Clubfitting

aster its a Flightscope X2 the last time I was there

judosean2005 wrote: »

I was up there yesterday. Was a great experience.
Id recommend it to anyone who wants to improve.

I am very much still a beginner,Been playing for about 2 years or less.

Recommended a Nice set of Cobras S3.
and a Ping k15 Driver.

Quite expensive for everythign so i might get irons first.

Sean

Regarding the bold bit, why do you think its going to help you improve?
I'd wait a couple of months and see if you notice something.
I'd be pretty confident that as a beginner you are far cheaper ways to improve your scores.

Well I can only go by my own experience. Almost immediately I dropped from 13 to 8 after the fitting. As I mentioned earlier due mainly to bad shots being less punishing. I had a poor slice which improved straight away with the new clubs.
Since then I worked on the slice and now hit a draw. Handicap has dropped 8 to 5 this summer, using the same clubs

Not too sure how they adjusted things. Different shafts is all I know about. Couldn't tell you anything about length, loft lie etc.

The drop in handicap couldn't be down to clubs alone. I've practiced hard as well to get there but having the right clubs help to make the practice more beneficial.

Not sure what I'd be like with off the shelf clubs. I have Nippon shafts in my irons, don't see many clubs with those as standard so that could be a difference to begin with

J6P wrote: »

Went to Foregolf this time last year.

Got 3 wood/Hybrid/Irons and Wedges reshafted

I'm lethal with the Irons but the shafts in the rest have since been changed as they felt completely wrong and were in no way consistant. (1 h/c)

Couldn't afford to go back for a refit so just chopping and changing now till i find whats right in my woods/wedges.

Hoping to get custom fitted later this year either in Foregolf or elsewhere. Regarding wedges above, did they recommend much different shafts in your wedges to those in your irons? I would have thought the shafts in your wedges would have been very similar to your irons with perhaps more flex in a lob wedge since you'd be unlikely to hit that 100%.

Heard foregolf have got the new aldila magnum shafts to test and in some cases the distance increase on drivers & fairway woods has been huge. Meant to be one of the best shafts to come along with quite a bit.
Anyone here got a chance to try that shaft yet?

dines08 wrote: »

Foregolf's newsletter claims up to 49 yard gains off the tee but outlines the shaft is only suited to certain players. It's ultra lightweight

good point dines and only certain heads suit too so the chance of upgrading your current driver- faiway might not be viable?

Mr. Larson wrote: »

My apologies if this is a thread-hijack but it definitely doesn't warrant its own thread. Looking for some feedback/advice.

I have a set of Ping G10 irons, orange dot, which I just bought off the shelf 4/5 years back. At the time I was off 18 & wanted something very forgiving that promoted a high ball-flight.

The Orange Dot irons are generally for shorter players or players with very low hands as they are about 2.25° flat. I'm average height 5'10. It was clearly a mistake going with orange dot, I was flogged them at a golf store even though the club I tested at the range was a black dot. I asked the assistant who said "We've no black left, if you want you can go ahead with the orange, it shouldn't make too much difference at your level".

I suppose he was right as I was off 18. I've had a few lessons over that period and each pro has raised eyebrows at the lie of the clubs. I'm not a hugely technical player but I think I have a tendency to keep my hands low and bend over a good deal to compensate for the lie of the orange dot clubs.

My next move is a custom-fit. I've managed to get down to 8 now with these clubs but I want to make sure I kick on and keep improving. Would there be much benefit in having the current set of Ping G10's I have checked to see if getting them re-shafted and/or have the lie changed would help me improve? Or would that be pointless and would it be better to just bite the bullet and get a completely new set that suit my current level?

Sorry if this is a bit long winded... appreciate any advice/recommendations. I'm clueless.

Given the improvement you've made, I think it would be worth your while going to Foregolf first. It's a big step to move away from the irons that you've used while losing 10 shots.

I'm similar height and play with 7 year old Taylormade irons that are 2 degrees flat. I had no idea they weren't standard as I'd bought them off the shelf.

When I tried different irons in Foregolf I couldn't see much difference and they told me that there wouldn't be any significant benefit in changing. If they tell you they are too flat you can always send them back to ping at that stage.

With my driver and 3 wood, I could see the diiference straight away in what they recommended and after 9 months playing with the reshafted clubs, I'm very happy with the change. If you go there, go through the whole bag and get your money's worth.

Mr. Larson wrote: »

I've decided I am going in the New Year for a new set. I have a voucher for 6 * 30 minute lessons so might get 3 either side of my custom fit.

i wonder if it's better to get lessons before or afterwards, i can think or arguments for both so maybe splitting them is the correct idea...
any opinions either way?

I suppose it depends on how drastic the swing changes are doesn't it. If you're completely rebuilding a swing, its probably pointless to get a fit before lessons.

But if you're just looking to treak things then there shouldn't be any major impact.

I know myself that if I had gotten a fit 3 years ago, pre the lessons I've had, then it would be a completely different set of golf clubs in my hands now.

My own experience. Warning: Long post.

I've been toying with the idea of getting custom fitted for irons for the past year since my existing set which I got second hand in the mid 90s were well due a replacement. As an incentive I vowed I'd wait until I got to single figures in handicap so that my swing was somewhat repeatable and that the custom fitting might be of added benefit. I'm currently playing of 8 having taken up the game two years ago after a long absence from an occasional game in my junior days.

With the season finished and my goal achieved I booked myself into Foregolf 4 weeks ago for an an iron fitting with Derek Murray and overall it’s very informative and a great experience. They’ve an impressive set-up out at Killeen Castle and Derek himself was really sound answering a whole myriad of questions and concerns with the fitting session itself going way overtime as a result. Since I was only concerned with irons he measured my own for length, weight, loft, lie angle and then noted the shaft, flex and grip in his setup for a later comparison. All the iron fittings are worked off a 6 iron so I hit a number of shots with mine on the Flightscope II monitor where it records swing speed, ball speed, spin, attack angle and a number of other measurements. Using impact tape on the face of the club I then hit a few more shots to check the dispersion of the strikes and then it was onto trying to determine the most suitable club/shaft combination.

From the above measurements he can narrow down the list of suitable shafts considerably so it’s onto selecting a desirable head. With probably 100 different 6 iron heads on display from all the main manufactures it helps to have an idea of what you’d like to try. I’d a pre-requisite of having a forged club from a manufacturer that also produced a 2 iron and having previously tried a few demo clubs at the Kinsealy driving range had narrowed my search considerably. I was also interested in creating a combo set with the long irons in cavity back and the mid/short irons in muscle back so was interested to see how flexible Foregolf could be on that front.

Once we’d picked out a few heads to try it was down to narrowing the selection of suitable shafts in terms of the different characteristics on offer from the various shaft manufacturers and weighing these up versus the weight and flex options available. On the day I probably hit 10 different shaft combinations on the Flightscore II monitor with various different results in terms of launch angle and spin rate but Derek was also interested in the feedback I was getting from the club in terms of feel and weight dispersion before advising on the outcome. Based on the heads we focused on, mix of Titleist CBs and MBs or TaylorMade MCs and MBs he said there was no difference in terms of the performance between the heads and the ultimate choice was purely down to aesthetics and budget with the Titleist being marginally more expensive. After that he checked for length and lie angles and then went through various grip options both in terms of thickness and feel.

At no stage throughout the fitting did I feel it was a sales pitch towards buying new clubs or a particular brand of club but what it did show and quite convincingly is that the shafts in my existing clubs were not optimal. The heads themselves were also over 1 degree flat which wasn't ideal (I was surprised with this as had always thought them to be standard). I had always intended on buying new clubs (although perhaps not from Foregolf) rather than reshafting my existing old set but that could have been an option also if I had wished to discuss. Concerns I did have before the fitting was that Foregolf didn’t provide the specs from your fitting without purchase and also that their prices incurred a large premium to compensate for their custom build and recalibration of each individual club head.

In terms of spec sheets and options I was given a printout of the different iron suggestions (number and make of clubs and where I wanted to make the split between CB and MB) along with the make of shaft and type of grip and the resultant price for each. The printout didn’t have the flex of shaft, length or lie angle or any of the details from Flightscope II which were revealed on screen during the fitting, apparently most of these would be included on your built sheet and available upon collection of purchased clubs.

Prior to the fitting I had researched the pricing of the above clubs both in the large chain stores and online and knew that a set including the now unconventional 3 iron along with a 2 iron was quite expensive. As such when given the spec sheet from Foregolf I was therefore quietly surprised that Foregolf’s prices were somewhat competitive. Following the fitting the nearest spec and best price I could get to the desired set was online from GolfStoreEurope without the flexibility of a predefined combo set of CB and MB irons. Ideally I would have liked to utilise some vouchers I had in McGuirks to purchase the irons but since I didn’t know the flex, lie angle and length of the clubs I would also have had to book a fitting there and even at that there was no guarantee they could build a combo set of clubs incorporating a 2 iron ignoring the reputation ForeGolf had in hand building clubs.

Anyway I rang Derek a couple of times following the fitting with additional questions and pushed him to see what he could do with TaylorMade in terms of sweetening the deal. When he got back to me he advised he was initially pushing them to include two wedges but since he could only get them to agree to include one he then pushed them on price instead and I was happy with the chosen route. The price worked out cheaper than from GolfStoreEurope so we agreed a final price for the irons upon which I then paid a deposit of €250 with the balance payable upon collection.

Less than 10 days after placing my order I got a phone call to say my irons were ready for collection. I collected them last week, TaylorMade MC in 2-4 iron and TaylorMade MB in 5-PW, 9 irons in all with TT DynamicGold Lite X100 shafts and 1/4" longer than standard. Have only played a few holes with them so far and hit a couple of buckets of balls on the range as all this frost is making things difficult but hopefully they'll give me the consistency I require to progress to an aspiring category 1 golfer next year.

Thanks for reading and hope the above is of some benefit to those sitting on the fence regarding custom fitting. Derek himself advised there was no need to wait to become a single figure golfer and that a custom fit earlier in one's progression might assist and ease development.
Despite reading all the positive reviews on here the experience itself far outweighed my expectations and I couldn't fault a single aspect of Foregolf's customer service from my initial phone call to final collection of the clubs. They really are an asset to the Irish golfing scene.

Thanks Doc, you might have cost me a few quid next year but great post all the same!

Got a call today to say that they are ready, gonna collect them tomorrow, can't wait for Sunday morning game.

I set a target of getting to 9 from 14 this year, I have 3 games left to do it, need to loose 1.8. Here's hoping the new clubs work and work quickly.

Dr_Colossus wrote: »

Just check that they're open before travelling out, I got the impression they were only open Mon to Fri. Either way enjoy the new sticks.

Good thinking, I will call them 1st thing