Ninety Minutes, In Order

The Problem the Method Solves

Suppose a fitter hands you a shaft that is four grams lighter and asks whether it feels better. You take six swings. Somewhere in those six swings you also stood a little taller, moved the ball forward half an inch because the club looked longer, and swung a shade harder because you were told the shaft was faster.

The sheet now shows a two-mile-per-hour speed gain. The honest reading of that sheet is that something changed. Attributing it to the shaft requires an assumption nobody in the room checked.

Every stage below exists to make that attribution defensible.

Stage One: Interview and Bag Audit

We start seated, not swinging. Fifteen minutes on which clubs you trust, which ones you leave in the bag, where the miss goes and how the courses you play actually punish it. Playing Patty Jewett twice a week is a different equipment problem from playing a wide-open front range layout on weekends.

Then your current set goes on the loft and lie machine and the scale. Length, lie, loft, swingweight and grip size, written down. Golfers are routinely surprised here: sets sold as matched frequently arrive with a degree of scatter, and a pitching wedge four degrees strong of its stated loft explains an awful lot of gapping complaints on its own.

Stage Two: Address Baseline

This is the part other studios do not run, so it deserves detail.

You stand on a mat with a laser line marking the target path, one camera face-on and one down the line. We take a still at address, then have you set up and reset ten times without a ball. What we are measuring is not whether your position is textbook. It is how much it varies when nobody is prompting you.

Typical variation for a golfer who has never had this measured runs an inch to an inch and a half of ball position and two to four degrees of body alignment. Both numbers exceed the effect size of most component changes we would test later, which is precisely the problem.

We then agree a working address. Sometimes that means a correction, most often it means simply giving you a repeatable reference: a ball position relative to your lead heel, a stance width in inches, a handle height you can feel. Marks go on the mat. Numbers go on your stance file.

The goal is not a perfect setup. It is a setup that stays put for ninety minutes.

Stage Three: The Reference Block

Ten to twelve strikes with the club you brought, from the agreed address, on whichever surface the day allows. This is the number everything else is compared against, and it is why bringing your own clubs is not optional.

Between every group of shots we glance at the marks. If your ball position has crept, we say so and re-set before continuing. That interruption is annoying and it is the point.

Strikes get discarded under a published rule rather than a fitter's judgement: a strike leaves the set if impact location is outside the marked area on the face tape, if the launch monitor flags a low confidence read, or if you tell us you lost the setup. The count of discards is printed on your sheet alongside the reason, because a candidate that produced five bad strikes out of twelve has told you something important.

Stage Four: One Variable at a Time

Candidates now enter individually. Head first if head is the question, shaft first if shaft is the question, and never both in the same comparison. Length and loft changes are tested last because they interact with address position and we want the setup thoroughly settled before we disturb it.

Each candidate gets its own block of eight to twelve strikes and its own line on the sheet, with median carry, the interquartile spread of carry, offline dispersion, and the discard count. Not an average, and not a best shot. We will explain why on the journal page about medians if you want the arithmetic.

Where the day permits, the two or three finalists get repeated outdoors on grass. Bay data settles comparisons between similar candidates; grass data settles the final call, particularly for anything played off turf.

Stage Five: Build Order and Stance File

You leave with three things. A written spec, listing every dimension of the recommended build. The raw shot tables, including the strikes we threw out. And your stance file, which holds your address marks, your current set measurements, and the atmospheric conditions each outdoor block was taken under.

If we build the club, Ephraim checks the finished article against that spec on the bench and the measured result goes on the sheet next to the target. If a shaft came in a gram heavy or a head arrived half a degree off its stamp, you will see it.

What Happens at a Return Visit

We pull your stance file, re-run a shortened baseline against your recorded marks, and check whether the address has drifted. If it has, that alone often explains a change in ball flight and no equipment needs touching. If it has not, we have a like-for-like comparison across however many years have passed, taken with the same rule set and the same instruments.