December 12, 2024 • 22 mins
As winter approaches, Shane and Marty discuss the differences between indoor and outdoor fittings, including tips on how to make the most of the indoor fitting environment, and ways to gamify the fitting experience.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The guys from PING.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
They've kind of shown me how much the equipment matters.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
I just love that I can hit any shot. I
kind of want we're gonna be able to tell some
fun stories about what goes on here to help golfers
play better golf.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hey, everybody, Welcome back to the Ping Proven Grounds Podcast.
I'm Shane Bacon, joined as always by Marty Jerts and
Marty not where you live, necessarily, not where PING exists,
but in a lot of parts of the country it's
cool and off and golfers still want to get their
golf in and they still want to look at new product.
A lot of the new products come out in January typically,
(00:32):
and so I wanted to chat a little bit with
you today about fitting, specifically the difference in fitting indoors
and outdoors, because obviously everybody wants to hit shots off grass,
but not everybody can, especially in the winter months. So
I kind of wanted to lean on you about the
big differences in what happens when you get fit, let's say, indoors,
off mats things like that, versus you know, go into
(00:54):
the proving grounds getting fit on perfect grass and ideal conditions.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Yeah, I know, it's a great question. I think it's
a lot. It's it's weighing on the minds of a
lot of golfers and actually a lot of club fitters.
Is one of our most common question from fitters, because
a lot of fitting environments are indoors. Is hey, what
are these differences? What can I do with my golfer, right,
to simulate more of an outdoor environment? What are let's
(01:21):
compare and contrast some of those differences, and getting fit
indoors is not all a negative thing, right, I'll give
a few examples of this. To get fit outdoors, you
have the advantage of if you have a launch monitor
your fitter as a launch monitor that can track full
down range ballflight. That's an advantage, right. You also can
hit off the turf, so you can really evaluate the
(01:44):
turf interaction of the golf club for your irons or wedges.
Those are some of the really big advantages in the
outdoor environment. You can see visually the curve. Luckily, nowadays
launch monitors are great. You can get nice curve information
and indoor environments as well. So those are the advantages
of getting fit outdoors. But a lot of times it's
(02:04):
hard to find a facility that you can hit really
premium golf balls outdoors, right, It's rare. It is rare.
We're lucky here at the proving grounds. We're hitting prov
one x's and things of that nature. The tour players
they get to hit premium golf balls. So an advantage
of getting fit indoors is that you can hit premium
(02:24):
golf balls right. So while you're not getting that full
down range flight, hopefully you're on a launch monitor that
can has really good simulation techniques for being able to
simulate that full down range flight and actually hitting premium
golf balls will give you sometimes better launch and spin
numbers than hitting outdoors with a bad golf ball, But
(02:46):
you do get to see the full down range flight right,
So there's some pros and cons between those two different scenarios.
There another advantage of getting fit indoors, and sometimes we
do this when we run test chain, especially if you're
trying to figure out if somebody's compensating. Let's say we
give you a club with a lying goal that's two
(03:08):
degrees upright. You might hit your first shot, you pull
it to the right for you as a left handed golfer.
Your next one you compensate. You stand close, so you
raise your hands. You do all this stuff right now.
In an indoor environment, a really skilled fitter can turn
the screen off for a couple shots and blind you
right and take out a little bit of that bias.
(03:29):
You have no feedback loop. John Graham is one of
our ambassadors here, does this with his tour players. When
they putt. He'll have him hit left to rights and
right to lefters. He'll have him hit the putt. He'll
immediately kick the ball out of the way, but he'll
measure where it would have gone with his launch monitor,
So he effectively is doing this in an outdoor environment.
So indoors you can actually do that, and a skilled
(03:51):
fitter can use this to their advantage. Specifically when you're fitting,
for example, let's say lying goal on your irons and
you're trying to make sure this play player is not
doing anything to accommodate for the particular ballflide and you
want to see how they naturally deliver. That can actually
be an advantage in an indoor environment. So premium golf
ball really good friction. You can get arguably sometimes better
(04:15):
more consistent like launch condition numbers from having that good friction,
and you can, if you have a skilled fitter, be
able to eliminate some of the bias. Just turn off
the screen for a little bit, have them hit some shots,
see how they're delivering it. They can look at the
numbers on their screen, but you just mask it, mask
the simulation from the player and the simulator, and those
(04:37):
can be some of the advantages with the indoor fitting environment.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
What about the numbers, like in terms of what numbers
might look like outdoors on a grass driving range versus
numbers indoors.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Yeah, drivers gonna generally be the same. Again, you know,
we've kind of talked a little bit tea yep off
of tea pretty clean, So drivers generally going to be
the same as long as you can kind of make
sure your te height is rep presentative of how you
would tea at outdoors. That can be a little tricky
with some of the t's and things of that nature,
but driver will generally be almost identically indoors to outdoors.
(05:09):
Once you get into a fitting club that we and
most of the industry uses as a seven iron or
around a seven iron, there's really good news there. Most
of the time, your spin numbers will be very similar
to outdoor conditions off the ground. Right now, I say
that with a very big asterisk that actually the type
of match you hit off can actually change this a
(05:32):
good bit. Okay, some mats, you actually players can kind
of hit the ball, hit the mat before the ball
get a little dust or some of the little fibers
of the mat will kind of get kicked up and
get between the ball and the face and change the
spin a little bit. But I think generally the good
news is that we are fitting with seven irons. A
lot of the industries fitting with seven irons, your launching
(05:52):
spin can be pretty similar. But Shane, this changes when
it comes to wedges. So here's my advice for folks.
Seem a little weird, but if you're gonna go get
fit for wedges, bring a little spray bottle with you.
Bring bring your little spray bottle full of water with
you to your wedge fitting. Hopefully your fitter has one
(06:13):
and they're doing this protocol. A lot of our fitters
are doing this protocol. Well will they will have you
hit wedges off the mat, dry clean and dry clean
the face, dry everything, grooves are clean, and compare them
to your gamer. Compare them to some other wedges you
want to be trying in your fitting process. And then
sprits the golf ball with water, and what you want
(06:34):
to look at is the difference in spin, and you
can look at launch angle two. But these things will
be tied very close together between the dry scenario and
when you introduce moisture, that's going to tell you how
much spin retention that club club face technology has. That's
a great thing for the consumer to look at. So
you maybe it may get a little funny look there,
(06:56):
but that's a little direct to consumer empowerment technique you
can use to bring into your fitting environment. Marty.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
I'm excited in five years from now for you to
have numbers on like Fiji water versus Smart water. Like
I know you're gonna eventually dive into that and get
a good feel for it. This is what tap water
does to a golf ball versus you know, the really
elite electro lightwater. But that's a very interesting thing I've
never thought about. That is like trying to trying to
recreate any condition possible indoors. The other thing I've always
(07:25):
been interested about in terms of fitting is and players
have talked a lot about this in terms of their practice,
right is, some guys want to go sit on the
range for two hours and hit one hundred and seven irons,
but some guys want it to feel a little bit
more like they're playing around. What advice would you give
a player that's getting indoor fitting that to make it
feel a little bit more like you're hitting golf shots
(07:45):
versus just seven iron after seven iron after seven iron.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Yeah, we like to call that game like fitting okay, right,
And it's great that whether it's track Man or Foreside
or one of the other launch monitors or simulator software
I've seen. Skytra has some really cool visuals now where
they put literally a wall there. You can create some
really good visuals now with the you know, launch mars
have become simulators, they've married into one thing, so there's
(08:11):
a lot of great things you can do there. Track
Man simulation tools are great. We use some of their
tools where you can put a player on a golf hole, right,
and you want the player to feel in some scenarios
some part of their fitting. So at the beginning of
the fitting, you're doing foundational things. You're doing high wrist
of floor, you're kind of getting lingele dialed in. You're
getting launch conditions dialed in. Then when you want to
(08:32):
really make sure that's the right liingle for the player
you want to you want to put a little stress
on them to see where their miss might show up.
That's where you can gamify it. And we call that
game like fitting chain. And what we'll do there is
if we can, if we can have a tool like
uh track man, we can pick a course a hole.
Let me just pretend like we're doing a driver. You
(08:53):
got a little water over to the right, a little
more room to left, but still a little penalizing. We
can we can pick a few holes. It's gonna representative
of what that player is going to see on the
golf course and focus them in. We'll take away all
the barrel of balls, so the fitter controls the golf ball.
You hand the player one ball at a time. Interesting,
(09:13):
so you got one ball at a time. You try
to put them in a scenario that's going to be
like an encore situation and have the player hit that shot.
What you can also do is have him hit that shot,
then have them hit maybe a couple wedges, talk to
them for a little bit, make them take a one
minute break or thirty second break right, and then nudge
the player, have them go through their full routine, gamify
(09:36):
it a little bit. So there's a lot you can
do there in the fitting, especially as it gets later
in the fitting where you're trying to make those final selections.
Is the shaft right, is the swingweight right? Do have
the CG shifter? Should I put it in the fade
for this player? The center position. You're getting to the
fine adjustments in the fitting that you'll want to do
a little bit of that gamification, some of that A
(09:56):
B testing.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Yeah, it's interesting. You know what happens in fitting and
also happens in instruction, and you know, not every constructor
in the world can do it. But I've got a
new instructor I've been working without in Connecticut. He works
out of the country clubed Dairy Anne and I think
it was our third or fourth lesson, you know, thirty
minutes hitting balls. He goes, all right, let's go to
the golf course, you know, and it's let's go out
to the golf course and see if what we're talking
(10:18):
about now plays when you're actually hitting a golf shot
on a golf hole. Because the golfer sees the stuff right,
we see trouble, left, we see a tight a tuck
hole location, we feel the bailout being where the bailout
might exist in And it's it's just such a good
thing to do in general as a golfer is to
make it as as as round normal as possible, you.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Know, yep. And I go back to Shane with how
can we make fittings more like a tour fitting, Because
let me here's how a tour fitting goes. Right. We
got the truck. There were there on Monday, players like, hey,
things that are a little off with my driver. Let's
let's do some work, right, So maybe we build him
a new driver. We got we got a new chaft.
Maybe this player wants to try a little longer length
(11:00):
to get a little more ball speed, And we got
a new shaft, new driver length. Maybe a new golf
ball came out, right, What are they going to do?
They hit them on the range, get it dialed in,
they go play nine holes Monday afternoon or Tuesday, they're
going to play nine They're gonna take it to the course, right,
So I think you painted the exact scenario, whether it's
instruction or fitting. They have a lot of similarities. That's
(11:22):
what the better player does. Not everyone can do that
and go out to the golf course. So how can
you bring that level of stress gamification, put a little
heat on it, the right amount for the player in
the environment, and bring that into the fitting scenario. At
the Pink proven Grounds, you've been here, Shane, where we
have the post on the end of our range. Yeah,
exactly twenty yards wide. So you know, for some players
(11:47):
it's like, hey, you two of those posts forty yards
that's going to be an average fairway with For a
lot of players. You get a tour player in and
you get them in a major environment, their fairwy's gonna
be twenty yards wide. We use those to gamify the fitting.
There's a lot to take away all the balls and
just having one golf ball there. I'll tell you that
as well. That's a nice little hack.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
It's really really smart.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Party.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
It feels like we're in a world now where indoor
fitting has surpassed outdoor fitting. It feels like the majority
of fittings these days are indoors.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
That fair to say, yeah, I think we see that,
you know, whether it's you know, our partners at PGA
Tour super Store or Golf Galaxy or Second Swings and
they have beautiful fitting base, right. And the benefit is
again it's not all negative. The benefit is that there's
some you have great launch monitors that are measuring the
(12:41):
key metrics that you care about. Right. I think one
thing Shane I did want to bring up is is
you know the turf interaction. You don't have the turf
interaction interaction, So what do you do when you're fitting,
lyingle and analyzing things of that nature. So we have
some tools here, right, we have grind tape. You can
put grind tape on the bottom very skilled fitters and
(13:02):
I highly end is what is grind tape?
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Can you just expand on that a bit?
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Yeah, grind tape is a diagnostic tape. It's a tape
when you mark it on a matt or one of
our lieboards which we now called the diagnostic board come
a plexiglass board you hit off, gives you a visual
representation of where you're contacting. What is the pressure distribution
on the bottom of the club, and that can be
(13:27):
a proxy for what your turf interaction may be like
out on the golf course. Right, So we put this
tape on the bottom of the club, maybe your wedges
if you're doing a wedge fitting, and if somebody hits close,
if they mark or that pressure that contact is closer
to the lead edge, they're generally generally steeper with a
lot of shaffleing, So we can go to more bounce. Generally, right,
(13:51):
if somebody contacts closer to the trailing edge, they generally
have a little less schaffling and or might be a
little shallower on their angle of attack. We can go
to less bounce and try to get that golf ball
contacting on the face a little bit higher. So there's
a really good kind of visual indication that can be
a proxy for bounce. And we can also use that
(14:14):
lie tape or diagnostic tape that we put on the
bottom of the club for liingel fitting. And the big
thing I want to stress to everybody with lingle fitting indoors.
Even though there's tools out there and launch monitors can
measure your three D dynamic delivered lingle. That is not
how you set up to the club at address, but
you got the droop of the shaft, the hands raised
(14:36):
going into impact based on the forces that you're applying
to the club, so the dynamic delivery of that club
A lot of fitters and even consumers, and it seems
very logical to try to get that zeroed out, like
you want the lingel delivered perfectly at impact, and that's
what you should shoot for, and they won't pay attention
to the spin on the golf ball or the curve
(14:56):
of the golf ball. We have seen a lot of
players they're perfect fitting in their irons. They will deliver
it slightly flat, some players actually slightly upright. But you're
solving four curve of the golf ball, right, you want
to minimize the spin axis. And I would use minimizing
(15:17):
your spin axis or curve as a more important metric
from a launch monitor than trying to get zeroed out
unlingle even though that sounds very good in theory, right,
because there's other ways manipulating the shaftleing, manipulating the torque
and twist, and the three D delivery of the club
face a little bit open, a little bit close. Every
(15:38):
player has a little bit of variability in how they
do that, even our tour players, they all do it
a little bit differently, but they all solve for hitting
that ball very straight from a curve perspective. When it
comes to lingle fitting.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
It sounds like something you're saying across both platforms. If
you're getting fit outdoors or indoors, is trying to make
it feel as golfy as possible. It's like warm up
the same where something you'd when you're playing golf. Don't
try to overswing or underswing. It's like, do everything you
can to allow the fitter to see who you are
as the golfer. You are, not somebody you're trying to
(16:11):
be or not somebody you know the numbers. Don't don't
try to beef up your numbers just because you want
it to look better to the fitter, because you've got
to go live with the golf clubs.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
That you just got fit for. Yeah. Absolutely, I mean
I think I think a good fitter also, and our
tour fitters are great at this will have players not
you know, if it's a better player. You got to
know who you're fitting, right yep. So if you're a
higher handicapped player and you don't hit punch shots, you're
not changing your trajectory. You're just trying to master your
(16:40):
one skill, full swing, hit the ball solid, that's what
you should be doing in your fitting. Now let's go
to I remember we were doing this with Hunter Mayhan Chain.
He would have an issue where when he hit a
three quarter trajectory shot, his dynamic delivery would change any
pull it right, So we would always he's stressing him
(17:01):
in his fitting. It's very easy to get the tour
player to come in and hit their stock shot and
pure every single one. You know, we can give them
a different line goal, they'll adjust, give them a different shaft,
they'll adjust. Where their issues show up is when they
start hitting ball above their feet, shot, ball below their feet,
shot three quarter shot, control your spin. Things start to
change a little bit, so you need a good fitter
(17:23):
will have different tools in their toolbox. So if you're
a better player, I would say go in there and
actually try to hit. Let's say you're getting fit for irons.
Hit some shots where you're trying to curve it a
little bit. If that's something you do, hit some little draws,
hit some little fades, hit some knockdown shots. Make that
part of your fitting. If you're a higher handicap player,
you're just trying to have your one swing and do
(17:44):
it good. That's what you should do in that fitting environment.
In both cases, Shane, I think you nailed it. Try
to represent the types of shots that you're gonna be
able to hit on the golf course. And it's really
fun to gamify it. And you can do this yourself
out without a fitter knowing you're doing it. You can
kind of guide yourself and put a little stress on yourself. Uh,
(18:06):
during that fitting process.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
When Pink comes out with new equipment, how long does
a fitting like when you have to fit a tour
player for new equipment, all the new equipment that Pink's
coming out for, how long do those fittings last? So
a couple hours long? Is it an hour?
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Yeah? Sometimes some of our lead players, Man, we'll go
spend a half a day with them right now. And
and the reason why, Shane, Let's say we want to
we want to get them some equipment and then we'll
go play nine holes with them or six holes. Right,
we want to get that player on the golf course.
It's not something every everybody has access to. I realize that,
but on the tour level absolutely like a lot of
(18:41):
times we'll get them into the equipment. Then it's it's
it's always in the minds of the better player. Okay,
let me go see how this does on the course.
Yeah right, that's the default. You got to take it
to the golf course. So when we're launching something with UH,
with our our our PGA Tour top players, we'll take
it out on the golf course. And like I said,
(19:01):
I think for the everyday golfer, even myself, I'm here
here at the proving grounds, We're going to try to
bring that on course into the into the fitting and
UH and it's super fun. That's actually a big area
we're still working on is how can we gamify and
create really good protocols to kind of have that on
course type environment during your fitting.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Has there ever been a thought in terms of like
adding terrain to the range shit ping, like adding it
where you can create lies that are above your feet
or you can stand up taller than where the ball is.
Has there ever been a thought into putting a part
I mean, I know it's not the largest range on
the planet, but it's a pretty big driving range. Is
(19:42):
there an area that you've thought about making ground where
you could force players to hit those types of shots?
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Yeah, no, absolutely, Shane. That is something we're working on.
I think it's something that the golf community is really enjoyed.
If you've seen kind of the puttview type of mats,
you know our platform, the ability to change slope, and
it's an active area of research for us. We've just
done some academic research on that, like, hey, if golfers
have the ball below their feet above the feet, how
(20:10):
does their dynamic delivery change. We've done some motion capture
research with our our European performance team. That's really fun.
So that's something we're actually diving into at the moment,
active area of research for us, even including on the
putting side, right because we have our we have our
outdoor green where we have it three D scanned, we
(20:31):
have a map of it, just like the tour books
and things of that nature, so we can go and
pick those very specific slopes. We've seen the benefits of
that in the short game area, and we do think
there is a space for that in the full swing
side of the club fitting process.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
Yes, Marty, you're gonna be the worst retired person ever.
You're just gonna be texting your predecessor and saying we
should do this.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Have you thought about this?
Speaker 2 (20:55):
It's gonna be a They're gonna block your number at
some point, Like I'm done with this guy, he's retiring,
moved on, he's gonna, he's gonna, he's gonna keep going.
But for now, PING has you and UH we get
so many of these insights that are so interesting and
I love always pushing you know. That's something I've found
so interesting doing this podcast with you and so many
of the people that have been involved in the podcast.
The work at PING is that push to continue to
(21:17):
be great, right, I mean, you can't be stagnant this
business in any capacity, if you're a player, if you're
a manufacturer, if you're a coach, any of these things.
You can't just stay the same because the game changes
so often. But you know, seeing the constant push to improve,
even you know, with how good everything is at PING
is very very cool to see. So there you go.
As we said, winter months are upon us and UH
(21:38):
and a lot of people are gonna try to get
fit for some new clubs. And you know, now, don't
be so scared about getting fit indoors, because it'll be
just as good as getting fit outdoors.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Absolutely, Shane. No one other thing I'd say about getting
fit indoors is you'll get really good launch conditions for
let's say you're fitting seven iron and driver. Jot them down,
drop drop down your ball speed, launch and spin okay,
and then and consider pairing the golf ball using Balnamic.
So that's our ball fitting website, our ball fitting tool.
(22:07):
That's the ultimate cherry on top because you're gonna get
really good launch condition numbers with the premium golf ball indoors.
Jot down your driver and seven iron ball speed, launch
and spin if you go out there, and then that's
where you can marry your club fitting, your ball fitting synergistically.
So one last little tip there to get the most
out of indoor fitting environment.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Indoor fittings, it's gonna get cold. I'm not excited about
the cold, but I do lean on the indoor golf
facilities a decent amount of the winter months. Marty appreciate
the time and the insight has always This is the
Paying Proven Grounds podcast
The guys from PING.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
They've kind of shown me how much the equipment matters.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
I just love that I can hit any shot. I
kind of want we're gonna be able to tell some
fun stories about what goes on here to help golfers
play better golf.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hey, everybody, Welcome back to the Ping Proven Grounds Podcast.
I'm Shane Bacon, joined as always by Marty Jerts and
Marty not where you live, necessarily, not where PING exists,
but in a lot of parts of the country it's
cool and off and golfers still want to get their
golf in and they still want to look at new product.
A lot of the new products come out in January typically,
(00:32):
and so I wanted to chat a little bit with
you today about fitting, specifically the difference in fitting indoors
and outdoors, because obviously everybody wants to hit shots off grass,
but not everybody can, especially in the winter months. So
I kind of wanted to lean on you about the
big differences in what happens when you get fit, let's say, indoors,
off mats things like that, versus you know, go into
(00:54):
the proving grounds getting fit on perfect grass and ideal conditions.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Yeah, I know, it's a great question. I think it's
a lot. It's it's weighing on the minds of a
lot of golfers and actually a lot of club fitters.
Is one of our most common question from fitters, because
a lot of fitting environments are indoors. Is hey, what
are these differences? What can I do with my golfer, right,
to simulate more of an outdoor environment? What are let's
(01:21):
compare and contrast some of those differences, and getting fit
indoors is not all a negative thing, right, I'll give
a few examples of this. To get fit outdoors, you
have the advantage of if you have a launch monitor
your fitter as a launch monitor that can track full
down range ballflight. That's an advantage, right. You also can
hit off the turf, so you can really evaluate the
(01:44):
turf interaction of the golf club for your irons or wedges.
Those are some of the really big advantages in the
outdoor environment. You can see visually the curve. Luckily, nowadays
launch monitors are great. You can get nice curve information
and indoor environments as well. So those are the advantages
of getting fit outdoors. But a lot of times it's
(02:04):
hard to find a facility that you can hit really
premium golf balls outdoors, right, It's rare. It is rare.
We're lucky here at the proving grounds. We're hitting prov
one x's and things of that nature. The tour players
they get to hit premium golf balls. So an advantage
of getting fit indoors is that you can hit premium
(02:24):
golf balls right. So while you're not getting that full
down range flight, hopefully you're on a launch monitor that
can has really good simulation techniques for being able to
simulate that full down range flight and actually hitting premium
golf balls will give you sometimes better launch and spin
numbers than hitting outdoors with a bad golf ball, But
(02:46):
you do get to see the full down range flight right,
So there's some pros and cons between those two different scenarios.
There another advantage of getting fit indoors, and sometimes we
do this when we run test chain, especially if you're
trying to figure out if somebody's compensating. Let's say we
give you a club with a lying goal that's two
(03:08):
degrees upright. You might hit your first shot, you pull
it to the right for you as a left handed golfer.
Your next one you compensate. You stand close, so you
raise your hands. You do all this stuff right now.
In an indoor environment, a really skilled fitter can turn
the screen off for a couple shots and blind you
right and take out a little bit of that bias.
(03:29):
You have no feedback loop. John Graham is one of
our ambassadors here, does this with his tour players. When
they putt. He'll have him hit left to rights and
right to lefters. He'll have him hit the putt. He'll
immediately kick the ball out of the way, but he'll
measure where it would have gone with his launch monitor,
So he effectively is doing this in an outdoor environment.
So indoors you can actually do that, and a skilled
(03:51):
fitter can use this to their advantage. Specifically when you're fitting,
for example, let's say lying goal on your irons and
you're trying to make sure this play player is not
doing anything to accommodate for the particular ballflide and you
want to see how they naturally deliver. That can actually
be an advantage in an indoor environment. So premium golf
ball really good friction. You can get arguably sometimes better
(04:15):
more consistent like launch condition numbers from having that good friction,
and you can, if you have a skilled fitter, be
able to eliminate some of the bias. Just turn off
the screen for a little bit, have them hit some shots,
see how they're delivering it. They can look at the
numbers on their screen, but you just mask it, mask
the simulation from the player and the simulator, and those
(04:37):
can be some of the advantages with the indoor fitting environment.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
What about the numbers, like in terms of what numbers
might look like outdoors on a grass driving range versus
numbers indoors.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Yeah, drivers gonna generally be the same. Again, you know,
we've kind of talked a little bit tea yep off
of tea pretty clean, So drivers generally going to be
the same as long as you can kind of make
sure your te height is rep presentative of how you
would tea at outdoors. That can be a little tricky
with some of the t's and things of that nature,
but driver will generally be almost identically indoors to outdoors.
(05:09):
Once you get into a fitting club that we and
most of the industry uses as a seven iron or
around a seven iron, there's really good news there. Most
of the time, your spin numbers will be very similar
to outdoor conditions off the ground. Right now, I say
that with a very big asterisk that actually the type
of match you hit off can actually change this a
(05:32):
good bit. Okay, some mats, you actually players can kind
of hit the ball, hit the mat before the ball
get a little dust or some of the little fibers
of the mat will kind of get kicked up and
get between the ball and the face and change the
spin a little bit. But I think generally the good
news is that we are fitting with seven irons. A
lot of the industries fitting with seven irons, your launching
(05:52):
spin can be pretty similar. But Shane, this changes when
it comes to wedges. So here's my advice for folks.
Seem a little weird, but if you're gonna go get
fit for wedges, bring a little spray bottle with you.
Bring bring your little spray bottle full of water with
you to your wedge fitting. Hopefully your fitter has one
(06:13):
and they're doing this protocol. A lot of our fitters
are doing this protocol. Well will they will have you
hit wedges off the mat, dry clean and dry clean
the face, dry everything, grooves are clean, and compare them
to your gamer. Compare them to some other wedges you
want to be trying in your fitting process. And then
sprits the golf ball with water, and what you want
(06:34):
to look at is the difference in spin, and you
can look at launch angle two. But these things will
be tied very close together between the dry scenario and
when you introduce moisture, that's going to tell you how
much spin retention that club club face technology has. That's
a great thing for the consumer to look at. So
you maybe it may get a little funny look there,
(06:56):
but that's a little direct to consumer empowerment technique you
can use to bring into your fitting environment. Marty.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
I'm excited in five years from now for you to
have numbers on like Fiji water versus Smart water. Like
I know you're gonna eventually dive into that and get
a good feel for it. This is what tap water
does to a golf ball versus you know, the really
elite electro lightwater. But that's a very interesting thing I've
never thought about. That is like trying to trying to
recreate any condition possible indoors. The other thing I've always
(07:25):
been interested about in terms of fitting is and players
have talked a lot about this in terms of their practice,
right is, some guys want to go sit on the
range for two hours and hit one hundred and seven irons,
but some guys want it to feel a little bit
more like they're playing around. What advice would you give
a player that's getting indoor fitting that to make it
feel a little bit more like you're hitting golf shots
(07:45):
versus just seven iron after seven iron after seven iron.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Yeah, we like to call that game like fitting okay, right,
And it's great that whether it's track Man or Foreside
or one of the other launch monitors or simulator software
I've seen. Skytra has some really cool visuals now where
they put literally a wall there. You can create some
really good visuals now with the you know, launch mars
have become simulators, they've married into one thing, so there's
(08:11):
a lot of great things you can do there. Track
Man simulation tools are great. We use some of their
tools where you can put a player on a golf hole, right,
and you want the player to feel in some scenarios
some part of their fitting. So at the beginning of
the fitting, you're doing foundational things. You're doing high wrist
of floor, you're kind of getting lingele dialed in. You're
getting launch conditions dialed in. Then when you want to
(08:32):
really make sure that's the right liingle for the player
you want to you want to put a little stress
on them to see where their miss might show up.
That's where you can gamify it. And we call that
game like fitting chain. And what we'll do there is
if we can, if we can have a tool like
uh track man, we can pick a course a hole.
Let me just pretend like we're doing a driver. You
(08:53):
got a little water over to the right, a little
more room to left, but still a little penalizing. We
can we can pick a few holes. It's gonna representative
of what that player is going to see on the
golf course and focus them in. We'll take away all
the barrel of balls, so the fitter controls the golf ball.
You hand the player one ball at a time. Interesting,
(09:13):
so you got one ball at a time. You try
to put them in a scenario that's going to be
like an encore situation and have the player hit that shot.
What you can also do is have him hit that shot,
then have them hit maybe a couple wedges, talk to
them for a little bit, make them take a one
minute break or thirty second break right, and then nudge
the player, have them go through their full routine, gamify
(09:36):
it a little bit. So there's a lot you can
do there in the fitting, especially as it gets later
in the fitting where you're trying to make those final selections.
Is the shaft right, is the swingweight right? Do have
the CG shifter? Should I put it in the fade
for this player? The center position. You're getting to the
fine adjustments in the fitting that you'll want to do
a little bit of that gamification, some of that A
(09:56):
B testing.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Yeah, it's interesting. You know what happens in fitting and
also happens in instruction, and you know, not every constructor
in the world can do it. But I've got a
new instructor I've been working without in Connecticut. He works
out of the country clubed Dairy Anne and I think
it was our third or fourth lesson, you know, thirty
minutes hitting balls. He goes, all right, let's go to
the golf course, you know, and it's let's go out
to the golf course and see if what we're talking
(10:18):
about now plays when you're actually hitting a golf shot
on a golf hole. Because the golfer sees the stuff right,
we see trouble, left, we see a tight a tuck
hole location, we feel the bailout being where the bailout
might exist in And it's it's just such a good
thing to do in general as a golfer is to
make it as as as round normal as possible, you.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Know, yep. And I go back to Shane with how
can we make fittings more like a tour fitting, Because
let me here's how a tour fitting goes. Right. We
got the truck. There were there on Monday, players like, hey,
things that are a little off with my driver. Let's
let's do some work, right, So maybe we build him
a new driver. We got we got a new chaft.
Maybe this player wants to try a little longer length
(11:00):
to get a little more ball speed, And we got
a new shaft, new driver length. Maybe a new golf
ball came out, right, What are they going to do?
They hit them on the range, get it dialed in,
they go play nine holes Monday afternoon or Tuesday, they're
going to play nine They're gonna take it to the course, right,
So I think you painted the exact scenario, whether it's
instruction or fitting. They have a lot of similarities. That's
(11:22):
what the better player does. Not everyone can do that
and go out to the golf course. So how can
you bring that level of stress gamification, put a little
heat on it, the right amount for the player in
the environment, and bring that into the fitting scenario. At
the Pink proven Grounds, you've been here, Shane, where we
have the post on the end of our range. Yeah,
exactly twenty yards wide. So you know, for some players
(11:47):
it's like, hey, you two of those posts forty yards
that's going to be an average fairway with For a
lot of players. You get a tour player in and
you get them in a major environment, their fairwy's gonna
be twenty yards wide. We use those to gamify the fitting.
There's a lot to take away all the balls and
just having one golf ball there. I'll tell you that
as well. That's a nice little hack.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
It's really really smart.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Party.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
It feels like we're in a world now where indoor
fitting has surpassed outdoor fitting. It feels like the majority
of fittings these days are indoors.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
That fair to say, yeah, I think we see that,
you know, whether it's you know, our partners at PGA
Tour super Store or Golf Galaxy or Second Swings and
they have beautiful fitting base, right. And the benefit is
again it's not all negative. The benefit is that there's
some you have great launch monitors that are measuring the
(12:41):
key metrics that you care about. Right. I think one
thing Shane I did want to bring up is is
you know the turf interaction. You don't have the turf
interaction interaction, So what do you do when you're fitting,
lyingle and analyzing things of that nature. So we have
some tools here, right, we have grind tape. You can
put grind tape on the bottom very skilled fitters and
(13:02):
I highly end is what is grind tape?
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Can you just expand on that a bit?
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Yeah, grind tape is a diagnostic tape. It's a tape
when you mark it on a matt or one of
our lieboards which we now called the diagnostic board come
a plexiglass board you hit off, gives you a visual
representation of where you're contacting. What is the pressure distribution
on the bottom of the club, and that can be
(13:27):
a proxy for what your turf interaction may be like
out on the golf course. Right, So we put this
tape on the bottom of the club, maybe your wedges
if you're doing a wedge fitting, and if somebody hits close,
if they mark or that pressure that contact is closer
to the lead edge, they're generally generally steeper with a
lot of shaffleing, So we can go to more bounce. Generally, right,
(13:51):
if somebody contacts closer to the trailing edge, they generally
have a little less schaffling and or might be a
little shallower on their angle of attack. We can go
to less bounce and try to get that golf ball
contacting on the face a little bit higher. So there's
a really good kind of visual indication that can be
a proxy for bounce. And we can also use that
(14:14):
lie tape or diagnostic tape that we put on the
bottom of the club for liingel fitting. And the big
thing I want to stress to everybody with lingle fitting indoors.
Even though there's tools out there and launch monitors can
measure your three D dynamic delivered lingle. That is not
how you set up to the club at address, but
you got the droop of the shaft, the hands raised
(14:36):
going into impact based on the forces that you're applying
to the club, so the dynamic delivery of that club
A lot of fitters and even consumers, and it seems
very logical to try to get that zeroed out, like
you want the lingel delivered perfectly at impact, and that's
what you should shoot for, and they won't pay attention
to the spin on the golf ball or the curve
(14:56):
of the golf ball. We have seen a lot of
players they're perfect fitting in their irons. They will deliver
it slightly flat, some players actually slightly upright. But you're
solving four curve of the golf ball, right, you want
to minimize the spin axis. And I would use minimizing
(15:17):
your spin axis or curve as a more important metric
from a launch monitor than trying to get zeroed out
unlingle even though that sounds very good in theory, right,
because there's other ways manipulating the shaftleing, manipulating the torque
and twist, and the three D delivery of the club
face a little bit open, a little bit close. Every
(15:38):
player has a little bit of variability in how they
do that, even our tour players, they all do it
a little bit differently, but they all solve for hitting
that ball very straight from a curve perspective. When it
comes to lingle fitting.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
It sounds like something you're saying across both platforms. If
you're getting fit outdoors or indoors, is trying to make
it feel as golfy as possible. It's like warm up
the same where something you'd when you're playing golf. Don't
try to overswing or underswing. It's like, do everything you
can to allow the fitter to see who you are
as the golfer. You are, not somebody you're trying to
(16:11):
be or not somebody you know the numbers. Don't don't
try to beef up your numbers just because you want
it to look better to the fitter, because you've got
to go live with the golf clubs.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
That you just got fit for. Yeah. Absolutely, I mean
I think I think a good fitter also, and our
tour fitters are great at this will have players not
you know, if it's a better player. You got to
know who you're fitting, right yep. So if you're a
higher handicapped player and you don't hit punch shots, you're
not changing your trajectory. You're just trying to master your
(16:40):
one skill, full swing, hit the ball solid, that's what
you should be doing in your fitting. Now let's go
to I remember we were doing this with Hunter Mayhan Chain.
He would have an issue where when he hit a
three quarter trajectory shot, his dynamic delivery would change any
pull it right, So we would always he's stressing him
(17:01):
in his fitting. It's very easy to get the tour
player to come in and hit their stock shot and
pure every single one. You know, we can give them
a different line goal, they'll adjust, give them a different shaft,
they'll adjust. Where their issues show up is when they
start hitting ball above their feet, shot, ball below their feet,
shot three quarter shot, control your spin. Things start to
change a little bit, so you need a good fitter
(17:23):
will have different tools in their toolbox. So if you're
a better player, I would say go in there and
actually try to hit. Let's say you're getting fit for irons.
Hit some shots where you're trying to curve it a
little bit. If that's something you do, hit some little draws,
hit some little fades, hit some knockdown shots. Make that
part of your fitting. If you're a higher handicap player,
you're just trying to have your one swing and do
(17:44):
it good. That's what you should do in that fitting environment.
In both cases, Shane, I think you nailed it. Try
to represent the types of shots that you're gonna be
able to hit on the golf course. And it's really
fun to gamify it. And you can do this yourself
out without a fitter knowing you're doing it. You can
kind of guide yourself and put a little stress on yourself. Uh,
(18:06):
during that fitting process.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
When Pink comes out with new equipment, how long does
a fitting like when you have to fit a tour
player for new equipment, all the new equipment that Pink's
coming out for, how long do those fittings last? So
a couple hours long? Is it an hour?
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Yeah? Sometimes some of our lead players, Man, we'll go
spend a half a day with them right now. And
and the reason why, Shane, Let's say we want to
we want to get them some equipment and then we'll
go play nine holes with them or six holes. Right,
we want to get that player on the golf course.
It's not something every everybody has access to. I realize that,
but on the tour level absolutely like a lot of
(18:41):
times we'll get them into the equipment. Then it's it's
it's always in the minds of the better player. Okay,
let me go see how this does on the course.
Yeah right, that's the default. You got to take it
to the golf course. So when we're launching something with UH,
with our our our PGA Tour top players, we'll take
it out on the golf course. And like I said,
(19:01):
I think for the everyday golfer, even myself, I'm here
here at the proving grounds, We're going to try to
bring that on course into the into the fitting and
UH and it's super fun. That's actually a big area
we're still working on is how can we gamify and
create really good protocols to kind of have that on
course type environment during your fitting.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Has there ever been a thought in terms of like
adding terrain to the range shit ping, like adding it
where you can create lies that are above your feet
or you can stand up taller than where the ball is.
Has there ever been a thought into putting a part
I mean, I know it's not the largest range on
the planet, but it's a pretty big driving range. Is
(19:42):
there an area that you've thought about making ground where
you could force players to hit those types of shots?
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Yeah, no, absolutely, Shane. That is something we're working on.
I think it's something that the golf community is really enjoyed.
If you've seen kind of the puttview type of mats,
you know our platform, the ability to change slope, and
it's an active area of research for us. We've just
done some academic research on that, like, hey, if golfers
have the ball below their feet above the feet, how
(20:10):
does their dynamic delivery change. We've done some motion capture
research with our our European performance team. That's really fun.
So that's something we're actually diving into at the moment,
active area of research for us, even including on the
putting side, right because we have our we have our
outdoor green where we have it three D scanned, we
(20:31):
have a map of it, just like the tour books
and things of that nature, so we can go and
pick those very specific slopes. We've seen the benefits of
that in the short game area, and we do think
there is a space for that in the full swing
side of the club fitting process.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
Yes, Marty, you're gonna be the worst retired person ever.
You're just gonna be texting your predecessor and saying we
should do this.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Have you thought about this?
Speaker 2 (20:55):
It's gonna be a They're gonna block your number at
some point, Like I'm done with this guy, he's retiring,
moved on, he's gonna, he's gonna, he's gonna keep going.
But for now, PING has you and UH we get
so many of these insights that are so interesting and
I love always pushing you know. That's something I've found
so interesting doing this podcast with you and so many
of the people that have been involved in the podcast.
The work at PING is that push to continue to
(21:17):
be great, right, I mean, you can't be stagnant this
business in any capacity, if you're a player, if you're
a manufacturer, if you're a coach, any of these things.
You can't just stay the same because the game changes
so often. But you know, seeing the constant push to improve,
even you know, with how good everything is at PING
is very very cool to see. So there you go.
As we said, winter months are upon us and UH
(21:38):
and a lot of people are gonna try to get
fit for some new clubs. And you know, now, don't
be so scared about getting fit indoors, because it'll be
just as good as getting fit outdoors.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Absolutely, Shane. No one other thing I'd say about getting
fit indoors is you'll get really good launch conditions for
let's say you're fitting seven iron and driver. Jot them down,
drop drop down your ball speed, launch and spin okay,
and then and consider pairing the golf ball using Balnamic.
So that's our ball fitting website, our ball fitting tool.
(22:07):
That's the ultimate cherry on top because you're gonna get
really good launch condition numbers with the premium golf ball indoors.
Jot down your driver and seven iron ball speed, launch
and spin if you go out there, and then that's
where you can marry your club fitting, your ball fitting synergistically.
So one last little tip there to get the most
out of indoor fitting environment.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Indoor fittings, it's gonna get cold. I'm not excited about
the cold, but I do lean on the indoor golf
facilities a decent amount of the winter months. Marty appreciate
the time and the insight has always This is the
Paying Proven Grounds podcast
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