Does Club Fitting Affect Your Golf Swing?

clubs psychology Jan 22, 2019

It seems to be an industry-wide problem that the role of club fitter and that of the coach are too often set on divergent courses. One is trying to fit to the current swing pattern while the other is working to change the pattern. Clearly, for the process to work well, the coach, fitter and player need to agree on what they are trying to achive to find a solution that is harmonious the players end goal.

In this article, I take a coaching perspective and explore the opportunity of fitting your clubs to help improve your movement. We then hear from David Griffiths who takes the fitter's perspective.

Club Fitting from a Motor Learning Perspective

If you have spent any time on my Channel then you will know that the golf swing is a dynamical system (see Motor Control/Dynamical System) and the brain is incredible at adapting to a task. In coaching, we often take advantage of this with a 'Constraints Led' intervention where we design a task, the successful completion of which would lead to the player finding a better solution/swing pattern than their current technique. An obvious example is putting canes in the ground to re-direct the swing.

Relating this knowledge to club fitting means that if you have your lie angles adjusted to fit a wonky release pattern (hands and shaft steepening into impact) then there is no incentive to change. In fact, improving the release pattern will deliver the club 'toe up' with the heel of the club digging into the ground and the toe end flapping over. Your clever co-ordination system will simply not see that as a good result and therefore won't' develop your technique in that way.

From a movement development perspective, it is far preferable to have your clubs set up in a way that encourages you to make positive adaptions to your swing. So a player that delivers the club in a very upright lie angle would have clubs made that are flatter than her current delivery spec and then she is set up to be able to adapt to fit the club lie and in the process, learn a more optimal pattern.

If you are thinking that this sounds a bit idealistic then you are probably right. Coach and club fitter need to work together because changing the clubs on its own is unlikely to be enough to encourage the change. For a Constraints-Led Approach to work, the player needs to be able to perceive the problem to be able to find a solution.

Simply put..

'For the lie angle to act as a useful constraint, you need to pay attention to it.

The Benefits of Adapting to an 'Optimal Fit'

If you pay attention then the lie angle will act as a constraint that the brain will work around and find a solution to deliver it flush to the ground. Now there aren't too many ways for it do this so you will inevitably end up by keeping your pelvis back and thus stay in your posture longer. It is also likely that you will keep the club behind you longer and find a more optimal shaft plane through the strike.

When taking a Constraints-Led Approach to encourage swing change the coach and player need to mindful that the brain doesn't always adapt in a way that is optimal for long term performance but 'it will find a way to get the job done'.

In the example of using canes to re-direct a swing pattern, there are multiple options for the player to do this, most of which are not desirable. In the instance of the club lie, the potential solutions open the player are very limited and nearly all have a positive value.

From the Point of View of the Club Fitter

For the last 3 years, David Griffiths, (ex European Tour Player) has spent his time working between coaching, club fitting and actually building clubs to a precise spec from components. The rest of this article is David's views on the club fitting scene:

"I really learned a lot about how golfers interact with technical information from coaches and the spec of the clubs.

Hitting a golf ball provides a 2 way feedback whether the golfer knows it or not. The golfer obviously has an influence on the club but the club also has a big influence on the golfer. If the club compliments the efforts of the golfer and vice versa from an interaction standpoint then the golfer stands the best chance of seeing the fruits of their labour. Now, interaction can mean many things, from the way the golfer loads and unloads the shaft, the way they interact/feel weight and balance and as Noel has mentioned for the benefits of this article, the lie angle. So what is lie angle? It’s basically the angle between the shaft and the sole of the club. Why is this important? Well in a lot of fittings the golfer hits shots with a piece of tape on the sole of the club and depending on where the scuff marks occur the angle is then manipulated to push the scuff mark to the middle of the club. The problem with this is you’re only putting a plaster on a slightly bigger wound. For the golfer to push on in a good direction rather than temporarily fix the ball flight then the fitter needs to understand what that golfer is trying to achieve with their action. The one thing to try and understand with lie angle is that unless you deliver the sole flat on the turf when you strike the ball that shot isn’t gonna feel good no matter “how forgiving” the company says their clubs are. The fascinating thing for a person working in my field is that no matter the standard of the golfer they will fiddle their action without even knowing it to put that sole flat on the turf and get a feel of the good stuff. When you see a golfer standing up out of posture through the shot and losing balance there’s a pretty good chance that a lie angle that is too upright is not helping that. The problem is if the golfer doesn’t do that there’s a good chance they’re not gonna get a sweet feeling strike. So off on the merry go round they go.

Here are some common problems I see with general fitting.

The Shaft is fit via swing speed without taking pressure into account. A short sharp swing will generally bend the shaft quite a lot during the swing but it may not be moving that fast. If that golfer is fit with only a swing speed shaft recommendation then there’s a pretty good chance that shaft won’t stand up to the load and shots will be pretty random. The golfer will then likely start to change what they do to get the shaft to work.
The shaft is used to produce different launch conditions. (High or low) This, I would think, comes from shaft manufacturers testing shafts with a robot that has no chance of interacting with the club. In this way yes the launch conditions will vary but luckily as golfers we do interact with the club consciously and unconsciously so it’s a far greater benefit to find a shaft that suits the golfers dynamics and loading patterns than to go looking for flight. Leave flight to the clubhead.
Weight and balance of the club. Where does the golfer like the weight? It’s almost a DNA thing with golfers. Some golfers feel more comfortable with more weight in the head of the club and some prefer a balance between the grip, shaft and head. There is no right and wrong with this they are just individual preferences that enable you to wallop the ball without thinking too much.
Lie angle as discussed above
Forgiving clubs!!!! This is a bit of a bug bear!! The industry loves to play on our frailty by selling us everything they have with advertising. “These are the most forgiving clubs yet” etc. If a club is well built to the spec the golfer requires then the middle is the middle. Yes a set of small blades might be taking it too far for some, but the bigger and rounder a club gets (especially the sole) the more numbing the sensation will be but this is not necessarily forgiving. The problem a golfer has then is that it’s pretty hard to distinguish the feel of an average, good or perfect contact. To improve and be aware is to feel!"

David Griffiths

Stay Connected

Get Dr Noel's monthly newsletter and be the first to receive new blog posts and coaching videos, starting with the FREE PRACTISE GUIDE

We hate SPAM. We will never sell your information, for any reason.