In Focus Custom club fitting: Paul Gallagher learns the value of getting the clubs to suit you, and not trying to make you suit the clubs
When the decision has been made to buy a new set of clubs making the right selection can be difficult given the sheer volume of choice in this mass-production era.
Multinational club manufacturers, by their very nature, service a mass market. This is fine if you're looking for value for money but this one-size-fits-all notion doesn't sit comfortably with the few custom fitters who still ply their trade as club makers in various parts of Ireland.
To gain more insight this hacker booked in for a golf MOT with Derek Murray and his family business Fore Golf, based at Red Lane Driving Range near Naas. This is their primary location as they have a second base at Inniscarra Driving Range in Cork where Murray also works from.
Fore Golf was set up in 1997 and is now the official club fitter to the Golfing Union of Ireland (GUI) and the Irish Ladies Golfing Union (ILGU). Murray is the sole adviser to all the Irish teams from both unions. He makes sure the elite players use the best equipment for their individual games.
Murray gained invaluable experience working on the European Tour - working for the likes of Cleveland - and maintains he is the only Irish club-maker with Tour experience and training. He has worked, and still works, with many Irish professionals, including; Gary Murphy, Philip Walton and Colm Moriarty.
Working with Cleveland came about by chance when he found himself in the right place at the right time during the European Open at the K Club four years ago. Assistance was needed on the Tour truck when a rep took ill and Murray stepped in to assist with all the custom fitting and adjustments required by the top professionals during the tournament. He still works with Cleveland at Tour events when he can on an ad hoc basis.
Murray himself was a single-handicap golfer but he quickly came to realise carving out a career in the paid ranks was going to be a step too far. After advice from Walton and Raymond Burns, he decided to focus his energies on learning as much about club-making as possible before setting up Fore Golf.
Now he and his dad Don indulge themselves in their passion which is club-making.
After arriving at Red Lane for my lesson/assessment on the range I played a few shots to warm up while waiting for my instructor. To be honest, at this point much scepticism about the whole process had entered my mind. How could all this technology which analyses swing planes, launch angles, lie of the club, shaft variables etc. straighten out this agricultural swing? It all seemed too technical for someone who believes golf is a game of touch and feel, not a science.
However, by the end of the session I was left in no doubt the benefit of this process is immense - and it applies to golfers of any standard.
By now the Accusport Vector Launch System had been set up to observe all my shots. Using the infrared camera, which is linked up to the laptop where the data is recorded, Murray records your every shot, good, bad and indifferent. Without getting too technical, he measures your club head speed at point of impact, and also the spin, launch angle and distance and line the ball travels.
At this point a critic might ask what has all this gadgetry got to do with traditional club-making and custom fitting? In response, the technology allows people like Murray to evaluate and assess what type of club best suits the individual before making up the clubs in the workshop, or making a specific order with the manufacturers.
It utilises the latest in technology while maintaining the traditional values of club-making to reach the optimum performance.
"I'm the guy who interprets between the player and the golf ball," explained Murray. "By using this technology it's easier to manipulate the golf club than change the swing of a casual golfer, who chooses to play golf as a hobby, not make a living out of it.
"The typical club golfer usually doesn't have sufficient time to practice in the same way a professional can. I figured, if you're not going to make major swing changes, and the ball flight is going to do what is dictated by the club, and ultimately the player, then why not manipulate the club to suit the individual?"
Added to this his own assessment of the ball flight, this allows Murray to match the club's build with the optimum ball flight. He has also developed a formula to match swing tempo and timing to the correct shaft, flex and club weight needed for the individual player.
Murray offers a simple anecdote using Nick Faldo to emphasise his approach. "Take Faldo, he could walk into a manufacturer's truck at any Tour event and we could hand him a lady's club one inch shorter than standard with a soft flex shaft. Or we could hand him a gent's club four inches longer with a stiff shaft and chances are he'd hit either club equally well because he possess a very high skill level. Your normal club golfer playing club competitions every weekend doesn't have that same high skill level.
"But Faldo, like any other pro on Tour, leaves the truck with clubs built specifically to his swing requirements, while in theory he could hit anything. In the club golfer's case they need clubs refined, even more so, because he/she doesn't possess the same skill level."
By now I had spent a couple of hours hitting balls with tape on the base of my irons to determine the lie of the club while the club face was sprayed yellow to illustrate where I had made contact with the ball. At this point I let my instructor into a secret by explaining the driver was my problem club in the bag.
Too many blocked shots right interspersed by the odd low duck hook left with my old Callaway and Murray soon witnessed my pain. My launch angle - the angle of the ball flight after impact - was too low and the spin rate too high. A deadly combination, apparently, but an alternative was quickly offered. Murray returned from his mobile workshop, housing more clubs than I'd ever seen in a confined space, with a Titleist driver and said "try this".
The difference between drives was like night and day, I kid you not. Without changing my swing (the driver was more lofted with a stiffer shaft) I was able to produce a more penetrating flight, which in turn travelled straighter and further.
This particular Titleist driver happened to suit my particular needs but because Fore Golf pride themselves on being independent and not tied to just one manufacturer he could have suggested any club.
Losing track of time, the guided tour of the other side of the family business had to be fitted in. While mum Christine runs the office, sister Jill handles accounts and marketing. But I wanted to see the hub of the operation, the workshop where Derek and Don carry out the club-making.
This was like stepping back in time to a place where club professionals across the country used to have a workshop out the back of the shop. Fore Golf doesn't carry reams of stock, instead they make up clubs by hand to order. An array of shafts can be found alongside a range of club heads and grips in an environment akin to a carpenter's workshop or a mechanic's garage. It was reassuring to see these types of places still exist.
"It's a shame the craft element has gone out of the game," said Murray. "Gone are the days when craftsmen in Scotland would have built clubs or shaped golf balls by hand. We are the last of a dying breed that takes the time not only to build properly but builds clubs to individuals' needs."
This is a view echoed strongly by Irish club maker of the year in 2003 Brian Patterson. He was a PGA professional for many years in England before moving to Rosapenna Golf Club in Donegal early in 2003.
"Club making has always been a part of what I do, going back to the days when I first served my apprenticeship under Fred Daly at Balmoral Golf Club in Belfast in the late 1950s and then John Jacobs at Sandy Lodge Golf Club in England," explained Patterson, who became head pro at Sandy Lane and was closely involved with the English Golfing Union. He later bought Falmouth Golf Club in Cornwall with another investor.
To have clubs custom fit properly Patterson maintains you need to be in the hands of an expert. "Anyone can repair a golf club but you can't fit a golf club properly unless you understand the mechanics of the swing.
"This is where I believe the industry is doing a great disservice to golfers because this one-size-fits-all concept you get from manufacturers is not applicable. Each individual has a swing different to the next and their make up will also be different so how can one club suit all? It can't."
Therefore, his work involves analysing and teaching the golfer through a lesson on the range at Rosapenna - a golfing haven for the links enthusiast. Only then will Patterson return to the workshop, which aptly happens to be a 100-year-old building which once served as the starter's hut adjacent to the 11th tee at Rosapenna, and make up the club to suit the player.
Patterson not only builds clubs from scratch but like the Murrays, he can adjust lofts and lies or change shafts if that's all that is required.
In the modern era there are many other types of custom fitter available to the golfing fraternity, such as Dave Keating at Charleville Golf Club or Dominic Reilly at Leopardstown Golf Centre, who specialise in the equipment of particular manufacturers.
"I specialise in Callaway and Mizuno custom fitting, Callaway being my main one," Keating explained. "I am one of six people in Ireland who has the correct equipment to fit Callaway clubs properly. Brendan McGovern at Headfort is another as is Dominic Reilly in Leopardstown."
Keating, like Murray, has all the latest equipment and uses the launch monitor to gather data. However, the main difference appears to be that Keating will specialise and be an expert in a certain brand of club whereas Fore Golf are independent.
Reilly, for example used to make up custom-fit clubs. "Back in 1996 we decided to build cheaper alternatives to the brand names in our workshop. We did that for two years before changing to the process we use today," explained Reilly, who relies on the manufacturers' golf carts you often see at driving ranges. The carts house the same models of clubs but in a huge variety of lofts and lies, so the pro can choose the most suitable club for an individual by trial and error.
"The reason we stopped was because we were never going to be able to compete with the leading manufacturers and put a set together as cost efficiently as they can," said Reilly. "In addition, golfers rarely want clubs other than the leading brand names because there is a certain loyalty there."
One suspects the likes of Patterson or Murray would argue they could make up a set of clubs as good as any manufacturer's mass-produced product, if not better given their attention to detail.
The common ground between traditional club makers and specialists in custom fitting leading brands is both can improve a playerbecause they provide clubs to suit an individual, not a mass market.
Contact details: Fore Golf Technical Centre, Red Lane Driving Range, Naas, Co Kildare. Phone: (045) 430660. Fax: (045) 430661. Email derek@golfcustomfitting.com.
Also located at: Fore Golf Technical Centre, Inniscarra Driving Range Inniscarra/Ballincollig, Cork. Phone: (021) 4810444
