Driver Fitting
This is the club an indoor bay distorts the most, and it is also the club golfers most want a big number from. Those two facts pull against each other all afternoon. We resolve it by refusing to lead with carry, and by handing you the correction that turns our screen figure into something a Eugene fairway will honour.
| Under 88 mph clubhead | Bay +2.4 yd |
|---|---|
| 88 to 97 mph | Bay +4.1 yd |
| 98 to 106 mph | Bay +5.8 yd |
| Above 106 mph | Bay +7.2 yd |
| Spin, all bands | Bay reads low |
| Peak height | Within 3 ft |
Strike Pattern Comes Before Every Other Question
A driver conversation that starts with ball speed is already lost. Where you meet the face governs spin, curvature and the effective loft you deliver, and it moves those things far more than any component swap available on the rack.
We Tape the Face Every Block
Ten swings with an unmarked face produce a set of averages and no explanation. Ten swings with a taped face produce a picture. If your pattern sits half an inch toward the heel with a slight upward bias, the flight you are complaining about is already accounted for, and the fix is often length or lie rather than a different head.
Because the pattern moves as you get tired, we retape at the start of every block rather than once at the beginning. It is the cheapest instrument in the building and the most informative.
What the pattern decides
- Whether length is helping or quietly costing you centre strikes
- How much of your curvature is gear effect rather than path
- Whether a heavier head would settle the pattern or slow it
- Which loft is actually being delivered, not stamped
- Whether the session should be about the club at all
Length Is the Variable Nobody Wants to Move
Stock driver length has drifted upward for two decades and most golfers now swing something longer than they can centre. We test shorter builds in almost every session and we lose that argument about half the time, which is fine. The other half, a half inch off the butt tightens the pattern enough that ball speed goes up despite the shorter lever.
When we shorten, swing weight is restored deliberately rather than left to fall. A club that is shorter and lighter in the head feels like nothing and gets swung badly.
Order we move things
- Loft and face setting, because it is free to change
- Shaft profile, judged on dispersion not distance
- Shaft weight, judged on tempo and low-point stability
- Length, always in quarter-inch steps
- Head model, last, and only if the first four ran out of road
What the Bay Genuinely Cannot Tell You About a Driver
Ball speed and launch we read at the strike and trust. Spin we read from the marked ball and trust. Everything past the first several feet of flight is a model, and for a driver that model is running the longest and doing the most work.
The three figures below are the ones we hand over with a correction attached. If a studio quotes them to you flat, without a stated error, ask how they measured it.
- Carry. Modelled indoors. Pooled offset applies, and it grows with speed.
- Total distance. Modelled twice over, since rollout depends on ground we cannot see. We do not fit on it.
- Curvature at landing. Directionally right, magnitude soft. Wind is not in the room.
Who books this bench
- Players losing the ball right and blaming the shaft
- Anyone who bought a driver online in the last two seasons
- Golfers whose speed has changed, in either direction
- People with a spec sheet from elsewhere and doubts about it
- Winter players who never see their driver in dry air
We will tell you when to keep it
Roughly one driver session in five ends with the client keeping the head they arrived with and changing only the shaft, the length or the grip. That outcome is not a failed session. It is the cheapest good result available and we would rather sell it than a headline.