I Stayed Fit Without Obsessing Over Data. Here's How

A Different Approach to Club Fitting

Most club fittings are driven by data. Fitters and players often chase numbers, and player feedback can sometimes get lost in the process. However, my latest fitting was different. I got fit without focusing exclusively on data, and here's why.

Last week, I had the pleasure of getting fitted at the Titleist Performance Institute (TPI) in Oceanside, California. I had heard a lot about it from friends in the industry, and to be honest, I thought everyone was overhyping the place a bit. So, I went in expecting just a nice session to hit some balls. I was completely wrong.

The TPI experience is phenomenal. It's run like a high-end private country club, with more space than all the other OEMs in the area combined. The versatility of the facility is truly unmatched. Everything about the experience was amazing, from the eight-minute video-led warm-up to the nearly four-hour fitting with Lucas Bro.

What stood out to me the next day was that I had no idea what my numbers were. Essentially, we didn’t drastically change any numbers from what I walked in with; we just got my ball flight into a more efficient and effective position.

Why Numbers Should Not Be the Deciding Factor

In an episode of Fully Equipped, Johnny Wunder and Jake Morrow were joined by Bryan LaRoche to discuss why numbers shouldn’t dictate the clubs you’re ultimately fit into. During the conversation, I mentioned my experience at TPI and told co-hosts Johnny Wunder and Bryan that I probably looked at my Trackman data maybe twice during the entire fitting. It took a day of thinking about it and backtracking through the experience to realize that the fitting was all about me.

Lucas asked me on every swing how it felt. What did I see that I liked? What did I see that I hated? How did it feel here? How did it feel there? The fitting was about me, not about my numbers.

I’ve had some great fittings in the past at various locations—retail fitters, boutique fitters, and almost every major OEM. I would say that each one was a nice 50/50 split between data and personal choice and feels. I’m a good enough player to know when I like something or not, and those have always been open conversations with fitters. I never thought anything was wrong with those experiences.

Why This Fitting Was Different

With Lucas, however, things felt different. There were options I looked at and didn’t like that he pulled from my hands immediately. There were options that were “hit it for him” that I swung with curiosity while he looked at the data. My job was to focus on putting a good swing on the ball and giving him feedback about my game, my visuals, and my feels.

I asked Lucas why my fitting was run the way it was, with a heavy focus on my feedback and the visual we saw rather than the data. Here’s what he said:

"I wasn't as curious about your feedback as much as I was trying to get you to vocalize things to prove a point. Sometimes players will want certain things, and you ask them rhetorical questions and it may contradict what they want. This exposes what they need, and you get there together."

We talked a lot about my recent struggles on course with iron play, the love I have for my current driver, and spent a lot of time discussing how the bag works as a collaboration of tools that can overlap in responsibility—not individual silos that limit my game from getting better. And this was all before he absolutely blew my mind talking about wedges. (But that’s a story for another day.)

"You also know a lot about clubs and the data, so I was trying to keep you as blind as I could and focused on ball flight," he added. "What's the ball doing in the air, and what does it need to do better?"

Your Fitting Should Be Catered to Your Needs

At the end of the four-hour session, I walked out feeling like I had been given all the tools to succeed without having to stress over numbers or nit-picky data points. Sometimes, getting a fitting isn’t about changing numbers. It’s about changing opportunities, learning more about your game, and putting tools in your hands that get to those numbers in a more efficient and effective way.

I’ll have an update on what we put in the bag once I receive the clubs! Stay tuned.