CT 250 Stealth Bomber

[Eracer]

Eracer,

Heres my take on this.

The amount of knowledge being shared amongst clubmakers today is unprecedented. Again I credit guys like Tom Wishon and their forums for this. These forums have drawn some of the best clubmakers and golf minds from across the world and put them in one place. The collaborative effort put forth by these people has led to more innovation in equipment and club building technique in the last 10 years than the previous 100 before it. The problem is that this info is not getting out fast enough or too as many people as it should. Golf has always been a game of tradition and fundamentals, and its very hard for a lot of people to look at new ideas with an open mind. Thinking outside the box can be very difficult especially with the OEM machine showing no interest in changing what has made them billions of dollars in profit. I honestly cant blame them. The average golf consumer is constantly chasing a better game. The OEM's will gladly dangle that carrot for them, and every year they sweeten that pot with new gear, yet the average player never improves. Its a cycle the OEM's want and need, and the average consumer is simply blind to it. Steve Almo said it best imo. Build a driver that is guaranteed to go dead straight but is 15 yards shorter than others on the rack, and you will have a rack of dusty straight hitting drivers. The magazines, the OEM's, and lack of understanding are all to blame imo, and I honestly dont see this changing anytime soon.

So will this help the average hacker? Yes, imo, more so than it will help a low HDCP player. Equipment will not make a 25 cap a scratch player, no way, no how. But if I take a guy with a 90mph swing and huge OTT move and put him in a lighter driver, a shorter driver, a more flexible shaft, backweighted, and a closed face, and his 40 yard slice is now only 10, it surely has to help. The problem for the average guy is that there is very little on the racks in retail stores that will actually help him.

Yes, there will be a cost associated with being custom fit. I do quality work, use quality parts, anmd am extremely passionate about what I do. I also am not cheap. You want cheap go to Wall-mart. I will give you my time and will work till we get to our goal. You pay for my passion as much as anything. So I build you a set that costs exactly what an OEM set would have cost. The difference is both of us can go home knowing your new set fits you as good as it possibly can. Nothing even remotely off the rack about it. I have people thanking me all the time for what I have done to their games, this alone makes it all worth while. So you have to ask is it worth it? I ask would it have been any cheaper to buy new clubs every year to chase the carrot?

My motto is this. Its something read on the Wishon forum and has stuck with me ever since. I sell oats, not just any oats, but the best, freshest oats around. These oats arent cheap. If you want cheap, I could always run them through the horse once first.

Just my 2 cents.

I absolutely agree that spending money to get properly fitted is a FAR better use of money than "chasing the carrot", as you put it. I must reiterate that it is difficult to find a clubfitter that I trust. I've been to a couple of them, and they gave me conflicting information. Completely understandable, since they make their living using methods they themselves believe in. Imagine for a minute going to two different healers for chronic intenstinal pain. One of the healers uses traditional eastern methods, the other is a modern western practioner. Which is right? They both may be, and neither may be. And they both cost money. The average golfer like me has very little data to guide us in making choices when it comes to getting fitted; by "data" I mean clubfitter reviews. How many golfers (golfers who would benefit from the info) know who Tom Wishon is? Or knows KZG, Maltby, or even Snake Eyes? And how many golfers have been fitted incorrectly, for the wrong component clubs, because the clubfitter - who is selling expensive oats - had no clue.

Your reputation preceeds you, Lyle, and if you lived within 100 miles of me, I would have been at your door long ago. Long distance clubfitting doesn't work, since, to me at least, proper clubfitting demands first person observation, measurement, and evaluation.

 

[dave.]

Long distance worked for me, via email with Dan Connelly. However, I am a range rat and know enough about these things to mess about correctly, I use impact tape and masking tape on the sole to check Dan's series for example.

But this shorter driver thing still perplexes me. I understand a pro who can hit it 310 but the fairways are at 15 yards at that distance, taking some distance off so he can be sure of hitting the hsirt grass at 290 where the fairway is say 20 yards.

My fairways are at 40 yards plus, most course over here are, and when they are smaller the hole is nerly always shorter. I just don't need to sacrifice any distance, not at my level.

Anyway, swingweight seems to mean something to me, because everytime I have devaiated away from D5/D6 things happen whether it was the Evo in the Encore, or the 425 TP, or the DCT, the intresting thing was these clubs all had low swing weights and I didn't like them

 

[warbirdlover]

I'm certainly not at your skill level dave but with all the drivers and shafts I've messed with I've arrived at a D6 swingweight also. I know Lyle doesn't put much into that spec but it just seems to work better for me.