“I gained 35 yards switching driver”
Without sacrificing accuracy, Kit made significant distance gains.
Derek says:
“Kit’s swing tendency is to get a little bit ahead of the shot and a touch late into impact. His natural swing path is a little out-to-in, so the miss is nearly always to the right. In direct contrast to Nick’s fitting (see page 55) we tried to bring in a certain amount of offset in the iron head to allow the clubhead to release a little with a more flexible tip (the Nippon 950Gh shaft has a softer tip) to help eliminate the bad shot.
“But we needed a balance. Kit doesn’t like the club to feel too heavy and he doesn’t like the look of chunkier irons. We want to bring the clubs halfway to the golfer, so you’re not entirely fixing the problem, but it becomes less of one. We also went for heads/ faces designed for speed and that also helped to launch the ball a bit higher since Kit’s natural ball-flight is a touch on the low side. The higher ball flight meant we could bring the 4-iron back into his set so he only needed a 3-hybrid.
“Kit’s current driver had a little too much spin so while it was straight and he hit a lot of fairways, it lacked distance. When we put him into a lower-spinning head, he jumped 35 yards without sacrificing any significant loss of accuracy. We could only do that because he hits up on the ball. Regardless, it’s a huge distance gain.”
Kit says:
“The fitting was comprehensive and enjoyable. It was good to get some data with my current clubs at the start, so we knew what we had to improve. The dialogue was constant throughout, which helped me to feel at ease and convey exactly what I was looking for and feeling through the entire process. Some of the questions Derek fired at me really got me thinking about each club and my performance.
“We started with the irons and I must have hit eight or 10 different models before narrowing it down to a couple. The TaylorMade M3 were my choice because they produced the highest flight with a good amount of forgiveness, and I love the look and feel.
“I’ve always favoured the Vokey wedge shape and we went with quite a strong gap wedge because I hit my pitching wedge pretty far. It was amazing how much the bounce and grind options affected my performance. I’m relatively steep into the ball and the M grind worked really well for me in the sand and lob wedges.
“I tried four different hybrids with the head profile that I like. The numbers were very close between the TaylorMade M4 and the Mizuno CLK but I opted for the latter because the feel was closer to what I’m familiar with.
“The driver was a surprise. I’ve favoured more forgiving and higher-spinning models the last few years but the Callaway Rogue Sub Zero – a driver I would never have considered I’d have success with – gave me an extra 35 yards off the tee and was remarkably straight and forgiving. A game-changer.
“The Callaway Fusion 3-wood is a club I already had in the bag and there was no reason to change.”
Kit switched to the sleek but user-friendly TaylorMade M3 irons.
