I saw a video of an interesting fitting the other day, and it was on one of my favorite topics. The player was a very good player, and he was looking to fill the gap between his 4-iron and his 3 wood. The 4 iron was a 215 club for him, and the 3 wood was a 250 carry club off the ground. He had an old 20-degree hybrid in there that he hit about 220.

The player and the fitter landed on an 18-degree club as the right fit, so the fitter selected an 18-degree UT, an 18-degree hybrid, and a 5 wood. For clarification, my preference would be to determine the yardage needed first, then find a club to fill it. In this case, the number was 235, and each of these worked out fine. This was a good fitting to watch because it highlights HOW we need to fit to properly gap a set of clubs.

First, each of these clubs is 18-degrees, so let’s dive into what makes them different. Let’s start with length. The UT is 39.5″ long, 40.625″ on the hybrid, and 42.75″ on the FW Wood. Length alone will tell you that the yardage differences will be significant. Perhaps the most important part is the Center of Gravity location. Between the three, the UT will be the most forward, and the highest. The hybrid will be middle depth and middle height. The FW Wood will be the lowest and deepest. CoG location should have a drastic influence on ball flight and playability. The forward CoG on the UT will make it want to be fade biased, and the deeper CoG of the FW Wood will make it draw biased. The hybrid will be fairly neutral. The lower and deeper the CoG gets, the more forgiving the club it, the larger the sweetspot is, potentially it will fly higher and shorter, but with more spin.

Each will club have its own purpose. Different players will respond more favorably to each type. Typically, I will base this decision on the apex height the player can achieve with a club. Plain and simple, if the height is off, the other specs of the shot will be off too. Perhaps not for EVERY shot, but enough of the time to make it more worthwhile to explore other options. Too high is no better than too low. Remember, the golf ball doesn’t lie. Learn from what it tells you.

Now, on to the fitting!!

Let’s dive into some of the specs:

Club head speed averages were 100.4 mph with the UT, 104.2 mph with the hybrid, and 106.3 mph with the FW Wood.

Ball Speeds were 145.4 with the UT, 147.5 with the Hybrid, and 149.4 with the FW Wood.

Launch angles were 11.8 degrees with the UT, 13.8 degrees with the hybrid, and 16.5 degrees with the FW Wood.

If here is where you stopped, it would be easy to conclude that the distances would match up to the lengths – the longest had the highest ball speeds and should go the furthest. We don’t know how far the player actually hit them, so we still can’t say what is best. Logic would tell you that the 5 wood has the highest ball speed, and the highest launch, so it has to maximize his carry distance, come in the steepest, thus stopping the fastest. That didn’t happen. In fact, the opposite did.

Distances were as follows:

UT Carry 237, total 248

Hybrid Carry 232, total 243

FW Wood Carry 227, total 240

How can a club have the highest ball speed, highest launch, highest spin and carry the shortest and roll out the furthest? This doesn’t make sense. It looks like the UT has the longest carry and total, so let’s go with that, right?

Not so fast. If you are a veteran, you continued.

You would notice that ANY of these three clubs hits the ball an acceptable distance for this player. You’d notice that the UT landed to the RIGHT of the target line with a fade, the hybrid landed nearest the target line, and the FW Wood landed LEFT of the target line with a draw.

You’d see that the spin was 3061 rpm with the UT, 3997 with the hybrid, and 4583 with the FW Wood.

Scratching your head, you might say how can the spin numbers be higher for a draw than for a fade? This doesn’t make sense.

You might look at Attack Angle and notice that the player was -1.6 degrees with the UT, 0.0 degrees with the hybrid, and +.9 degrees with the FW Wood. Now I’m really confused. I thought a negative attack angle would INCREASE spin, and a positive attack angle would DECREASE spin. The opposite happened here. What gives? Must be bad data. Not so fast. The data is good.

If you are a master fitter, you’d smile and look deeper. Remember, the golf ball doesn’t lie. It tells you exactly what it did what it did. you need to figure out WHAT made it do that. As a Master fitter, you’d look at the hit location first. Then you’d look at the Apex of the flight. Then you would call on your knowledge of how CoG location will influence the shot.

The hit location on the UT was the highest on the face probably due to the negative attack angle. This produced a spin number that was too low. Close, but trending low. The AVERAGE of these shots looked good, but there were miss hits and a couple bombs in there that skewed the data. One shot had a 245 carry and rolled out to almost 260. A good player can’t play golf with that shot potentially in the bag. For this reason alone, I would rule out this club UNLESS it was ONLY going to be used as a driving club. Apex height was around 90 feet high. Too low, with not enough spin to be a playable option in my opinion. If this player can’t deliver 120-foot Apex with 3500 rpm of spin, I’d be on to another club. Can he play the club? Sure. SHOULD he play it? In my opinion, no.

The FW Wood hit location was low on the face due to the upward attack angle – leading to a thin miss. These shots went almost 160 feet high with a lot of spin. A couple of outliers here skewed the averages, especially on the roll out, so again, not a super playable option for this player. The low face strike point is certainly what skewed the spin number. If this player figured out how to hit a FW Wood with an attack angle closer to 0*, the spin would come down 400-500 rpm, and that would increase the carry distance making it too long for what he was trying to accomplish.

The hit location on the hybrid was in the center of the face. This made the spin number perfect, launch was great, and distance consistency was the best of the bunch. There were no outliers in distance in this group. The apex height was 120 feet – perfect for this player. It was easily the most consistent, and it never went offline. In my opinion, this was the best option. This club matches a CoG in the clubhead with the way the player delivers the clubhead to the ball at impact. When those match, the results will be very consistent.

Key takeaways.

• This player hits his 4-iron great, don’t just assume that he’ll hit the UT great. Walk through the exercise. We ALL have a point where we don’t hit it high enough, or spin it enough, and it will make a club less playable. For this player, it happened with his 18* club. He needed something with a lower and deeper CoG (vs. his 4-iron or the UT) to get the most consistent flight and results. (in this case, i actually thought about looking at his 4-iron and making sure he hit’s it great. Perhaps a UT would be a great fit for him in that spot in his bag?)
• There is a relationship between the Length of the shaft vs. Attack angle. As the shaft gets shorter, attack angle will get steeper (or more negative).
• There is a relationship between Attack Angle vs. Hit Location. Steeper attack angles (again, more negative) tend to be hit higher on the face. This can effectively reduce spin in an area where we don’t want it to.
• Could we have tried different length shafts to influence the way the player delivers the club to the ball? Perhaps. If that option was available. A shorter FW Wood shaft could have been really good (a 7-wood length in a 5-wood head). With this player, his upward attack angle with the longer club was a problem. At the end of the day, the hybrid was the right club for him but considering this for other players could be beneficial.
• Remember to look at ALL of the aspects of the shots and compare them ALL to each other. Not just the averages.
• Understand how CoG location will influence the shot. This will play a major role in understanding WHY the resulting shot did what it did.
• Apex height is a key predictor. If the Apex height is correct, it generally means launch and descent angles are correct.
• To determine the correct apex height – take the players Driver Club Head Speed in MPH and use that number in Feet as the optimal apex height. 105 MPH club speed = 105 feet apex.
• Don’t have a driver? The 7-iron swing speed + 15 mph is a good estimate. 82 mph with a 7-iron =97 mph with a driver.
• This holds until you get into the mid 70 MPH range (or lower) with the driver.
• That APEX height is the SAME for every club in the bag. Yes, the SW flies the same apex as the 7-iron, as the hybrid, as the 3 wood, as the driver. If the player doesn’t hit the ball high enough, it’s time for a club head change.
• If this gets up to the 20* club range where the player doesn’t get enough height, add length to the shaft. In other words, if the optimal apex number is 60 feet high, and the 7 wood only gets up to 45 feet, the swing and launch characteristics are keeping the player from hitting it farther. At that point, LENGTH is the players best friend, NOT loft.
• Last, and perhaps most importantly… The club head made 95% of the difference here. Could we have changed the FW Wood shaft to something really stiff in the tip? Yes, but the overarching shots would have been the same. Could we have gone to graphite in the UT. Yes, but to what benefit. It might have allowed us to try a 20* UT to get the right distance we were looking for. At the end of the day, the club head makes the biggest influence on the resulting shot. Use the shaft to fine tune.

This was a good one. Happy Fitting and Happy Holidays!!!