In my first article for our Newsletter, I would like to address a very common scenario that I see here at the Academy. A golfer will hand   me their driver and tell me what a difficult time he or she is having with the tee ball.

In this conversation, the golfer will explain that they hit a few shots with their friend’s new Driver “de jour” and then bought the identical one, thinking: “wow-I hit those great!” My explanation is that in order for a driver to “work”, the loft, shaft type and flex, length and grip size should be tailored for an individual’s swing. Given the multitude of variables, the odds are just not in your favor that the friend’s driver and the one that will work the best will be identical.

A club-fitting where you hit shots outside in front of a radar based launch monitor provides not only the empirical data, but the aesthetic feed back to determine the “one” for you.

Launch angles, ball speed, spin rates, all terms I suspect you have heard before, are measured and evaluated outdoors with a Doppler launch monitor as part of the only fitting protocol I employ. Hypothetically, if we find that your swing speed with a driver is 95MPH; then we need a loft that will give you a launch angle between 13 and 15 degrees, and a ball spin rate between 2500-3000 RPMS. The driver that is best for you performs with those specific parameters. The guesswork is eliminated and the Driver issues are minimized.

The key is being fitted outside with a sophisticated launch monitor that has the capability of tracking ball flight from impact through its apex.

Get fitted, it works.