By:
Corey Roberson, Director of Golf
Golf clubs have changed a lot over the years — from persimmon heads and blade irons to 460cc driver heads and hollow-body irons. The golf ball has changed a lot as well — from rubber-band cores to solid construction that’s manufactured with extremely tight tolerances. All of this has made the game a bit easier, less intimidating and more fun. At the same time, we have more options now than ever. Dialing in the right equipment can make a huge difference on your scorecard. While equipment can’t fix swing flaws, it can encourage players to do the right thing and reward you properly.
This is where club fitting comes in — at The Clubs of Cordillera Ranch, we have a state-of-the-art Golf Performance Center that is dedicated to helping our members play better golf. With the help of Trackman, our golf professionals and our fitting components, we can determine the right mix of equipment for just about every golfer. We’ve partnered with the big four club manufacturers — PING®, Taylormade®, Callaway® and Titleist®. In addition, we have iron fitting components for Srixon® as well as the full suite from XXIO. If you are unfamiliar with XXIO, they make super lightweight clubs that perform great for slower swing speed players.
“What’s the hot new driver?” We get that question a lot … my answer is, “All of them!” All of the manufacturers make great stuff — that business is as competitive as it’s ever been. We fit brands agnostically — a player may end up with a Callaway driver, Taylormade fairway woods, and Titleist irons … it just depends on what works best for each particular player. I’m on Callaway’s Master Staff; Aaron is a Callaway guy; Jacques and Nick are Titleist staffers; Katie is with Taylormade; and Camille is with XXIO. We give each vendor a fair shot and let the equipment speak for itself. That’s why we stopped hosting demo days a couple of years ago — instead of just hitting clubs from one vendor, you can come to the Golf Performance Center and test everything.
We are firm believers in the motto, “If ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” If just tweaking the setting on your current gamer can increase performance, we’ll go that route instead of recommending a new club. Our goal is to help our members play better golf, not just fill their bags with stuff they don’t need.
We’re going to get a little technical here. Stopping power (how quick you can get a ball stop) is an important factor when looking at irons, hybrids and high lofted fairway woods because we are hitting these clubs into greens and the game is all about controlling where the ball stops. We all want more distance (myself included) and we try to give players that if we can while maintaining or increasing stopping power with these clubs. This metric is determined by launch angle, spin rate and landing angle.
On the flip side, when looking at the driver, we are trying to maximize total distance. To do this, we need to optimize ball speed, launch and spin to create the right flight that unlocks a player’s true distance potential. While an $800 shaft might help some players, it’s not required for most. We always start with stock options and only venture into the aftermarket components when it will make a measurable difference.
At then end of the day, having the right tools for the job is going to make the game more fun, and our team is here to help our members figure out that complicated equation.
Corey Roberson is the Director of Golf at The Clubs of Cordillera Ranch. He can be reached at croberson@cordilleraranch.com and 830.336.4653.
