“92% Of Golfers Buying Golf Clubs They Don’t Need” – {Are You 1 Of Them?}
Posted December 15, 2008 by GolfSpy X
“92% Of Golfers Are Buying Golf Clubs They Don’t Need…8% Buy Clubs That Actually Improve Their Game”
Golf Companies Failing At Providing True Service To Their Customers
How much money have you spent on golf clubs since you started playing? How many strokes have you actually shaved off your game…honestly? It’s a fact that most of us see little to no improvement from simply purchasing new clubs off the rack…many of us actually get worse. A recent poll we took showed us that golfers estimated spending over $500 a year on golf equipment. Which means some of you reading this article have already spent over $10,000 on equipment not fit for your game…actually 92% of you have!
This number used to shock me…but after years of being in this business and seeing what it is all about…not very much shocks me anymore. The big club companies are trying to lower this number…well they say they are…but they have serious limitations to their abilities to offer you truly custom fit golf clubs. Here are a couple of ways the name brand companies try but fail at custom fitting:
- Go to a retail store and get a golf fitting specialist (untrained fitting specialist) to watch you hit a few balls into a net.
- Mistake #1- a very large percentage of the staff at local retail shops have no experience in club fitting and especially with the new fitting technology that is out now.
- Mistake #2- These so-called fitting specialists are trained more on how to sell you on high-dollar pre-assembled equipment that will help them and their store more then it will help you and your game.
- Mistake #3- These specialists makes suggestions generally after watching you hit what adds up to less then a large bucket of range balls. You could have had a slice for 10 years and for some reason today you were hitting a draw. You have always wanted to be able to hit that beautiful draw…so your are happy as a pig in crap….right? Don’t be for long…because now this specialist is going to make suggestions to the equipment you play and the swing you should have based on a false tendency. It happens all the time and can negatively impact your game for years…actually your whole life.
- You think you are in luck…your shop has a fitting cart from a couple of major name brand companies like Ping and Callaway.
- Yes, this is a step above the first example but still way off of what you should be doing if you really want to stop buying clubs you don’t need and start buying clubs that actually work.
- This only covers about 5% of the information needed to perform a worthwhile custom-fitting.
$1000 Custom Fit Suit vs. $1000 Golf Club Set (What Loft Would You Like Sir?)
Think about mens suits for a second…generally the more you spend the more customization you get. If you bought a suit today and it cost you $1000…you would fully expect to get a suit tailored for that price…for that price you would even expect that tailor to have the suit fitting you like a glove before you walked out of that store. So…tell me why then when you spend $1000 for off the rack golf clubs do you literally take them right from the rack to the golf course without expecting any level of customization from the salesman? It has gotten to the point where golfers actually think it is a luxury just to be able to choose the flex and length on their golf clubs when they buy from chain golf store. We have come to expect and except terrible customer-service from these big business operations…it’s sad but true.
Stores simply can’t afford to pay these so-called “fitting specialist” a high enough wage to entice qualified professionals to fill their positions. And with the millions of head, shaft, grip, flex, loft, lie, weight, spin and launch angle combinations there are in a golf club today…you definitely need not only a decent golfer in this position but also one who is well trained in the newest fitting technologies. And now more then any other time in the history of golf we have the tools and technology to improve every golfers game.
Stop Believing The Hype from Golf Club Advertising
And the improvements have nothing to do with whether or not you buy what is being marketed to you as the next biggest thing or the coolest looking club on a commercial that all the popular golf magazines and golf forums are hyping up. Today’s fitting and the future of fitting will be about crunching numbers and putting the best combination of numbers together that will improve every aspect of your game. How much of a difference can a true custom fitting make you ask? Well…we polled over 25,000 golfers that did nothing more then get custom fit and they saw their handicaps drop by an average of 5-7 strokes! And this didn’t take hours on the range or cost thousands in golf lessons…all they did was get a professional custom fitting. Everything from distance to accuracy to consistency to your overall confidence will improve with today’s fitting technologies. So get rid of those lessons for now…because without the right gear first…all you’re doing is creating bad habits that will need fixing later.
Newest Fitting Technologies – {What Is It…And Where Do I Go To Get Fit?}
Over the next week we are going to shine a spotlight of some of the companies providing the most in-depth fitting analysis for fitting your clubs to your game…yes you heard right…not your game fit to your clubs, like most golfers do. We are even go to offer our advice and experience with some other less expensive but very thorough ways to get fit using today’s most precise technology available to improve your game.
SERIES – Week One:
- “92% Of Golfers Buying Golf Clubs They Don’t Need” – {Are You 1 Of Them?} (Monday)
- “Dedicated Golf Fitting Centers” (Tuesday)
- “Golf Retail Fitting Centers” (Wednesday)
- “Local Custom Club Fitters” (Thursday)
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Vector Pro Launch Monitor Swing System - with Software US $2,500.00 End Date: Saturday Aug-28-2010 13:13:52 PDT Add to watch list |
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December 15th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
Great post!
It is so true! The industry has the consumer roped into thinking that the next “greatest” club will “take their game to new heights!”
Hey, like I regularly say, “your clubs are only good as the body that swings them!”
In other words, if your body is our of shape, inflexible, unstable, unbalanced, and has pain, then your $1000 clubs are just a waste of money!!
My goal is to get golfers to, say, spend $500 on clubs, and $500 on golf fitness so they can get their body where it needs to be so the club technology can be properly utilized!
Get your golf fitness in check first, and you’ll finally change your game for good!
Thanks!
Dee Tidwell
http://www.championshipgolffitness.blogspot.com
January 17th, 2009 at 8:11 am
While it is true that many expert club fitters have great knowledge of golf equipment, they also have very little insight into how to alter golf ball flight. The end goal in club fitting is to improve ball flight and very little is known in the field of club fitting about ball flight. Todays club fitting specialists need more expertise in analyzing golf ball spin rates, lift and drag charachteristics and their relationship to distance. The two most important factors in club fitting lie in knowing the golf ball speed and the spin rate. Then the ability to build clubs that create the proper spin rate to create the correct distance profile for that player for each and every club in their set.
January 21st, 2009 at 8:25 am
Great point Tony!
December 15th, 2008 at 8:34 pm
I look forward to it!!
December 16th, 2008 at 7:04 am
I had a fitting a few years back and it was the best money spent. The shaft of the club is far more important than the brand name or clubhead. Matching your swing with the right equipment is the easiest distance and accuracy gain you will ever find.
I agree with Dee, but I would add that you need to improve your mind and body first and then get fit for your clubs. The mind is a terrible thing to waste. I think improving your focus and outlook on the course will also improve your score more significantly than the new golf ball.
December 16th, 2008 at 10:05 am
Large manufacturers are really stepping up and getting us club-fitters effective tools. The bad thing is that they are doing it during this downturn in the economy. Many of the fitting-carts retrofitted to have less options but still much better than a bag of misc. 6 irons. We try to focus on time and information. The more time and information we give customer, the more confident they are in their order. Rarely do we sell a club that is already in a rack at our shop. Almost every stock club we put in the shop ends up getting sold at cost once the club is no longer current.
December 16th, 2008 at 10:16 am
Fitting carts are hardly a good way to fit a customer in today’s times. And the majority of fitters are not even qualified to do the fitting. So the time and information is typically pointless and misleading. The fitting cart is not only outdated but unreliable today.
December 16th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Looking forward to the rest of this series of articles. Keep up the great work.
December 16th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
LoneWolf,
Thanks a lot man. Means a lot to me and the other guys that work here. We do this for you guys, so it feels good to hear the compliments from time to time.
December 16th, 2008 at 6:18 pm
I think it’s very true that you have to be wary of Pro Shop employees. I visit a large pro shop in a nearby city. They have good prices and are very nice people. But they give me more crap everytime I get a golf club re-gripped. Bring up midsize or 4 wraps and you’ll get the many (sometimes imagined) evils of anything not standard size. Now I’m no expert, and I’ve never been fitted, but using the information provided by people like Ralph Maltby and Golf Pride I’ve found 4 wraps fits me pretty good. So I couldn’t imagine the same person(s) “fitting” clubs for me. Not that it would make much difference at this point given my propensity for sod farming and banana slices. And at least for me, given the expense of the sport, lessons and fittings are just not in the budget. And if were going to get fit I haven’t found anyplace reliable I could go. I’ve spent some time at the driving range with some current PGM students as well and their attitudes haven’t done much to instill confidence in the future of golf either. But that may be a whole ‘nother topic.
December 17th, 2008 at 9:01 am
Another problem with employees that don’t get paid a high enough wage to bring in qualified professionals….their lazy. Not wanting to fix your grip is just about being lazy nothing more.
Hopefully by the end of the next couple weeks we will give you a couple great places to go get fit properly. And if not you can always call me I would be happy to help.
December 18th, 2008 at 1:53 am
I counted all the 10 yards gains the ad’s say I have gained added together with the drivers I’ve had in the last couple of years I should be hitting it 430 off the tee
December 18th, 2008 at 7:24 am
You might want to enter the RE/MAX Long Drive events now Kiwi.
January 5th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
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January 6th, 2009 at 5:26 am
Good stuff, my friend – and it looks like perfect timing for your week of articles. I would encourage all to share with your golfing friends. We’re planning to share with our tour players.
Best golfing ever to all in 2009!
Bill
January 6th, 2009 at 10:42 am
Bill…thanks. Hope your players enjoy it. And we welcome your feedback.
January 6th, 2009 at 10:29 am
Grerat article I am a 20 year custom club builder and if you want to play your best golf get fit properly by a custom club maker. Keep it in the short grass!
January 6th, 2009 at 10:41 am
Hey James – Thanks…we will be covering custom clubmakers in our series we will be covering this week.
Thanks again.
January 6th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Like what you’ve said here. As a clubfitter I see a lot of the issues you have brought forward. I work at a major golf store doing sales and golf club repair, and I am disheartened by the number of my coworkers have no idea about how to properly fit a customer. They are more interested in sales figures than proper fitting techniques.
There are some of us who know what they’re doing though, so don’t give up hope!
I propose that the customer find out some facts from a PGA teaching professional and/or going to a website of some of the major manufacturers and “QUIZ” the person who would potentially do the fitting. If they get all your questions right, then they will be able to help you.
Maybe Mr. Mygolfspy could come up with a Q & A set for anybody looking for a good fitter?
January 8th, 2009 at 2:50 am
Hi,
Great article !!!
The number 92% – who have invented this number? Is it documented?
January 8th, 2009 at 8:29 am
We polled over 25,000 golfers.
January 8th, 2009 at 8:37 am
Very very impressing!
I read all articles, they are fantastic…
January 8th, 2009 at 8:48 am
Really appreciate the kind words. If there is anything you would like us to write about feel free to make a suggestion. And we hope you continue to enjoy our posts.
March 4th, 2009 at 9:54 am
when going to a personel club fitter, do you go just to one or should you get a 2nd or 3rd opinion?
March 4th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
Hey Peter – honestly only 1 is needed as long as you go through a reputable fitter. If you are not going to a reputable fitter you will most likely be wasting time and also being fit into equipment that could create more problems for your game down the road.
May 5th, 2009 at 11:55 am
Such a true, such a great article!!!! The worst thing about all this is that in Spain it is quite hard, actually I just know one shop in Madrid that has some fitting work done in your clubs, but here in the Canary Island they just laught about you if you ask for a fitting!!!!
Hopefully I will go to the US in a future by and I will asked you about a great fitting place, but until that date I will keep dreaming about golf and fitting…Sad but this is the truth about how companies and golf shops treat us in Spain
October 18th, 2009 at 7:28 pm
guys have you ever think about it might be the customer fault?!?! IM working in one of those big storeas a certified club fitter and almost every customer im talking with hitting the ball on average of 290 yards and theire all 5 handicap….
in in the other way… have you ever try to fit some one who`s nerver take the same grip, same stance , twice, hitting the ball all over his driver face and try to correct his swing while he being fit?!?!
its pretty hard to help people when they doesnt want to be helped … we can sold 5 driver in a year to the same guys but dont event try to sell him a couple of lesson ….
October 19th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
I understand your point but for the golfer that does have a consistent swing he will not find as much skilled and knowledge in a box store like he did in the past.