10 Lessons I Learned From A Through-The-Bag Fitting

The right 14 clubs can help lower your scores and increase your enjoyment of the game. Fortunately, brilliant and adjustable clubs, data capture and analysis, and accessible custom fitting has made it easier than ever before to identify and buy the right equipment for you. But all that extra information has added a layer of complexity, and the variety of club options available has given us more decisions to make.

Happily, Ping has developed an interactive digital fitting toolbox called Co-Pilot that is designed to help fitters – and golfers – identify the best clubs and complete bag set-up. It delivers quick and clear data and analytics as you go through the fitting, and offers recommendations and options based on tens of thousands of shots and extensive testing. In short, it elevates the fitting experience and helps pinpoint the best clubs for you more quickly and easily.

I visited Ping’s state-of-the-art European Fitting Centre in Gainsborough to put Co-Pilot through its paces in a full bag fitting with Paul Rymer, a supervisor at the facility, and an experienced fitter who has spent years working on Tour and fitting handicap golfers. The video and article below tell the story.

1. Get clubs that solve problems

Before hitting any balls, Paul and I had a good chat. He wanted to know about my game, the clubs I like and any I’m not a fan of using, the shots and areas of the game I play well and where my weaknesses are. It’s a useful exercise to cast a critical eye over your game and think about what would actually help you score better. If you’re dropping shots because you lack distance, then finding clubs that are longer is important, but it might not be as big a factor if accuracy is your issue. If you struggle in bunkers, then identifying a wedge set-up that works from the sand should be a priority. If there’s a particular length or type of shot that you have to hit a lot, but you struggle with, a club that enables you to do that will be a huge help.

2. The courses and conditions you play really matter

There’s a big difference between links and parkland, a tight tree-lined course or a wide-open layout, and everything in between. I’m a nomadic golfer, so we opted for versatility, but if you play predominantly on a specific type of course and conditions, that should be reflected in your clubs. For example, if you play a lot of links golf you might favor the lower ball flight and more run from long irons rather than hybrids or fairway woods, if you play a narrow course then accuracy off the tee will be more valuable than the distance that would benefit you at a longer and more open layout. The softness of the turf will also have an impact on the bounce and grind set-up in your wedges, and the average speed of the greens can affect the type of putter.

3. Accuracy and consistency are as important as distance with irons

The first clubs we looked at were irons. Thanks to Ping Co-Pilot, the data we gathered here formed the basis of many decisions, which saved time and reduced the number of balls I needed to hit, so my performance wasn’t affected by getting tired. Paul recommended the i240 and i540 heads to compare. The look behind the ball is important, and while I preferred the more refined aesthetic of the i240s, I liked both, so it was down to the numbers. If we were just going on distance, the i540s would have gone in the bag, but they were only a little longer and the i240s gave me a bit more consistency throughout and greater control in the short irons. For me, hitting my bad shots closer to my good ones, rather than hitting my good ones a little further, is the recipe for improvement. Finding the right clubs is about the bad shots as much as the good ones.

4. The shaft can make a massive difference

Most players focus on the different clubheads – and they’re certainly important – but the shaft had a big influence on my shots once we’d settled on the i240 clubhead. The Ping Co-Pilot recommends the best shafts to try based on your transition (smooth, neutral or abrupt) and swing speed or carry distance with a 7-iron or driver. There are plenty of options based on a combination of factors (flex, weight, kickpoint etc) and your fitter will put you in the appropriate shafts. It’s worth noting that not all stiff shafts (or regular etc) are the same flex, with some variation between brands. I found the weight of the shaft made a huge difference to the feel and control I had over the clubhead. I struggled with a couple of lighter ones before settling on my preferred shaft, which was stiff and at the heavier end of the spectrum.

5. Consistent distance gapping is vital

You need consistent gaps in the distance each club goes right through the bag, so you don’t have any big gaps with yardages you’re unable to hit. Co-Pilot excels here as it uses your 7-iron data to project your distances for each club and make recommendations through the bag. This is important at the top end of the bag as it shows you the longest iron you will be able to hit consistently well and suggests the best clubs to slot in, whether that be hybrids, fairway woods, or a combination of the two. You can tweak it at the touch of a button to compare how different clubs would perform for yardage, height and landing angle etc.

6. Bounce and grind are as important as the loft in wedges

The Co-Pilot is really helpful when you get into the wedges as your 7-iron data and the loft of the PW in the irons is used to recommend what wedges to select. For me, it suggested using a UW, SW and LW to maintain the distance gapping. But that’s the easy bit. What can really make all the difference is the bounce and grind. Generally speaking, more bounce is helpful for fuller shots, bunker play, softer conditions, and if you attack the ball quite steeply with a big divot, while less bounce gives more versatility on finesse shots and suits firmer conditions and a shallower attack angle. The grind will also affect turf interaction and how it sits behind the ball and performs when you open it up. We tried a few combinations from a variety of real grass lies and out the bunkers and the standard sole performed the best and gave me more than enough versatility.

7. Focus on increasing your efficiency with driver

The best driver for you is a combination of distance and accurate dispersion. Co-Pilot has a fantastic feature that enables you to tweak the importance of those two factors to help you understand where you will get the most benefit on favouring one over the other, depending on whether you typically play narrow, medium or wide fairways. Whichever way you tweak that ratio, increasing your efficiency will improve your performance, and Co-Pilot tells you the ideal launch angle and spin rate for the way you hit the ball. While there are optimum numbers, not everyone can achieve them, so it’s important to find the combination that works best for you. My efficiency was at 90% – launch angle was pretty good but we needed to get the spin down a bit to optimise my performance, so we started with the G440 LST driver. It wasn’t quite working so we switched to the more forgiving G440 K head and that did the trick, with my efficiency increasing to 95%.

8. Make the most of the options at the top of the bag

Fairway woods, hybrids and driving irons all offer something a bit different, so you need to decide based on how you swing the club and what shots you need to hit. Co-Pilot initially recommended that I use a 4-wood instead of a 3-wood, but because I use that club more as a driver alternative rather than for shots from the fairway and into greens, the extra distance of the 3-wood was more valuable than its yardage sitting in the middle between driver and the next club down, which is a 3-hybrid. That hybrid is there because it gives me the distance, flight and versatility I need in that area of the bag. Generally speaking, long irons are trickier to hit well and produce a lower flight, while fairway woods are very forgiving with a high flight and lots of stopping power into greens, while hybrids sit somewhere in between.

9. Use data as well as looks and feel for putter

Putter fittings can be a bit of a dark art with limited data meaning decisions are often made based on how it looks and feels. But you require a lot of luck to find a putter that really suits your stroke and helps you on the greens when that’s all you’re going on. The Co-Pilot enables you to gather data and make informed choices. Paul mounted a phone with an app on the shaft of my putter to get a baseline for what I do – measuring closing angle, face change, stroke tempo, shaft lie and shaft lean. You get a putting handicap based on the quality and consistency of these numbers, so you have specific data that Co-Pilot uses to recommend putters that would suit your stroke, and compare your performance when you try different models. Based on my visual preferences and Co-Pilots recommendations, I tried the Anser 4D and my putting handicap improved from +1.6 to +2.9. While that data helped us identify the best club on paper, it’s still important that you like the look, feel and sound. You also need to aim it accurately, and different shapes and alignment aids influence people’s aim in different ways.

10. Technology doesn’t know what you can feel

Feel and preference are really important, because you have to be happy and confident with the clubs on the course. Technology like the Co-Pilot and launch monitor data are incredible for helping the fitter, but you still need their experience and your feel to make the right decisions. Don’t blindly follow the data, use it to help you make informed choices.