Shaun Barnes wasted little time digging right in to my golf swing and coming up with the dirt.
"Grab a 6-iron," said the soft-spoken PGA pro who heads up the impressive and popular Player Performance Studio at the Haggin Oaks Golf Complex in his native Sacramento, Calif. So I did, and started beating balls from a huge basket at a target flag about 150 yards away with my five-year-old TaylorMade r7XD mid-stick. My swing felt OK after a snowy, 120-mile drive from Reno, and I was making fair contact, though with a persistent 15-yard yank — a shot with which I'm sadly familiar.
After a dozen shots on the tricked-up, state-of-the-art Trackman system, which records every element of a golf swing and ballflight in three dimensions, Barnes (shown in the photo above) directed me to a big monitor and rolled through several screens revealing a dizzying grid of numbers: Golden oldies like club speed, ball speed, face angle and launch angle plus a wealth of what were, to me, more esoteric figures like attack angle, dynamic loft, spin axis, smash factor and maximum height. Barnes zeroed in on the truly salient figures for my situation — ball speed (marginally slow off the face), launch angle (downward blow, that's good), launch spin (I was coming a few degrees over top, not all that unusual for iron play) and smash factor (I was making contact near the center of the face, though toward the toe, time after time). And my ball flight was a little high.
Not a lot of surprises there. I'm still a steep hitter, even after working assiduously to flatten out my swing. I tend to come out of my posture to make solid contact, hence the toe-hooks. And I put too much spin on the pill, costing me distance. At least my smash factor was pretty good.
But, for most hackers like me, the truth hurts, and Trackman doesn't lie. Its brand of techno-honesty has pretty much revolutionized the entire golf club industry, making world-class operators like Ken Morton Sr. and Jr. — easily the most respected golf course-based retailers in America — very happy indeed.
Says Ken Sr., "Over the past five years, it hasn't been that the technology of making clubs has changed too much, but the clubfitting process. Back in the old days, a pro would watch a guy's swing and, just through experience, figure out what he needed to do with his equipment. Now, with the Trackman, there's no guesswork. It's truly amazing."
And in the hands of an award-winning fitting master like Barnes, it's indispensable. After I hit a few more 6-irons adorned with face tape showing my toe bias, he grabbed the head of a new Burner 2.0 6-iron, screwed it onto a lightweight steel shaft resembling those in my sticks, and had me hit eight balls without telling me its lie angle.
The improvement was immediate and downright pleasing to ear, eye and heart. The ball jumped off the clubface with a solid click, flew out of the Performance Studio's covered bay at a slightly more penetrating angle and — miracle of miracles — headed toward the target pin with impunity. And that was just tweaking the club's lie, with no other adjustments.
Back at the Trackman screen, the numbers told a much happier tale: Not only was I hitting the ball straighter, I was gaining about 7 yards with the same club. And nailing it square every time.
"It's two degrees flat," Barnes finally told me. "I didn't want to say before, because it would cause you to change your swing."
That's the whole point of clubfitting: To strip away swing-to-swing vagaries and fashion a set of sticks that fit whatever move each individual player — from tour pro to 20-handicapper — tends to produce through the bag. A dozen years ago, when I was a lot more pliant, my swing was far more upright. Now it's shorter, rounder and slower, though still on the quick side. And I was fitted for a set of Ping ISIs that were two degrees upright!
That's a four-degree swing in 12 years, and I get why. I'd been working hard to go flat (which, in reality, ain't all that flat at all), and it was working. Trackman had just backed up my efforts, telling Barnes exactly what he needed to know to get me producing far more efficient strikes. I see a new set of Burner 2.0s in my future.
Then it was onto the driver, with which I've had a love-hate relationship for years. I go through bombers like most people go through burgers — with reckless, hungry abandon. If I could just find one to love for the long haul, I'd be ecstatic.
Next time, I'll reveal just how close I came to the promised land, again with Barnes' help.
In the meantime, visit Haggin Oaks' Player Performance Studio yourself.
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