In Dick's Sporting Goods today I saw an ad for this serice, and I was wondering what all they would do?

I went to Dicks for this service a few years back when I wanted a new driver; had my eye on a Nike Ignite 450. First I selected the driver in 10.5 loft and took a few swings. Next the standard shaft length was measured to me and was OK. Shaft flex was checked for regular or "senior" and regular was OK . standard lie was checked and OK after after hitting a few more balls with tape over the face. Ball speed, spin and club speed were checked on the monitor with more balls being hit; club loft was adjusted to the 13 deg model as the above speeds were on the low side (85-90 mph) and the launch angle improved to 12 deg with the 13 deg head, which the guy said was good with the ball and swing speed. Also checked was the grip and standard stock Nike was OK.
After all this I bought the 13 deg Nike at Golf Galaxy a few days later, on sale and with a trade in of my old 12 deg. Nike 350 driver, which I wish I had kept. So, to sum up, had grip, shaft length, shaft flex, club loft, ball spin, ball speed, club speed and lie checked. I have been very happy with this club and can't remember mishitting a single ball with it, so far. It has given me a reliable 200 - 250 straight yds of the tee which is all I'm looking for.

I've never done a club fitting at Dick's, but have had a few done at other golf only stores. The fitting can be very interesting and can tell you a lot about your swing and what MIGHT help to improve your game. You just have to remember one thing about hitting balls in a store on a launch monitor. JUST ABOUT EVERY SALESMEN YOU WORK WITH, WILL TELL YOU THE NEW CLUB IS GIVING YOU GREAT NUMBERS. It doesn't matter what the nubmers are, THEY ARE PERFECT for you. I've had this told to me just about every time I tested a new driver. Didn't matter if my launch angle was too low or too high, it WAS PERFECT. You have to remember, the salesman doesn't KNOW much about golf, and he's trying to get you to buy a new club, or set of clubs.

The only way to really do a fitting is to hit YOUR CLUBS, and get a starting point to work with, Then if you hit the new driver 25 years longer, you know it could do the same on the course, as you just hit YOUR driver on the same launch monitor. And which launch nonitor you use matters, as not all of them measuer the same things, Some don't measure swing apeed at all, they only estimate it by using your ball speed, and impact numbers. Can be very close, and it can be way off, depending on your swing and the ball you hit.

Are those light years or just regular years? LOL


Yea you gotta remember that they are still salesman. Try out different drivers and see which numbers change and by how much. Then post them here and let us take a look at them.

87, for some unknown reason, I tend to type years a lot instead of yards. Don't know why, but I've been doing it for some time now, and this time it got past me. Sorry about that, but I'm sure it will happen again in the yards :)to come.

I think stores like that do an ok job and fitting and will generally get you into a set of clubs that would generally work ok for you. I've had fittings from "the best fitter in town" and it was the worst set of irons I ever had. Was it the fit, the shafts or the clubs, don't know, but just goes to show you that it's not an exact science. Our swings change, the shaft ratings overlap somewhat such that many of us could go with stiff shafts if we want more control or regular flex if we want more distance. So there's give and take. There's not (in my mind) a perfect fit, the clubs are tools and we get some good tools that fit us pretty well and then it's up to the player to put them to use.

The goal (to me) is to make sure we get shafts, lofts and lie angles that are pretty reasonable for our game and don't get something completely wrong for us. To that end, i think they can do a pretty good job.

The other "X" factor is that if you get "fitted" for clubs and you don't have a good consistent swing, it's not going to make a huge difference either way. An awful lot of people have great clubs and terrible swings.

The problem with getting fit when you don't have a consistance swing, is, WHICH SWING DO YOU FIT THE CLUBS TOO? If you make a different swing every time, you don't know which swing to fit the clubs to. This is one reason I don't recommend a new golfer to get fit for a set of irons. He has half a dozen different swings, and none of them is what he most likely will end up with. You just can't FIT one set of irons, to half a dozen different swings. Just doesn't work.

Ever since I got my tempo down I have a very consistent swing so hopefully, if I get fitted, I'll get fitted right.

You can do an iron fitting yourselft with some masking tape and a thin piece of plywood. Just tape the sole of your 6 or 7 iron, and hit a few balls off the plywood. then look at the tape and see if you are making contact in the center of the sole. If the center of contact is toward the toe, you need to bend the lie angle a bit more upreight. That's pretty much what the Ping rep had me do when I was fitted for a set of Ping i[-15 irons last month. Just remember, NOT ALL OEM irons have the same lie angle. so what is standard lie for Ping, may NOT be the same as for Hike, or some other brand. For me, I need 1-1/2* upright with the Ping i-15 irons. Now I need to check how the lie angle for i-15 irons compare to some others.