Isaacbm Going to Titleist TPI in Oceanside

[isaacbm]

Heading on Jan 3rd. Gal got me a full fitting for driver, irons, and wedges for Christmas!

I'll try to take a few pics to post. Thought it might be fun to see if anyone wants to guess what they

might fit me into.

A little about my back ground. I'm 46 years old. +3 handicap. I'm currently in better shape then I've been in a few years.

Swinging driver at 110 with max being 114mph. Gotten over my back issues (knock on wood). I played professional

golf for 12 years with the highest level being what is now the Korn Ferry Tour. I've never been professionally fit for clubs

in my life. However, I do feel like I know my game pretty well and buy clubs accordingly. My current set-up:

Mizuno St 190 10.5Driver with Atmos tour spec 65 S flex set lowest setting. Currently carry 265 at sea level.

3 wood Mizuno st 190 15 degrees in "low" setting Atmos tour spec 75 S flex (carry 250 )

Titleist 18* 915 hybrid set 1 degree strong. Motore Speeder 8.8 Tour spec S flex (Carry 235)

Miura CB 1008 3-PW Accra 100i X-flex (3 iron is 19 degrees and PW is 46 degrees)

Titleist SM5 raw 50 F grind, SM7 raw 54 S grind 10 bounce bent to 55, SM7 raw 60 M grind

I'm going in with an open mind and honestly, I'm just hoping to learn something new. Not really expecting to

buy an entire set or anything but I could see myself being persuaded... LOL!

Any comments or questions let me know!!

[Forged4ever]

That’s Fantastic Brother and I couldn’t be happier as

there’s no one who deserving!!!

 

I’m glad that your back is ok and there’s no reason that you can’t make some noise up there this season!!

 

With your game, if you get and ride a hot putter, that +3 will drop 2-3 strokes no sweat, as you’re swingin & hittin the ball better than a +3.

 

Thanks for posting, keep us in the loop, and keep that Lady happy My Friend?

 

She’s Platinum!!

 

A Happy Healthy & Prosperous New Year and Year ahead to You & Yours?

 

My Best,

Richard

[isaacbm]

Best woman I've ever met. Super questionable taste in men though... 8-)

[Sean2]

Dang, what a Christmas gift!

Will they build the set while you are there? If so, maybe you can get some golf in?

I look forward to reading about your experience Isaac. :-)

[isaacbm]

Thanks Sean!! They won’t build a set. I’d have to order one.

[Peanut191]

What a great gift. Good luck! Look forward to hearing about the results.

[Hawkeye77]

That should be an awesome experience!

 

 

[isaacbm]

 

[nitram]

Hope you've been swinging it in the golf sim this winter.

And what a gal!!!

[Carolina Golfer 2]

You're going to feel like a King for a day. I was just there in November for a full bag fitting, worked with Glen. He helped open the place many years ago after coming off several years on the Tour Truck. In addition to getting the proper fit, I learned a lot from him about ball flight, club characteristics and even a swing tip or two.....as a shaky 14.9 I needed it, I'm sure you don't.

The most enjoyable part for me was the wedge fitting, I loved hitting brand new ProV's from 30 to 110 yards into those perfectly manicured greens and watching the performance of the ball.

The irons from my fitting T300 are actually arriving today.

By all means take as many pics as you can. I got so wrapped up in the place I didn't take as many as I would have liked.

[Hawkeye77]

That's just rubbing it in, lol!

 

And good for you!

 

I really haven't looked at his channel forever, but not all that long ago I know Crossfield went there for a fitting - had a couple of different vids up about it, if you can stand to listen to him. Looked pretty interesting.

 

I think it looks like a lot of fun.

[br61]

Nice gal you have! Mine's probably will tell me to pound sand. Ha

Enjoy your experience. I hope to go there someday.

[npham]

I love the look of the TS4, so that's my guess for driver. Another wild guess is that they will fit you in for a 5W instead of hybrid. Your wedge setup is much like I had mine before I moved onto K and V grinds but my guess will be a mix of K's and M's. I also think they will fit you with 4 Vokey's instead of whatever the PW from your iron set is.

Once you are done getting fit, swing by the Scotty Cameron Gallery in Encinitas. Can't wait to hear how it goes. Hopefully you have been crushing balls at the dome in Calgary.

[isaacbm]

Ts4 is good! I’ve hit it a bit...

I agree that they often like the 46° Volkey pitching wedge but I personally like my wedge to match my irons.

5 wood is one I haven’t thought about!

[LeoLeo99]

Good luck on the fitting. Your current bag is very nice.

My guesses: 620 CB irons. A more forgiving 3 iron. T100 or 200.

Curious what you think of the CNCPT if you hit them.

There is a good Jon Rahm video about getting fit for clubs. He went very far before he ever got fit.

[isaacbm]

Checked into LaCosta resort today. My girlfriend is so sweet. She wants to come with me to see what it’s “all about.” Don’t think she appreciates how bored she’s be! Lol

[PreppySlapCut]

Just grab like an US Magazine on the way, she’ll be fine.

[Sean2]

If I remember correctly, isn't there an Outlet mall, beaches, and a Legoland? The hotel probably has a spa too. Seems like she will find something to do. :-)

[isaacbm]

Finished my fitting. I have to say I learned a lot more than I thought I would. I mean, it was very eye opening.

I got to the center at 845 this morning and was greeted in the parking lot by Lucas Bro. Great guy right from the start. Showed me around the center a bit. Top rate in every way!

We went out to the range and got right to it.

The first thing he said to me was that there are basically 2 types of good players that he fits. The first one will just take any club they're handed and make their stock range swing. If it works it works and if it doesn't it doesn't. These guys are easiest to fit. They just make the same swing again and again. The other guy (like me) is prone to try to make adjustments no matter what club you put in their hand. After one hit, I can feel if a club is too heavy or too stiff or too upright etc. and on the next swing i'll try to compensate for it to make the ball go where I want. He told me that for the fitting, it's best if I can just convince myself to just make a stock swing shot after shot after shot. That way you have a "control" to the experiment. He said that it's even worse for me because I'm such a club whure that I'm always making adjustments and the "stock" swing can be more elusive. The point is that I actually was able to just do what he said and that made the whole fitting process a lot easier. I was shocked for example when I would be flushing 5 or 6 in a row and he'd hand me something to try and I'd instantly skull it or hook the hell out of it. He had to remind me not to adjust. He'd just say"ok, give me that one back it's not right at all."

We started with irons. Had me warm up with my own club while he explained to me what the game plan was. Basically, the goal was to figure out what my optimum peak height and decent angle were and then try to get every club from 3 wood to wedge to fit into those parameters. The idea being that the best way to hold greens was the right combinations of decent angle and spin. Each club goes 5-7 mph faster then the one before. Each club should spin about the same rpm as the number in the club x1000 (7 iron = 7000 Rpm).

While warming up, my 7 iron was spinning 5200 and landing at 40°. Not ideal to hold greens. Goal was 100 feet peak height and descend 48 ish degrees. Guys on tour would possibly be a little higher because they have more swing speed(Though Adam Scott tries to get everything peaked at 92-94 feet. ) Really depends on what a guy likes to look at...

I thought Getting my numbers in this window was going to be a little hard because my swing is very shallow and tends to be in to out. This creates little spin. Lucas' main goal was to get me spinning the ball more and hitting it higher. I was surprised how we went about doing this. He had me try both the t100 and the 620 MB but neither went into the ground the way I like. The MB was too thin on the sole and the t 100 was too wide. The 620 CB was perfect. None of them were the least bit more forgiving, it had more to do with turf interaction and angle of attack.

Once we got the head right, the first thing he did was to shorten my shaft length. this automatically makes the club work more up rather than around. Also, I have short legs and long arms so my 38 1/4 inch 5 iron was 3/4 inches too long.

The next thing was to weaken my lofts. He didn't care in any way what so ever how far I hit each iron. Only that they went the same distance and that they all were in that window. For me, that meant 35 degree 7 iron at 3/4 inch shorter with a lighter weight shaft(AMT Black s300). In 10 minutes I went from wide dispersion around 170 yards carry with 5200 spin and 40 decent angle to carrying 7 iron 162 at 100 feet landing it at 48 degrees with 6900 spin. Dispersion went from 7-8 yard front to back and 15 yards left to right to 3 yards front to back and 7 yards left to right. Again, the number on the bottom was completely irrelevant!

Before I go further, I should mention that Lucas was pretty adamant that the worst thing in fitting history is the marketing garbage of "fast irons, hot faces, longer is better, etc. " No pro on tour would give 2 shlts about what the number on the bottom of the club was as long as they were hitting their windows and stopping the ball on their numbers.

The next thing we did was driver. He wanted to see exactly how far my carry was with driver so that we could start to work out which clubs to fit between driver and 7 iron . My current driver is a Mizuno ST 190 with Atmos 6 S tour spec. I hit 7 in a row 265 carry (106-107 swing speed) with 5 yards of cut at 100 feet peak and 35 degrees decent. 2100-2300 spin. He said: " there's nothing to do here! " For fun we quickly tried a few titleist clubs. Gave me TS 4 and I almost missed the range both right and left. Gave me TS2 and I over spun/over draw. Gave me TS3 with my shaft and numbers were similar to my own. He said : " There's no reason at all for us to even try to find "better" than what you're hitting." I appreciated the honesty but it was fun to try a few clubs.

It was obvious from my tendencies that long irons and driving irons were a waste of time. First club we tried was a 25 degree TS2 hybrid with Atmos black 90 one inch short of standard. . Perfectly matched the peak/decent window! I've always liked hybrids but never have tried one with that high loft. (I can see Obee smiling! LOL) It was a replacement for my 4 iron. My 5 and 6 are all good but 4 always flies too low and flat and runs like it stole something!

Next club was a 21 degree TS2 fairway wood Atmos black 85 in 1 degree low setting. Also an inch short of standard. It instantly fit the window. It was uncanny how quickly he knew what to put in my hands. He knew that the 21 degree hybrid wouldn't have had enough ball speed for me to get the numbers so the fairway wood was the better answer. I was surprised because there was 5 degrees difference between the two clubs but the numbers were perfect. In the past I've always struggled carrying my lower clubs too close to the same distance but then they would run out.

Next was a 16 degree TS2 fairway. Same Atmos Black at 75 grams but standard length. For my swing tendencies, the bigger headed fairways and hybrids are better because the weight is far enough back in the head to get height and spin that I need. We had Driver carrying 265, 16fairway wood 240, 21fairway wood 220, 25hybrid 203, 5 iron 188, 6 iron 175, 7 iron 162, 8 iron 150, 9 iron 138.

I'm going to start another post about the wedge fitting. One of the take-aways for me from all of this was that it was so strange (but awesome) to see every single club hit the same spot in the sky. And that it didn't matter at all what club I hit as long as I had the same peak/decent and that I had good gaps from driver to wedge. I could also increase the distance of my 3 wood for example just by putting it back an inch in the stance and hitting a draw instead of playing it straight. The other take-away is it doesn't matter what the number on the bottom of the club is, only the number in the sky!

I'm off to dinner but I'll go into wedges next. I wouldn't even have gotten a wedge fitting if the girlfriend didn't sign me up. That's the best part of my game by far so I figured why bother? Turns out I learned more from that than the rest combined. I would have paid twice what we did for the wedge fitting alone.

More later!

[bill.ig]

Cool write up. Thanks for detailing it.

 

[ram01002]

This is just fantastic info ..... I need to book a trip

[Chivas Irons]

very good read, can't wait for more!

[wobgon]

Good stuff.

[beluga99]

Thanks for the write up. Very interesting about the similar window and flight conditions for every club. Never really thought about it that way. Looking forward to the wedge insights.

[Golfingfanatic]

Sounds like a cool experience! Cannot wait for part II. :)

[SBH9458]

This is really insightful and I appreciate you taking the time to write it up. Looking forward to your learnings from the wedge fitting!

[BIG STU]

Kinda late to the party but what a great gift. I knew with your open mind and your background you would learn something. Anyone with an open mind no matter the background or experience can learn something. 275 carry huuh at sea level---- That is where mine stops ROLLING now IF I NUT IT!!!! But then again that is what the senior tees are for. And a very good write up. A lot of guys on here think I am tied to the past with my vintage equipment etc true I am to some extent but I am always even at 62 years of age digesting information and still learning. Your experience and write up helped with that

[KevCarter]

[Aviador Naval]

Thank you for taking the time to write this report. Looking forward to the wedge portion.

[ode1]

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