Isaacbm Going to Titleist TPI in Oceanside

[isaacbm]

Sorry guys, just going horse back riding on the beach with my girl... ?

I’ll write more later.

[nitram]

Glad to see you've got your priorities right...

[PreppySlapCut]

Well we all enjoyed reading it, so thank you. Hope you had a blast!

[cardoustie]

Great read. . Thx

[wmblake2000]

Beautiful weather for it!

[milcan44]

Great write up! I would have been way off with guessing...

May I ask about the shafts? Was there back and forth with different models/weights? Or did the AMTs get picked quickly based off of ball speeds? Atmos due to preference? Was this the first time you went shorter?

 

Looking forward to hearing about the wedges and the fitting. Travel safely.

[TIM929]

Thank you for sharing! This is really different from the fittings I’ve experienced.. amazing info!

 

really looking forward to the wedges.

[isaacbm]

Finally have time to get to the wedge part of the fitting. This could run on...

A little back ground before I start. For the last 20 years, wedges and putting have been the best part of my game. And I love practicing shots inside 100 yards. If I'm on the range and I hit one or 2 decent drivers I'm literally done. I'd rather go to a practice area where I have a chance to see shots actually end up right near the hole or even go in! It's easy for me to spend 2 hours straight in a bunker hitting nothing but 30 foot uphill shots just to see how many I can make. It's almost meditation for me. Not a chore, not really even effort. I just think it's fun. I've always had great hands in any sport I've played. Whether it's baseball, badminton, billiards, hockey, ping pong, etc., I've always been natural. So it's perfectly natural that I was good at pitching, putting, and all short shots. And the fact that I loved to practice them made me maximize my aptitude. Also likely allowed me to get away with using less than ideal weapons...

So when Lucas and I went down to the short game area, his first question was for me to evaluate my short game. I said it's best part of my game. He said prove it. I haven't been around a practice green in 2 months because of winter so I quickly brought that up... He called me out right away and said: " Let's see it Pro! You said it's the best part of your game!" Loved it! I like that we had some good banter. He said he was going to be harder on me than he would be on a 18 handicap and I said " Bring it!" Lol.

He gave me a 60* M grind 8 bounce Vokey to start because that's what I currently use. ( BTW, got to hit all of the SM8's which was cool. Great look, softer sound, good spin. ) Anyway, we were at a section of the practice area on incredibly tight bermuda grass. Probably running 7 on the stimp. He wanted me to hit a few shots to a slightly elevated green, with a false front, with 15 feet of green to work with , about 30 yards away. Not the easiest shot... He told me to just play my normal shot. I've always been someone that spins the ball too little throughout my whole bag. Same with my pitches. I just play those shots with loft to get them to stop. Well, from a tight lie running at 7 on the stimp, it's pretty hard to get the club under the ball to use loft. You need spin!!! I set up with my hands forward and the club open a fair amount and played a cut shot. Ball landed about 10 feet short and rolled to 5 feet past. Next shot was very similar but with what I thought was a little more spin. Maybe 4 feet past the hole. The third shot I rode the ball up the face and it landed short of the green and stopped 20 feet away. He just kept watching. The 4th shot hit 3 feet from the hole and rode up the flag and slammed dunked in the hole. He said "while that was garbage..." I agreed. Pure luck. was going 25 feet long. We both laughed. He asked me if I thought I was spinning it the right amount. I said I thought for me they were spinning decently. He laughed. He asked me what I thought about the grind on my club. I said I've used this one for 5 years so it's pretty good. I told him if I played lies like this all of the time I would want much less bounce and a sharper leading edge. Again he just laughed. He asked me why I was taking divots on a 30 yard pitch and I said because I need to hit down on it to get the club under the ball. Again laughter.

He suggested we do things a little differently because I'm a good player. He actually said "you may be the best player I've ever seen relative to how bad your short clubs are fit for you." I felt a little sheepish... Normally he spends a fair amount of time gapping players on full shots with wedges. Getting that dialed in can really help the 10-20 cap for example, because they don't have the time/aptitude/inclination to learn a lot of different shots. For better players though, that's really not as important as being able to hit different "shots." He asked me if I know how to play a pitch using the bounce. I said yes and then demonstrated. No divot and the balls went 20 feet high but kept riding up the face and falling short. He asked why I thought they were falling short and I said because I'm not hitting it hard enough. He said "NO!!" Cool! I'm going to learn something. He told me he's just going to hand me clubs and I'm not allowed to look at the bottom. Says he wants me to play an early release pitch with no divot and a square face. The first club he hands me looked exactly like the last one but I could tell that it was a tad shorter in length. First ball I hit goes 8 feet high, lands 8 feet short of the pin and rip off the front of the green. WTF? He says to hit it a little harder. I hit 3 in a row that carry just past the hole, 7-8 feet high and spin back tight. That was new! He took that club and handed me another. This one was regular length. I hit 2 balls with the exact same swing and they carry 25 feet short of the hole with a little "poof" flight. He told me based on that result to hit the same club any way I could to get it close (still without looking at the bottom.). I put it back in stance and punched it tight with a deep divot. Then he gave me the original club again and said to hit that exact same shot. Ball took off landing about 20 feet long and bounced over the green. I mean, I'm literally taking the exact same swing and the ball is flying 30 feet longer!

(I want to be clear that I've tried every vokey grind at some point before. I could make all of them "work." But I always felt some were harder to work than others. I just took the grind that worked the best for the way I was playing my stock pitch. ) He asked me what I thought the guys on tour were doing for their stock pitch and why. I said: "Guys on tour almost always play mid flight spinning shots because the greens are so fast and firm that that's the best way to control distance. Running shots are tougher the faster the greens get because you have to deal with excessive undulation. A ball moving through the air doesn't have to deal with break. Of course assuming you can spin it..." He said " well, why are you not doing that? " I said "I'm not on tour..." He said: "bull shlt! You're too good to make lame excuses." I laughed. I told him the reason I don't do that is because it's a little more risky. I don't spin it enough. He said: "You just spun back 3 shots to a foot!" Tough to argue his logic.

So the 60degree wedge that worked for me was a 14 degree K grind that had a shorter and lighter shaft. Again, this is because of my shallow tendencies and extreme lack of hand movement through the hit. The worst one for me was the L grind. (it was the one that the ball was falling short) The key to spinning the ball is proper angle of attack and hitting the ball low enough on the face. When you take a deeper divot with shaft lean, you contact the ball higher on the face and it spins less. So then he throws me a curve ball. "Did you know that the lowest bounce on any stock Vokey wedge sold is 13-14 degrees?" I looked at him sideways a little... "We put different numbers on the face because people think that the bounce is super relevant and it makes them feel good. The bounce is not the reason people like different grinds. It's almost always the camber. The camber is what either allows or prevents the club from entering the turf. (camber is the width of sole) A 4 degree L grind has 14 degrees of bounce. It's just that the sole is thin so it allows the club to get into the ground. A 14 degree K grind has 13 degrees of bounce, it just prevents the club from digging because of the width of the sole. " I was a little shocked by this. Good players/golf junkies have become so obsessed with "getting a tour-like wedge with a sweet grind" that they've sacrificed "best for coolest." Most would be better with having a wider sole. Lucas basically said he hopes there's a day when they don't put the bounce numbers on the club. Or at least educate the public as to what they actually represent. 4 means it goes in the turf easily. 14 means it doesn't. Often guys that are really high speed and steep should have a thin sole because they can get the ball higher on the face and it brings spin down. A better option though would be to learn to swing lighter with wedges and learn to have less angle of attack. More camber helps you in sand and rough so having a wider sole is more ideal if you can get your swing to match...

Next we went to the tee box to hit shots at the 80-90 yard holes. He wanted to demonstrate a few shots. He took a 60 degree and landed it 20 feet long and ripped it back in the bunker. Serious spin! He asked me what he should do to hit that shot close to the hole. I said: " 56, dead-arm-low-flight-hop-and-stop?" Then he reached for a 48 degree Vokey and hit the shot I described. I was impressed. The way I've been playing those shots, that wouldn't work with that club - Would jump off the back. We basically spent the rest of the fitting giving me a wedge lesson. All we did for clubs was get me slightly shorter shaft and play the widest sole offered. We worked on me getting the club to release earlier to offer truer loft and be able to use the bottom of the club more. The results were immediate. My spin went way up and my flight went way down. Much more control. Hit all kinds of partial shots with less loft then I'm used to but great results!

We talked about a bunch of things. For one, "m" grind actually stands for "mother f-er". Seriously! It had something to do with Bob Vokey saying that grind was a Mother because it took so long to grind the blank wedge. Now they get them precast so that there is no grinding required. They wanted to put "MF" on the sole but marketing got the last word on that one. We talked about how hard it was for Lucas (a high spin player with wedges) to adjust to the terribly soft but lighting fast poa greens in Southern Cal. Balls backing up too much are a pro's nightmare. The only thing I was disappointed in was that there wasn't time to go in the bunkers. Guess I'll have to head back at some point. We talked about how much easier it is to hit partial shots with a Voley 48 then the CB 48. Again, sole width!

What I ended up with was a 60 k grind, 56 f 14, 52f 12, 48 f 10. All 1/2 inch short and all with AMT Black S300. My irons will be 5-9.

I realize this post is a bit all over the place. I'm not necessarily the best at describing all that happened. A lot of the learning was just simply having a few "aha" moments that are hard to describe for me. Some of it was remembering that I was actually a better wedge player when I younger and didn't know yet that I needed a "cool grind" on my wedge. I used a wide sole like a hogan "sure-out." Some of it was just being at a cool place with a great player/teacher/fitter to remind me to be open minded. What he taught me wasn't all new. Some I'd just forgotten because I simply stopped trying to play certain shots because I'd convinced myself that the wedge I'd had for 5 years was good and I was used to it. Not saying there's anything wrong with the L or M grinds. Just not right for me. (and probably not most people to be honest).

Being an ex pro, I've been to a lot of greatl facilities in my life. This facility though was pretty cool! Hitting brand new balls, Hitting clubs (SM8) that haven't been released yet, having access to a wide variety of shafts, etc. My fitter was very knowledgeable and very well spoken. I got the sense that he would have blended well with most personalities. I mean, it helped that I'm an easy going, intelligent, awesome Canadian of course...

One last thing: Getting fit indoors off a mat is a waste of time for irons and wedges. Turf interaction is SO important!! DON'T BOTHER!

Hope sharing this experience has helped a few people. Feel free to ask any questions.

Sorry again for length!

 

 

 

 

[ALIF]

Thanks for such a great write up! I really enjoyed reading it.

[isaacbm]

He started with Dynamic Gold s300 and x 100 because I told him that's what I've always been most comfortable with. I told him that everything else I tried (and believe me it's been everything) never felt as good as old faithful. Feel and confidence are important. We tried a couple of others (modus, project) but both were instantly worse and didn't feel right to me. Basically, he didn't need to waste a lot of time trying everything because he knew what would work quite quickly.

As far as Atmos, he said I was the first person he fit into these shaft in months. I came in with one in my driver and the driver feel, flight, and numbers were near perfect so he tried them first. Once we got the length right in the hybrid and 2 fairway woods, they perfectly matched the window we were looking for and I loved the feel. No need to go further. I'm sure there are 10 other shafts that could work similarly but the point of a good fitting is not to be a kid in a candy shop trying one of everything. It's to get results. Now that I know the weight, length, and bend profile, I can try any number of other shafts in my own time. Maybe if we had 3 hours each for irons and woods we would have experimented more. I'm glad we didn't though. Get the feel, length, weight right. Then get the carry distance, peak height and decent angles right and that's that. Too many people want to try everything out there. I was the worst for that. I told myself that wasn't important going into this fitting. It was more important to me that I learned as much as I could rather than tried as many clubs as I could. Believe me that was hard for me! LOL.

[isaacbm]

Thanks! It was a great experience!

[KevCarter]

[Aviador Naval]

Great stuff. Thanks for the detail. Could you expand a little more on the turf interaction between MB, CB, and T100. That is an area I’m not sure I have right as I believe it likely that I tend to quickly adapt to “making it work” as opposed to using what compliments my natural tendencies and as a result I’m not sure I truly know what right looks/feels like.

[isaacbm]

For me, the blade cut into the turf a little too quick which made it feel clanky rather than crisp. Divot was deeper. With t 100 it was better but not quite right. It was all about feel. Understand that none was dramatically different. CB was best for me but could be different for you. The interesting thing was that putting the right club in my hand actually made me hit the sweet spot more consistently. It had nothing to do with the club being more forgiving, it was more than having the right set up made you hit the middle more . The blade, the CB, and the T100, are all basically the same amount of forgiving as far as I’m concerned especially in the mid and short irons. It’s more about personal preference with turf interaction. My experience shouldn’t really influence yours though. Would be better to take the three models out on the range and hit them yourself. Again, hit off grass when testing or no point!

[jt2gt]

Thank so much for this write up....while not a +3 (8 cap), I'm about your age and been playing most of my life. I "think" I know what I like and what works, but have never been fitted like this. This is such an eye opener. Any chance you can keep this going as you get the new set on the course...what works and maybe what doesn't? Sounds like you may hit with a different mindset as well. Looking forward to hearing more about performance going forward.

[SBH9458]

@isaacbm GREAT write up! Appreciate the detail and the color to give a clear picture of what worked and why. Learned something from both of your write ups!

[TIM929]

Wow! the wedge write up was just as good as the irons, thank you for sharing again! Amazing information!!

 

you mentioned you had long arms and they shortened your clubs 3/4”... would it be possible to share your height vs measurement of wing span(distance between tip of middle fingers when arms are stretched out to the side)?

 

My arms are longer as well and wanted to compare, they never adjusted the length of any of my clubs..

 

was length adjustment mentioned when testing drivers or good as is?

 

this fitting just sounds like a next level fitting.

[isaacbm]

It’s more important where your arms are at impact than how long they hang from your shoulders... I have low hands at impact.

 

im 5’10” 6’1” wing span legs 29-30 inseam.

 

my driver is 45.5 but set in low so max flat

[TIM929]

ahh thank you! We are almost identical in measure except my wind span is 6.. don’t know if my hands are considered low at impact but that gives me a good understanding not to start cutting my irons and wedges on my own..

 

this is all really interesting, even your style of practice opens my eyes to a different Style of routine this year.. thank you for everything!

[Aviador Naval]

Thanks again for the reply. Recognize every swing is different. I was just curious how you went about assessing the turf interaction. I’ve had good luck with both AP2 and CB. MB works fine in summer but when the course is a bit more damp I benefit from a little more junk in the trunk as my most common miss is a little steep and fat. This inevitably leads to a series of thinned shots during over-compensation...

BTW, we have very similar height, inseam, wingspan. I’m intrigued by the cornucopia of club lengths you’ve got going on: over in driver, std in long fairway, way short in other fairway, ... Did he mess with swingweight at all or did you just swing what it came up with at adjustment? I’ve found as shafts get lighter than say 60ish in driver or 120ish in irons I have to bump the SW to D4 or so to feel the head.

[mukster]

Thank you for taking the time to write this! I was getting excited here reading your wedge fitting, waiting to see what was going in the bag!

[Hawkeye77]

Got done with the first page and all I could think was get the heck off the darn horse! Enjoying all of it but really wanted to hear about the wedge fitting and just learned some new stuff from the writeup. Really, really great stuff. I peeked at their site the last time we were out in the Irvine area and was sorely tempted, but just couldn't make it work and I really didn't want to go and have it be just another fitting, so to speak.

 

Best posts of 2020 on the site so far, great stuff to read on a winter's evening watching golf from Hawaii!

 

 

[Carolina Golfer 2]

This part is so true. In my fitting with Glen he told me in 30 years of fitting he has yet to see a single player hi it a shot standing erect with their arms at their sides ?

It's all about impact position. I'm 6'4" and have always played 1/2 long and 2* upright. Just because there's what the measurements showed. During my fitting we got better results with -1/4 and 1 degree flat than the + length upright spec. . But got the most consistent results with standard length and lie. Something I don ever recall playing in my set.

 

[isaacbm]

So now my dilemma is what to buy...

Before I knew I was getting this gift I’d ordered a set of mp 20! They’ve just arrived! So I guess I could try to trade them to Golftown and order a whole other set before even hitting them. What I had ordered Was MP 20 HMB from 3iron through 6 and MB from 7 through pw. They were with X 100 soft stepped. Makes each iron a bit softer for easier elevation.

the wedges are a simple issue. I can get sm7’s For about $65 per wedge and then just install the right shafts. The fitting was with the SM8 but they aren’t even released yet. Can’t imagine sm7 to be much different as long as I get the right grinds. Or I can just wait until spring... but I’m going on another golf trip in 4 weeks...

The trials of a golf club maniac...

[isaacbm]

We talked about swing weight a bit. I was concerned that taking length off of shaft would mess with it. He asked me if the weight felt “off “ at all while hitting the irons. It didn’t, felt better. He said that I was clearly hitting it better... swing weight was d-1. I normally have d3 but not because it’s “better” , just because I’m used to that. He said it looks like my transition improved when I got slightly lighter and slightly shorter. I agreed. He said he could get Titleist to build my clubs at D3 even though they were shorter but didn’t think that that was the best idea because of how I was hitting it.

[wobgon]

Again, Really good stuff. I think your last statement in post 38 is spot on......I think getting irons fit on mats is the reason you hear so many people saying they liked their clubs at the fitting but hate them on the course.

[isaacbm]

Couldn’t agree more!

[kekoa]

Congrats!! Are you going to carlsbad? If so, stop at the Cameron studio and get fit for a tour scotty as well.

[RainShadow]

Nice right up. Thanks for taking the time to share your experience with us.

And Amen to to not getting fit indoors hitting off of mats. Biggest mistake anyone could make, IMO.

[Sean2]

Sounds like a great experience Isaac. I especially liked the wedge fitting...I work very hard on my short game as I don't hit a lot of greens, so a good short game is important to me. I never understood how one could be fit for wedges hitting off mats, given the different bounces, grinds, etc, not to mention all the lies one can experience around the green.

I look forward to reading about what you decide on...hopefully you have some new clubs for your golf trip next month. :-)