Equipment
Driver clubfitting tests: A fitting is about more than just distance—it's consistency, too
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A quality driver clubfitting will almost always get you more distance. But there are other advantages of getting fit.
We asked Club Champion, a Golf Digest 100 Best Clubfitter, to highlight these benefits, namely consistency. In our exclusive study, 10 golfers tested their current driver against a new driver they were fit for. Not surprisingly, all 10 players gained yardage. Some only a little—others almost 40 yards. The average was 14 yards gained.
But something else happened, too. If you start measuring the standard deviation for each player’s hits with the two drivers, the variability, or the inconsistency, dramatically decreased with the fit drivers versus the original drivers. Distance was 51 percent more consistent. So, too, was dispersion (36 percent), ball speed (40 percent) and spin rate (38 percent). Even clubhead speed (37 percent) and face angle (49 percent) were more reliable.
Consequently, hits weren’t just flying longer and straighter, they were flying longer and straighter more often. Thus speaking to the importance of a quality driver clubfitting.