit 3 balls. Cameraman: That’s a good shot right? Ron: Okay so basically he’s telling me he’s swing has changed. He’s out here that means and just so you know and he’s also right here. So basically what that is telling me is he’s kind of coming into the ball if this was straight he’s coming in like that. He’s coming in with the toe and club. Cameraman: That means I clubbed is what too? Ron: It’s basically too flat we need to bend it more upright. Now what we do we have bending tools here. What you do is you put it on the board. Cameraman: Yeah. Ron: I have a machine, a Mitchell Machine and we take it and we do that and what we would do is we would bend the club one way or another to get shots. Cameraman: Get a couple of balls and then? Ron: And then I did I get you back out here and often times if you bought a standard, standard set all the clubs are probably going to be bent at the same degree so I check them anyway. I go through and check them and make sure we’re not bending this you know 4 degrees, that’s another thing you want to make sure you’re not bending it too much a cast club can only really bend one or two degrees. Cameraman: Right. Okay that shot right there what was the effect on ball flight? Ron: I really liked his ball flight. Cameraman: Is that a where a good swing would that impact position? What should the ball have done? Ron: Well he lost it a little bit right. I would like to see the ball go a little more straight. So that was actually a very good swing, really nice tempo and that was exactly not a nine iron again, we usually fit the 7 or 6 that would perfect but he is losing his ball a little right. On turf conditions, you’re going to notice it even more because it is going to dig and he’s going to actually open the club face more at impact and he’s really going to push it right. Cameraman: Yeah fascinating, alright. Cameraman: So I guess one last point if you had no idea about club fitting whether or not that club fit then you start to adjust your swing because you would have thought you lost that ball right where you thought you made a bad swing and then you would have tried to fix your swing to accommodate the ball flight? Mike: Well I think that’s common I mean how often do you have guys who come in and play you know— they play a hook for example and they get fit— Ron: That is such a great point I’m glad you actually brought that up because that’s phenomenal that you said that because that’s exactly what happens and that’s all these lessons come into play. I hope we’d still do lessons but you know then exactly you make adjustments. Now you’re swing is going into outer, outer in and you’re not sure where you are and you’re kind of getting steep and your going, your so, yeah if you’re not fit properly those are some of the things that can happen. Mark: Right, so one of the question we’ll wrap this up so that if anybody come up say Ron I want to get club fit takes a couple of swings and you’re answer is you need lessons first, is that ever happens? Ron: Yeah it does. Yeah often times— Cameraman: Because things will change, right. Ron: Yeah I mean, well yeah I mean if you’re hitting grounders there’s not much I can do for you. Cameraman: Yeah. Ron: But I mean part of my job is to help you get the ball up and near a little bit so I do, do that as well. Cameraman: Yeah. Mark: Great so with that find your local club fitter, get lessons if you need lessons, talk to your local club pro, maybe you need both, new set, new lessons. Cameraman: If you’re local. Mark: That’s right come up— and make appointment through on, I appreciate the time? Ron: Thanks man I appreciate it. Mark: Thanks for watching Golf is Hard TV see you next time.