As is the case across all industries and end-markets, no two fitting experiences are the same. So what differs between a good fitting experience and a bad one? At Garage Golf MN we believe it comes down to a number of factors:
1.) How is your fitter compensated?
By paying a fitter for his time and expertise rather than for the products he or she is able to sell you, your fitting transforms into a consultative experience rather than a transaction. At Garage Golf MN we pay our Master Fitters a fair wage. No one is paid a commission based on the sales in their bay.
2.) How well does your fitter listen to you?
Your fitting experience should be consultative. It should take into account your budget, your goals, your frustrations, and any number of other other factors important to you (I once had a client that was adamant about having a white shaft in his driver & fairway woods). If it’s important to you then it should be important to your fitter.
3.) How transparent is your fitter?
If you’re ever in a fitting and your yardages appear longer than you ever see on the course, you’re right to be suspicious. Top tier launch monitors enable fitters to adjust certain settings that can substantially impact yardages and unfortunately there are a lot of nefarious actors throughout the industry. Elevation, temperature, wind, and fairway firmness settings can all have an impact on carry & total distances. A trustworthy fitter should be very upfront with you about these settings and work with you to set them based on your typical playing conditions.
4.) Breadth & depth of the fitting matrix?
Years ago, before I got into the industry, I had a fitting at one of the large national fitting chains. I preemptively reached out to the fitter to express my interest in trying certain aftermarket shafts and was disappointed to learn that they only had 1 of the 8 shafts on-hand in their matrix. At Garage Golf MN we maintain a robust physical fitting matrix encompassing products from all the top shaft manufacturers which enables our fitters to be truly agnostic and let performance be the driving factor in our recommendations.