A CLUB-FITTING DEBUT

Nick Bonfield, a 9.4-handicapper, had no previous experience of being fitted for irons prior to his visit to Gainsborough. How did the custom-fit rookie find the whole process?

I suppose I didn’t know what to expect when heading to Ping’s European fitting HQ for my first ever iron fitting. For the last ten years, I’d been using Nike Vapor irons – no longer in production – and I got them straight off the shelf, something a lot of mid-handicappers can probably relate to. I was excited about the experience, but, in all honesty, I didn’t expect my numbers or performance to be vastly different, even though Ping produces some of the best irons on the market. I was in for a surprise.

I was greeted warmly by fitter Paul Rymer, who asked how far I hit my current 7-iron on average. I answered “somewhere in the region of 150-155 yards”, but I didn’t really know – I’ve never actually gone to the range with all my clubs and recorded average carry and total distances.

The first step was to measure my Nike irons and we found out they were neutral in terms of lie angle. But after hitting a few shots and using Ping’s custom-fitting iron chart, we established they weren’t particularly suited to my swing. We then set about trying different shaft and lie angle combinations and, in truth, my results with every iteration were far superior to the norm.