Driver fitting thought process

[smdunlop]

Fitters, I am curious about a topic relating to drivers and how people fit for them. 
what data are you looking at to determine the loft someone should use? What makes you move someone down to an 8* loft vs a 9* or up to a 10.5* loft?

Is loft the first thing you decide on and then stiffness or weight of shaft? What is your standard path to find the perfect driver for someone?

[Stuart_G]

2 hours ago, smdunlop said:

Fitters, I am curious about a topic relating to drivers and how people fit for them. 
what data are you looking at to determine the loft someone should use? What makes you move someone down to an 8* loft vs a 9* or up to a 10.5* loft?

Is loft the first thing you decide on and then stiffness or weight of shaft? What is your standard path to find the perfect driver for someone?

 

Generally loft is the last thing to fit for after everything else.  Grip size, playing length, shaft weight, swing weight, shaft stiffness profile and even head model come first.    Then at the end you can use loft to optimize the launch, spin, and distance (more commonly carry distance).  Now whether you use hosel settings or just change base head loft depends on the following.

 

Hosel loft setting also change face angle - that does need to be fit for earlier in the process.   So the answer of how the settings are used depends on how sensitive any individual might be to face angle changes.  Some people are not sensitive at all while others can be very sensitive.

 

And NO you can not tell how sensitive they will be just based on whether they hover the club at address or what they do to point the face when they set up.   The only way is to actually test different settings and see how the shot shape control might change.   Easiest test is just look at what happens with the highest and the lowest settings.    And you only really need to pay attention to the shot shape.  We're not really all that worried about launch and spin at this point.

 

If they are sensitive to face angle - find out what the best face angle is for a given head and don't mess with the settings to try and manage launch and spin.   If they are not sensitive - then don't worry about it until the end of the session when it is time to find the best loft to get the optimal ball flight for their particular swing and delivery.

 

Edited March 28 by Stuart_G

[smdunlop]

19 minutes ago, Stuart_G said:

 

Generally loft is the last thing to fit for after everything else.  Grip size, playing length, shaft weight, swing weight, shaft stiffness profile and even head model come first.    Then at the end you can use loft to optimize the launch, spin, and distance (more commonly carry distance).  Now whether you use hosel settings or just change base head loft depends on the following.

 

Now loft hosel setting also change face angle - that does need to be fit for earlier in the process.   So the answer depends on how sensitive any individual might be to face angle changes.  Some people are not sensitive at all while others can be very sensitive.

 

And NO you can not tell how sensitive they will be just based on whether they hover the club at address or what they do to point the face when they set up.   The only way is to actually test different settings and see how the shot shape control might change.   Easiest test is just look at what happens with the highest and the lowest settings.    And you only really need to pay attention to the shot shape.  We're not really all that worried about launch and spin at this point.

 

If they are sensitive to face angle - find out what the best face angle is for a given head and don't mess with the settings to try and manage launch and spin.   If they are not sensitive - then don't worry about it until the end of the session when it is time to find the best loft to get the optimal ball flight for their particular swing and delivery.

 

so you are only looking at ball flight, not spin or launch, when messing with loft?

[Stuart_G]

7 minutes ago, smdunlop said:

so you are only looking at ball flight, not spin or launch, when messing with loft?

 

"ball flight" includes launch and spin.