Green Grass Golf Shop

If I had a nickel for every customer that came in with this exact message: “My handicap index is (pick a number, any number) what irons do you recommend for my skill level?” I would never have to work again. Just like everything else, and just like I’ve talked about before in my Fitting Friday series here, fitting for irons is so much more complicated than that these days. Your handicap index really tells us very little about how you hit your irons in the long run. Just saying you are a 12 handicap, first of all, doesn’t tell us as fitters where you lose those 12 proverbial strokes. One golfer could lose all of those strokes with errant drives and a poor short game with 3 putts galore, and absolutely pound and pure every iron shot. Then another could lose all of their strokes from their ball striking and not being able to hit an iron consistently to save their lives, while they stripe every drive and save strokes around the green. Your handicap also doesn’t tell us what you need from your iron’s distance, one of the biggest selling points in iron sets these days. Two different 12 handicap golfers are likely going to need something completely different from their irons, especially if you are comparing golfers of wildly different ages. A 25 year old versus a 75 year old with similar “skill levels” based on their handicap are not going to need anything near the same thing from their irons, or any of their clubs for that matter. With that, you can even have more skilled golfers that fit into a game improvement set versus others that need something closer to a player’s iron, and that has nothing to do with their skill level. So what I’m going to do here is make up two random players, but chances are that each of these made up people will fit quite a few golfers out there:

If anything this is a good opportunity to teach someone how to ask for help in the golf industry, because knowing all the questions you need to ask and what you need assistance with in and of itself can be a challenge for beginners. If you are asking someone what clubs that they recommend, this table above would be the absolute bare minimum amount of information to even start narrowing things down. And by the way, that is just for the club head selection, which is less than half the overall equation. If you checked in to a golf shop and simply said, “this is my handicap, sell me some irons,” looking at the table above Golfer 1 would get the irons that Golfer 2 needs and vice versa, you are going to get very bad service. Looking at the specs and players laid out in the above table, I would say that just to start Golfer 1 needs an iron with less or similar loft, that is not something you are going to find in any super forgiving game improvement iron on the market today. Contrary to their handicap, this player needs more of a player’s iron like a Titleist T100, Taylormade P-7MC, Mizuno JPX 923, something with some forgiveness compared to other player’s irons, with weaker lofts to help their accuracy and distance control. If you fit this player into a game improvement iron based solely on their handicap, the needs would be totally ignored, that game improvement set would go miles further than their current irons and their game would probably go downhill with out of control iron distances. In addition, a shaft fitting for something stiffer with a lot less spin is going to be something to look into, as this player can clearly create plenty of spin on their own. Similarly with Golfer 2 who needs distance, if you were to recommend a player’s iron with weaker lofts to that player they would be incredibly disappointed in their new 150 club being a 5 iron when it used to be a 6 iron. This golfer might actually be a little easier to dial in a head for, with such strong irons already you really need something just as strong or at least close to match the distances, and there’s not much out there that fits that description. Golfer 2 would need to start with something like a Titleist T400, Wilson Dynapower, Taylormade Qi10 or PXG 0311 XP, again VERY contrary to their handicap index. In addition to this, a much lighter, higher launching, spinning and probably a senior flex shaft would be crucial to get that carry distance closer to the total distance. With how much forgiveness you can get from irons in the same category as Titleist T100, and how little workability you ultimately give up from irons like the Titleist T400, distance is by far the most important piece of the head selection (no…not that head selection, can we be done with the Hawk Tuah girl now?).

As I hope you can see from just a 10,000ft view here, the most important factors of any fitting process are going to be launch, spin, and in turn what those need to be to produce a proper distance for you. With how influential an improper versus a proper launch and spin will be on your distance, getting a proper launch and spin on your irons based on your very unique swing mechanics is absolutely essential to maximize your potential and play your best golf. Your handicap, your swing speed, your skill level, these are not things that help narrow down what launch and spin you need from your iron set, that’s something only a fitting in person can accomplish!