How valuable is a driver fitting and will it deliver the same results on the course? I am here to talk you through my year with a new driver, from the fitting to on course performance. Previously I had a driver that was a couple of generations old and whilst it was performing well, I thought that with all the advances that are going on in the world of golf equipment these days I could be doing a little bit better.
Using an independent custom fitter – Scott Gourlay Golf Technology – I went for a driver fitting at the beginning of 2022. They have a wide choice of heads and shafts from all the major brands, so the new driver almost chose me rather than the other way around. In the video and article below, I’ll show you the data – not only from the fitting but from using Arccos Caddie to track my performance on the course.
I was fitted into one of the best golf drivers of 2022, the Callaway Rogue ST Max driver because this was deemed to be the most forgiving head for me. Initially, we started with a 10.5° head, but as we went through the fitting, we adjusted down the loft to 9.5° which slightly opens the face.
(Image credit: MHopley)
In order to return the face to where it was originally, the fitter also used the D draw setting. That worked really well as I like seeing the face a little bit straighter and hopefully this combined with a new shaft would give me a little bit more speed and distance.
For a full club review read our Callaway Rogue ST Max Driver review.
As you can see from the table below, the data from the fitting promised me another 11 yards carry and 20% more accuracy. Using Arccos to track the distance and accuracy of both drivers, how did my new driver perform in reality over the course of a whole season?
(Image credit: MHopley)
In terms of accuracy, both drivers were broadly the same as I was hitting about 40% of fairways from the tee. With the new driver I was missing slightly less fairways to the right and a few more to the left, which probably is due to the semi-draw bias that Callaway says is built into the Rogue ST Max head. Also, anecdotally I did feel that the big right miss was reduced to a small miss right, or even a hit fairway, thanks to this extra forgiveness.
(Image credit: MHopley)
However, the really big gain for me was extra distance. My fitting predicted I would gain about 11 yards carry and according to Arccos, the previous model went 256 yards on the course. In reality, Arccos tracked it at 269 yards, a gain of 13 yards. That…
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