Custom fitting results?

I'm going to be buying some new irons in the next few months, proably Mizuno MX-19 and was thinking of going for a fitting at the Mizuno national fitting centre.  Looking on their website it says you have to book your visit via a Mizuno stockists and I believe the results get sent back to that stockist for them to order for you if you ask them to.

I was wondering whether I actually get to see the results as well because ideally I would like to buy them online away from the stockist as I could get them cheaper that way.

Has anyone else been to the English national fitting centre for Mizuno (in Pachesham, Leatherhead) and if so what happens with the results?

Thanks - as a side note I know the resuts will only really be accurate for Mizuno clubs as all specs differ but is there a way of working it out for different manufacturers if you get the original specs of their clubs as a comparison??  Another side note, I'm a 23 handicap - do you mostly agree it's well worth custom fitting at my level?

Cheers

To answer your last question, Jim, no I don't think you are at the stage where you would benefit from a custom fit,  even assuming that the custom fit is carried out really professionally, but of course the choice is yours.

It will not be the clubs that will reduce his handicap J P.

In the days before custom fit, everyone managed to play to a better standard overall than they do now, even if they were 6' 4" or 5' nothing.

The answer does not lie in the equipment.

I have played this game for over fifty years, J P and I have yet to see the amateur who hits it 260 yds with a tight dispersion rate consistently.

It would follow with your thinking that the person you are describing would automatically be playing off a very low handicap, as if he is capable of a tight dispersion rate with a driver, then what would he achieve with the other clubs which are much easier to hit.

Put me 260 yds down the fairway and I too will play off low single figures and I am willing to stake money on that, if you care for a wager.

Personally I would not believe anything that a launch monitor told me.

We were not discussing just banging drives down the fairway, J P, you specifically mentioned the guy who had this very tight dispersion area over a distance of 260 yds, which would suggest that he had an excellent grooved swing, or he would not be able to achieve what you said.

Anyone with such a grooved swing would obviously have to be a player of some ability.

Interesting, Paul, but did you do the same with your woods and your putter, or did you just buy them as they were.

I don't know how I used to shoot in the sixties with equipment straight out of the rack, must have been luck.

Interesting points, thanks.  I'm now torn between Mizuno MX-19 which I could get custom fitted if I chose for about £250 for the set of irons - or I've seen some MD Golf Forged Oversize which I can get off the shelf only for £120.  Obviously a big difference in price but obviously sacrificing getting custom fitted if I went for them.  Both sets get very good reviews for my sort of level.

I'm 5'11, average build and average swing speed (this is sounding like a lonely hearts column!!) - so maybe custom fitting is even less essential for me at this stage anyway?

Any thoughts on either of those sets of clubs appreciated......

Unfair that, Wayne, I obviously upset a nerve and he typed that when he was angry with me.

J P, In fact my first ever round of golf was played with my grandfathers hickory shafted clubs and they were very easy to use as the shaft helped tremendously in creating power. I later played with his steel shafted ones which you might call a technological advancement, but in reality this change of shaft material was forced upon clubmakers because of the worlwide shortage of hickory.

Persimmon woods were later going to go because of this same shortage, not beccause they were inferior, they were not. The modern drivers cannot be shaped as well as a good old persimmon headed club.

If we were to believe all the hype since the inception of game improvement irons and metal woods with the claimed extra distances, which seems to be an extra 10 yds for every new club or ball that is introduced, then we would all be hitting it 400 yds off the tee and retrospective distances with our irons. We have just witnessed the biggest con in golf marketing with clubs being made illegal many years after they were introduced.

The fact that we don't, just shows that it is all marketing hype. I am quite sure that a playery of your ability, would be able to produce the same flight pattern with any iron I put in your hands. I know I could.

Take balls for instance, I don't get involved in any threads on this forum in relation to this item as it is all down to personal choice. Myself I have always played with a balata covered ball and the only ones available to me now, are the Top Flite Z balata which, thankfully, are very cheap.

I must add, J P, that this is a forum where we all exchange our views on topics that might interest us. Your views are just as valid as mine and I respect that, but I am also able, as you are, to question anything that I don't feel is right. There are always two sides to an argument or discussion and we all believe in our own version.

I believe you, Martin.

Well I'm off to buy some Top Flite Z Balata balls at the weekend, if they're good enough for John then they'll do for me!!

Hopefully the extra spin they give won't see TOO many flying off into the trees, hopefully compensated by a bit more control around the greens..... :-)

Having recently returned to golf after not picking up a club in 41 years I now find the sport to be extremely short  (all drives of all players travelling at least 40% longer - no exaggeration) and overall potentially ridiculously easy for any serious athlete with flair.

If mainstream golf is your sport (it is not mine) there in no excuse for every able bodied player,  with proper coaching and modest time to practice, not playing to a single figure handicap. The game is now, at the very least, five strokes  a round easier than it was forty years ago.  The world now only has one consistently world class golfer, and because the others are so bad he appears to modern day observers to be amazing!

I do not know when is the best time for club fitting. I do however know that Trevino as a youth  could play to a single figure handicap by playing an entire round with one club only - namely a 3 iron.  He would likely have been perplexed by such a notion as club fitting.

Such observations may give the impression of being dismissive of today's equipment and players, and us old timers being high on nostalia. There has to be an element of truth in that.

The game has got ridiculously technical and fussy and to some extent or another we have all got sucked in, under the heading of progress. I am a major culprit! This modern day disease has occurred in all sports - even including angling. 

Some of us  old timers appear to put down the modern game, today's players, and in the process revel in nostalgia.  Be that as it may, I used to enjoy needing and using all my clubs for golf. Now I only need 5 of them, and if push came to shove could manage with less if I practiced more. That cannot be progress, surely?

The sooner we old f**ts finally die off the sooner modern golf can be fully enjoyed in all its glory without challenge - on the equivalent of an oversize snooker table.

It won't be much longer, on both counts.

You say its ridiculous that modern golf mean you could probably play with 3 clubs.

Then make reference to Lee Trevino playing to single figures, with just his 3 iron when hew was a youth.

I agree with you when it comes to the hype surrounding golf. People hail Tiger as the greatest ever, but we'll never know how he would have faired playing among Nicklaus, Palmer and Player. I mean Player is 72, still loves the game with a passion, and fit as a fiddle. Imagine playing against him in his prime.

I think even Tiger believes his own hype sometimes. I mean on Thursday, he reckoned he played to great golf, but was unlucky. I seem to remember him missing alot of greens, and playing some great shots, but from some terrible places.

I watched Tiger, closely, last night and I was very disappointed in the way he has become such an aggressive striker of the ball. He leaked far too many shots out to the right and quite honestly struck nothing with any controlled shape on it at all.

To be fair of course he has not holed the putts that he normally does so frequently but then I don't feel he has really given himself a chance of many birdies with his very poor iron play so far this week. So many other players have been taking the stick out with such amazing regularity.

But of course, today is another day and we all know what he is capable of and I will not be surprised one little bit to see him drag himself into contention, although to be in a position to win, he needs a couple of them to be coming back to him. Should be an interesting day.

It is difficult to compare players from different eras and it is certainly true that Nicklaus probably played in an era where he had more competition from other great players.  However if my memory serves me right from beginning to watch golf in the early 1970's the depth of good players in the fields in those days was nothing like it is today.  European and Asian golf has become much stronger and the way Tiger has dominated for 10 years certainly gives him claims to being the greatest of all time.

The two areas where I still think he needs to proove himself is coming from behind in a major in the fourth round and winning majors where the aggregate scores are high.  The Masters this year probably gives him the oppotunity to do both.  He is unlikely to be in the last group tomorrow unless something remarkable happens today and if the weather forecast for the next two days pans out the winning score is again likely to be closer to par than ten under. 

I think any argument about courses and equipment in the different eras is a bit pointless.  Tiger is playing competitors who have access to the same equipment as him and they play on the same courses as did Nicklaus and Palmer.  You obviously cannot compare stats on shots per hole or driving distances between the eras but comparison of the number of majors won is valid but not definitive.