Club Champion – Possibly the Golfer’s Perfect Christmas Gift
Buying gifts for golfers can be difficult, unless that golfer on your gift list has told you exactly what they want – picking out the exact club or accessory is next to impossible. That is, unless you choose the ultimate golf gift – a gift certificate for a custom club fitting by Club Champion.
I can’t think of a better gift for a golfer…All golfers from the beginner to the advanced golfer can benefit from custom fitted clubs. In fact, beginners will benefit the most. Many amateur golfers don’t realize how important properly fitted clubs are when it comes to improving their game. Golfers will spend hundreds of dollars on private lessons but if they are swinging clubs that don’t fit, they are probably just wasting their money.
It’s been a while since I was fitted for my irons (over 6 years ago), so I decided I’d give myself the ultimate Christmas Gift, a custom fitted set of Irons from Club Champion.
I booked my appointment and was excited at the thought of getting some new irons that could add some much needed distance which would equate to saving strokes. According to Golf Digest, eight out of nine Club Champion customers who went through a custom golf club fitting added an average of 21 yards off the tee and lowered their scores by as much as six strokes per round. More yards per shot and less shots per round, what a concept.
I arrived at Club Champion in Orlando on Turkey Lake Road and was greeted by my Master Fitter, Tim Cahill. Tim spent a few minutes explaining to me how the Club Champion process would work, then it was into the bay to start looking for that combination of shaft and head that would give me what I needed to improve my game and shave some strokes off my score.
Tim had me start out by warming-up with what he referred to as my go to club, the club I was the most comfortable hitting. I chose my pitching wedge and felt I was in the grove after eight or ten shots.
Next it was time to set a baseline with my 6-iron. This would show Tim my tendencies and would give him an idea of where he could get the most improvement the quickest. After all, with the thousands of different combinations of shafts and heads, you need to find a way to narrow down the choices by determining the biggest weakness. It didn’t take Tim long to see that I was losing some control and distance due to the weight of my club.
He liked my current head (TaylorMade Sim2 Max) but thought I needed a lighter shaft. So off to the racks and Tim came back with a handful of shafts and a Sim2 Max 6 iron head.
The first combination felt good, but not a whole lot different from what I was already swinging, after about 4 swings, it was time to try something different.
Shaft Number 2 was a winner. I felt like I was hitting the ball crisper than ever and the sound the ball was making coming off the club was pure. When he suggested we try something else, I was hesitant to change. I liked Number 2, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt, since he obliviously knew what he was doing, being a Master Fitter with years of experience.
Shaft Number 3 was nothing like Number 2, and didn’t take us both long to realize this wasn’t it.
I was ready to go back to Number 2 and be done and move on, but Tim wasn’t. So, back to the rack and he came back with Number 4 and said, let’s see how you like this. Hesitantly I agreed to give it a shot. First swing was off the charts for me, my swing speed was staying the same around 78mph but the ball speed jumped from 98 to 114 and my Smash Factor hit 1.47, distance of 168 yards. The sound the ball made was like Shaft Number 2 with an amplifier. Tim was smiling and so was I. My question to him was well can I do it consistently or had I just had that one swing you get every so often where everything comes together, that doesn’t repeat (at least for me).
Tim felt confident, that it was the same swing I had been making and all the positive results were in the shaft. Three straight swings with similar results and I had to agree with him. The fourth swing was a bad swing, but the ball still went 150 yards and was just 20 yards off center. That’s a miss I can live with. Number 2 was now a distant memory.
Tim wouldn’t leave it there, he said he thought Number 4 was THE shaft, but we needed to compare it head to head with Number 2. So switch it up and back to Number 2. It felt good, but not as good as Number 4. The results were very acceptable, but ball speed was down to 105 and the distance dropped by 10-12 yards. What had been a major improvement was now an also ran in my mind.
It was time to go back to Number 4 and prove the choice. First swing with Number 4 confirmed everything. Another 168 yard shot 4 yards off center (my baby draw) with a ball speed of 113 and a smash factor of 1.46.
Tim agreed that we had probably found the right combination, we could keep trying different shafts but he didn’t think we would find anything that could be much better, so I was 100% satisfied that this was it. The club just glided through to impact, couldn’t feel the weight of the club, it was one of those moments when you just know it is right.
I’m completely convinced that once my new irons are in my hands, my game will improve. These are improvements that I would have never been able to make without Tim’s keen eye and Trackman for seeing what I was doing and what would provide me with the most benefit, then finding that right combination.
If you are one of those golfers that think you are not good enough for a custom fitting, I’m here to tell you that you are absolutely wrong. If you are serious about improving your game, the place to start is with clubs that fit. Clubs have improved so much over the years that they can help hide and fix some of your faults. However, if you have custom fitted clubs, your clubs will now be fit for your swing which may not be the perfect swing, but with clubs fitted to your swing you will achieve results that you thought were not obtainable.
Take your game to new heights with Club Champion. Club Champion is the #1 destination for golf club fitting for any level of golfer. Delivering a Tour-level custom club fitting that produces longer, more accurate shots. Their only goal is to find the best combination of golf club components to lower your scores. Everything from clubhead, shaft, length, grip, loft, lie, swingweight and more is addressed using state-of-the-art club fitting technology and analyzed by Club Champion’s master fitters and builders. With 50,000+ hittable head and shaft combinations, your best golf is waiting for you at Club Champion.
What do you have to loose? Only stokes, and what golfer doesn’t want to loose those?
