What’s it like going through a wedge fitting with the master Bob Vokey? GOLF.com’s 3-handicap Zephyr Melton goes through the once-in-a-lifetime experience for the second year in a row.
Vokey fits him for his new SM10 wedges before going through the process for the new T-Series irons and TSR woods. Melton discusses the experience with Fully Equipped gear editors Jonathan Wall and Ryan Barath.
In ClubTest Debriefs, Wall and Barath interview GOLF staffers who are testing all the OEM’s 2024 products.
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Usually whenever I start hitting about I just think it’s my fault so isn’t it the truth I always play in the clubs you’re smart and welcome back to Club test debrief where editors and writers put the latest gear through their paces and offer their insights on not only their
Testing experience but standout products for 2024 today we’re continuing the conversation with Zephyr Melton you had a chance to test sm10 what were your initial thoughts when you went through the testing process everyone knows Voki but getting to go through the process with the man himself is always special
So I got to do that last year for the first time and then this year got to get back with my guy get my uh my annual tuneup with him so that was great but it was really fun like you said with the new sm10 from the man himself all
Day all day what’s it like to test with v well last year it was a lot more intimidating than this year this year I was kind of more used to it but last year I will say I hit a couple couple uh hosle Rockets which uh is a bit
Embarrassing in front of a man understandable yeah a man whose name is synonymous with wedges um but you know it’s also it’s it’s a bit like a pseudo lesson that you get with him because he not only is he a Gearhead but he also knows a lot about technique and how
Different players do different things yeah what I do too remember seie always used to say to me years ago he said Booky short shut CH club grip down on it without going down on it stay here what that does brings the bottom up brings your balance up a little you know
A grip down a touch yeah some just it depends on something you can play with do your homework bring the heel up a little oh yeah no if you want but I me I never was a lover with the heel up I always loved it loved that my low hands
Like that it’s very fun to be able to do that with voke do you went out to TPI in Oceanside California which rbni I can can attest is is one of those like golf meccas I mean if you get a chance to go out there to to hit balls that’s where
Whenever the tour Pros coming town for for Tor that’s typically where they’ll go over to to do testing how does Titus do a wedge fitting what’s their process like and how did how did that compare to the way that you’ve gone about doing wedge fittings yeah I mean I’ve never
Really done wedge fitting in the past so that was my first experience but yeah they’ll take you out they have like you said they have a pretty robust setup but they’ll take you out over to the uh short game area where they’ve got a few different uh greens and bunkers and
You’ll hit shots from different lies whether it be a tight lie around the green more of a a full shot from more of a a fairway cut and then they’ll have you hit it out of the rough and then also do some bunker shots so you just
Hit a variety of shots and it’s basically the fitter in this case is was Bob vogi he’ll have just a a handful of wedges of different grinds and bounce condition and all that and he’ll just have you he he won’t tell you what any of them are he’ll have you hit it and
Then he’ll ask you how it feels and he can kind of tell based on the sound and the the contact that you’re making he can kind of tell which direction he’s pushing you and which ones perform best for your swing type and so he’ll just he’ll have you hit a couple and then
He’ll be like he’ll kind of sit there and think and Ponder on it for a second and then he’ll grab a different grind and hand it over to you and for a while you’re like what are we doing like this is it like for someone who’s not super
Uh gear fluent I guess I’m like I’m curious to see where he’s headed with this but then by the end you’re just so dialed in with these wedges the ball is spinning like you’ve never seen it spin before and the club head is just cutting
Through the turf in a way that you know I don’t think I would have thought was possible if I weren’t in the absolute best gear for my swing and I like the fact to is narrowing your stance like you do you know yeah got gets the it
Gets out of it then you make it off shoulders was was there ever a scenario where they they went through the testing process and and gave you something that wasn’t a good fit just to see if it wasn’t a good fit because I think that’s that’s the interesting thing is like a
Lot of people always ask like can you really tell if you have the wrong grind do you have an experience where you you test something you’re like again trying not to look at I mean I always I do the same thing I always try not to look at
Whatever someone is giving me a it’s so difficult and I I’ve been handed a wedge before where I stuck it so far into the ground I thought okay whatever this was it wasn’t right for me did you did you have that experience where he handed you something and it was like this isn’t
Right at all yeah absolutely I mean there were there were certain clubs that he would hand to me and I would make what I thought was a good swing and just the way that the the club head interacted with the turf it just felt completely off but you know like you
Said the thing is it was just the grind was not correct for the way that I deliver the club head to the ball so yeah he did uh go through a little bit of that where he would hand me one and I’d hit a couple and he was like I don’t
Know about that it kind it kind of reminds me of that scene in the first Harry Potter movie where they’re trying to find the wand that he’s gonna use and he he hands him one and he’s flicking it around and like breaking things that’s what it feels like when you have the
Wrong the wrong wedge in your hand you make a swing and you’re like oh my gosh what did I just do there I love that analogy I think that’s our first Harry Potter reference for yeah probably first and last when it comes to the the looks
And the way they’ve refined from the sm9 to the sm10 did you like the head profile cuz I think what’s interesting about them is they do encourage so much especially to being the vogi crew you know they they want you to play that specialty pitching wedge because it is
Something that’s going to help you on those those short game shots because it does offer compared to like the pitching Wes that goes with most sets a little more face technology a a little bit more uh the way the mass is moved around just for that ball flight control did you
Like how the the profiles really moved through the wedges because again going from the say like your gap wedge or even if I don’t know if you had a pig or not but going from your gap wedge to your sandwich to your lob wedge seeing that that face profile just change because of
The way that you’re designed to open up the face of those golf clubs did you find that was something that was easy to get used to and also something that especially when you get into the shorter clubs you’re opening up the face a little more confidence inspiring compared to the previous generation yeah
Absolutely I mean before I had uh done my fitting with voke I think I was never used to like opening up the face as much whether it be a gap wedge or a sand wedge or even a pitching wedge I was never really used to it and then whenever I started
Hitting some shots with him he would be like so why aren’t you opening up the face here and I was like I don’t really know like I only open up the face with the 60 he was like well why don’t you try opening it up here and like see what
You can do and it was a little bit uncomfortable for for me just because it’s not a shot that I had hit a lot before but then just he was like I promise you if you open it up make that same swing here’s how the ball is going
To react and you know he was correct every time and so now with these wedges I feel like I have a lot more Tools in my bag in terms of different shots that I can hit with different wedges like I if I want to sit there and open up the
Face on a gap wedge for example if that’s kind of the shot that it calls for so I feel like I have a lot more Tools in the bag can be a little more creative around the greens and I think it it mostly comes from just all the
Technology that they’ve put in the heads for these new uh wedges yeah that one’s going in oh almost and that’s your 54 yeah you know you can use it that wasn’t too bad wasn’t too bad okay I want to transition into the irons you were fit into the new t- series MH
What what was your what was your setup and was it different than what you had in your mind going in or was it was it pretty similar to what you where you figured you were going to land yeah no so last year I was fit like okay like
I’m going to get fit into the just the newest t200s like that’ll be it but this year they’ released the t-50s which are kind of in between the T100 t200s and so with that new kind of bridge between the players irons and the mid irons it it
Gave me a gap in there to where I fit in so I was able to blend the set a little more so for pitching wedge through six iron I was fit into the t-50s and then instead of having to put a five iron in the bag I actually got a
T200 five iron that I hit better than my five hybrid which I was totally surprised by every Club in my bag was different and the irons were the ones that surprised me the most you’re the perfect example I was going to say that the uh the player that probably fits
Into that t-150 and I think it’s a huge reason why they they introduced it because because T100 and the t00 S were basically the same size they were not the same Golf Club they had different the t00 S had different Loft profile throughout the set different construction into the longer irons and
So there was definitely but but from a from a looks perspective they were almost identical so I think for a lot of players that really liked that that profile but didn’t really find it was too forgiving the T200 was in some cases a bit of a jump for a lot of players and
The t-150 is shows showc is again perfect example of something where you’re going to get a little bit more ball speed a little bit more forgiveness in a profile that’s a little bit more not game improvement by any means but more confidence inspiring rather than going into that smaller Club so what it
Does is it creates a lot better separation and I think as you said like not only did it showcase for you in in your gapping into your shorter golf clubs but it also helped with ball speed into your longer irons so then when you got into that the new T200 you saw a
Golf club that was launching higher and able to stop it more rather than going to a hybrid so you get all of that control but it still Blends throughout the set so there’s not this big jump between clubs it still has the look and feel of a player’s iron but it gives you
The forgiveness and ball speed of maybe a game improvement iron so it it’s pretty cool to have those in the bag because they look like some players irons they feel like some players irons but sometimes they give you the Forgiveness that you need from more of a
Game Improvement set I mean it was wholesale changes to your bag but it was due to something that I’m sure some golfers out there are probably going through right now which is just gaining more speed whether it’s your getting in the gym or or doing very specific golf swing speed
Training I think you’re a great example of why if you’re going that route you really need to be cognizant of like your setup and and getting with a fitter because there’s a pretty good chance that if you are adding speed that the setup you have in the bag might not be
The best option for you I was going over to the simulator and I was like I’m just going to try to put on a little speed just do some speed training did that and I didn’t put on like a ton of speed but I definitely got four five six miles per
Hour faster that’s a lot by the way uh well it’s a lot if you already swing fast but whenever you’re you’re slow to begin with it’s it’s not that much but anyway so then I whenever I would be hitting on the simulator you know see the trackman numbers and it was like hm
Like the good ones are still good but whenever I hit them off center I was seeing that high right miss that with the driver was giving way too many RPMs I was getting up to like 35 3600 RPMs and I was hitting high right lazy pop
Flies that were not going out there as far as I thought they should have I went in there and I was like swinging a little faster and now whenever I don’t catch one of these good like I’m putting too much spin on it and whenever we went through the fitting process they’re like
Oh yeah it’s because you’re swinging a little bit harder they don’t have the same numbers that your M hits last year had so we had to change all that up so I was glad that I got in for another fitting now that I have a little more
Speed well Zack Blair is a big tsr1 guy out on the PGA tour so you know what you’re you’re not alone in in knowing the fact that you know it doesn’t it’s kind of one of those things where you know when you when you adjust the loft
Loft plays a big part in it when you talk about center of gravity of a driver and all those different things so um again perfect example of you know one size doesn’t always fit all and I think you know the hybrid your hybrid is another perfect example of that as well
The sorry your utility iron of of why certain things work for certain players I went in there I was like I have no ego about any of this I will hit I will hit an entire bag full of hybrids if you tell me it’s going to make me play the
Best um obviously that’s not what’s going to make me play the best but I was like I don’t care what these clubs look like what they feel like what the shaft Flex is like any of that I just want to play play the clubs that are going to
Make me hit the ball the best all right Z so we’ve been wrapping up these debriefs by by asking all the testers what was the biggest equipment win for you during your testing session out of TPI so fill in that blank for me um I
Think it is getting a a nine wood in the bag I’m super stoked about that yes nine wood yeah you know I I’ve been a big seven wood guy the last few years and I was like okay like let’s let’s get another seven wood in the bag but then
Just based on the gapping my fitter was like you know I think maybe we need to put even a little more Loft on this so I started hitting the nine wood and it it’s awesome just the way that it it comes out so high So Soft still gets a
Lot of distance out there but such a fun Club to hit and uh you know 9wood is not a club that you see every day but after I hit it a few times I was like I think I’m team 9wood so um I’m really excited about that one those things have started
To pop up all over the PGA tour in the last couple years so you’re in good company with that 9wood in the bag Z this was a lot of fun man thanks again for walking us through your testing experience at DPI with the new vm10 tser and TSR Woods absolutely thanks guys
1 Comment
It would be cool to hear what he fitted into with his specs. However, cool video!