Survival of the Fitters

The Golf Digest Hot List is the golf industry’s leading annual equipment review—and the people behind it some of the hardest-working, most passionate professionals in the game. In this new docu series, we follow the team of Golf Digest editors and Golf Galaxy certified clubfitters responsible for the 2024 Hot List summit as they lead 32 amateur golfers through eight grueling days of testing hundreds of golf clubs—each of which has to fit the player swinging it to a T. It’s a story of hard work and perseverance paired with heart and humor that offers viewers an incredible inside look at how the Hot List scores are reached, and how shopping for new golf clubs should really be done.

As Chris, Pat and Alex know all too well, clubfitting is an art that requires a lot of training. After performing roughly 800 speed fittings in a day at the Hot List summit near Orlando, our trio of experts pay a visit to a nearby new Golf Galaxy Performance Center whose staff they helped train, to see how things are going one month after opening.

They call it “Hell Day”—driver and wedge-testing day at the Hot List summit. For the Golf Galaxy fitters, whose stamina is being tested like never before, it’s the busiest day of all. And the fitters’ jobs are as much about educating the testers as it is about making sure every loft, shaft flex, bounce angle and sole grind is right.

“Who knew there was so much to know about putters?” By day 4, the freshman class of testers at the Golf Digest Hot List summit have come to realize the game-changing value of having fitters like Chris, Pat and Alex to assist in pulling the right models and specs of the clubs they’re reviewing—especially on the green, for the club they’ll use the most of all: the flatstick.