Will New Clubs Unlock Lower Scores?

In part 2 of Project Joe, our beginner golfer gets fitted for new clubs to try and speed up his improvement

- JOEL TADMAN

Enthusiastic newcomer Joe Brewin has set himself the goal of breaking 100 for the first time this year and has got on to the right track with lessons from PGA Pro James Whittemore. But his current equipment is holding him back, so a full-bag custom fitting with Cobra Golf’s Billy Whiteman was in order.

He was tasked with fitting Joe into the correct make-up of clubs from the impressive Radspeed range. As you’ll discover, the gains Joe made were significant, which should help accelerate his progress and help him achieve his goal before the season finishes. Fingers crossed...

Joe’s assessment

“You know you’ve got off to a rough start in golf when the clubs you bring along to a fitting are literally laughed out of the bag.

I’d got absolutely no idea what to expect from a fitting, having never done one before, but the prospect of upgrading to some tools I wasn’t immediately ashamed of was a rather exciting one. Certainly, the Cobra fitter Billy Whiteman’s pity for my antique driver suggested the only way was up.

One thing I did have in mind going in was the possibility of moving to one-length clubs. For a beginner like me, I thought they might help – the idea of removing some of the uncertainty when clubs get shorter (a big issue for me up to this point) and trying to achieve some consistency was appealing.

By the end, Billy agreed: after we’d switched between shafts on a 7-iron, we settled on some Radspeed One Length irons, which were still immediately lighter than my old lumps. Given that my arms are more teenager than Tiger, being able to achieve a faster swing speed with a club far less clunky will surely help in the long run.