Editorial – How Much Do We And Our Students Rely On Our Equipment?

By: Mark Harman, Director of Education

“I’m not good enough to get fitted for equipment” is the mantra of too many golfers who wish to save money in purchasing golf clubs. The fact is (and I confess to hearing this elsewhere), better players can often find a way to make ill-fitting equipment work while the average player can’t. In other words, the average player can’t afford not to have fitted clubs. For me personally, I am very picky about my equipment as I can feel the minutest of differences. This comes from too many hours, days and years of trying to become a professional golfer back in the day, and my sense of feel was highly refined by this. Of course, properly fitted equipment can only take us so far. We and our students have to have a reliable-enough swing in order to make improvement and enjoy the game.

Basic things we can do as teaching professionals is to examine our student’s shaft flexes to see if they are a good fit. Although generally the slower the swing the more flexible the shaft should be, there are exceptions to this rule. The club must both feel good to the student and give him or her a reasonable belief they can develop a measure of consistency with it. This might lead to strange situations where someone with tour-like clubhead speed playing regular shafts and slow-swinging senior golfers playing stiff shafts. Such scenarios are rare but they do happen, so keep an open mind.

We can also check if the lie angles on the irons are correct by examining the divot patterns. Many golfers’ divots will be toe-deep, indicating a lie angle that is too flat and thereby promoting an open clubface at impact. If you teach indoors, a lie angle hitting board and some lie angle tape will do the trick. In closing, while properly fitted equipment is important, it is also only one part of the improvement and enjoyment equation.