Are Custom Fit Golf Clubs ACTUALLY Worth It?

🎯 Should You Get Fitted for New Irons? We Put It to the Test

Are new irons really worth it? In this SwingWise comparison, we test brand-new professionally fitted irons against a set of older, off-the-rack irons to see if the upgrade justifies the cost. Spoiler: the results might surprise you.

✅ We break down:
    •    Dispersion and distance consistency
    •    Forgiveness vs feel
    •    Fitting insights from a certified club fitter
    •    Real on-course performance (not just a launch monitor test)
    •    Whether the average golfer will actually benefit

If you’re thinking about spending big on new clubs, watch this first.
We take a data-driven and score-focused approach, just like we do in the SwingWise app.

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#SwingWise #GolfFitting #NewIrons #GolfStrategy #ShouldYouUpgrade #ClubFitting #ScoreBetter #GolfTips

A few months ago, I got custom fit for new irons. It was a complete fitting from club head to shaft to the grip. But here’s the real question. Is a custom fitting really worth it? Today, we are headed to the course to find out. We will be examining the distance, feel, forgiveness, and I will break it all down. Let’s find out if a custom fitting changes your game to make the process worthwhile, or is it just plain old hype. Let’s hop into it. First hole out here is like 340 or something. 330. I’m going to hit a 5 iron. So, we hit a five iron off the tee. We got 136 in. Pitching wedge pins in the front don’t want to end up in the bunker. It’s really hard to get out of. So, this is my 140 club. And we’ve got 136. So, that little extra cushion should get us on the green and leave us in a good spot. We’re on the green pushing a bit right. Think I probably should have aimed in hindsight a little bit more left. That was a more of a down slope to make it push off. But we’re on the green. Should be able to two putt. We’re not trying to break 80 or something. We’re testing out the irons, but still want to play good golf. So, see what we got on the green. So, we’ve got about probably 35 ft up the hill. We’re almost pin high. Um, what I did like about the clubs though is the stopping power is pretty good. Sean noticed in the fitting is the irons I had were lower law. Didn’t put as m much spin as he thought we needed. So that’s pretty uh impressive that it was able to stop that quickly out of that flyer lie in the rough trouble. Are you going to give me a putt for a change here? Not you’re not giving it to me, huh? Nope. It’s not good. I got it anyway. All right. Nice. Fist bumps. Just fist bumps. That was good. All right, so uh we’re on the second hole, par three, 182. Going to test out the new sixiron. I’ve hit it a few times. Feels really good so far. The one big difference between the clubs are, like I was mentioning before, like the swing weights were off. So, these feel significantly lighter than my old ones. And then he also put me in these graphite shafts. And so far, they’ve been pretty good. So, let’s see what we do on this one. Let’s get it. Holding one. You’re very demanding. So, I mis hit that one. I not don’t think I could blame the club either way. That was more an operator error than a club error. But, you know, still not too bad. It’s just a little bit right of the green. Not the best area for up and down, but we are not shortsided, so that’s a benefit. So, we’ll see if we can’t get it up and down from there. So, we missed a little right. We’re just short a pin high. It just was not a very good contact on the uh the swing I made with the sixiron. Luckily, we’re not shortsighted. There is a little plateau about 12 ft from the hole. So, I’m going to have to play it pretty well to get it to go down and not go chasing way past the pin, but we also don’t want to leave it there. So, I’m going to try and make sure I get it to the flag. Got a 58°. See how close I can get it. Should be all right. Jen, is it going to get go? There it goes. Close enough for me to miss it. Oh, I got that. That was pretty good. I don’t know if you can see, but I had a good 30 ft to get to this ridge. And you just want to like you want to dive up here, but then you also don’t want to get stuck up here cuz making the putt off the ridge, you know, going over the hump is much more difficult. I’d rather be twice as far as that on the same level. So, I guess we got about a 5-footer here for par. Little left to right break. See if we can’t pour this one in. Ah, bump bump. All right. Well, that wasn’t an easy up and down. Just didn’t play enough break. So, we’ll go to the next hole and see what happens. All right. Third hole, par five, about 500 yds. We did replace the driver, so we’re going to hit the new driver. A lot of times I might lay up or, you know, hit a three-wood or something, but in the spirit of evaluating the clubs, we’re going to hit driver. See if we can’t get ourselves a position to hit it in two. You like a fade here or you like a draw? A fade. Thank you. Right answer. That’s a fade, right? That’s a fade. Just depends on how far it carries. This is the one that narrows a lot at the end and fairway in general just kind of like snakes around like that. So, I’m not sure if it went far enough to make it over, but it’s trying to fade it. Hit it pretty solid. So, I guess that’s a check mark for the driver on its first swing. All right, so we hit the driver. You know, if we go back up there, it’s about a 20 yard window to hit into. So, it’s not like the best shot. And that’s why I usually don’t hit driver, but since we’re testing the clubs out, I want to hit driver. So, now we’re going to hit a seven iron layup to about 100 yards. Shot I’ve been working on since I started using these is a little kind of punchy, controlled flight it shot. Feel like it’s uh been working pretty well. So, let’s see if we can do it here. So, Jen, this one will go a little bit lower than normal. You should have just a little bit of a draw on it. So, pretty good. I ended up fading it instead of drawing. It was a little bit lower than my normal 7 iron. What I find helpful from a golf course management perspective is, you know, when you’re laying up and you don’t have to hit a like a full 3-wood or even a seven iron, I don’t have to hit it full, right? I can just hit a more controlled lower shot that’s less likely to get in any danger and put me in a good spot for the next shot. So, kind of slipped up there. I probably should have hit like a pitching wedge or something. So, I had like a 9 iron or an 8 iron in, but I hit a really good shot with that flight shot and got uh 95 yards. So, I’m going to take my 54 degree and do kind of the same thing I just did, or at least from a field perspective, just hit a little flight it shot that uh kind of stay out of the wind a little bit and uh should be pretty straight. Woo! I think there’s a little bit more wind up there than I thought, but you see a little juice. I backed up. Yeah. So, not too bad. um would have liked to be a little bit closer, but stress-free pars are what we’re looking for and no big numbers. So, go uh see if we can make a putt. So, I backed that up a good bit, but it is hitting into an incline, so it was coming back downhill. So, not that impressive necessarily, but we got it kind of straightforward up and down. Think I might actually putt this. It’s just in the collar, and the collar looks pretty benign. And like I said, we’re just trying to get up and down and make par and go to the next hole. So, let’s see if we can do that. So, it kind of jumped in the collar a little bit. It might have been better to have chipped that one, but I think we got a nice uphill straight putt for the most part. That’s a par. Stressfree. Well, a little stress, right? But, uh, you know, it was uphill the whole way, so uh, probably made it a little bit harder than I needed to, but the putt wasn’t that hard. So, what does that make us? One over through three. Yeah, two pars in a bogey. All right, let’s go to number four. All right, we’re on to the fourth hole, par four. In the spirit of the video of uh seeing was it worth it, we’re going to hit our driver, our new driver, it’s not really a driver hole. So, this is not the normal prescription from golf course management perspective or swingwise golf in general. So, there’s your disclaimer. Warning, do not do this at home, but this is for testing purposes. So, we’re going to see what we do. uh trying to hit the driver and squeeze it into a very small area. And Jen has challenged me to hook it around the corner. So, that’s what we’re going to try to do. Yeah. All right. So, like I said, we’re going to hit this driver. Probably not the right club, but let’s put this thing to the test. So, I think we’re going to be in really good spot. Maybe we might have to rethink the strategy. Huh. Yeah, if I’m that good with this, then maybe I need to uh I don’t know, you know, maybe it was worth it. I do really like the driver, though. Yeah, it looks nice. We hit a really good drive. Got to the very edge of the fairway. I have about 85 yards. I’m just going to hit a 58° once again with that kind of like new punchy shot that I have to flight it just a little bit cuz if I hit a full one, it goes, you know, somewhere around 95 yards. All right, let’s make it. Ken, you just think these things are just happen. All right, this time I’ll make it for the views. For the views. Ah, it’s a little laugh. Ooh, did you see that stop? Little action. That looks crazy on camera, dude. I like that punchy shot, huh? Yeah. Might be on to something. Might get to scratch this summer. Of course, I’d get to scratch cuz Jen thinks I’m supposed to hoop it from 85 yards and make two holes in ones every round. Yeah, why not? He wants to see some excitement, I guess. I am due for a hole in one, though. Heck yeah. So, I think Jen’s a fan of the new punchy shot as I am. Yeah, we have one, two, a little over 9 ft. Now, this green always screws me up. Now, thinking it might be right to left. Do the aim point. It’s got to go left to right or tweet tweet. Let’s go. Tweet. Not a tweet. Tweet, but you know what it is. Do you know what it is? It’s a par. Stressfree par. Ah, right. I saw some other guy doing a video. Stressfree pars. You’re stealing my lines, dude. What? He said that too. Jimmy Tropicana. Let’s play. I’ll beat you like a drum. You Elvis knockoff. He wears like these sans belt pants. They actually don’t look that bad, but I don’t understand where he’s buying them from. I didn’t think they made them anymore. He’s got this kind of Vegas vibe. It’s actually pretty cool. So, but I would like to play it. And you never know. You may actually see this in uh if you see this like hit me up. I know he lives in California, but we can do something where maybe I come to visit. He comes to visit Atlanta. Yeah. Yeah. We’re on the fifth hole, par five, like 410. The big thing is this big hill out there. Fairway’s kind of wide open. I always hit driver. So once again, we’re going to hit the new Cobra driver. See how it performs. Last hole, we squeeze it into a very tight window and hit it pretty far. So let’s see what we do here. No. So, that was not very good. We uh swiped across it, hit it towards that cart path over there. So, but this will be a good example of golf course management. I’m going to punch it back out into the fairway, try and get up and down from 130, 120 yards. Not it’s the hardest hole on the course. So, if we make a bogey, we’re perfectly fine. Just really thought I was going to hit a better shot than that, but you know, it happens. Flush it. Let’s go hit the next one. So, we hit it off in the trees and we got a I guess a benefit of the kick off the trees a little bit. I don’t have to really just punch it out of the fairway. I can just try and hit a uh like that punchy shot again, Jen, but I’m going to do with it a little fade and try and get it up there on the green. And if I end up a little bit short, there’s nothing really disastrous up there. And then I think where the pin is, it’s in a little bowl. So, even if I’m kind of shortsided over there, we can use the bowl and uh have it roll back to the pin. This is swingwise approved. I would say this is the shot that I would play in a tournament or anything like that or in a match with my buddies. So, let’s see if we can do it. We’re going to hit that punchy shot. 164. I’ve got a sixir. I’m just going to hit a punchy low one to try and see if I can’t can’t chase it up there on the green. All right, let’s make this one. Ken, you got it, Jen. We’re going to haul this out. Where were you about a year ago when I was at Summer Grove and I hold out a seven iron? Oh, we might have done it. Go. A, that was close. Like I said, we’ll be in that little valley or whatever. We’ll just hit one up and, uh, probably use the back stop, see if it’ll roll back down close. But, uh, I imagine we’ll be able to get it reasonably close to see if we can make par still. As I said, off the tee, you know, it’s the hardest handicap hole on the course. So, if we make bogey, no harm, no foul. We’ll go on to the next one. Pretty happy with the bogey. All right, so we came up a little short. We’re going to use the backboard on the green. Come on. Oh yeah. Damn. Oh damn. Oh damn. Stressfree par from the woods. Don’t know why I’m yelling. The microphone’s right underneath me. It’s raining too hard. We were debating whether to come out or not. It just started getting grayer and grayer and then it started drizzling a little bit. Now we’ve got not like a heavy rain, but a heavy enough rain that it doesn’t look like it’s going to let up that we might have to come back and finish this tomorrow. You know, so far with the irons, I think there’s a lot of pluses. Still trying to determine if it’s way worth it, the difference, right? But so far so good. I think we might call it a wrap for right now and uh be back and finish this off tomorrow. 24 hours later. So, one of the new clubs, I’ve got the gap wedge. We got one of my favorite numbers, 123. So, in, you know, trying to determine if this was worth switching to these clubs from my old clubs. My uh mirror gap wedge was one of my favorite clubs. Felt it was pretty versatile. I could hit it from like 130 to 115, like making some basic adjustments in my setup. So, happens I have a lot of those shots out here. You know, I can get five to six approach shots somewhere in that 115 to 125 range. And I feel like if I do that, you know, I should probably hit all five of the greens. Statwise, it wouldn’t be that. So, it’s just a comfortable number for me. And that club was very comfortable to me. So, part of making sure it wasn’t worth it is if I can hit this gap wedge as well as I hit the other one, if not better. So, here we go. 123 with a gap wedge. This is a little feet together kind of 3/4ish swing that I’ve used for about a year. Oh, and we’re going to aim just right of the pin. There’s a bowl up there. And I’ll feed it back to the the left. Oh, we pulled that one. J. That might not bode well for the taste test here. Uhoh. I don’t know how I did that, but I think I hooded the club. I kind of caused that by the way I set up to it. Anyway, we’ll go get it out of the bunker. See if we can get it on the green. There is a nice little bowl effect down there kind of like we had on the last hole. I think we just kind of shut down the club face at impact and it just pull hooked immediately. I think that might have been more on the operator than the club, but u because I’ve been hitting that club pretty good. Still need to see if it’s better than the other one. I think we have a little bit of a mini backboard. Not quite as good as we did on the last hole, but I’m just going to try and pop this one out of the sand and uh see how close we can get it. I might try and go a little bit past it so it rolls back. Not quite the backboard we had on the last one, but good shot out of there. About 10 ft. Little right to left. Going to play it just outside the right lip. Maybe a ball outside the right lip now. Guess it should have been just on the right lip, huh? Not ball outside the right lip. Can’t complain about the stroke. It wasn’t yippy. But what do we got? Stress free bogey. Bogey. Well, bogey should always be stress free. Hopefully, you know, like we say, bogey is not your enemy. double bow and triple or others are your enemy. You’re not going to necessarily make up a lot of strokes on your handicap by making more birdies. Even avoiding the big numbers, keep moving forward, having a good mindset of not getting down on yourself when you hit a bad shot. Had a club right there. You know, I’d bet anybody 100 bucks I was going to hit the green from there and I ended up in the bunker. But then I hit a good bunker shot and good putt. It just didn’t fall. Not that bad of a deal. Go to the next hole. I guess we get to try out the new driver and uh see how that performs. Uh we’re going to hit driver here like we normally would. We got the new Cobra Dark Speed Adapt and uh we’re just going to try and uh play it just inside that tree line on the left kind of like middleish of that kind of moon crater out there and cut it back into the fairway. You like the fade, right? Yeah, man. I also like holeing ones. I’d have to I’d have to do the happy Gilmore swing. It’s a high fade, but I think we overcooked it. We should be able to find it. It’ll be uh questionable if we have a clear shot to the green. But even if we don’t have a clear shot to the green, there’s always a lesson to be learned. So maybe we’ll have to do some proper golf course management and punch out. We got tree trouble, so I can’t go really at the pin at all. Nor would I where it’s at. And I’ve got a small sliver of green I can aim at on the left. So I’m going to hit that little punchy shot, Jen, and try and get it on the right side. I’m sorry, on the left side of the green, but right obviously of that bunker. So, my aim point is going to be, you see where the grass way past the green? That big grass clump near the T- box? Yeah. I’m going to aim in the middle of that and see if I can’t just get on the front part of the green. Sound like a good safe plan. We’ll see. And if worst case I’m thinking is if I hit it a little chunky, it’ll end up just short in that little area front of the green, which will be not a bad place to chip from. You could hit the little punchy shot again and try and punch one just in the middle of that shadow. towards the green bushy grass behind the green. Oh, I shoved it a little bit. So, I think it’s in the uh bunker green side. Uh not the best shot. I kind of pushed it about 10 or 15 yard to the right where I was intending. We’ll go down there and check it out. Once again, not sure if it was the club’s fault. More operator issue probably, but I hit it pretty solid. I just kind of hit the wrong direction. All right, so we got about 75 yards. Uh see if the punchy shot can redeem itself. We’re going to try and flight a uh 58° back there towards the pin. I think we’re short, Jen. All right. So, I’m starting to make a mess out of this hole. Lay three. It’s a par4. Got to get up and down short side out of the bunker. Even though that’s the best way to make bogey, I really don’t want to get more than double bogey. As well, I’m going to give myself a little bit more green to work with and aim a little left of the pin. And the green also goes left to right, so we can still get it fairly close. Main goal here is just to make sure we get it on the green first. Close second. And we technically didn’t get it on the green, but close enough to two putt. Goal here is to make double bogey and not triple. I don’t think we’ve had a triple on the channel, have we? No. Okay. And don’t want to start. So, let’s see if we can do this. All right. Once again, a gimme, but J’s going to make me putt it. I don’t have a problem with it because we’re true golfers. Exactly. Double bogey. Not what we’re looking for. You know, even when you’re trying not to make the double bogey and do the smart things, sometimes it happens. I think the best thing for me is, you know, you just wipe it from your memory, move on to the next hole. if I was critiquing myself overly hard, you know, the I don’t have a problem with the approach shot. I just kind of didn’t uh close the face when I should at impact. Now, the third shot, not getting that on the green is where I really messed up. Should have focused a little more. Probably should have aimed a little further left to get on the green versus trying to get it tight. So, I kind of broke one of my cardinal rules of making sure you pick a good aim point. I picked too aggressive of an aim point on that one. Thus the double bogey. Hole number eight. Hard dog leg 90° to the right. Always pick an aiming point around that fan out there in the distance. Try and hit it straight or maybe cut it a little bit. Shot I had to learn just to play this hole. So let’s see what we can do. So I hit it pretty straight. Oh, good kick safely on the fairway. Going to have a little bit longer than I’d like. It’s just way better than trying to cut the corner or something cuz if it hits any one of those tree limbs, it is usually death. So, we hit a good drive. Uh we would have liked to been a little bit further right, but we’re in the middle of fairway. Pins in a very sucker position. I’m going to aim to that ladies eight, as we call it, between the two bunkers. It’s 205 to the hole. It’s about 195 to middle of the green. And then I’ve got another 10 yards. So, I’m just going to hit my three hybrid. It goes somewhere around 200, 205. Put it up there and get on the green. Have a nice little uh two putt from there. Pretty good shot, Jen. I think we went slightly over, but it shouldn’t be in too bad of a spot. Hopefully. Can’t get mad at that one. I hit a nice draw that was coming in there. I guess maybe I ate my waties. I should have hit a 5 iron. I don’t know. All right, so we went over the green, hit a really good shot. Thought we were going to be really tight, but just hit too much club. We got not too bad of a chip. I’d say it’s like a medium shortsided and or not shortsided, but there’s actually enough green. We should be able to get this close. See what we do. Got a 58°. Going to loft it up there about maybe 10 ft short of the hole. Going to aim a little left of the hole. Play the break on the green. See if we can’t get it close. Hit it a little too far, but I think I had spin. It’s pretty good, Jen. All right. So, we chipped it up. I think we got about five to six feet. These are the types of putts that uh I would encourage you to practice because these are the ones that you can really make a difference in your game. Your boy needs to work on them as well. So, I need to practice my putting a little bit, but pretty much a straight putt. So, I’m going to aim dead center with a little speed or pace, but not more than enough to go a foot past the hole. Wrong speed bogita, but a carefree bogarita, right? Hit good drive, good approach shot. Actually, good chip, too. Just hit it maybe three or four feet too far. I’ll take bogey. So, we’re on the last hole. I think we’ve gotten a little lax with our scoring here, but that’s all right. You know, it’s about trying to get a feel for these clubs and see if they’re worth the the switcheroo from the old ones that I really liked a lot. And so far, it’s pretty close, but there’s been some benefits I think we’ve seen. You know, we’re going to do another video where we do kind of face to face bake off. Let’s finish this one strong. Ninth hole, par five plays really long from here. I think I’ve maybe hit the green and two twice from this side of the T- boxes. It takes a really good drive. Let’s see if the Cobra Dark Speed is up to the challenge. Cobra Dark Speed. That’s a cool ass name. It is a cool name. I named my son that. Oh, hit it pretty good, but we pushed it. So, we’ll be in that waist bunker. No big deal. Just play it as a three shot par five. Just jump in there when we get up there and hit a uh eight or nine iron short of the creek and then get on with a wedge. But, it was pretty solid. I think I just kind of oversweed. I was like, “Let’s dark speed this one over the over the clubhouse.” That’s stupid. Yeah, this hole has the dual fairways. I uh kind of push sliced it over here. Made good contact. I just uh didn’t hit it the right direction. I’m just going to take an eight iron and bunt it down the fairway so we can hit a wedge in on the par five. This is, you know, no big deal being in here. All right, we shoved it a little. a redemption arc for the gap wedge that we pulled into the uh bunker on six. So 117 gap wedge with the new irons. Let’s see how we finish up on the video in the last hole. Par five. See if we can’t get another tweet tweeteroo. There it is. Pretty close. Redemption arc completed. Chef’s kiss to you, gap wedge. All right, so the uh PSA announcement. If you played a course and people aren’t fixing their ball marks, make sure you do it. I was taught to fix yours and two others. And unfortunately, the members out here at this time of year, they don’t like to fix them for some reason. Anyway, that aside, we got about I don’t know 10 ft, 9 ft for birdie. Going to go a little left to right, but not as much as you would think if you were out here with me. So, I’m going to kind of hang it on the left lip. See if we can’t get it to break on in there. Oh, I think I might have just either was aimed a little bit too far left or maybe I pulled it a titch. But what do we got here? Stressree par. Stress free par. I think we shot 41. But the goal of the video was to uh check out was it worth it for the new irons and uh driver that we got after the fitting. So far, I think there’s pluses and minuses. I think we’re going to do one more video to kind of flush it out, but you know, definitely in the running, they do feel lighter. They do feel a little bit more responsive. Actually, on this shot, hitting back up a lot, but it I think they’re stopping a lot quicker than my old irons, which is one of the things Shawn addressed. So, they probably are worth it cuz, you know, it’s doing what Sean thought it needed to do. So, a little bit more spin on the irons. Haven’t lost any distance, I don’t think, with them. They’re the same distance. Thanks for watching if you got this far. Like, subscribe, all that stuff. And then please provide any comments or feedback you want. If you like this or different kind of content down to do it if you let us know what you like to see. So, thanks again. See you in the next one.