Buying a driver is a huge investment in your game, and with modern drivers offering so much adjustability, it can be tough to know exactly where to start and what to look for. Earlier this year, Hannah travelled to TaylorMade Golf’s Headquarters in Carlsbad, California, to see if a fitting with Scottie Scheffler’s tour fitter, Adrian, could help her find a driver that works.
Getting invited to TaylorMade’s world headquarters in Carlsbad, California, is a big deal. Getting the chance to get a TaylorMade driver fitting from a tour fitter is something that most golfers can only dream of, and Hannah got to do both on our recent trip to the United States.
TaylorMade have the whole fitting experience nailed. When you walk in the door of the Kingdom, you see your name on the big screen behind the reception desk and find a locker with your name next to none other than Tiger Woods. You feel pretty special before you’ve even swung a club.
The Kingdom (TaylorMade’s fitting centre) is a state-of-the-art facility built to cater for club fittings for golfers of all skill levels, from PGA Tour players like Rory McIlroy to Hannah Holden to just your average mid-handicapper. They have every shaft and head combination that TaylorMade offer in their 2023 lineup, and with all the launch monitor technology they have, you feel confident you will get the best custom clubs.
We spent an hour with Adrian, Scottie Scheffler & Rory McIlroy’s PGA tour fitter, who took Hannah through the whole experience, starting with questions on what her desired ball flight is and what is her current shot pattern. This is helpful knowledge as Adrian can start to mentally eliminate quite a number of the different options.
There are so many different customisation points on the TaylorMade Stealth 2 drivers that it takes a true expert to know where to start and where would be a waste of time. You can adjust loft, lie, face angle, centre of gravity, length, flex, shaft and grip. All of these things have different effects on the ball speed and flight, so it’s vital you are fit by someone with a thorough knowledge of the product and adequate shaft and head options to demo.
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Hannah was fit into the 8-degree TaylorMade Stealth 2 Plus head, set at 10 degrees using their adjustable loft sleeve. The shaft is a KBS TD 60 stiff at standard length and undersized. The sliding weight on the sole was moved to the extreme toe position.
the loft and then loft adjustment gave Hannah the right face angle at impact that helped her hit it straight, and the movement of the sliding weight track was absolutely bizarre. When the weight was in the heel (designed to help close the face earlier), Hannah reacted in her swing and then hit it way right (the opposite of what was supposed to happen.
When the weight was moved to the toe (designed to help stop the face closing so early in the swing), Hannah actually squared the face up earlier and more regularly. This was the exact opposite of what one would expect to happen on paper and just showed that you really do have to go and spend some time with an expert who can predict these things.
It was really interesting to spend time with a fitter with complete knowledge of the Stealth 2 driver, having fitted many of TaylorMade’s tour staff players. Moving the loft up and down to adjust the face and lie angle and then adjusting the moveable weight track to dial in strike location and shot shape blew our minds.
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Hopefully, seeing how much depth Adrian and Hannah go into gives you some insight as to what a tour standard custom driver fitting looks like and will help you make good decisions in your next one.
Find out more about the drivers in TaylorMade’s 2023 lineup
What do you think of this fitting with Trottie? Let me know with a tweet.
This video was filmed at The Kingdom, Carlsbad, California, and we are wearing Puma apparel.
What’s In My Bag?
- Driver: TaylorMade Stealth 2 HD
- 3 Wood: Callaway Paradym fairway wood
- Irons: Takomo 301mb
- Wedges: Callaway Jaws Raw wedge
- Putter: TaylorMade TP Reserved putter
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