12 Myths That Can Wreck Your Golf Game - Excerpt
Myth 12 -
Custom fit golf clubs are only for really good golfers
Nope. The truth is exactly the reverse of that.
Look at it this way. The pros and very low handicappers are skilled enough to be able to play well with almost any golf club. You, on the other hand, are not; which means YOU need properly fitted golf clubs even more than THEY do. You need custom fit clubs to minimize your swing errors and to maximize your swing strengths.
Now let’s be clear – I am NOT saying you can “buy” skill as a golfer. I am not saying that by spending enough money, you can somehow go from being a double-digit handicapper to qualifying for next year’s U.S. Open. Buying new clubs – even truly custom built ones – is NOT a substitute for learning and “grooving” the proper swing fundamentals. Never has been. Never will be.
I AM saying, however, that equipment that doesn’t fit – that is the wrong length, or loft, or weight, or balance – can keep you from being all you can be as a golfer (at any level), and it might even keep you from becoming a golfer at all, what with the fact that some three million golfers leave the game every year.
The idea of custom fitting is to have clubs in which the individual design characteristics of the clubhead, shaft, and grip are matched to your swing. Further, they are assembled to allow you to maintain essentially the same swing throughout the set, yet give predictably different distance and trajectory results because of the way each club is designed and built.
This is the essence of custom clubmaking and design. Unfortunately, that almost never happens because so few golfers ever do more in their search for their perfect golf clubs than to drive to the local golf store or click on their computer.
The average golfer could lose five to six strokes by simply realizing that the golf club is not a “club.” It is not something that is used to beat things into submission. It really IS a superbly designed, surgical-quality instrument-if you take the time to discover how it can be fitted to complement your swing. The idea here is to play the game with one swing and 14 controlled results – NOT 14 swings and 144 prayers.
Yes, it’s true, golf is inherently a difficult and often frustrating game; but that’s part of its charm, part of the fun. As with any game, however, if poor equipment rigs the game so you can’t possibly win, suddenly it becomes a whole lot less charming and not fun at all.
For more information on this topic, refer to The Search for the Perfect Golf Club: “An Introduction You Really Need to Read” (pg. xv) and “When it Really Becomes Magic” (pg.178).