The Reactionary Factor

As a club fitter with a real passion for the game I look for ways to improve club fitting and deliver the most effective and accurate results for the players I work with.

I use technology to measure and demonstrate results and am always thinking of ways to improve the industry.

I think we at Cool Clubs have access to the best information in the world today and we see this having an impact on a professional and amateur level in regard to golf equipment.

Recently I have been working on an idea to simplify length and lie recommendations. I was working on a way to view impact position with hand position, considering angle of attack and heel to to sole interaction with the ground.

What I noticed is that when a player was given a shaft that was longer or shorter, or a lie angle that was flatter or more upright they would change their body positions the best way they thought, to get the club back to the ball and hit the shot shape they wanted to see. They did not try to keep making the exact same move. This was for all levels of players not just the highly skilled players.

People would make comments that certain specifications felt more comfortable at address and through the swing and this would produce their best results, but this was driven by trial and error and player feedback. No static measure of wrist to floor height or hand setup position at address / impact was perfect. The best results came from using my experience and interview process during testing.

I can make another link here about golf shaft and head combinations. You often read online that certain heads and shafts are designed to perform and create ballistics but, it is how the player interacts with the product that produces the result. Not the product alone.

I have seen the “lowest spin” shaft and head combinations spin far too high for optimal ball flight for many players.  Players react to the profile of shaft, flex, length, lie, weight, torque, balance point, head shape, visual ascetic and many other parameters during a session. When we get to the bones of what a player feels, we dial in all of these things to make their swing feel natural. Their contact to becomes crisper and their ball flight begins to work towards optimal.

I will continue to strive to be the best at what I do and keep using technology to my advantage. I will also have a respect for the “reactionary factor”, which I believe means there will be no substitute for a fitter’s experience during a one-on-one fitting. You must use the best technology, have as many fitting options as possible and be in a controlled, realistic golf environment to get everything you can from a player’s equipment.  

Jack Gilbert

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