If you think you aren’t good enough, strong enough, or experienced enough to buy custom fit golf clubs, you’re not alone. Almost 40% of golfers in a 2021 MyGolfSpy survey simply didn’t think that club fitting would benefit their games. Based on research by Golf DataTech, women players are even less likely to think club fitting is worth the investment.
Attitudes about who benefits from custom club fitting are rife in the golf community. But how does this conventional wisdom hold up against reality? Do golfers really have to be good, strong, and experienced men to benefit from custom fit clubs?
We put conventional wisdom to the test
Club Champion (club fitters), Sports Query (researchers), and Kari Haug (golf course architect) teamed up to test if women golfers – the cohort least likely to think they’ll benefit from club fitting – improve their performance with fitted clubs.
Over 250 women golfers were recruited from across the United States to participate in the study. The sample of golfers were representative of the typical woman golfer in terms of age, and they ranged in playing ability level and hitting distance.
Once women golfers were recruited to the study, Club Champion scheduled testing sessions at custom fitting centres across the United States. Players brought to the Club Champion fitting session their six-iron (or hybrid), and their driver. Using state of the art Trackman technology, the club fitter captured key ball and club metrics. This included carry and total distance, and smash factor.
