The Biggest Misconception About Club Fitting, And Why It's Setting You ...

Many amateur golfers of varying skill levels stunt the improvement of their games by believing they’re “not good enough” to get a club fitting. They say that once their golf game starts to improve they’ll invest in a professional fitting, but it’s not worth it yet.

In order to set the record straight, I spoke with a professional club fitter (Tim Briand, Executive Vice President of GOLF.com’s sister company, True Spec Golf) and a professional swing instructor (Todd Sones, a GOLF Magazine Top 100 Teacher). Even though Briand is a club fitter and Sones is an instructor, both experts agreed that learning the game using poorly fit equipment is a huge hinderance on both improvement and enjoyment.

“Some golfers believe they have to get to a certain level to get fit, but that’s a wrong perception,” Sones said. “Using the wrong clubs for you can negatively influence your swing and lead you to form bad habits.”

Sones compared learning the game with wrong clubs to learning to ride a bicycle on a bike that’s way too small, or too big. Not only does poorly fit equipment lead you to poor swing development, but it also makes the game more frustrating, deterring you from even continuing on with the game.

“It’s very important that beginners get fit because we develop our swings around the gear we use without even realizing it,” Briand says. “For example, John Daly started out by using his dad’s heavy golf clubs, so one of the reasons he developed a long backswing was because he didn’t have the strength early on to hit the clubs.”

Obviously, it worked out in the end for Daly, but that anecdote goes to show how your swing can be greatly influenced by the clubs you use early on as you learn the game. If a club is too short, too long, too light, too heavy, the lie angle is completely wrong, the club itself is the wrong design, or any of a number of factors are off, you could be setting yourself up for failure.

“Sometimes people have a bad first couple experiences with golf and they’re deterred from the sport before they even really get started, but that could be because they have clubs that aren’t suited for their swing,” Sones says.

So, what is the right way to go about getting the proper clubs, and also improve your golf swing?

Both Briand and Sones agree on a solution. Prior to taking lessons and changing your swing around, you should consult a professional fitter or a local pro to get a baseline club evaluation. With that expert, you should ensure that the clubs you have are right for you, or at least in the right wheelhouse. If they’re not, either have a club builder make alterations, or replace your clubs with different options.