To start this article, first of all you have a vision of how important it is to make a golf fittings for a player of any kind of level.
WHY IS A GOLF FITTING IMPORTANT?
Fitting is a laborious process that must be taken very seriously since a failure is transmitted to the player in a problem that we can generate technical and physical problems.
YES, YOU HAVE HEARD RIGHT, CARRYING THE IMPROPER GOLF CLUBS CAN CAUSE INJURIES.
In addition to a very poorly invested economic cost.
The correct elaboration of the fitting process is important, but from a professional player at the highest level, up to the 36 handicap player.
You will ask yourself:
But why does a high handicap need it too?
Actually making a golf fittings a high handicap is very difficult and a great responsibility, since the recommendation that we make will mark the evolution and learning of the player.
This is something of vital importance, to get the maximum possible performance the golfer must wear the most suitable clubs possible.
Now I am going to try to explain certain things about fitting that will help you, above all, to identify the people who really do this profession and not who make a living recommending golf clubs.
THINGS THAT ARE DONE AND NOT DONE IN A GOLF FITTING
The section begins by differentiating what is done in a fitting in any fitting studio in Spain or golf shop.
The measures.-
The measurements that I find my players from other specialized places and stores have followed are quite distant measurements.
Where they only value seeing what models of clubs the client plays, age, the shaft they play and the lie they have with a board on the ground hitting certain balls.
With data collection with different radars in the 90% indoor (generating objectivity, but often inconsistent numbers due to the indoor assessment of the radar).
In HCC this section is done as I say full team, “with everything”, and now I will break down the procedure that I follow with the client when we do a player analysis:
- Complete evaluation of the player's material (we review lie, loft, swingweight, frequency, length, grip size). There we can appreciate the imbalance that often has the standards of the OEM's.
- Evaluation with note of the player's vision of his game: With the numerical note that the player gets in all the segments we know without them telling us what their game is like.
- Data collection with outdoor radar: at HCC we have a studio that has direct access to the Golf Son Gual driving range, which allows both me and the player to follow the evolution of the fitting and visually appreciate what the radars (Trackman and Flightscope) that we have provide information in a reliable and real way for the player.
- Analysis of the player in the static and dynamic stance: What many players don't know is that the fitters do the analysis taking measurements that for me are only static posture, but not very significant.
Think about how you hit the ball standing up or in a golf stance.
The Stance is the initial phase of golf club customization.
Then, in the dynamic moment, what is appreciated is how the player's body works with the club in his hands, and many times that is where I differ from the rest of the fitters.
The technical knowledge acquired over the years plus the knowledge of the biomechanics of the movement help me to know how the player's movement should be, without having to do a technical touch-up.
But at the end of the process the player hits the ball in his own way, but
fulfilling the objectives that we both agreed on in our interview.
Data analysis.-
In my point of view, many fitters and golf establishments have two clear things to convince the player to buy the equipment:
1st) DISTANCE
2ª) SPEED OF THE CLUB.
This is a symptom that the real objective of the fitting, in this type of sites is clear, SELL.
Have you ever had the feeling of seeing your friends at the game, fighting with golf clubs?
At HCC we differ in the final objective:
GENERATE A HIGH PERFORMANCE.
And then the golfer who is looking at it and clearly he wants to perform and enjoy playing golf.
The first foundation of performance is clean motion.
An inadequate configuration of the material generates incorrect movements and, therefore, as I tell you a dirty move.
Can a shaft make that possible?
Partly yes, but then the proper configuration of the player is always better.
With this I will achieve one of the great objectives and what most surprises the players when they arrive to obtain the energy of the impact of the ball, that is, a very high ball speed, together with an optimal trajectory.
After showing you the first phase of the fitting of all the others and of HCC, I am going to try to show you what the problems are like when I receive the data of the player who asks me for support by email or by other means.
ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF INDOOR OR OUTDOOR GOLF FITTING
The first thing I want you to know is the difference between fitting indoors (doing it indoors and hitting the ball against a net that the player has about 3 meters from the ball) and fitting outdoors (doing it by hitting the ball outside and above with the real parameters that you can find playing, that is, height, pressure, temperature and wind)
INDOOR GOLF FITTING
The advantages of the indoor are:
- Conditions are always stable, under control.
- Real game balls can be used
- We paste on an ideal carpet that favors a good impact.
But the most important disadvantages that I find from my point of view and according to the data that I find are:
The correlation of the indoor data from Trackman, Flighscope, Foresight are not entirely accurate.
Since they are governed by algorithms and equations to calculate what the ball will do after a 3m flight.
Somewhat tricky but they largely achieve, but not the 100%.
OUTDOOR GOLF FITTING
The advantages that we find with an outdoor fitting:
- The player is in a place the same or similar to where he trains, driving range.
- Impact site is a carpet or real grass.
- Real weather conditions just like you would have on a regular golf course.
- The radars are working on the 100% because they are designed to follow real trajectories, so the data obtained is very reliable.
The disadvantages that it usually has:
- The data in the radar often have to be done with a conversion, knowing the distance loss coefficient of the practice balls (the real distance that a real golf ball does, as a general rule in the practice fields does not do) losing between 10 and 50% of the actual distance of the ball.
- The weather conditions, since to see the conditions are not favorable for carrying out the fitting and that destroys all the previous work.
- What we do at HCC, we have managed to work outdoors in a practice field that has a slope of 10% and with a ball that is the Wilson Staff Premium Practice that has 2 pieces and that loses a 10% on the real ball.
With this the data together with the normalization of Trackman Premium ball and Flightscope makes the numbers real.
- We have the weather under control due to the isolation of the studio that we have at HCC where you don't notice heat, cold, wind, or rain, and you'll say,
how did you do it? …. Soon
Now I am going to leave you a little surprised by the topic that we are going to talk about, FITTING ONLINE.
Yes, you read correctly, fitting ONLINE, many people thanks to our website:
Hire your fittings from the different segments that we offer, and then we have players who write us by email and ask us for our opinion on what material we would recommend.
There is a false belief that a GOLF FITTING cannot be online.
It's like when they said you can't buy sneakers online because you need to try them on.
I think something similar is done by a brand like Ping right?
I will try to show you the advantages and disadvantages of having the fitting done online and then the difference of doing it at HCC.
But the drawback of what the OEM's do ARE:
1º) They start from data that the client often does not know.
2º) The measurements of the hand, length from the wrist to the ground, height, etc. are not directly proportional to the golf position.
In addition, then there is a problem that at HCC you find the variety of shaft possibilities that we have and that, on the other hand, an OEM has a limited stock of shafts.
For me the idea is not a bad one, but it has the drawback that many players are unaware of the information they are asked for and not being sure generates erroneous recommendations.
What does that mean?
First, they don't have enough knowledge to be able to do it, but what they don't know is that I, Miki Rapado, have been doing them for more than 7 years with players from half of Europe with a very high level of success.
Well, things don't stop there, I have the problem of wanting to investigate every day and without rest and I can tell you that after many years doing this, when a player later physically comes to the HCC Performance Fitting Center in Golf Son Gual, they live an Xperience that nobody, and you are reading correctly, nobody in Spain can give you.
And you will say: Really?
Well, I am going to detail the brands that accompany me on my journey to the best fitting Xperience of your life.
In heads, we have brands such as TaylorMade, Callaway Golf, Wilson Staff, Cobra Golf, PXG (the first account that has existed in Spain),
Miura Golf, Epon Golf, New Level Golf, Big Fish Golf (Distributors for Spain and Portugal), and KZG.
In putters we have brands such as TaylorMade, Odyssey, Toulon, Piretti and Evnroll (exclusive distributors in Spain and Portugal)
Well now comes the cool thing, the shafts, so I start, Accra Golf Shaft (Premium Full Line Account), MCA (Authorized Distributors in Spain), Aldila (Authorized Distributors in Spain), Aerotech Golf, Graphite Design, KBS, True Temper, Project X, Veylix (Only Premium Account in Spain), VA Composites and Paderson Kinetixx Shafts.
And to finish off grips we work with Golf Pride, Pure Grips, Iomic, The Grip Masters, Superstroke and Lamkin Grips (where Miki Rapado is the ambassador of Lamkin Grips in Spain and Portugal).
This you will think is very good, but what do you do with all this?
Handmade Custom Clubs, prepares you like a biomechanical alchemist, the best combination of golf clubs that adapt to your quality as a player, your playing frequency and your financial possibilities.
But this….. in a store with relatively little knowledge, it can be found in Spain.
Well, really yes, but no, because the quality standards and
Assembly that HCC has follows the strictest quality and measurement controls.
I carry out the same assembly for you as it could be done in a Tour truck with the particularity that if I do the fitting for you, I give you the guarantee in the assembly that what I do is exactly the same as what you tried.
For them I have machinery of the highest level in my workshops which I am going to list:
- Swing weight Machine Digital
- frequency machine
- Mitchell Lie and Loft machine for irons and woods
- Putter Digital Loft and Lie Machine
- Digital Torque Measuring Machine
- MOI Machine
In addition to many fundamental tools to be able to make assemblies with precision and cleanliness.
In data collection, at HCC we have all the facilities to be able to make a complete record of the data for the player since we work with Trackman, Flightscope and SAM PuttLab, in an outdoor studio where the player can see their progress and the objectives that we work on during their Xperience with Miki Rapado in a real way.
© Miki Rapado ®, 2020
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