DO TOUR PROFESSIONALS PLAY WITH BETTER EQUIPMENT? YOU BET!!

I have always considered myself a pretty good club fitter, and most of the time, I have been able to help my customers players. But, things have changed... and changed a lot! I knew that club fitting had been taken to a science beyond everyone's imagination. I just did not know to what extent.

Sure, Tour Professionals do have better equipment and a better fit than everyone else, but that is not why they are there... before a perfect fit, they could pretty much do anything they wanted with a golf ball and with their club, which always started as "less than perfect" equipment.

Take Lee Trevino in the 70's; he'd go to his club shop, sand and grind a club to his liking, go try it, grind it more, add weight here and there, until he got the right feel; or before him, Bobby Jones, who could "frequency match" a set of clubs before frequency matching was discovered. At the PING factory, I was told that Bubba Watson likes something like 8 wraps of tape on his high hand and 10 under his lower hand! I mean, everyone likes something different.

Enter Karsten Solheim, a genius engineer and golf fanatic and founder of PING clubs who started sometime in the late 50's in... a garage with a single putter (the A-1 and then the Anser), His inventions of cavity back, delofting clubs and moving the flex point on the shaft to help the average player, ended up revolutionizing all equipment.

His putters have won something like 3000 sanctioned professional events around the world (top right, Anya Alvarez admiring a collection of gold plated and solid gold Ping putters that are replicas of those that have won: PING makes two every time a player wins with one of them, one for the player and one for their collection. Hey, I touched Tom Watson's 1982 U.S. Open Championship and Seve Ballesteros 1980 Masters Championship replicas!)

Additionally, Kasrten Solheim, who was also the inventor of the "Rabbit Antenna" at General Electric, among other inventions, was the first who invented "fitting" for everyone (the famous "color codes).

Now, we are at the end of the first decade of the 2000's and at PING, they use "Track-Man" which has brought club fitting to a science, literally. PING has two fitting centers; in one, they fit the average golfer whom they will probably fit more by his size and strength than by the player's knowledge or feel; in this center, they do over 14,000 fittings a year.

And then... there is the "VIP" Fitting Center, where, according to Bill Iseri, Manager of the VIP Fitting Center, "only" do about 600 fittings a year. I can see why, though. Thanks to Brad Gerke, PING Clubs Sales Representative for the Sun Country Section, my youngest daughter, Anya, was invited to do a fitting at the VIP Center. Mr. Iseri, a former touring professional himself, did the honors.

After four and a half hours of patiently and expertly testing different clubs, lofts, shafts and lies, they came up with something that fitted her perfect. With a "Track-Man" placed behind the player's intended line of play, a computer can tell launch angle, the landing angle, ball speed, ball carry within a foot every 100 yards, roll... and of course, ball spin rate!

Let me say this without doubt or embarrassment: you and I, do not belong in that center, so don't feel bad if you are never invited. After seeing Anya hit balls and putts for 4 and a half hours, I can see why they call it the "VIP" fitting center, and why only a few get invited. You have to have a consistent swing that won't change after so many balls. You and I would have a different recommendation every 30 minutes as our swing thoughts change after every missed shot. Golfers like Anya and those better than her, are so consistent that it is much easier for the person doing the fitting to make recommendations, because it is much easier to see even the slightest difference a club, a lie, a loft or a shaft makes.

The results were fascinating, to many, it might not mean much, but to a good player it does, every little bit helps: her natural draw with softer shafts was minimized by about 70%, her overall distance with irons was increased by about 5 yards and about 11 with the driver; in putting, the ball's initial "skip" before the rolls starts was brought down from about 8 inches to an optimum of 3 and the line was better as the putter's lie angle was also modified.

To end, I am not sure if Bob Zollinger (who joined us for a very fun day of golf) and I, will want to play with her again without at least some strokes: the day before, without a "perfect set", on a very hazy, cool and windy day at the Arizona Biltomore, she gave us a licking for the ages! Again, thank you Brad and Bill, and of course, the Solheim family!