Chicken or the Egg... Fitting or Lessons

Just curious what comes first!

Everyone is always stating how important a fitting is but at the same time is it best to get fitted for clubs that suit a swing that you may be working on? Do you have lessons then get clubs fitted to suit your swing, Do you get clubs fitted to suit where you want your swing to be.... You get the point lol what comes first!!

SORRY TO CLARIFY - I have been getting lessons THEN I got fit once we had my swing basis sorted. This isn't a question for myself personally. this is just a general chat I wanted to start to see everyone's opinions

why waste money? i would take lessons, then get fit. only buy clubs one time that way. even altering clubs gets expensive.

How can a player be properly fit if his swing is not repeatable enough to get solid data. You can go on a track man and hit every side of the screen. What does that tell you. So I too would get lessons to get an established swing in place then get fitted. Heck most people fit into standard unless it is obvious, Most either swing regular or stiff unless again obvious. Not to much tweaking when it comes to clubs sold to the general public. Only when you are a dart master honing in your clubs to hit the bullseye does fitting really come to be a factor.

The answer depends on the beginner's athletic ability. Makes no sense to spend money on a fitting if you don't have a decent swing in muscle memory. Lessons before fitting.

All my life I been an athlete of some sort. Took up the game of golf at 40, self-taught using two books reached single digit under 5yrs and never used a fitter. However, after a year or so, took a set of basic lessons to ensure my mechanics were correct. :beach:

Lessons first I would think.

Lessons, definitely. They might get you to make some minor swing changes that could result in being fit for a completely different shaft than if you hadn't had the lesson.

Lessons. Those who can put a good swing together consistently should be able to hit with any club you put in their hands. Fitting is to fine-tune from there.

Lessons first. Fitting after.

2016 took group lessons to test the water then private lessons.

2017 course lessons.

2018 started playing 18 holes, lessons to keep things in check and got my first fitting.

Planning to keep taking lessons and club fitting every few years.

Seems logical to me.

Why is everyone in this thread equating lessons with a "good swing" ? I know a ton of golfers who take lessons all the time and stink.

Good doesn't matter. Repeatable does.

If you are all over the map (contact misses, hooks, slices, who knows) then try to improve your swing, which may or may not mean lessons.

If you are bad in a consistent way all the time (you shoot 90 because you snap hook four drivers a round and three putt five times a round), a fitting is way better.

Better phrased: are you consistently bad the same way? Get fit to fix it or to play to it i.e. flatter irons because you always hit overdraws. are you bad in all kinds of different ways depending on the day? Work on the Indian.

If you can explain what you want to accomplish with a fitting ("I want to hit my driver higher and more right and to get some compensation from toe hits in my long irons") you will likely benefit from one. If you can't articulate why you want a fitting other than "to get better" then its a waste of time and money.

If you are committed to working on your swing with a coach lessons first is a must. Ideally your coach will know your swing well enough to narrow your focus down during fittings.

For example with me I now have a clear view of what shaft weight, lofts and needs are from my clubs. Since my pro can also do fittings were able to accelerate the process immensely.

Let me give you a real and truthful answer, not one that many here would agree with.

Lessons are only of benefit of you Commit to it..in other words, have a couple of dozen and in between you commit to hours of range time to make your new swing reliable.

If, and it's just an honest opinion, you don't put the hours in, then having loads of lessons would be wasted.

Regards to fitting, most of it is smoke and mirrors, unless you have a reliable REPEATABLE swing. There's enough evidence on YouTube where various flexes are blind tested, and the ladies/senior flex comes out the best for a strong swinging 35 year old.

I've had 3 different 'fittings' from reputable people and all have given different results.

This is a massive industry with many trying to get money from every angle...lessons and equipment included.

Lessons first. Then get fit for clubs. A mostly repeatable swing will make the fitting far more valuable.

I vote for lessons first to have a good foundation and then get fit.

If you need something really long or really short, or really upright or really flat due to your body type/shape, then get sticks first so you can at least start in roughly the proper positions. How can you even set up correctly if you're 6'4" with standard clubs unless you have super long arms? And if you get clubs that basically fit you, the odds of them needing to be tweaked much are pretty slim. It's really not that hard to fit your basic bogey golfer into roughly the right length, lie, grip size and shaft weight and flex.

And for the OP - I'm curious, what do you think you would've fit into before your lessons that would not fit you now?

I say lessons with poorly fit clubs do no good. Gotta find a happy spot in the middle.

This one isn't really even a debate. Why would you get fit if you know your swing is going to change? Lessons first and then get fit.

Lessons aren’t guaranteed to work - go get fit, so how far the equipment will make a difference, then try and work at it

Can test equipment can’t really test lessons

I had a horrible and inconsistent driver swing one year ago and went to get fitted for a driver at Club Champion. My strikes were so poor and all over the board that the fitter couldn't even give me a recommendation. Waste of money for me. Get fitted once you have grooved a semi repetitive swing so the fitter can see your swing tendencies and help you. I plan on getting a new fitting this winter now that my swing has improved.

I don’t know that a beginner needs a full bag fitting, but they should at least have a set of clubs that is reasonable for them. If someone is starting out and you hand them a club that is too long, short, heavy, or light, they are going to have a hard time putting a good swing on the ball, even if they go take lessons. So I think that pretty early in the process (maybe as a part of the first lesson) they should have a “lite” fitting to figure out the general specs like length and weight that work best for the golfer.

Lessons. Not to be harsh but anyone above a 12 index (exclusive of individuals hitting their golden years) is wasting their time getting fitted before they improve significantly.

I’m a low single digit but I had a back surgery and it took years to get back. Once I started playing again I kept getting fittings because I sucked and couldn’t believe it was a me issue.

If you don’t feel great about your swing a fitting is a waste of time because your swing will undergo massive changes at which point you will need another fitting.

The chicken for sure; get lessons.

Too me as long as the swing and address is reasonable and not a full blown beginner then I see more value in being fit first. I knew all my golfing career that my long irons were too long and too upright and my short irons were too short - period. Playing with this NON fit set of stick kept me from becoming a better player. I developed over the top swing habits with my long irons as I became afraid to come from the inside - for fear of sticking the head into the ground. Short iron - simply crouching to try and make the club fit yielded very poor repeat ability and poor directional control as I was always compensating.

After many years of play reasonable golf I developed my fitting system. Now after playing over 12 years with the same math model that fits me, my game has improved drastically, with a much improved swing plane and a very repeatable setup.

As I watch players go from their long clubs to their short club I continue to observe a very random setup - so they are adjusting to their clubs.

My firm belief is that everyone should play clubs that fit - this allows a repeatable and stable address position which transforms into a very repeatable striking ability with great directional control.

If you barely know how to hold a club then yes - take a lesson to learn the basics. Once the basic swing is developed - if you continue to practice or take lessons with ill fit clubs - you are learning to compensate. This will take years to break this horrible habit. Learn the game with clubs that fit so you can learn the game properly.

unless your extraordinarily tall or short and a beginner golfer. then lessons.

If very tall or short a basic or static fitting so the golfer can get quality lessons

why is it always a question of one or the other? to make it right we should do both.

Before we can get something useful out of a fitting, its correct that the player need "some sort of swing", but those of you who think a beginner should just be handed a club and take lesions could not be more wrong.

Golf equipment dictates the player for how to swing that club, so we always need a judgement of a play length and weight range and grip size thats OK for this player, if not he will be using his training to make compensations for equipment mismatch and thats no good for anyone, he can actually adopt swing faults its hard to get rid of later.

So, start with a judgement of the physics of the player to make sure he is given equipment he has a fair chance to handle, then take lesions to improve further. Its not one or the other, all levels of players should have both, but the level of whats done is light years apart between a beginner and a better player.

A “good” club fitter should be able to tell you what you need. The issue is that fitters and golfers both don’t understand what the process is really all about. It’s supposed to be providing golfers with recommendations on what they should be able to play their best with. Unfortunately, that’s the exception these days. Here’s an example... golfers shows up hitting his driver too high with too much spin. Most Club fitters will usually immediately go stiffer and heavier. Problem is , 90+% of the time the ball is flying too high with too much spin due to poor mechanics not a shaft issue ( path club face). Now the golfer is worse off because he tried to fix swing flaws with equipment. You’re better off knowing what he should be able to play well with despite the way the ball is currently flying...but you won’t increase sales that way.

I was offered both, I took them.

I'm sitting at 20, I started at f-----g awful.

My two guys worked together.

As it was explained to me: My point of ball contact is my point of ball contact, based on my physical stature. A club fitting addresses that. My lessons help me to repeatedly get me back to my point of contact to hopefully hit the ball in front of me. Fitting won't help that.

Three years later and they feel like a pair of worn gloves, they just feel right.

I was offered both, I took them.

 

I'm sitting at 20, I started at f-----g awful.

 

My two guys worked together.

 

As it was explained to me: My point of ball contact is my point of ball contact, based on my physical stature. A club fitting addresses that. My lessons help me to repeatedly get me back to my point of contact to hopefully hit the ball in front of me. Fitting won't help that.

 

Three years later and they feel like a pair of worn gloves, they just feel right.

I never understood why there isn't more static fitting in terms of irons. Most professionals (note: most) have several things in common at impact - the handle of the club traces an imaginary line through the belt, the toe and heel enter at the same time, the arms hang with just a tiny bend in the elbows and they hand directly under the shoulders.

You could get a whole lot right about an iron from someone just standing in an ideal impact position and you measuring them with tape, IMO. I never understood why people watch a 15 handicap sidebend their shoulder 30 degrees under their body into impact and conclude they need super-flat clubs because of their "swing".

Please note this is probably due to a misunderstanding on my part, but the best golf swings are a turn with a hinge then a turn with an unhinge - simple. You can "fit" someone for most of that (not shaft, though) without the player swinging a club IMO. They have an ideal impact, it seems to me. I don't understand why you would encourage an extremely poor impact position by "fitting" a club to help it.

I was offered both, I took them.

 

I'm sitting at 20, I started at f-----g awful.

 

My two guys worked together.

 

As it was explained to me: My point of ball contact is my point of ball contact, based on my physical stature. A club fitting addresses that. My lessons help me to repeatedly get me back to my point of contact to hopefully hit the ball in front of me. Fitting won't help that.

 

Three years later and they feel like a pair of worn gloves, they just feel right.

 

I never understood why there isn't more static fitting in terms of irons. Most professionals (note: most) have several things in common at impact - the handle of the club traces an imaginary line through the belt, the toe and heel enter at the same time, the arms hang with just a tiny bend in the elbows and they hand directly under the shoulders.

 

You could get a whole lot right about an iron from someone just standing in an ideal impact position and you measuring them with tape, IMO. I never understood why people watch a 15 handicap sidebend their shoulder 30 degrees under their body into impact and conclude they need super-flat clubs because of their "swing".

 

Please note this is probably due to a misunderstanding on my part, but the best golf swings are a turn with a hinge then a turn with an unhinge - simple. You can "fit" someone for most of that (not shaft, though) without the player swinging a club IMO. They have an ideal impact, it seems to me. I don't understand why you would encourage an extremely poor impact position by "fitting" a club to help it.

Fitting a tour pro is easy because their swings are extraordinarily repeatable. Fitting a 15 is hard because typically someone who is a 15 doesn't make the same swing twice in a row.

With that being said when I was a teaching pro and a fitter I would fit beginners with something like the Ping fitting chart to get them started with equipment that is close to fitting. Doing a detailed fitting with a beginner just doesn't make sense to me. When you start hitting the center of the face consistently and groove a repeatable swing a full fitting is so much more powerful than if you would put a beginner through one.

I was offered both, I took them.

 

I'm sitting at 20, I started at f-----g awful.

 

My two guys worked together.

 

As it was explained to me: My point of ball contact is my point of ball contact, based on my physical stature. A club fitting addresses that. My lessons help me to repeatedly get me back to my point of contact to hopefully hit the ball in front of me. Fitting won't help that.

 

Three years later and they feel like a pair of worn gloves, they just feel right.

 

I never understood why there isn't more static fitting in terms of irons. Most professionals (note: most) have several things in common at impact - the handle of the club traces an imaginary line through the belt, the toe and heel enter at the same time, the arms hang with just a tiny bend in the elbows and they hand directly under the shoulders.

 

You could get a whole lot right about an iron from someone just standing in an ideal impact position and you measuring them with tape, IMO. I never understood why people watch a 15 handicap sidebend their shoulder 30 degrees under their body into impact and conclude they need super-flat clubs because of their "swing".

 

Please note this is probably due to a misunderstanding on my part, but the best golf swings are a turn with a hinge then a turn with an unhinge - simple. You can "fit" someone for most of that (not shaft, though) without the player swinging a club IMO. They have an ideal impact, it seems to me. I don't understand why you would encourage an extremely poor impact position by "fitting" a club to help it.

 

Fitting a tour pro is easy because their swings are extraordinarily repeatable. Fitting a 15 is hard because typically someone who is a 15 doesn't make the same swing twice in a row.

 

With that being said when I was a teaching pro and a fitter I would fit beginners with something like the Ping fitting chart to get them started with equipment that is close to fitting. Doing a detailed fitting with a beginner just doesn't make sense to me. When you start hitting the center of the face consistently and groove a repeatable swing a full fitting is so much more powerful than if you would put a beginner through one.

Fitting a tour pro is “easy”?!

I don’t agree, because of the margins. 70.82 makes you the best player in the world and 72.16 makes you lose your job.

Fitting anyone well is hard. As a player gets better their swing becomes more repeatable but their margin for error gets tiny. Good/great players want way more from their clubs than something they can get airborne and like to look at. They need a ton of tools and can only bag 14 clubs.

Their swing repeats but it’s not iron Byron. They still have small variations except every single shot counts a whole whole lot, and it’s a bad fitting if you leave 2% of their driver distance on the table (about 4.8 yards a round, 18 yards a tournament, is massive).

I couldn’t disagree more with your post.