15-05-2025
WNYPGA Tip of the Week: Club fitting provides ton of benefits
Most golfers don't consider a club fitting unless they are considering a new equipment purchase. It's a perfect to be fitted, but it doesn't have to be the only time.
Callaway master fitter Jim Yeager has helped out players ranging from PGA Tour pros to square one beginners. We caught up with Yeager at Jackson Golf in Webster while he was working with former Tour pro and Rochester native Terry Diehl.
After a decade on Tour during the 70's and 80's, Diehl is now 75 years old and deals with the same aches and pains as most his age. He still plays often and, like any other player, is still hoping to find a few more yards and a few more straight shots.
Yeager's job isn't to just sell the most expensive club or even the newest technology. He's just trying to find the right pieces to make a client's swing better and, in the case of someone like Diehl, hurt the body a little less.
'As a PGA professional, I understand the golf swing piece. As a master club fitter, I understand what the golf clubs can do,' Yeager says. 'My job is to try to figure out what part is golf swing induced and what part is golf club induced.'
Yeager has seen improvements in golf technology hit the market like a firehose. The difference between a five year old driver and a current model is 'massive'. However, he cautions that the newest and most expensive is not going to be right for every player. Even those with an unlimited budget.
The arsenal Yeager brings to most club fittings is equally massive. He has enough clubhead and shaft combinations to build 1,200 different drivers. It's why he cautions players not to decide a particular style shaft, lie angle or loft is the best tool for them.
'You are not going to find that on your own,' he says. 'I can.'
Fittings are almost always done in simulators with oodles of data for feedback. The first stat Yeager eyeballs is ball speed because it's the best indicator of distance. However, that data can't be the entirety of the feedback he processes.
'It can be perfect on the machine and awful to the player and that doesn't work. And if it's great to the player and awful on the machine, that doesn't work. We're trying to walk that fine line,' he says.
Yeager says to treat club fittings like tuning up a car. It's something that should happen every so often. It's not just new equipment that might change a swing. Changes in body strength and flexibility or even taking a few lessons can alter what club might work best.
Club fittings usually can't be done for the entire bag in one session. First of all, Yeager says the average player only has 30 or so swings in them before the data starts to be skewed by fatigue. He suggest a driver fitting could be one day, with irons another and wedges a different day.
He's also adamant that putter fittings should be as regular as the rest of the clubs. He laments that even most pros have never been fitted for a putter. Don't forget about getting fitted for the correct ball. Yeager points out that golf and bowling are the only sports where the player gets to choose their own style of ball.
'Really need to go through the process with each piece,' Yeager says. 'Is it harder? Does it take more time? Yeah, but it's worth doing to make sure that it's right for you.'
Some players might see a golf fitting as something akin to a root canal. Painful experiences where the professional lectures about what you've done wrong while trying to fix the issue. That's not what Yeager wants. He's hoping it's a fun experience where players learn about the swing in general and their swing in particular. An experience he hopes is 'cool'.
'I want you to walk out of this feeling like I didn't change your golf swing,' Yeager says. 'All I do is find stuff that enhances the way you already play.'
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