Club Champion Putter Fitting Review (Franklin, Tennessee) - PGAPappas Winner Guest Review

No matter who you are, what your game is like, or what you want to accomplish, a Club Champion fitting will help you play better golf and in the process make the game more fun.  I recently had a Club Champion putter fitting that was educational, eye-opening, and ultimately one of the best fitting experiences I could have possibly had.

And the winner of my recent Club Champion putter fitting giveaway also had himself one heck of a day.  Ty was fit at Club Champion - Franklin, and describes his fitting as "thorough, detailed, and high quality."

In his own words, here's what Ty (@over7par on twitter) thought about his Club Champion putter fitting experience, and ultimately what putter wound up being best:

I was incredibly fortunate to have been selected to receive a complementary putter fitting at Club Champion.  I’ve been to Club Champion a couple of times in the past including a putter fitting in February 2020 (we all know how crazy that year was), so I was due for a checkup.  This couldn’t have come at a better time.

Pete was able connect me with Club Champion to set up my appointment at the Franklin, TN location.  Doing so was incredibly easy (it is even without winning a contest) and settled on a date quickly.  I arrived at my appointment and met my fitter, Rick. I’d worked with Rick before, so after a quick catch-up, we proceeded to get down to business.

Using the Science and Motion (SAM) PuttLab, we took my gamer Mizuno OMOI 05 and hit 7 putts to identify what exactly my putting stroke was doing.  We were able to surmise that the Mizuno was actually a pretty good option for me and yielded solid results.  My putting stroke was consistent and solid.  At that point, Rick asked me what I’d like to do—find something comparable with a different look or go with a crazy build and get something no one else has?  I decided to go with a combination of both.

Going with the SAM data, Rick and I decided I needed to stick with the face-balanced suggestion as that is what the data suggested as well as what I prefer.  If I feel any semblance of toe hang in a putter, I leave the putter face open and then start closing it down to compensate for it and end up overdoing it.  It’s what my fitting three and a half years ago yielded and for those of you that say putter fittings don’t work, my putts per round went from 34 to 28 in the first three months and I’ve had four sub-25 putt rounds since.  It was likely a confidence thing, but I’d argue it’s because I knew I had the right equipment in my hands.

I’ve tried almost every brand of putter out there.  You name the brand, I’ve tried it.  I’d tried every brand that was sitting out there EXCEPT for one.  Enter SWAG.  SWAG isn’t readily available to try in many golf shops, so I’d only admired them from afar and was afraid to pull the trigger on one.  I decided to try the SWAG Savage Too as it was totally face-balanced and would give me the option of a blade in my repertoire.  It was love at first sight.

Not only did it yield immediate results, it was extremely consistent and accurate, which is obviously what we’re looking for in our putting stroke.  It has a deeper milled 303 stainless steel 365-gram head and provided the feel I was looking for.  I told you I’ve tried almost everything out there and a lot of that is attributed to feel.  Some putters were too firm, some too soft, and I’ve been Goldilocks looking for that perfect feel.  I believe the deeper milling (similar to the Mizuno OMOI 05) helps achieve that feel I’m looking for along with the balance and marrying the two together.

Because I’d tried a lot of what was already there, I didn’t really have too much else to try.  I thought I’d be remiss to not try something, so I threw the Scotty Cameron Super Select GOLO 6 into the fray.  It yielded similar results to the Mizuno—really good, but not quite as good as the Savage Too.

Rick told me I probably lined the GOLO up the best at address, but something about the Savage Too just worked best.  I ultimately decided to go with the Savage Too based on the results and the fact that it’s unique.  I know they’re out there, but they’re not as readily available as a lot of things out there.

At this point, Rick brought out the few SWAG headcovers that he had available and as you all probably know, they’re a little wild.  I am not. (Ha!)  Therefore, I went with a more understated light gray/orange design (Go Vols!) and thought we’d be done.  The putter offered through Club Champion was only offered in the black/lime green paint-fill (SWAG also offers a light Chicago Blue in their stock offerings), but Rick offered to check and see if Club Champion’s custom build team would add orange paint-fill to match my headcover.  As you see in the pictures, not only were they able to do it, they made it look as sexy as any putter I’ve ever owned.

In conclusion, that was my Club Champion experience.  I hope everyone has enjoyed reading what the experience was like and might go through the process at some point.  It was probably less eye-opening to me at this appointment as it was my first one in 2020, because that one was so drastically life-changing from a golf perspective.  But it was really nice to see all the data up close and personal and get a chance to roll a few different putters, including the one I ended up with.

If you’re in the middle Tennessee area and interested in a detailed, high quality fitting, I highly recommend Rick Lane at the Franklin, TN location.  He’s thorough, he asks questions, and most of all, he’s much like all of us are that follow Pete—a huge golf nerd.  He loves equipment just as much as we do and believe me, after seeing his personal stash of putters, I believed him.

As always, a huge thanks to Pete for helping facilitate this giveaway and Club Champion for providing it.  I’ve said it before, but Pete is such a huge ambassador for the game of golf and we’re all the better for having him provide us commentary, reviews, giveaways, etc.  I’ve never seen someone with his stature be so generous with his time.  He doesn’t have to be, but he does.

Hit ‘em straight everyone!  Thanks!

Ty

Thanks for a great review Ty. Sounds like you an absolutely perfect day, and now an absolutely perfect putter for your game!

All of you know I believe Club Champion does fittings right.  Every fitting I've had with them has been thorough, enjoyable, and ultimately left me extremely happy and satisfied with the results and clubs I was fit for.  All they do is impress, and continue to impress.  And I'm super pumped Ty experienced the same thing.

More PGAPappas Guest Reviews are on the horizon.  And as always anytime any of you who wins something from me wants to write a review just let me know.  Cheers to better golf and having more fun for us all!