Want to Enjoy Golf More? Dial In Your Golf Club Sizing with a Custom Fitting.

THE GAME OF golf is a never ending battle. You’ve got to compete against yourself, against your playing mates, against the course, against the weather—every way you turn there’s another obstacle, be it mental, physical, or otherwise. You put in hours at the range, on the practice green, and spend your money on the latest golf shoes or rangefinder all in hopes of conquering the unconquerable. In spite of all that, I’m willing to bet there’s one thing that you haven’t done to help your golf game that could be significantly holding you back: Dialing in your golf club sizing.

If you stroll through the PGA Superstore or do a cursory online search, it may appear that all golf clubs are one-size-fits-all. For better or worse, this is mostly true—anyone can go to Dick’s Sporting Goods (or even Amazon) and buy a set of golf clubs and they’ll probably work for them. The standard golf clubs you see at the store or online are made to suit the average player.

This is great news for getting people excited about golf. Sure, you gotta splash some cash to get started but once you have your clubs, you’re all set. Right? That’s all you have to do, right? (Insert Anakin and Padme meme here).

Wrong. Golf clubs are much more complicated. But don’t worry, this is a good thing.

Golf clubs may seem like they’re suited for anyone right out of the box, but they’re actually made to be tweaked, adapted, and optimized. The one-size-fits-all approach is great for the proverbial everyman who just wants to go play a handful of rounds a year, but if you really want to improve, you need to tailor your golf club sizing to your game, not the other way around.

To figure out precisely what a golf club fitting is and how it works, I made an appointment at the PXG store in Orange County, where I was fit for a new set, from driver to putter.

Curious as to what might be in store for me, I asked what to expect. “Our fitting experience is immersive, data-driven, and personalized, but it’s also surprisingly fun. The result? More consistency, better performance, and a big boost in confidence every time you step on the tee.”

This is a bit ambiguous, but after making the trek down to the OC and going through a fitting, I can confidently say that all of this is spot on. Read on for the nitty gritty details.

What Can You Actually Change About a Golf Club?

There are myriad ways to change a golf club to improve your play without having to take a thousand golf lessons. You can change the shaft length, the shaft weight, shaft flex, lie angle, loft, face angle, offset, grip size—the list goes on and on. Once you dial these things in, you’ll be cookin’ with gas.

Here’s what PXG told me when I asked what aspects of the golf club would be analyzed during my fitting: “Selecting the ideal clubhead and shaft combination from our expansive fitting matrix, adjusting loft and lie angles, hosel settings, swing weight, grip size–even fine-tuning PXG’s unique club head precision-weighting technology of fully dialed-in performance. Every tweak is based on real-time performance data.”

A new shaft can transform your shot shape. If you constantly struggle to hit the ball high, a new shaft can help you get a higher launch angle, resulting in better distance control and stopping power on the greens. If you hit it sky high but want to develop a lower shot shape for more control, a new shaft can do that, too.

A different sized grip can reverse a push or pull, a modified lie angle can help you straighten out a snap hook or 30-yard slice, and finding the proper lofts will help you hit consistent distances from your driver to your wedges without any big gaps.

Add in new technology like weights and you’ve got at least a dozen ways to make your golf clubs suit you better.

Getting Fit

At a professional club fitting, an experienced fitter will take a look at your swing, your ball flight, and advanced metrics like ball speed, club head speed, and smash factor, to determine what the best setup is. Sometimes this means tweaking your current clubs, and other times this means fitting you for a new set of clubs entirely.

While I got fitted at PXG, the brand has a baseline $25 fee that it waives if you end up buying clubs. Do keep in mind that a full bag fitting from PXG is $125. The clubs they’d be fitting me with were all from the PXG brand, but, having spoken to my own fitter and others, the process is the same regardless of what brand you’re working with. If you want to try more than one brand out during your fitting, I gathered up some alternative fitting options and their prices. Lots of times, some places will waive the fitting fee if you do purchase clubs from them.

Club Champion: $400 (full bag, brand agnostic)
PGA Superstore: $300 (full bag, brand agnostic)
Dick’s Sporting Goods: $280 (full bag, brand agnostic)
Five Iron Golf: $99 (full bag, Callaway)

A proper fit won’t make you Tiger Woods, but it will make it easier to swing your own swing and find success on the course.

What Do They Do at a Fitting?

For my fitting, PXG paired me with a professional golf club fitter to compare my current clubs to what my optimal setup would be. For reference, my current setup includes Takomo 201 irons, a Callaway driver and wedges, and a L.A.B. putter.

According to PXG, these are the main factors they consider when doing a fitting:

Face-to-Path: Helps identify directional control and shot shape tendencies.
Launch Angle: Key to maximizing carry and optimizing trajectory.
Spin Rate: Impacts control, distance, and stopping power on the green.
Apex Height: The peak of your ball flight, which influences consistency and gapping.

I’ve never had a fitting before, so everything we covered was completely new to me. I had some basic knowledge of shafts and could maybe tell you the lofts of a few of my clubs, but considering I’ve been playing golf for almost 30 years, it was shocking to see how much I didn’t know about what was in my bag. In other words, there’s a lot going on during a fitting.

The fitter had me hit some shots with my current 7-iron to establish a baseline. From there, he took a look at the very detailed information on his computer screen and started to build me a PXG 7-iron that he thought would work best with the data he was seeing. We tried a few different shafts, a couple of lie angles, and some different weights in the club head until we found one that improved my distance and accuracy. After we nailed down the 7-iron, we did the same process with the driver, fairway woods, hybrids, wedges, and even the putter.

He showed me all the data we’d accumulated, what adjustments he made to the clubs, how they compared to my current set, and what a fully new set would look like for me. I still can’t properly parse all the info, and I’ll leave that to the professionals, but what I can tell you is that after fitting me for clubs that were actually suited to my swing and my game, I gained almost 10 mph in swing speed and 10 yards in distance with every single club in the bag. And the swing speed and added yardage weren’t from me swinging harder or anything—the new club setup made it happen for me.

The driver and wedge fitting went the same as the iron fitting: We started with a club head and a middle-of-the-road shaft, adjusting from there. I hit some shots with my current driver and wedges, my fitter analyzed some data from the Trackman, and we moved on from there. The iron fitting gave us a good starting place, but if you play any golf, you know that hitting a driver or wedge is much different than hitting a 7-iron.

For example, my fitter asked how and where I play my wedges. Since I usually hit my gap wedge in full-swing situations, we selected one that matched my irons, rather than one that matched my 54- and 58-degree wedges, which are more often used for pitching, chipping, and sand saves. Details like these are tough to discern without the help of a fitter.

The Results Speak for Themselves

A fitting isn’t cheap—most will run you between $50 for a single club fitting to $500 for a full bag fit—but most places will knock that price off of whatever clubs you do end up buying (and you will end up buying them). But having seen first-hand what you get from a fitting, the price is well worth it. Just make sure you save yourself some cash for a lesson or two.

I still chunk some shots and slice others; like I said, a fitting won’t instantly help you qualify for the PGA Tour. But swinging clubs that were set up for me specifically has sure made me feel confident like a pro. And confidence is one of the biggest things you need on the course.

Why Trust Us (Me)

As a lifelong golfer, I’ve played dozens of different clubs and club brands over the years, from hand-me-down vintage sets to brand new players’ irons and top-of-the-line drivers. I’ve played at some of the best courses in North America, including Cabot Cape Breton and the Ocean Course on Kiawah Island in South Carolina and maintain a handicap in the mid-teens (though I wish it were lower). In the past few years alone, I’ve tested clubs from some of the biggest brands in the game, including Titleist, Callaway, TaylorMade, Takomo, PXG, LA Golf, L.A.B. Golf, Wilson, Stix, and others.