Want to improve your golf game? Get a FREE custom fitting with American Golf!

Golf lessons are without question the quickest way to get any good at this finicky sport, but the next best option is without doubt a custom fitting session especially at retail giant American Golf.

Why? Well, it's FREE for a start! 

While that is one very handy reason to even consider a custom fitting session in the first place, the biggest motive is playing with golf clubs that are best suited to your game can dramatically help you shoot lower scores and help you get that handicap down. 

Now we will come on to what we discovered in our own custom fitting session with American Golf shortly, but first we want to run through what you can expect from the very helpful and friendly American Golf team upon your arrival. 

One of the great things about American Golf is they have 90+ stores dotted around the United Kingdom and Ireland.

So chances are if you reading this feature and you fancy taking advantage of a free custom fitting session, there will be an American Golf store located not too far from you. 

After perusing American Golf's helpful store locator, we landed on its New Malden branch that just happens to be one of the brand's flagship stores.

Within two minutes of paying American Golf New Malden a visit, we discovered why it's become a favourite for not just golfers but families too.

On arrival, you are met by a giant Adventure Golf facility by the entrance. 

While we did consider the option of a quick 18 with a bunch of dinosaurs, we only had five minutes to spare so we opted for a coffee in the adjacent cafe instead.

We then strolled through the double doors and into the American Golf store, which was packed with just about every product to have launched this season.

The American Golf New Malden store also has a giant driving range with state-of-the-art technology on hand to help you dial in your practice sessions. 

But the main reason for our visit was to take full advantage of American Golf's Custom Fitting and learn more about its benefits.

Let's dive in... 

Why should I bother with a custom fitting in the first place? 

In short, to take your golf game to the next level and help you shoot lower scores. 

According to a recent stat, 90% of all golfers who are custom fit for their golf clubs will go on to reduce their handicap by at least 10%. 

That might not seem a lot to many of you reading this, but that figure is largely dependent on how seriously you take your golf in 2023. 

If you play off 28, for example, you can expect to reduce your handicap by at least 2.8 shots following a custom fitting. 

That would mean you are suddenly down to 25 without having really done a lot. 

Throw in some lessons with a PGA professional on top of that, alongside your newly custom-fitted clubs, and you could easily be looking at playing off 18 within the space of 12 months. 

But as we say, that largely depends on how seriously you take the game and how often you intend to play the sport to get better. 

If golf is a big part of your life, or you want it to become a big part of your life, a custom fitting really is a must to help you maximise your potential.

The key benefit of a custom fitting session, especially with the guys at American Golf, is that you will have your newly-fitted golf clubs perfectly matched to your measurements and overall game. 

No matter whether it's your driver, fairway wood, hybrid, irons, wedges or putter, American Golf's experienced custom fitting team will be able find the right club and dial it in to your game to help you get the best possible results, and fast. 

Every aspect of the custom fitting process is tailored to your game, and your game only.

It's not only your measurements that get taken into account, but also your vital golf shot data such as ball speed, spin rate, offline dispersion and launch angle. 

There is nothing worse than purchasing a new golf club straight off the rack or online - without having undergone a full custom fitting - and then stepping up on the 1st tee only to slice it OB! 

Buying a golf club that is not best suited to your game will leave you struggling to ever reach your full potential.

Please trust us on that one. Even our very own Equipment Editor Alex Lodge regularly makes this point to all of you in our weekly YouTube videos. 

Given a custom fitting with American Golf is free of charge, and takes less than half hour for one club, it really is a no brainer when you come to think about it. 

So what exactly happens at a custom fitting with American Golf? 

There is a six-part process when it comes to a custom fitting session at American Golf. 

1. Consultation

Once you meet your experienced and friendly PGA custom fitter at American Golf, you will be asked a number of simple questions about your golf game, your strengths, weakenesses and areas you wish to improve quickly. 

2. Measurement 

The custom fitter will then confirm your height and take a simple wrist-to-floor measurement to ensure the correct specifications of your golf clubs during the session. Playing the wrong length of golf clubs can have a huge impact on your game, just as we found out during our fitting, which you can read more about further down in this feature. 

3. Model Selection

You will then be recommended a number of golf clubs the custom fitter has picked out for you. This will not be set in stone though, as at the end of the day you need to be the one who is most comfortable about using that particular club. If you don't like the initial choice then the custom fitter will not want you to use it. You have to be happy with it as we say. Once you have decided on your golf club, the custom fitter will then work their magic to dial in that club to your swing and your golf game. To do this, you will be asked to hit a number of golf shots into a screen using a GCQuad launch monitor, and this will then give the custom fitter and yourself greater insight into your game. 

4. Shaft Selection

The fitter will then take you through a very important part of the custom fitting process - shaft selection. Using the latest shaft optimising software, the fitter will confirm the best shaft and flex that will maximise your distance, improve your accuracy, and even your spin rate and launch angle too. There will be a host of other data the fitter can look into for you as well. 

5. Final Specification 

The custom fitter will then confirm the final specs of your perfect golf club using the launch monitor. This will have analysed all of your ball speed numbers, your offline dispersion (accuracy) and launch angles to ensure the correct length, lie and loft of your custom fitted golf club. 

6. Grip

You then finish off the custom fitting process by being offered a range of different golf grips. This will be solely based on what feels best and most comfortable to you. The fitter will provide greater insight into the size and texture of grips that will likely work best for you, but again at this stage, it's very much personal preference as to which grip you want to have on your club(s). 

Your final specs will then be fired into American Golf's computer system and your custom fitted golf club(s) will be made exactly for you. 

Golfers can expect to receive their new club(s) within several weeks from the day of their custom fitting with American Golf. 

Scroll down to see how we got on...

GolfMagic's custom fitting experience at American Golf: 

GolfMagic received a full bag fitting at American Golf New Malden, and our fitter for the afternoon was custom fitting manager Shaun Feldon, who worked his magic on myself, a 14-handicap golfer. 

Shaun started the discussion by wanting to learn more about my golf game.

I told him I needed a lot more forgiveness off the tee, irons that were easier to launch in the air especially in the long irons, and a putter that behaved itself from close range. 

Let's dive in...

DRIVER

Driving has been a real weakness of my game for a while now and so Shaun was intent to sort out this issue for me. 

I told him in the consulation process that I'm never going to be able to hit Rory McIlroy distances out there and so accuracy has become much more important to me than chasing a long ball.

Within several minutes of watching me send three drives well right of my intended target with my current driver (a big fade right is a common miss of mine), Shaun wanted me to try something completely different. 

He first gave me a little swing tip, and he wanted to see less spine tilt in my golf swing. This little tip was going to help me stop my vicious fade to the right. Incredibly, it did. 

Shaun then wanted me to change my driver setup, and he wanted me to try a shorter length shaft compared to standard. 

He first handed me a shaft that was 1/2 inch shorter, and it honestly felt so much better after three strikes.

Drives were still a little bit right of my intended target but on the whole much straighter. They would certainly be in play rather than in the trees. 

Now feeling a lot more confident over the ball, Shaun then got me to try a club that was a full 1 inch shorter than standard. 

The driver suddenly felt so much more comfortable in my hands being an inch shorter than standard.

I guess that's fairly obvious when you think about it, but it's not something I had really given much consideration to in the past. 

After all with the driver, you typically just want to get up there and hit bombs... but as I say, fairways are more important to me. I'd much rather be in the short grass some 10-15 yards back than further up but chipping my second shot out the trees! 

Instead of drives going my usual 270 yards off the tee but more often than not wildly to the right, I was settling for average drives around the 260-yard mark but much straighter.

Once comfortable with the length of shaft, we tried a number of different driver heads and we eventually settled on the TaylorMade Stealth 2 Driver in 10.5 degrees as that was giving us the most consistent results. 

Shaun then flattened the lie of the Stealth 2 Driver and de-lofted it a little bit to help me dial in a slight fade off the tee, rather than the vicious fade I was experiecing at the start of the custom fitting session. 

We used a couple of different driver shafts to see if we could increase my distance a bit more, and my best results in terms of syncing offline dispersion with distance was achieved using an MCA Diamana S+ 60. 

Shaun and I considered this shaft to be the most stable and so we settled on that. 

One of the best aspects of the custom fitting process I found was being able to see groupings with each of the clubs or shafts being tested.

Shaun was able to do this by using different colours for each of the clubs so both of us could visually see the groupings of the shots in terms of offline dispersion and distance. A giant coloured circle would then round them all up so you could compare the data.

It very much helped paint a clearer picture in my head as to which clubs were really working best for me. 

FAIRWAY WOOD AND HYBRID

Suddenly content using a driver that was 1 inch shorter than standard, I was keen to use the exact same length in the 3-wood, which is typically a club I use most off the tee. 

After testing out a number of different fairway woods, I ended up settling on the PING G430 Max in 15 degrees.

Distance was reaching around the 230-yard mark with the majority of 3-woods I was testing, but the G430 Max was providing me with the most accurate results on average.

We played around with a few different shafts but settled on a Mitsubishi KAI'LI White 70 as Shaun considered my shot data grouping was definitely tightest with this one. 

Given the consistency I was experiencing with the G430 Max 3-Wood, Shaun wasted little time in handing me a PING G430 Hybrid. 

Shaun was delighted with the accuracy, distance and launch I was achieving with this club, with shots carrying nicely around the 200-yard mark. 

We used the same KAI'LI shaft but in an 80g shaft instead of 70g as with the 3-wood.

This shaft was giving us a really nice stable feel and so we stuck with it. 

The only difference here was that we remained in standard length. The hybrid is already a shortened club so there was no real need to amend the length, especially given the consistency of my results. 

IRONS

Shaun began by asking me about my iron game in general, and I told him that I tended to struggle most with the longer irons but felt competent with the shorter irons. 

Typically my bad miss with a longer iron is one struck on the thin side.

In fact, I am always praying for a back pin location most of the time. 

Shaun wanted me to play around with few different shafts compared to the KBS Tour in my current off-the-rack iron set. 

After testing out four different iron shafts, we discovered my best results were being achieved with a True Temper AMT Black shaft, a middle weight option that was delivering an ideal mid-high trajectory with vastly improved spin rates.

We then paired the AMT Black shaft up with the iron head I most liked the look of and that was the Titleist T300. 

Unlike the driver setup where I decreased the length by an inch, we opted to only tweak the irons by 1/2 inch. It just felt right for me. 

Putting it all together and I was receiving an improved launch angle with the 6-iron, as well as better spin and offline dispersion. 

As you can see from the graphic above, my launch angle was up dramatically 800 RPM.

My launch angle also increased by 5 degrees. 

The distance was going exactly the same as my current 6-iron, but the improvement in ball striking was clear to see in my data, but also in my feel as I was striking the golf ball much cleaner overall. 

The True Temper AMT Black had proven the most stable iron shaft for me during the fitting session. I found there was just a little bit more weight in there for me and it was encouraging a higher launch with better stability, spin and overall control. 

Once again, the colour grouping graphic on Shaun's screen highlighted all of this for me. 

WEDGES

The short game is definitely the most confident and comfortable department of my golf game. I'm not sure why that is but it probably has something to do with playing a lot of par-3 courses as a youngster, and still to this day. 

Wedges are definitely the easiest clubs in the bag to hit sweetly, and feel is certainly everything when it comes to the short game.

You therefore need to feel happy with the chosen head of wedge you decide to put in the bag. This area of the game, just like with putting, is very much personal preference at the end of the day. 

After testing out two different heads and hitting around 10 shots with each of them, we eventually settled on the Titleist SM9 wedges (52, 56 and 60 degrees) in Dynamic Gold S200 shafts. 

Shaun then got me to hit some wedges off a lie board with tape on the sole so we could best determine the lie angle. 

The lie board is a perspex piece of board that you hit balls off to allow the club to leave a mark on the tape (on the sole of the club) to show you what the lie angle of the club is really like at impact. 

It allows you to see whether you have got the toe or heel digging into the ground at impact so the fitter can change the lie of the club if necessary to help you hit sweeter strikes. 

On the majority of my wedge shots, the tape was being marked bang in the centre, which meant the wedge was coming back how it was designed to at impact. We therefore opted for a neutral lie angle. 

Shaun then wanted me to hit the many different types of shots I primarily use a 56 and 60 degree wedge for out on the golf course (i.e. chip shots, flop shots and greenside bunker shots).

This allowed him to look at the level of bounce I needed for each of my wedges. 

Wedge bounce is the angle created between the leading edge and the lowest point of the sole or trailing edge. This is the area of the club that hits through the ground as it contacts the golf ball. The greater the wedge bounce degree, the higher the leading edge is off the surface at address.

Low bounce wedges (0-8 degrees) are ideal for golfers with a shallow angle of attack, while mid bounce (10-14 degrees) wedges are best for playability in all types of conditions. High bounce (14+) wedges are ideal for golfers with steep attack angles. 

After watching how I play certain wedge shots, Shaun wanted me to settle with 12 degrees of bounce in the 52, 10 degrees in the 56 and 8 degrees in the 60. 

PUTTER

Shaun took my measurements to find my ideal putter, and he landed on 34 inches. 

After hearing me explain my putting woes especially from short range, Shaun wanted me to opt for a putter that contained a lot more weight in the head. 

He also wanted me to find a putter that was going to help me take the putter back smoother and straigther. 

Shaun noted my current putter had far too much weight in the shaft, at least for my putting stroke, and so he wanted me to find a putter where the weight was felt much more in the head. 

We landed on the Odyssey Eleven Tour putter and immediately noted a big difference.

I hit six putts from inside of five feet, and drained every single one. 

While my putting is still very much a work in progress from close range, it was noteworthy to learn I had been using a completely wrong putter for my putting stroke. 

So there we have it. That was GolfMagic's most recent custom fitting experience at American Golf. 

If you would like to experience one for yourself, simply head over to the AG website and book your free custom fitting session. 

Golf lessons with a PGA pro should always be your first port of call if you want to really get any good at this game, but a custom fitting session is without question the second most important thing you can possibly do to help you shoot lower scores.

Have your golf clubs been custom fitted or are they off the rack? Do you think custom fitting is really worth it? Have you ever visited an American Golf store? Share your thoughts and comments over on the GolfMagic social media channels.