Club champion club fitting

[vietnameeh]

This may be a dumb question but I’ve been thinking about taking advantage of their full bag fitting or maybe just the irons (holiday deal 50% or 33% off)

but ultimately I am just interested in fitting my current set. I want to make sure the gapping is right and lie is right with wedges and irons. Maybe see if my current driver is ideal or not (I don’t mind trying other stuff for this). Putter fitting seems fun and worth it

I've never done a professional fitting, alway self fit from years and years of trial and error. But I’d really like to see what technology can provide

would it be a waste of time/money to ask if they can fit with what I have now. I am not necessarily interested in new irons. Or should I fit to whatever they fit me to then copy the specs over to my irons.

i am guessing iron adjustment is not included in the price

there are some smaller golf shops in my area that are willing to do loft and lie adjustment with a fitting on a foresight but I don’t know what their reputation is (their price is similar to club champions full bag fitting holiday deal) . There is also the ones that do use launch monitors but they are asking a whole lot more but are well known

thought i would ask you guys experience and may ask for suggestions

Thanks

[JoeFrigo]

I did an iron fitting Saturday for the half off ($100). figured for the extra $75 I might as well take advantage and do the whole bag. Im going in next week to finish.... My advice is do not go in to the fitting just wanting to optimize your current set. At the bare minimum maybe you at least find iron shafts you really like and can find a deal somewhere to put in your irons. Be open minded, hit a lot of heads, hit a lot of shafts. Dont settle in to thinking you just want your current irons optimized. a simple loft and lie adjustment won't "optimize" your set. If thats what you are going for, in my opinion, you're wasting time.

 

My current irons I have Project X 6.5 and always thought they were pretty good but felt like I could still gain more. PX are 125 grams. After trying other 125 g shafts that were just ok, we switched to 115 grams shafts. WOW!!! Picked up avg. 6 mph ball speed, 11 yards carry and even my spin went up. C Taper Lite X and Aerotech Steelfiber FC 115

 

These are my results from Saturday.... The light blue are my current irons. The darker blue, orange, red are the Aerotech shaft. The royal blue and purple are C Taper Lite

 

The next decision is deciding to buy from CC for the price, or look for deals to build and piece together. Then pay for the installs which might not be built to the same standards at PGA store or Golf Galaxy vs Club Champion

 

[J13]

Agree with above. They will have you hit your clubs to create baselines and they can certainly make recommendations to adjust them but let them do their job and try some different setups for your swing. You don't have to buy anything but it can help you learn about what works and what doesn't. In trying new setups (why not you have access to it on trackman) you might find you're not playing the right clubs and are severely hamstringing yourself and can go and build a new bag over the course of a year or so.

[Z1ggy16]

It's worth getting fit if you never have been before. I wouldn't do a full bag all at once though... I've done it and I think it's slightly counter productive just due to the shear number of swings you'll take. My suggestion is you split it up ideally into 3 sessions, but 2 would probably be OK. When I did a full bag fit, I was there for over 5 hours...and I think I took something like 180 full swings. Since we started on irons... by the time I got to hybrid, which was last... I had 0 gas in my tank and contact was erratic, my speed was down, etc.

[CAT GOLFER]

Im in the same boat, self fitter by night ordinary guy by day. I echo a lot of what others have said, let the fitters do their thing. One caveat though, come prepared with a list of questions, come with honest and genuine intentions, and a desire to learn from the results.

i think people get too focused on the result and not the process. Don’t be afraid to ask why a change is being made, it should help you understand More about your swing. I think the bare minimum is you should be able to translate “ideal” specs to your current gamers, as opposed to the same being the optimal solution. Good luck and let us know what the results were.

[KMeloney]

Definitely try some other stuff. You DON'T have to buy anything new -- but it would be great to know whether your current set it perfect for you, or whether you're leaving some yards/accuracy on the table.

Just be open and frank with the fitter. There are threads on here about people trying to "game" the fitters, knowing they're going to buy the components elsewhere, but making CC think they're going to buy there just to keep the fitter honest and interested. It doesn't have to be like that.

 

[MaineMariner]

I know this wasn't the question, but I took advantage of the discounted pricing to do a full putter fitting this last weekend. I've heard poor reviews about the putter fitting portion of the full bag fitting (that only a few minutes were spent on it, basically), but I LOVED the full hour putter fitting. Obviously I was fit for my specs, but after getting the baseline head shape, toe hang, and loft/lie, I got to spend like 45 minutes rolling about 10 different putters bent to my specs. Comparing the results on SAM was pretty fun and informative. I ended up buying my favorite one I rolled (a Betti), but through eBay instead of CC. I'm having CC reshaft it and do the bending work.

This might sound petty, but I like that their loft and lie machine for the putters is digital rather than analog. So long as it's calibrated correctly I like having the confidence that my loft and lie will definitely be correct.

[JoeFrigo]

Totally agree with this. Ive done driver and iron fittings 3 times now, for half off everything I figured spend another $75 for the whole bag mainly wanting the putter fitting. I was totally blown away by the SAM results and it made so much sense why I was seeing what I saw on the course putting all year

I putt left hand low and found out its pretty typical to deliver more loft at impact which explains why I was short on putts all year!!!! bending the loft and lie I instantly was more consistent on putts. The arc of my stroke was really beneficial to see too. I separated my fittings to irons and putter last Saturday, and everything else next week. I spent about 45 minutes with putters

[toddmanley]

I enjoy the process to the extent that when I'm about to wrap up with my fitting I get a bit remorseful because it's coming to an end. I get a lot of joy out of hitting all the different shaft and head combos and seeing out the results play out.

[vietnameeh]

Wow you guys really sold me lol

[vietnameeh]

How would you break down the full bag fitting if I wanted to spread it out in 3 days or maybe 2

[gsrjc]

Irons one day. Woods the next.

[brew4eagle]

I just scheduled a full bag fitting, it will be my first fitting. Just curious if I can make any gains over my current, older gear. Especially hoping they can find a fairway wood setup that I can hit. Current longest club is a 19* hybrid that gets me about 205 yds.

[BigUrsus]

Get a full bag fitting but schedule them over 2 days. Even if you arent tired, you will have hit more balls than a normal round and it could skew your results.

[Jimmyray]

If you think you're going to get out after dropping $175 for fitting only, you better guess again. CC staff and fitters are in business to sell clubs, as exotic as possible, with high priced assembly. They are venture backed and will stop at nothing to get you to "bring you wallet" (actual quote, multiple times) and buy their perfectly fit $2,200 set of irons (that was the estimate on my 4-W steel shafted set). My "full bag" fitting experience was really disappointing. I'm a low single digit and understand a lot of golf tech, so I was excited to talk shop with the fitter and get a good baseline to understand my gapping and maybe see what a shaft upgrade and new iron technology could do for my game (added distance, better trajectory, better gapping, etc.). What followed was a mediocre fitting with a handful of wood and iron brands and the most pressured sale I've experienced in 50 years of being a consumer, car and mattress sales included. Yes, the fitter is a highly qualified expert that put me into a driver that added 15 yards to my baseline and irons that expanded my gapping at the top end effortlessly. Yes, I got a lot of intel off the Trackman on my baseline numbers. But an eye roll and a big sigh when I defer after being asked for my credit card 30 seconds after spec'ing my driver and irons? Are you serious? I really don't need a $620 Accra driver shaft, thank you very much, the stock offerings (7) for the Titleist TS3 would probably add nearly as much improvement (shocker...I never got to try them). As I left on Day #1, dreading my return for putter/wedges/fairways, the fitter actually said "bring your checkbook next time!". I ended up buying a 3-wood after Day #2 just to preserve my reputation in the community. I figured my name would go up on an online "local cheapskate golfers" bulletin board if I didn't. But hey, $530 for a Ping G410 3-wood with proprietary Club Champion Mitsu shaft isn't bad, right? Isn't it?? Anyone??? I'm such a schmuck.

[Flyers99]

Well $530 for a fairway wood seems a little steep but I guess he beat you down enough to buy. I was considering an iron fitting but was disappointed to here it was all inside off a matt. I have seen too much variation from matt fittings to actual grass so I decided to pass. As many others stated, prices are ridiculous but may be worth going to get some baseline numbers

[hurley999s]

I told them straight up I wasn’t going to buy (but of course paid for a fitting), and have since had them do club work for me - mostly woods since I don’t have a shaft puller for graphite. Found the fitting mediocre. Better than anything at GG or any box store, but as I’ve detailed on other posts, it was basically just a medley of shaft and head combos with zero attention paid to length, lie, weight, MOI, grip, etc.

Basically it’s like getting a suit at Nordstrom. Yeah the tailors generally should be better than Mens Warehouse, yeah the suits/fabrics are going to be better too. But don’t fool yourself into thinking Nordstrom is even remotely close to a bespoke suit fitting from a top end custom tailor. You’re getting a middle of the road experience.

[str8nrrw]

so i just had my full bad fit three days ago. and was very disappointed. like jimmy ray I'm a low hdcp player, i know a good amount about clubs and swing weight and things like that. i walk in and the first thing we talk about was my "big miss" and what my budget is... ?? that shouldn't really matter because if they fit me into a pool noodle for .99 cents and it works better than a HZRDUS SMOKE, wouldn't that be a win win? shouldn't the numbers really dictate everything, not budget. anyways they then have me warm up ( 7 wedge shots) then straight into a 6iron. we then spend half of my full bag fit on irons... not even hitting different irons, just switching shafts. i only hit titleist cb, TM 760, and zForged irons. i already fit myself into zForged irons... fit for oban ct 115, they felt great and i don't mind the price until i go online and see CC is charging 5$ more than MSRP per shaft.

then i hit 5 wedge shots with my 3 wedges (that was my wedge fitting?)

then i move to driver... 6 drives with my M3, track man didn't record any of them? so we through SIM on a driver shaft (its awesome, but i can do that at my local golf shop) then i hit 2 with a TS2... that was my driver fitting? i wish i would have hit the cobra SZ and maybe the SIM Max or a g410lst or something!!

then i roll 7 putts on SAM put lab... this was awesome, i learned a lot about my stroke in the 7 putts on that machine. putter fitting was the best part... but it took 10 min then i was left alone to find a putter....

Never hit a fairway wood or a hybrid... 35 6irons, 15 wedges, 20 drives.... not worth the 3.5 hours to me...

not a super happy customer.

[jeffrey r]

Since Club Champion always seems to be point-counterpoint, I guess I'll provide my recent fitting experience at CC as a counterpoint to the last post.

Did the half-price full club fitting at the Hackensack, NJ location, and ended up spreading it out into two sessions. Goal was to demo the top graphite shafts due to elbow/shoulder pain, optimize driver/fairways/hybrid, and do the SAM putter fitting. Wasn't looking to demo wedges as I know my S18 wedges work for me.

After loosening up, started with driver. Won't spend too much time describing it. Hit my current gamer first (Epic Flash with Fuji Pro 62), which was too spinny and too high. Hit a bunch of shafts until we landed on the one that worked the best, the Speeder Evo 661. Brought launch and spin down, added distance, felt good. We then tried the Speeder in a couple of other heads, but nothing that was worth switching from the Epic Flash.

Pretty much same drill with my 3 wood and Heavenwood. Hit my gamer Epic heads with stock shafts, and then hit a bunch of other shafts with my Epic heads. I know the cliche of ending up with Accra shafts in a CC fitting, but on top of feeling great to me, they did perform for me. I was shaft agnostic during the whole fitting, and wasn't looking at what he was handing me. If Accra worked best for me, then so be it.

Irons next were a lot of fun. Again, the goal was not necessarily to switch out of my 919 HMs, but to hit Steelfiber 95/110, Recoil 95/110, and hit some different heads. After hitting my 919 HM with Modus 105 S, hit the SF and Recoil shafts. Each of those 4 graphite shafts produced different results from one another, some good, some not so good. The SF 110s felt the best to me, and showed the best results. SF 95s were next best, Then Recoil 95s further behind. Recoil 110s just didn't really work for my swing. No real way to figure that out other than a fitting.

Part of these fittings is also the convergence of when something feels good to you, when the Trackman data shows good results, and when the fitter has the feel watching and hearing your strikes that you landed on the one. I had that with my driver, fairway and iron shafts (and when I get to it, the hybrid). After we settled on the SF 110 shaft, he then let me hit any heads I wanted with that shaft. Probably hit like 7-10 heads, things like T200, Apex Forged, i210, G410, P790, etc. I really liked the T200 and i210, and could easily play those, but nothing worth changing out of the 919 HMs.

After the irons, we started to do the hybrid, but I was gassed, so we stopped and moved on to the wedges and putter.

Just checked specs of my current wedges and bent lie angle a bit, but that was that. Moved on to putter fitting, which confirmed that I do best with toe hang of the plumber's neck anser type that I use, and he fitted me for loft/lie on my Scotty. Easy peasy on that front.

I ended up going back a week or so later to finish up my hybrid. Again, wasn't really looking to change heads, and he saw no reason either. The hybrid fitting was definitely interesting. With the driver and fairway shafts, we were looking for about a 10g difference in weight (let's say 65g for driver and 75g for fairways). So one would logically expect to move into an 85g hybrid shaft. Plus, we were really trying to fit to a distance slotting between my 5 iron and heavenwood. But I just wasn't hitting those heavier shafts well. Again, being shaft agnostic, he just kept handing me combos until we found the best, which was the KBS Tour Proto 65 hybrid shaft. So essentially the same weight as my driver shaft, lighter weight than my fairway shaft, but it just felt and performed the best and got me to the distance we needed with tight dispersion. Again, I guess that's why we go through this exercise. Goal is to find what works.

TL/DR. Bottom line, I found the fitting experience to be great, and the fitters at the NJ location are good fitters and good guys. I now have a relationship with the shop where they have already done some extra work for me at no charge. I won't get into price, building, etc. That has been beaten to death, and as long as you go in with open eyes, everyone does what they feel comfortable doing.

 

[NorthStar7]

I agree with the statement that CC is fine as long as you go in with your eyes open. The first time I went in, I didn't, and left with a bad taste in my mouth. Oban CT 115s appear to be there go-to shaft and at the time I didn't even realize that there was a steel shaft on the market for such a high price. After time passed, I got over it and went in for a putter fitting. I just went in with the mindset of paying for a fitting and not buying anything so all the money talk/pressure just went in one ear and out the other. I had a great experience. The third time, I went in for an iron fitting, with the same mindset. I am paying for the fitting fair and square and I had no plans to buy anything that day. Fitting was OK, but only marginally better than if I had fit myself with the equipment they had on site. I ended up being fit for exactly what I would have bought online myself, which in itself is a good confirmation. This time however, I was given the business for not buying that day from CC. I don't think I will go back. If their model is really built on you buying clubs from them, they should provide a discount on the fitting if you pull the trigger. If they are charging for the fitting no matter what, I think they should be more respectful of you not buying or buying elsewhere.

I wish CC had a model where you rent TrackMan time for $X/hour and have their equipment at your disposal during that time. I know how to run TrackMan, I generally know what heads and shafts I want to try. It wouldn't replace a top notch fitting, but for me it would be very similar to what they provide now, without the selling pressure.

 

[wobgon]

I wasn't aware that CC allowed you to do a full fitting and not do it all in one day. Is this something you can schedule ahead of time?

[jeffrey r]

Anecdotally, I had read many stories about people splitting up their full fittings at CC into different days. Reality is, you book a certain amount of time for your fitting (mine was 9am-12:30pm). I was probably done by 11-11:30. Again, I was gassed. If I had gone the full time and not gotten to the hybrid, then I can't see how they wouldn't have fit me for the hybrid on another day anyway. But I was certainly still entitled to the overall time that I had booked and paid for. And again, this location is pretty chill, and the guys are cool. Sure, it's a business, but these are real guys so just communicate with them about your expectations, either beforehand, during the fitting, or after the fitting. I was able to come in at 8:30am on a subsequent Saturday to finish up, and they worked with me around my schedule.

[Jim53]

I just did an irons only fitting in Orlando and it was very good, since they had the CB 301 on the wall I was able to hit my club as a base line then change out shafts to find the best. it turned out to be the KBS TGI 110 gave me the best numbers with the CB 301 head so we went on from there trying other heads and landed on the JPX 919 tour as a best option which was a surprise and a bit of a disapointment that a older release was the best. The fitter justifed as my miss is slightly to the toe side of center and 919 tour has weighting to help that and it showed on the numbers.

Not that it is not a great product, I was hoping to be wowed by something new, the PING Blueprint was good as a well as the Honma Justin Rose model and the TM TW blade. But I don't have the game to play them realistically so just stopped there and tried some other CB irons which were all in the same ballpark as the CB 301. He was very generous with his time as there was no one waiting, so that was nice.

I did not order right then because it is a lot to digest and frankly I was not 100% sure it was the best moving forward. I did get the feeling he was a bit vexed I did not order, but he was nice about it. I would really like to do a grass fitting and see some turf interaction before dropping $1,800 on a 2018 release.

Overall a eye opening experience with the trackman numbers very humbling, I find it odd that I laser all my shots outside 120 or so and these numbers were 20 yards short of what I would pull a 6 iron for, could be ego or just my lack of being able to take a good hard downward swing off a mat. I tend to want ot just pick it for some reason and the lighting in the bay was tough on a guy wearing glasses.

[hurley999s]

Do you feel you have the toe side miss with your clubs also?

Did he suggest or put you in any longer shafts?

Repeated toe side contact can indicate clubs that are too short so I would have at least checked the box to rule it out. But I’m hoping you were at least dynamically fit for length and didn’t just hit a standard shaft or one that you said you game currently.

[WristySwing]

While most of what you talked about is troubling regarding lie/loft, grip, length, etc. the MOI part makes sense. That is generally a build aspect and is individual to a player and also individual to that head. While I know it's not exactly the same, I have played progressive SW for several years now, and have found that heavier swingweights worked better in some heads while lighter worked better in others. Again, I want to stress I know these aren't interchangeable terms but they are sort-of close and related.

My take on the whole thing is let the SW be what it is that fits you best. If you absolutely nuke the crap out of an i500 with PX LZ 6.5 and that happens to be D1, cool, you should get that set up built so the fitted iron is the same SW and the rest of everything falls along the matching slope of SW, cycle, head weight, etc, respectively. Same goes if you find that you hit a set of Miura CB301 with $-Taper 130 and they happen to come out at D5, it just is what it is. It worked well for you for a reason and you should stick with it with that particular club.

But for a fitter to say "okay you are a D2" is generally not overly helpful as there is a very wide range of what constitutes getting a club to D2 and one D2 is not synoymous with another D2 in relation to the individual parts of the club. For the most part people tend to believe that what fits them will fit them for ever. Most golfers always refer to what they used to swing, sometimes upwards of 10 years ago. You even see it on this forum, "I haven't been on a monitor in a while but I was clocked at 115-118 a few years ago, what should I get? Coming off a long lay off, haven't touched a club in 5 years due to kids and a health problem." It is rampant, and to classify someone as X usually makes them stick in their head that they are always that when in reality we are always in flux. I don't always wear a size 33 pant, either. If they didn't mention that this combo at D4 worked well, for example, that is again a bit concerning, but I don't overly fault them for not talking about as a fair bt of people in the industry don't even understand it fully, myself included, and I'm sure there are more than a few points in here that more knowledgeable people will pick apart.

[Jim53]

Yes we did adjust to a .5" over from the .25" over in my clubs, but the fault is me lifting out of the shot due to old age and a bad back. The length adjustment should help quite a bit.

[hurley999s]

I agree with everything you said, and only brought up the MOI piece because I know about it, have a speedmatch system myself, and have experimented to find what my ideal range is (not to mention that it’s something I will revisit probably every season and they’re not numbers I’m married to long term). So I brought it up in conversation about some other things and the (one fitter at least) general attitude was that it’s not important (ie, he wasn’t knowledgeable about it), and the more important thing was finding a head/shaft combo that worked for me. So again, I’d say better than most box stores on average due to their inventory and “non-stock” stuff, but overall, it comes down to the fitter. Personally I wouldn’t go in expecting perfectly fit clubs. I paid them so I could try some heads/shafts I was interested in that the box stores don’t carry to at least get a baseline feel for them.

[hurley999s]

Nice. That’s good to know.

[WristySwing]

That is definitely troubling then, good for you for bringing up the discussion about SW. Every player that leaves our shop gets a spec sheet and that includes the SW of the club they were hitting WITH the grip they chose. This also includes changing to a comfortable grip for them at the beginning of the fit.

[golfbuddy]

I had a great experience at CC last year. Went in for a driver fitting and learned a lot about my swing, the fitting process and equipment. They had a lot of expensive shafts but I was fitted into one of the lower priced ones. At the end, the fitter gave me specs for the driver and it was up to me to buy from them or do it on my own. Absolutely no pressure at all.