HOT LIST EXTRA
pionship is a bit counterintuitive. “If you come in telling me, ‘Man, the swing feels great, I’m strip- ing every shot, con- tact feels great,’ I’m
DIAGNOSIS AND CURE A fitter will find weak spots first, then look for solutions.
going to look at you and say, ‘Then what the heck are you doing here?’ ” But timing can be overthought. Marchini says he did an experiment years ago with Mizuno’s Shaft Opti- miser, a motion-capture fitting club that diagnoses a golfer’s swing profile to come up with shaft advice. He ran the same group of golfers through the process in late winter and mid-sum- mer, and the recommendations didn’t change. Still, for golfers in South Africa, winter is an appealing time to get fit because the weather remains fine for golf and the array of new equipment offerings from the United States is of- ten the broadest. Winter also gives you the time to get the new clubs and work them into your bag before the summer. If you’re coming to a fitting from some downtime, Marchini says getting in some physical reps is worthwhile but so is a little mental prep. Know what your game really needs, understand what misses you’re trying to fix, and be honest about what a fitting might do versus what a commitment to overall game improvement looks like. As Marchini points out, no matter how good the fitter, it’s not going to be a good fitting if the golfer doesn’t have a plan. Bring your in-round stats or a report from recent simulator ses- sions to give your fitter some direction about your tendencies. Ideally, you’re not guessing or spending the first 20 minutes trying to find the clubface. “Nobody’s ever going to come for a fitting and say, ‘I want to make a lateral move,’ ” Marchini says. “But to know what ‘better’ means, you need to do an assessment of your last several months, years, whatever. Fact is, there are mil- lions of golfers worldwide, and each one’s definition of ‘better’ is different.” Think about getting new clubs as a commitment, not an impulse buy. If you want to level-up your bag, fitting is the fundamental. Timing is up to you.
Time to Get Fit? Waiting for the right time of year is a fool’s errand BY MIKE STACHURA
W e get it. All of the enticing new clubs on this year’s Hot List have you keen on an upgrade. You’re also no doubt aware that the first step is consulting a qualified clubfitter to get you dialled in for that new driver or set of irons. Is now the right time of year to get fit? If you’re looking for a firm answer that June or October is the ideal time for a clubfitting, understand that it’s more of a discussion than a directive. “Number one, golf is an imperfect game, and we as human beings are imperfect, and fitting is an imperfect science,” says Chris Marchini, director of golf experience at Golf Galaxy and lead fitter for the Hot List, “so a ‘per- fect’ time of year doesn’t exist.” The idea that your game needs to be in form before you go for a fitting is a fool’s errand. Although you wouldn’t want to waltz into the hitting bay when you haven’t touched a club in months, the timing isn’t going to fundamentally alter the chance for a proper fit. That said, you need to be in some kind of golf shape before you start the process.
Getting somewhere for a few hitting sessions should be enough to get you ready. Feeling rusty shouldn’t stand in your way, says Craig Zimmerman, general manager at RedTail Golf Cen- tre in Oregon, a perennial selection on Golf Digest’s list of America’s Best Clubfitters. “One of the major misperceptions is that clubfitting benefits only ‘good’ players,” Zimmerman says. “I still get asked nearly every day, ‘Am I good enough to be fit?’ If a fitter is engag- ing with the golfer to understand their game, fitting will benefit your game dramatically no matter the time of year, ability level or the form of your swing.” On the flip side, Marchini says, show- ing up after winning the club cham- Bring your in-round stats or a report from recent simulator sessions to give your fitter some direction.
PHOTOGRAPH BY JOHN HUDSON/IMG
92 GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA
JUNE 2025
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