It was time. Not that my trusty old driver was acting up in any criminal way, but I could tell that we were growing apart yard by yard and degree by degree. Those distant doglegs had become more daunting to carry, even from one set of tees up. Longer irons and hybrids were finding their way into my second-shot repertoire — on par 4s. Youngsters (in their 30s and 40s) were blowing it by me with impunity. I needed a new driver.
Of course, some of it is age. Some of it is the fact I bailed on my gym membership two years ago. Some of it is a nagging lack of commitment to a regular practice regimen.
But still. Enough!
So, in the immortal words of many a modern golfer, “bring on the technology.”
While nothing replaces good instruction, solid fundamentals and at least a tiny sliver of natural talent when it comes to knocking the ball into the beauty zone — on the short stuff, with a wedge or short iron in your hand and birdie in the conversation — today’s club fitting masters, coupled with myriad choices in heads and shafts, are the final distance-dealing ingredient we all seek. Those shafts and heads can work together in countless ways to get the most out of every swing, which makes expert fitting a must.
For me, that meant a date with Club Champion.
These folks know their stuff. They’ve become leaders in the club fitting clubhouse by coupling cutting-edge TrackMan technology with rigorous training and access to every club and shaft manufacturer out there — including newcomer TPT, a Swiss company whose proprietary automation process yields batches of shafts within one micron of one another in terms of frequency. I worked with them to set up the Club Champion session a three-hour drive away; “worth the time” doesn’t begin to cover it. The experience was both fun and eye-opening … and, yes, game-changing.
