Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Maxout Golf Has Club Fitting Down To A Science

A couple of years ago I was in search of a professional club fitting company to be fitted with clubs, and that's when I stumbled across Maxout Golf. I had typically got my clubs off the rack and then had the lie and loft adjusted a little to fit me and that was the extent of my club fitting. This time I wanted my swing to be analyzed by a professional and then have them tell me the specs I would need to have clubs fit me and my swing.

I started my search on the internet and there wasn't really anything that grabbed my attention except for a company in Sherman Oaks, CA called
Maxout Golf. I went to their web site and at the time it wasn't that impressive in appearance, but they seemed to know what they were talking about. I called and asked them to explain to me exactly what they do for the $195 club fitting. They said they hook you up to a machine that measures several things about your swing like how much the flex in the shaft you achieve when you hit the ball, launch angle of the shot, RPM's of the ball on a drive, etc... It sounded very impressive and I decided this was the place to go and made an appointment.

I arrived with my clubs and they asked my to warm up a little by hitting a few balls. They hooked me up and had me hit a 7-iron and then a 5-iron. They have ultra-high speed cameras set up so they can play back your swing and freeze it to show you any swing flaws you might have. It was pretty cool to see my swing broken down the way they explained it. One side benefit during the analysis is they tell you what you can do to improve your swing, so it was a mini golf lesson as well.

I then hit my driver a few times and then they had me hit a few others with different shafts that had different flexes and kick points. He had me hit different kinds of balls to help reduce the spin rate of the ball, which ultimately equated to more distance on my drives. The guy who worked with me was very helpful and a good teacher. They even did a putting analysis as well and sold me on the putting arc, which is a pretty cool putting aid.

After everything was said and done I had the exact specs I needed for clubs that would fit me and my swing. One of the most important things besides the club fitting is that they aren't there to sell you any particular brand of clubs. They're willing to suggest clubs that would fit your swing and customize them for you, but they don't push it on you to do so. I was particularly interested in the
Cleveland TA2's at the time and they agreed that they would be a good set for me with just under a standard lie and Sensicore stiff shafts. They suggested tour velvet grips with plus one wrap. At the time I had the Taylormade R540 driver with a stock stiff shaft, but the suggested the deeper faced Taylarmade 510 with a YS6 stiff shaft. They also suggested the Sonartec SS-02 14 degree fairway wood with the YS6 stiff shaft.

I told the guy that I was going to order everything at
Roger Dunn's mainly because of their awesome return policy, which would allow me to return any of the equipment for store credit within 90-days of my purchase. I took the specs and went to Roger Dunn's Golf Shop in Santa Ana, CA and ordered up everything. It took just over a week to get everything and I was pumped. I took the clubs to the range and hit them and everything fit like a glove. After a couple of days at the range I was hitting them like I had been playing with them for years. After a month of playing with them I had dropped my handicap from a 6 down to a 3.

So the moral of the story... custom fitted clubs done by professionals does make a difference in your game, and Maxout Golf is definitely a place that knows what they're doing.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Saw your blog... I'm interested in what your launch monitor numbers (ball speed, launch angle, spin, and carry) were from Maxout Golf.
If you have them on hand, would you mind sharing them with me?

The reason why is because I'm getting ready to launch a new software program that will compute the optimal flight path of a golf based on launch monitor numbers. Check it out at OptimalFlight.

Anonymous said...

I live in the Southern California area and I've been thinking of getting my golf swing analyzed. Nice review I'll have to check them out.

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Mandy said...

Thanks for the review of a great company!