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Get fitted for Titleist and Cobra
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Get fitted for Titleist and Cobra
Two new fitting centres in Scotland and Ireland

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Have you had clubs fitted? Tell us your club-fitting experiences - the good, the bad and the ugly.
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Part1....

Three weeks ago I visited Titleists (well Acushnets really) Custom fit facility at Brampton Park Golf Club to be custom fit for a set of irons.

Arriving at BPGC a sign indicating the custom fit facility directs you down a gravel path towards an unlikely looking building that is actually the driving range. Its only a small range...maybe 8 to 10 bays (I didnt actually look!!) and your confidence isnt really inspired by first impressions. Especially when you walk past the set of maybe half a dozen poorly maintained artificial mats that given the contours in them look like theyve been just placed straight upon the grass.

No matter really....I wasnt intending using the range facilities!!!

The Acushnet Custom fit facility consists of two bays physically divided from the main range bays in which reside a couple of launch monitors, a plethora of other gizmos and obviously a huge range of Cobra and Titleist gear from Drivers to Wedges, utilising a "quick-lock" style of facility to enable shafts and heads to be swapped around quickly.

After talking briefly with my fitter about my game and what I was looking to achieve and why i'd decided to get fitted (see linked thread above) I just started warming up with my own 6 iron.

When warmed up, some impact tape was added to the sole and face of my club and a few shots later the clubfitter had discovered something that I could have told him without having to hit the last half a dozen balls....impact position lowish on the face and towards the toe of the club. Lie angle was pretty much OK.

He handed me a ZB 6 iron with the same S300 shaft and repeated the test with much the same result...despite the impact being a bit "toey" i was still hitting the ball with consistent results.

We swapped shafts for one half an inch longer and did it again. With identical results, except for the sole marks were slightly closer to the heel. A quick swap to the shorter shaft and then back to the longer one demonstrated identical impact positions...my swing/stance was effortlessly adjusting itself to cope with the different length shaft and I delivered the clubhead consistently back to the ball at the same point.

Still in all cases the ball sailed away into the blue sky on a consistent line and trajectory.

Without worrying too much about the actual club length we then moved on to trying various shafts in the ZB head. I dont know all of the shafts i tried (was trying not to prejudice myself before hitting the ball) but do know that the S300 delivered a good level of accuracy with a slightly low trajectory, the R300 lost a touch of accuracy over the S but gained a touch of launch and the Nippon NSPro 100 (stiff?) delivered sod all in the way of consistency and a very high ball flight.

On we went...swapping shafts around, just hitting balls and watching the ball flight and me commenting on feel...eliminating shafts as we went slowly narrowing down the choices.

 cont.....

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Eventually the best feel/flight/accuracy combination was felt to be delivered by the Dynamic Gold High Launch S300 shaft. After re applying some lie tape we saw the impact marks were slightyl towards the toe end so decided that a 1* upright lie angle on the clubhead was required. A bash with a suitable clubhead saw the impact marks move back towards the centre of the sole confirmed the choice of 1* upright. A quick check as to how my fingers sat on the grip and how they touched as they wrapped around the grip delivered a "standard size" grip conclusion. I chose Lamkin Crosslines as the grip.

And that was that.

No fancy launch monitors, no measurement of Wrist/Fingertip to Floor distances, no swing speed measurement (though we did get the meter out for a few shots to check I was consistent in that respect) no nothing. All done by hitting shots, watching ball flight and me giving feedback about feel.

No what I expected...but it delivered the result.

Then, given that this had taken all of....40 minutes...I was given the opportunity to have a fitting for wedges (I'd only gone for an iron fitting)...I hit a variety of wedges of different materials, bounces etc and the conclusion was that (and this is something I could have told them without the need for a fitting) my diggy sort of wedge style necessitated wedges with a reasonably high bounce. Std length and lie angle for the wedges was quite sufficient and I preferred the feel of the Vokey Oil Can finish....was noticeably softer than anything else on offer.

So, that killed another 10 minutes.

A quick phone call through to the factory in St.Ives confirmed they had all the necessary bits to build on the day, so the order was placed...

ZB Forged 4-PW, DG High Launch S300, 1* upright, standard length, Lamkin Crosslines std grip size.

A quick phone call to my local dealer who'd arranged my fitting and my credit card was significantly lighter!!! Four hours later I was able to collect my newly built clubs after completing a tour of the Titleist factory and later on that evening I shot a 72 with my first outing with the new bats. Subsequent rounds have reinforced my belief that getting custom fitted was a highly beneficial thing to do.
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Great post - hope the love affair is still going strong
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tried to get on the new place at kingsacre 1 week ago, the guys had apparently buggered off early so were not available!

i tried to book in advance messages left on answer servie, went up anyway as the fitters were hard to get hold of just in case there was a slot and they had ignored phonecalls for some more pressing engagement.

meant to be open until 5pm during the week, well and truely locked up at around 330pm

that is my experience - i go to kingsacre a lot and was happy to pay the cash to get on the machine. 

never mind feel better now after sharing.

Edited: 08/08/08 15:03
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Great stuff Nick, but I think quoting your score was a bit unecessary!

(Yer bugger!)

O'course you'll do us the favour of using your old irons at the next GM day won't you...

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