Midterm results are in: Custom-fit drivers win in a landslide

Despite living on the East Coast, I’ve had an undeniable thirst this year for 10-day weather forecasts in the Midwest. No, meteorology isn’t normally my thing. But, Golfweek has been in the midst of a season-long research study tracking the effects of custom-fit drivers on a group of average Joes. The study required our Chicagoland-based participants to play golf—a lot of it—with their old drivers and new custom-fit ones.

And play they did, tallying hundreds of rounds during the just-completed golf season. All in the name of research! The results showed the fitted clubs were an improvement over the old gear, both objectively (raw stats) and empirically.

Simply put, the players love their custom-fit drivers. But the raw numbers only tell part of the story because several panelists dealt with illness, injury or both. We believe the comparisons between the old and new drivers would’ve revealed even bigger performance differences were it not for COVID (thankfully, all of them are fine), back surgery, skin cancer, nerve issues, and more.

First, though, let’s look back at the initial fittings that took place at Club Champion headquarters in Willowbrook, Illinois. The company’s Master Fitters used the TrackMan launch monitor to record each player’s shot data. The averages for the group are represented below.

The test panel, which is comprised of golfers who’d been custom-fit for their previous drivers and those using off-the-rack clubs, enjoyed significant gains with the new custom clubs on fitting day.

There was no stopping the panelists once the weather broke in Chicago. After outfitting all their clubs with the Arccos Caddie shot-tracking system, we captured literally thousands of shots using the old and new drivers. From there, we analyzed each players’ data, as well as the group’s cumulative numbers, which were based on high-stakes shots in multi-day tournaments, easygoing nine-hole rounds, and everything in between.

Here are some key findings, based on the group’s averages:

1. Handicaps dropped by two strokes with the custom-fit driver

Nearly two-thirds of the testers saw their handicaps come down by at least two strokes per round, and as many as four strokes. Keep in mind, our panelists were custom-fit for the driver only. Imagine what might happen if they were fit for all 14 clubs.

2. Gained an average of 15 yards with the new driver

Two-thirds of the players picked up at least 16 yards, with one-third…