The Emperor's Old Clothes
 

The "modern era" of club fitting is ten years old. That is about the time that sophisticated electronics became affordable and reliable. That's when it became possible to measure performance metrics of golf clubs, compare one club to another and choose the best one - for the right reasons.

Ever since the beginning, the Holy Grail for club fitting has been the idea that you could take a couple of swings with a golf club, send the data to a computer, press a button and "voila!" come up with an automatic recommendation of the best club for your swing.

That's a great business model. Quick, efficient, profitable. What's the matter with that?

There's only one problem: It doesn't work.

 

 The Ultimate Club Fitting
 

My article for the August issue of Golf Today Magazine goes into depth about how Tour Players get their clubs fitted. It also describes a very committed father- son amateur team that visited the Golf Lab - on a mission from Chicago and stayed for three days.

Here's a link to that article: August Golf Today Magazine Article

 

 The Golf Lab Method
 

The Golf Lab has all of the electronic gizmos utilized by any advanced fitting facility in the world. And most important, we supplement the electronic data with a good eye, personal service and precision club building.

We get to know your game and your swing with our Achiever Launch monitor. That gives us a good starting point to discuss your game and your goals. We want to know your swing speed, but that's a basic tidbit. Much more important is your swing path, face angle at impact, trajectory and center contact. That gives a very good view of the player who will be using the custom clubs.

The second step is to find out the efficiency of your swing. Our Max Out Shaft Max measures how you bend the shaft during your swing and plots that against a timeline. The Shaft Max graphs your acceleration. With that information we can begin to choose shaft weight, shaft flex and the overall flex profile of the shaft.

The final test is to find out how the ball spins off your driver. There is a perfect launch angle and spin rate for every ball speed. We measure your "launch ballistics" and compare your performance against "theoretical perfection". If you are losing distance, we can tell you exactly how much.

That's what most shops would call a "professional club fitting". But we don't stop there.

That's because we know that there will never be one shaft or one head style that we can pick out that will be perfect for you.

In driver shafts alone, there are over 2000 models. With all of our testing and analysis, we might be able to narrow the "likely subjects" down to ten or twenty models. From there, the only way you will find out what's best for you is to take the actual club to the range or to your course and find out by hitting balls. There is simply no substitute for hands-on experience.

With drivers, we make that possible with our Nickent interchangeable shaft system. We have over 100 different shaft models, most in multiple weights and flexes in that system. There is no better way to KNOW how a certain shaft will fit your game than to hit it. If you want to KNOW how two shafts compare - take them out and hit them. In the end, it's all about feel and ball flight.

The same goes for irons. We have over 100 premium iron demos set up with every likely shaft in every flex. If we don't have the one we think is right, we go to the back room and build it for you. There is no guesswork. If you buy a custom golf club from the Golf Lab, you will know exactly what you are getting.

 

 The Value of Experience
 

If you book your fitting appointment at the Golf Lab, you will be working with one of the most professional "teams" in the business.

Leith Anderson has spent the last eight years, full time, at the Golf Lab working with over 5000 clients. A low single digit player and competitor he has a great understanding of the golf swing and how clubs can help a player improve his ball striking.

Leith is also one of the "most connected" club fitters in the world. In the last eight years he has published over 80 articles on club fitting and club making. They are all archived on the Golf Lab website: www.calgolftech.co m. Leith is the second most prolific author on custom club fitting in the world. Only Tom Wishon has written more.

Your fitting is only as good as the clubs that are custom built to match. Clint Smith is the second most experienced club builder in the California. (We'll let you guess who's first.) He is meticulous. Every club in your bag will be hand built and completely "blueprinted".

That's the major defect with "mass produced fitting". You can get all the data you want but your clubs still come off an assembly line - "Regular", "Stiff" or "Extra Stiff". You might as well say: "Chocolate", "Vanilla" or "Strawberry".

 

 The Ultimate Offer
 

For Golf Lab "Members Only" we're making a good deal even better. Our $125 Driver Fitting includes testing our recommendations at the range. The "unlimited shaft fitting" - that's as many shafts as you want for as many days as you want is normally a $75 option. "Members Only" will get unlimited shaft fitting for no extra charge.

While you're at it, you might as well get a little "free distance". The Balance-Certified Stabilizer is a little bit of magic. Installed in your driver, it will increase ball speed by 2-3 MPH - that's up to ten yards of carry distance. Better yet, the consistency of your swing path, face angle at impact and trajectory will improve. You will hit a higher percentage of your drives on the center of the clubface. We'll include your "driver optimization" for no extra charge as well.

All of our fittings include giving our customers complete copies of all of the reports. We've revamped our filing system so we now have copies of all reports in our files. For clients who have an earlier fitting, but would like an update, we'll do that for half of our normal fee.

Book your appointment today. We need the business. If you have friends who might be interested, please forward this email to them.