Atlanta GA - Club Fitting & Club Building Recommendations

Looking for advice on club fitting and building in the Atlanta, GA area. Currently playing 15-20+ yr old clubs, so effectively starting from scratch. I am willing to spend the time and money (within reason) to do this right, but am uncertain where to start.

I have never gone through any sort of fitting experience. The only options that I am familiar with are PGA Superstore or other big box (where I envision that the quality of fitting and equipment customization is low), and Club Champion or Cool Sticks (where the fitting is probably very high quality and the OEM selection is vast, but the finished club pricing is ridiculous).

Is paying for a detailed fitting at Club Champion and then using the fitting results to get custom made clubs elsewhere (ordered thru an OEM or from a builder) a viable option, or do I need to actually hit the shaft/head combination that I ultimately purchase?

Any club fitters/club builders in the Atlanta market that you can recommend?

Thanks.

If you are in the NE Atlanta area, give the Golf Doctor in Woodstock (behind Lowes at I575 & Hwy 92) a call. The phone # is 770-516-8600 and website is www.golfdoctor.com

I know that Club Champion does half price fittings this time of year, I would consider that if you are really wanting to try a bunch of stuff. I would never actually buy from them, just take the specs and order them yourself or find comparable shafts to what they recommend since they seem to sometimes steer people towards more exotic shafts that can't be ordered from the OEMs.

I used Darby at Club Champion and he did a great job.

It really depends on what you are willing to spend. But in ANY case, there are a lot of better options than taking pot luck at ANY retail store.

Golf Doctor has been mentioned, so I'll give you two other options on that same end of Atlanta. Todd Gilgrist at Chestatee GC is just a superb club fitter, especially with Ping products. He's very meticulous about what he's doing, has a great approach to combining distance and dispersion into an "optimal" setup, and is just a good guy to boot. Chris Asbell at Georgia Golf Center (Roswell) is another PGA guy who has been doing club fittings for a long, long time and is really good. Both of those guys have full Trackman setups and outdoor hitting areas, which IMO is absolutely critical to the best club fitting experience.

Good luck!

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Dana Upshaw in Warner Robins was one of the more renown clubfitters in the area a few years ago.

Not sure if he is retired now or not.

His company was called Dana Golf (478) 328-7888

set up a appt. at the Mizuno experience center at the battery out door shopping area where the ATL braves play..

It's a free fitting with a Mizuno shaft optimizer(machine), which gives you shaft recommendations which you might not receive by a human fitter.. It will give you some options and shaft awareness before meeting an paying big bucks for a top fitter... good chance you might love the set up offerings there.

Golf Doctor - Woodstock, GA: 8 months from order to delivery (still 6 clubs are missing). No follow-up throughout the process. All inquiries were initiated by me. SO many excuses around component lead times (heck, I could have gone online and had the finished clubs - even with the not-so-exotic shafts...just some Recoil shafts) delivered in 1/3 the time. Fitting was lackluster - Chad just eye-balled a few swings. This is by far the poorest club-fitting experience and order that anyone could experience. Buyer beware, for sure.