[excivaamome]

I understand what you're saying, but to me, taking a beginner or mid to high handicap player and setting them up in a launch monitor and then addressing every single aspect of their swing is a little like putting a racing camshaft into 200,000 mile engine - it can certainly be done, but why bother?

Many people in this category can be fitted according to all of the data harvested from the launch monitor session or even from an actual driving range session. But I'll bet the rent that the swing they were fitted with will have changed quite a bit in a few weeks and then will change again a few weeks after that. Without a consistent base from which to work, how can anyone recommend anything other than basic gear? Once a player develops a consistent swing, then it's possible to begin recommending specific shafts, with specific specs and so on. But until then, I think it's a waste of time.


You know, many thousands of people spanning many decades have become good at this game long before there was anything even remotely similar to what's available today in terms of diagnostics. How did they manage to do that? I think a big problem with fitting today is the cliched canard: "It allows more people to enjoy the game". But I submit that fitting someone with a lousy swing just reinforces the lousy swing. The best way to get better at this or any other game is to practice the fundamentals until they become second nature.
Of course, there's no real money to be made teaching fundamentals, but there's a gold mine in selling people all kinds of gear based on numbers derived from various technologies and that, in my opinion, is what's driving the whole "fitting" craze.
The fitting industry (and I think it can now be called an industry) relies on selling people the dream of playing great golf with no more effort on their part than spending an hour hitting golf balls at a screen and then reaching for their wallet in order to be able to purchase all the great stuff they're told they need to play great golf.

Prior to the computer age, everyone was "fitted" in about the same way; they were measured, they were asked to hit some balls off of a piece of wood and things like shaft flex were decided upon by people who knew the game, knew how to build clubs and knew "golfers" just by watching them. When a player began to show signs of improvement and consistency, that's when various modifications were made to their gear. The computer age has certainly helped make THAT step a lot more deliberate and has eliminated a lot of the guesswork in that regard. But then just as now, the common denominator was that consistency and without that, you're just shoveling sand against the tide.


-JP