Is it stage freight? Fear of failure? Nerves? Just a bad day? What do you do when a player simply cannot put a good swing on the ball? Perhaps the swing is good, but the result is bad. Regardless, the player can’t make decent contact with anything – even their own clubs? Do you reschedule? Can you talk him through it? What do you do??

I may get this more than you. The vast majority of the players I fit are people I don’t know. The number of people who ask me what it’s like to fit a Tour Player… I think a lot of people think they are getting a fitter who works with Tour players and this fitter drew the short stick and has to come out for the afternoon to work with a bunch of duffers at their club for the day. What this guy must’ve seen. He is going to come criticize, analyze, and poke fun at their golf swing. They are going to an appointment (in their mind) where they are going to get ripped apart. They don’t want to hit a golf ball in front of anyone – much less the Callaway guy. And yet, they have to. Who would sign up for that? Instead, they get me. Haha. The number of players I get who have a stress level at DEFCON 5 is more than I can mention. How would you handle this?

For me, the first step is to put them at ease. I talk to them. I talk about them. I explain the process. I explain what I’m looking for, and how this will work. I let them warm up. Sometimes we keep chatting, sometimes we don’t. Most players chill out and are fine – I’m like the golf pro guy on the first tee at that high end resort that just got assigned to their group. Oh no… By the time we are walking down the first fairway, we are old friends. But this doesn’t happen with everyone.

Some players put so much pressure on themselves that they just can’t do it. They can’t perform. It doesn’t matter what I say or do. It doesn’t even matter if I leave them alone. They can’t do it. I’ve seen it from beginners to golf professionals and everyone in between. It happens. So how do you fit this player?

Step number one is to put the ball on a tee. Most players perceive this as “easy” and can immediately relax. Some will fight you – “I can do it…”. I say “let’s try it on a tee. I can get better readings, and we can move back to the grass before you “graduate”.” This works for most players, but for some – nope. Can you fit that player?

The answer is, it depends. Let’s start at face value. Is the player going to get any taller? Assuming the player is not a junior, you can fit for length with no problem. Let’s tackle junior players separately. Will the players hands get any bigger? If it’s an adult, we know that’s a no, so you can fit for grip size and grip type with no problem. What about lie angle? Believe it or not, lie angle is a spec that is like a fingerprint for a player – it doesn’t change. A good swing with a good result, a poor swing with a poor result, and a complete whiff will all bend the shaft the same amount for that player. The whiff won’t show up on face tape (obviously), but the other two will. You can fit for lie without good contact, and you only need one swing to do it. So this means that you can fit for length, lie, grip size and grip type without a good golf swing.

How about set make up? While not ideal, you can have a conversation with a player about what they plan on keeping or changing and go off their wishes on this. Ideally, we’d have the player hit hybrids and FW Woods to determine the top of the bag, but it can be done. My preference would be to not do this without seeing some good data, but it can be done. This leaves head and shaft.

Club head is pretty easy. The players impact pattern will dictate what he needs here. The assumption if a player can’t make a good swing would be to see an erratic impact pattern. This would indicate something ultra game improvement (maybe Elyte X in irons). Swing speed and apex height will tell you if he needs something like a HL or a MAX Fast instead of the X head. If the player is set on STD Elyte of anything Apex, I would be more comfortable seeing some good shots to make that call.

So, we’re down to the shaft. You should be able to use what the player is currently playing – regardless if he was fit for it or not (because that is what he’s used to) – along with the data from the poor swings, and a visual observation of the players golf swing to get a pretty good idea on the right shaft. The older the set of clubs, the greater the likelihood of a departure from their current shaft. You should be able to get it down to 3 or 4 (or less) based on that data. The tricky part is if you think there might be a change from steel to graphite. Tread gently here…

Remember, the job of the shaft is ONLY to return the club head to impact at the same position it started from. Don’t make more out of it than you need to – especially in this case. Second, the job of the fitter (you), is to determine if the result of the shot is player induced or club induced. Can I give the player a different combination that would have made that result better?

What is the moral of the story? Can you do it? Yes. I will typically reverse the process. I get all the non-swing stuff done first – length, grip, grip size, talk about set make up… Then I chat about the different head styles and who they are for. That leaves shaft to the end. You really need a few good swings to help make a decision. By leaving it to the end, most players are calmed down and can give you those few swings you need. Often times, these same players that really struggle to hit the ball when they get there will be the ones who say this experience is one of the coolest they have had in golf.

Your demeanor will be what calms this player down. If you keep laying down ball after ball, waiting for a good one, I’m here to tell you, it’s not coming. The more balls you give that are unsuccessfully hit, the higher likelihood that you will never get a quality shot from this player. Reverse the process. Do your talking first. Put them more at ease. Ask “Are you ready to try to hit a few balls?” Most of the time, this gets an affirmative nod, followed by a good shot, and then another, and you are off and running. Read the room and understand your audience.

Think of it this way… If you were caddying for a player who started to struggle, what would you do? You’d change the narrative, right? You’d talk about anything else to get their mind off of bad shots, right? Do that here too. You change you to put the player more at ease.

At the end of the day, your stamp is on the bottom of that fitting recommendation. If you’re not comfortable with what you’ve seen, and confident that it can help the player – it’s better to take thorough notes and make another time to get together.

This happened to me last summer. I fit the player to a Big Bertha Iron with a 115g Elevate Reg shaft. He struggled to get the ball in the air. “I can’t hit balls in the simulator.” I asked him if he’d rather get together again at a later date. He said yes. 4 months later, we met at the same facility on the outdoor range. The result? The same. exact. club. I looked at the impact tape and the marks were identical. Length, lie, grip, grip size, set make up? All the same as we discussed at the previous session. It can be done… Just be mindful of being flexible through the process. Remember – you change you to put the player more at ease.

Happy Fitting!!!

Jim Yeager, PGA