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May 3, 2024 13 mins

Golfers always want to improve their game, but usually don't know where to start. Clubs? Body? Technique? While every golfer is different in their journey, you have to start somewhere.

Chris recommends starting with a golf professional and simultaneously making sure you're mobile enough to get the most out of lessons. From there, get fit for clubs that support your new and improved swing!

Assess your mobility: www.par4success.com/podcast

 

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Golf Fitness Bomb Squad podcast with Chris Finn,
a production of P for S Golf. Welcome to the
Golf Fitness Bomb Squad. I'm your host, Chris Finn, and
today I want to talk about club fitting versus lessons
versus fitness. Which one do you go after? First, second, third?

(00:24):
Do you do them at the same time? Do you
just say screw one of them or all of them?
What if you're trying to get better at the game
of golf. This is a question that we get all
the time, and it's like what order to go after things? Right?
And unfortunately it's a confusing world for golfers in that
depending where you go and you know who you talk to,
you're gonna get lots of different answers. Right, So, if

(00:45):
you talk to a golf pro, a lot of times,
golf brothers will say should take a lesson. You talk
to a fitness guy, fitness person's typically gonna tell you
should do fitness work in your body because it's the
only club quote I'm using air quotes here, it's the
only club you use on every single swing. Uh. And
then you know the you know the club fitter or say, well,
it doesn't matter, you know, if you you should get

(01:06):
make sure clubs fit you right. But then the golfer
will rebuttal to all of those say, I'm not good
enough to get a club fitting. Uh, you know, I'm
not good enough to get my work on my body
or my body's fine, it's good enough. Or you know
lessons you know say, oh, you know, I'm not good
enough for lessons? Right? Those are I'm not good enough

(01:26):
for lessons and equipment are pretty pretty common in I
don't get it. The whole reason you go to get
fit for clubs or take a lesson is to get better.
So if you aren't good, you should do both of those.
So uh, but let's talk about the how to identify
which one of those may be of more value to
you at this moment, and then how to evaluate as

(01:48):
you you know, your game evolves. You know, when do
you look at doing all of these things? So let's
start with fitting. You know, the technology today and the
number of people that I know that have like equipment
from like ten years ago, Like it's wild, how much
particularly like the drivers, how much more distance can just

(02:10):
be received by getting it? You know, upgrading five years
on a driver or something along those natures, like the
sweet spot, the forgiveness, the sweet spot getting bigger, it
makes the game easier. So if your excuse is I'm
not good enough, well, then go get clubs that are
easier to hit. Wouldn't that make sense? If you're not good,
get stuff that's easier to help you more, like, go

(02:31):
get fit right now? In terms of fitting, definitely a
couple considerations to think about where you go get fit
and who does the fitting for you. You definitely want
to be aware of what type of technology they're using
and how accurate spin rates are, particularly if you're going
to do wedges. You know, I'm a big fan if
I'm doing wedges going outside and you know with a launch,

(02:53):
ideal scenario for me is I want to see it
fly in the air and I want to have a
launch monitor, so I want to be hitting, you know,
like out onto a range or out to greens. Really
short game, I want to be pitching and chipping onto greens,
excuse me, with launch monitors so I can see what
the spin ratings are and those sorts of things are,
so that I can actually measure the differences right and

(03:14):
not just go on field when you do a fitting.
It shouldn't just be feeled that may be an element
for you, but you should be looking at you know,
obviously like the objective results and whether that's track man
or flight scope. You know, there's lots of different ones
out there that are that are good. You know, it's
tough sometimes to do it just in a simulator. You

(03:36):
definitely want to be aware of, you know, if they
have a crappy launch monitor system, like just be aware that, hey,
maybe that data is not the most accurate, you know,
But I think one of the easiest ways to kind
of validate it for yourself is when you walk in,
you know, you bring you have your old stuff, your
old clubs, like hit your old club and if you
know your seven iron typically goes one hundred and sixty yards,

(03:58):
let's say one hundred and fifty yards, or if you're
a better player, maybe you're HITTINGR seven or one eighty
five right, and then you go and you hit your
seven iron there and it's like twenty yards off. Well,
that's kind of you should be scratch at your head.
So just be aware of the technology that you're using.
It if you correctly, can be super super helpful. If

(04:18):
using the wrong, and it can give you a total
wrong thing where you leave thinking you were striping it
in the simulator and then you go off to the
real world and it's like, I don't really notice the difference. Right,
So as the settings, you know, what's the elevation. I
think that's the big thing. On simulators. You can set
the elevation. You can set so like you can set
win behind, you can set roll so you can do
super firm so it lands and rolls fifty yards every

(04:40):
single time. So I think definitely pay attention to carry
distance to total distance. Bring some of your old clubs
to kind of in a way benchmarket and so that
you're comparing you know, what do you have currently and
what are you moving to? And I think when you
are smart about it, whether you're doing it indoors on
a simulator or outdoors with with technolog elogy. The one

(05:01):
thing I would not do is just go out like
hit balls without technology. I think that's a stupid way
that I think that is the stupidest way to get
fit for clubs, just to go hit balls and say,
oh look it looks different, it feels different. Please don't
do that. Use technology and feedback don't waste your time
and your money. So either on a simulator and just

(05:21):
benchmarkt with your relative to your current clubs, just to
make sure that you're comparing apples to apples. Or I
love hitting out onto a range so I can see
the flight while also having the launch monitor. So when
should you do club fitting? I think if you're only
going to pick one thing and your swing is like,

(05:43):
let's say you're a mid handicapped, swing's okay, you have
no interest in fitness whatsoever. Like club fitting is an
easy way to go make sure you got the latest stuff.
I think if you have stuff from at least within
the last couple of years, fitting probably isn't the bit.
Unless there's been a big change, fitting is probably not
the top priority. Now. If you're looking to take a
more I think comprehensive approach. I think always starting with

(06:08):
going to see a golf professionals not a bad idea,
you know, assuming that the professional you go see does
an assessment on you, right and they see, hey, how's
your body move? You know, very simply we give all
the pros that we work with. You know, look at
your four rotary centers right in this son you can do.
Since you're listening, the link to the home assessment will
put in the show notes. Here, go do it. It takes
less than five minutes and you'll know immediately. Can you

(06:30):
rotate in your shoulders, your hips, your spine, and your
neck if you can't do any of that, or let's
say you fail. If you fail any of those like,
then you're probably going to be limited in what you
can do in a lesson. So what we find a
lot of times is we go, you know, someonell go
to a lesson pro does that, they say, hey, oh
your hips suck and your shoulders don't move, all right, cool,

(06:51):
let's work on short game stuff here while so we'll
work on getting you better at this element of game
which doesn't require as much hip and shoulder rotation. Let's
go get your body fixed so that you can actually
rotate in those areas, and then we'll start working much
more so in the full swing and you know, progressing
to the different positions that we want you to get to.
Maybe we just work on takeaway initially because you're dumping

(07:12):
the club way behind your ass and we want to
just get a little better initial rotation and better takeaway,
whatever it may be. There's going to be things that
a golf broke can work with you on while you're
getting your body better and you're getting your mobility. Shouldn't
take you more in four to six weeks detting how
bad it is. Assuming you do it, you know you're
asked to do so. I think a lesson is always

(07:33):
a good place. You're never going to go wrong starting
with a lesson, and you're never going to go wrong
starting with fitness. I think if you start with equipment,
unless you're just totally dead set on not doing lessons
or fitness, than sure, go ahead and do the fitting.
But I think you know, ideally, what my recommendation would

(07:53):
be is go get get with a golf bro get
an idea of what you need to work on. At
the same time, for free, you can take the assessment
and figure out if your body can or can't move right,
and that's going to inform you and the instructor of hey,
can we get to the positions that we want to
get to? And am I going to maximize the you know,
the efficiency and in the return on these you know

(08:15):
on these lessons basically now working on your body, let's
go to this one to the third one, never a
bad time to work on your body, And if you're
thinking of working on your body, I would delay the
club fitting, okay, And the reason being is if you're
doing the right stuff, like what we see at pe Freskolf,
we see at least ten yards in the first ten weeks,

(08:36):
so we see two to three miles an hour of
clubheits be changed. We're going to see better rotational mobility,
which a lot of times changes attack angles, launch angles
a little bit, just because you're getting more rotary and
so it's going to be much more consistent. So you're
going to have more the same swing more frequently, which
makes the club fitting that much easier to be accurate

(08:57):
and that much more beneficial. Plus, if you've got new clubs,
you go work on your body and eight weeks later
you're swinging five miles an hour faster and you need
new clubs because your shafts don't don't work anymore, they're
too soft or whatever may be right. So if you're
thinking of doing fitness, I would always my personal recognition,
if you get with a golf professional, see where you

(09:17):
can improve the performance aspects of the game. At the
same time, look at the very least do the home assessment.
It's free, understand with your body can or cannot rotate,
you know, and then from there get your body rotating.
You know. We have our own demand platform. It's like
a dollar right, so we can make sure we'll also
put the link to that in there too, and that
can at least get you rolling. But then if if

(09:38):
you're working with the fitness person and the professional, they
obviously hopefully a're interfacing and talking. And once you get
past that first, you know, two three months of fitness,
you know, then start maybe then that's when you go look,
you at the driver fitting or the irons. You know,
probably driver would be the definitely the one to wait
on the longest, you know, probably two to three months.
Irons probably are not unless you're drafted like very very slow.

(10:00):
Irons probably won't change a ton, but it certainly that
would be the order. I think golf pro then and
very quickly kind of at the same time, in parallel,
there's there's free things you can do for your body
that I just gave you all of them here, but
ideally working with an actual fitness person who can then

(10:21):
talk to the golf professional build your fitness program around
what you're trying to accomplish in your lessons. So then
now you're getting double the return and getting better dealt
twice as fast, and you're probably looking at your club fitting,
you know, eight weeks you know into that and maybe
twelve weeks into that, so that you're not having to
get a reclub fit from that perspective. But if you say,

(10:43):
screw lessons, screw fitness, I just want to you know,
then okay, go get fit and that'll optimize at least
what you got right then and there. But if you
are looking to put time and effort in the game,
that's kind of the ideal. You know. Then there's obviously
maybe you're super fit, you kind of have a good
workout regimen, you're young, younger, maybe fitness isn't as high
on the list right well, then you definitely I think,

(11:04):
you know, depending on the level you're at, definitely looking
at golf instruction and then depending what you guys are
working on there. If you're doing a massive swing change,
I wouldn't go get a club fitting because how you're
going to perform, how your swing is going to perform
with a club that you get fitted before you do
a swing change. Versus after it's going to change, right,
your LOFs may change, number of kickpoints, or where the
kickpoints mid versus low, that you know, how stiff the

(11:25):
tip is. All of those sorts of things may potentially
change as you go through the swing change. So so
I think there's a there's a time and a place
for all of them. And depending where you're at, you
may for you, you know, for one person listening and maybe hey,
I just I need to get fit right now. For
another person, it maybe dude, I have a great swing.
I played in college, Like, I know my swing. I

(11:45):
don't necessarily need lessons, but my body has gone to crap,
Like I need to get my body set. And then
as that body improves, then there's obviously going to need
for different clubs. Right There may be somebody who's just
getting started out in the game and you may say, hey,
you know what, I'm going to go figure out how
to actually swing a golf club. At the same time,
probably get you know, at least clubs that are relatively

(12:07):
make the game as easy as possible for me. Do
those two things in conjuncture, and then as that starts
getting moving, you know, maybe you're already pretty fit, So
maybe that's where you focus on, and then maybe fitness
is something you add in later to level up. But
hopefully that helps to give you an idea of kind
of at what points to add in the different elements
based on where you're at personally in your game. There's
obviously different scenarios where it's different priorities and helpful, but

(12:30):
massive false belief to say I'm too I sucked too
bad to go for club fitting makes no sense. Getting
fit for clubs makes it easier, so go do that.
I'm too I sucked too bad to get a lesson
again makes no sense. The lessons should help it the
game become easier, and then you know from a fitness perspective,

(12:50):
I will say the number one thing I hear that's
that's funny is people say I work out all the time,
I don't need it, and say, well, then you start
getting into what do you do while I do all
the machines or like, just because you go to the
gym three five, seven days a week doesn't necessarily mean
you're doing the right stuff. So that's why I would
always challenge po late take the home assessment. If you
pass everything, you're in the ninetieth percentile for your strength

(13:11):
power numbers, and you pass all the mobility then one
hundred percent. Just keep doing what you're doing yet to
meet that person. So and I'm twelve thousand plus in
so a lot of the times people miss a couple
and it's not lot of times it's not missing. A
lot may just be hey, you don't do You're really
really strong and powerful, but your you know, your lead
hip mobility sucks, shoulders are fine, or maybe it's just

(13:31):
your shoulders aren't that good, or there's always gonna be
a little low hanging fruit that can really kind of,
you know, be a massive return on your time there.
So hopefully that helped everybody listen give you some insight
in terms of when and when and what you should
be doing based on your situation. And I appreciate your
hanging out as always, and we'll look forward to catch
you on the next episode.
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