A month (maybe two) ago, we asked you to tell us about your most history with custom club fitting and your most recent fitting experience.
Rather than rehash every question and answer, we thought it might be better to share the most interesting findings from the survey and so here you go.
These are the 10 biggest insights from our 2024 fitting survey. And just like YouTube, if you stay ‘til the end, I’ll give you a special bonus insight.
1. Golfers think fitting is expensive
Before we talk about what happens when golfers get fitted, I wanted to start with the reasons why golfers don’t get fitted.
More than 40 percent of golfers who have never been fitted say it costs too much. Another 30 percent say they’re not good enough.
We addressed the latter in our recent episode of No Putts Given with Ian Fraser from TXG (see below).
As for the cost thing …
2. You’re NOT spending big money on fittings
Of the more than 80 percent of respondents who said they’ve been fitted at least once, 35 percent were fitted for free while in excess of another 30 percent had the cost of the fitting rolled into the purchase of the clubs. Effectively, that means more than 65 percent of golfers were fitted for free.
Another 10 percent paid less than $100 while just two percent paid more than $500.
The takeaway? While club fitting can be expensive, it doesn’t have to be.
3. Golfers don’t travel for fittings
We’ve talked before about the idea that club fitting can be an experience, not unlike playing a bucket list course. That said, very few golfers travel for fittings.
Forty-five percent of golfers who said they’ve been fitted traveled less than 10 miles for their most recent fitting. Another 33 percent traveled between 11 and 25 miles. In fact, more than 86 percent of your recent fittings were done within 50 miles from home.
Just over five percent said they’ve traveled more than 100 miles for a fitting. What we can take from that is that most golfers aren’t looking for the best possible fitting but rather the best of what’s around.
With that, it’s not a surprise that “It was close to my house” was cited 30 percent of the time as the reason the fitting location was chosen. Stocking the brands golfers are interested in was cited most often (38%). Fitter’s reputation (35%) was next.
4. Most golfers get fitted at off-course pro shops
Combing through responses for those of you who selected off-course pro shops from the options and those of you who chose to write in the name of your local shop, we’re confident that local off-course is where the majority of fittings take place.
Among the custom fitting chains, Club Champion is a dominant No. 1 with more than 14% percent of all fittings taking place at its locations.
Across big box stores, Golf Galaxy (excluding DICK’s) leads the way with five percent of reported fittings taking place in its stores. PGA TOUR Superstore isn’t far behind.
5. Fitters sometimes miss an important part of the fitting conversation
A strong majority of fitters discuss both performance objectives and your current equipment ahead of the fitting itself. It certainly makes sense to start the fitting conversation with what’s already in your bag and how you’re hoping to improve.
Still, only 25 percent of you said the fitter asked about your budget before the fitting started. I suppose there’s nothing inherently wrong with that but it does run the risk of fitting golfers into a perfect setup only to find out it’s well outside their price range.
This is something that was discussed on a recent episode of No Putts Given with Ian Fraser from TXG.
With the where’s and why’s out of the way, let’s look at the fittings themselves.
6. Putters are the least fitted club in the bag*
Irons are the most fitted clubs in the bag with nearly 92 percent of you reporting being fitted for your irons at least once. That make sense since very few retail locations stock off-the-rack irons. The driver (80%) isn’t that far behind.
The least fitted clubs in the bag are, by the numbers, utility irons (less than 6.5%) and hybrids (31%), but the asterisk on those numbers is that not everyone carries a hybrid or a utility iron.
Of the clubs we can reasonably assume are in every golfer’s bag, putters (35%) are fitted slightly less often than wedges (37%).
I would suggest that, when done right, both clubs require specialized fitting. However, it’s not uncommon for a wedge fitting to piggyback on an iron fitting so there’s likely quite a bit of nuance between being fitted for wedges and really being fitted for wedges.
Nevertheless, your responses reveal the shortest clubs in the bag are the most neglected from a fitting standpoint.
7. Fitters still rely on conventional metrics
Not surprisingly, distance is the most commonly discussed metric during fittings. It was part of the conversation 78 percent of the time. Other tried-and-true metrics like ball speed, launch angle, spin rate and dispersion came up in fittings between 67 and 72 percent of the time.
Perhaps more interesting is what is seldom discussed. Despite being where the golf stats world has landed, Strokes Gained was discussed only 1.4 percent of the time while peak height (36%) and descent angle (30%) weren’t discussed nearly as often as other key metrics.
The latter is arguably one of the most undervalued metrics in the fitting world as it’s generally a great indicator of when one or more other things aren’t where they need to be.
8) The excessive pressure to buy might be overstated
One of the most common complaints we hear is that fitters sometimes pressure golfers to buy expensive and sometimes unneeded upgrades. As we touched on, the best way to avoid this is to make sure budget is part of the initial conversation before the fitting starts.
That said, on our scale of 1-10 with 1 meaning no pressure, the average pressure score was just 2. That suggests while arm-twisting for upgrades certainly happens, it’s not as common as you might think.
9) Most golfers buy the clubs they’re fitted for
Does it surprise you to learn that 85 percent of golfers said they bought the clubs they were fitted for? Personally, while surprised might be overstating it a bit, it’s higher I would have thought.
Among the golfers who didn’t buy what they were fitted for, a reasonably high number said they wanted a brand-agnostic fitting before buying. The inference there is that most of those fittings were done by manufacturer fitting reps or at OEM-owned facilities.
Thirty-three percent said what they were fitted for was too expensive (or they could get it for less somewhere else). Fewer than 13 percent said they didn’t buy because they didn’t trust the recommendation or had a bad experience.
10) Golfers think there’s room for improvement in custom fitting
While more than a few commented that they felt their fitting experience was perfect, the most cited area for improvement (33%) was having the option of hitting more than one club from a set.
Also commonly cited (30%) was a different fitting environment, with the most common comments including a preference for hitting real (not range) golf ball off grass.
Twenty-eight percent would have preferred more head and shaft combinations.
Cycling back to point No. 8, only six percent said they would have liked less pressure to buy.
BONUS – The fitting environment needs work
We just touched on how golfers believe their fitting experience could have been better but your responses to a trio of questions helped identify additional shortcomings found in many fitting environments.
Sixty percent of you reported being fitted indoors. Forty-nine percent of those fittings were done using either a Trackman or FlightScope launch monitor but nearly 60 percent were done without using Titleist RCT (radar capture technology) golf balls. Without RCT, radar-based launch monitors struggle to accurately capture spin rates which is obviously an important detail in club fitting.
Good fitters will tell you they know when the spin rates are wrong and will eliminate those shots from the consideration set. With fatigue a real factor, no swing should be wasted. The best fitters should leverage the best available technology.
