Swing into Summer with Club Champion Driver Fitting and Custom Fit Driver of Your Choice Giveaway - Club Champion Driver Fitting Review

Golf season is heating up and I want to heat up your driver game to an entirely new level this year.

I'm calling it Swing into Summer with Club Champion.  And I'm hooking someone up with a free driver fitting at Club Champion and custom driver of your choice!

Every time I've been fit for any clubs at Club Champion my fitter has dialed me into equipment that's helped me play my absolute best.  Club Champion uses all kinds of data and technology to bring your game to heights never before seen.  Unimaginable distance gains and accuracy improvements are on the table just waiting for you to feast.

I was recently fit for a new driver at Club Champion and I'm going to tell you a little bit about what I experienced.  But this review is going to center on what you can expect from your own fitting and really illustrate why Club Champion is so utterly fantastic.  From the unparalleled fitter expertise to the massive club and shaft selections (more than 70,000 combinations), your experience and final product will be utterly game-changing.

 

A Club Champion Driver Fitting Intro

So let's say you walk into a Club Champion driver fitting with your gamer.  You're going to hit a handful of balls with your current driver.  And Club Champion definitely wants you to hit drivers you want to test for your fitting (but they will also make recommendations of clubs and shafts for you to try after you warm up).

Usually we have particular clubs in our mind when we walk into a fitting.  "Hey my buddy plays this driver I hit it great and want to try it."  Others who are loyal to certain brands might want to keep it in the family.  "Yeah, I've always been a Ping guy (or a Titleist guy)."  Interestingly my fitter Mike told me (at the Cleveland location at least) Ping and Titleist guys seem to be the most brand loyal.

After you put a few swings on your gamer Club Champion asks what drivers you want to hit.  If you don't have any new models in mind your fitter will likely grab the newest comparable driver model to the one you're already playing and do a sort of initial apples-to-apples comparison.  This includes taking the shaft in your current driver and putting that same shaft in the new driver head to see what improvements the new head alone gives you compared to your current one.

Believe it or not some players come into their fittings without a gamer.  Either their clubs are so old or they're so disgusted with them that they want to start from absolute scratch.  And in these scenarios your Club Champion fitter will ask you questions to get an idea of your game and how you hit your driver.  Your fitter will also likely give you a 6 or 7-iron to warm up as an initial gauge to clubhead speed and how you hit the ball.

Based on your iron warm up your Club Champion fitter will start to get ideas on where to start with shafts, weights, flexes, driver head types and adjust from there through your fitting.

Dialing in the Shaft First

Club Champion likes to dial in the shaft first because once they've figured out a shaft that works for your swing you should (in theory) be able to put that shaft in any head and it's going to load and unload properly for your swing.  Then it just becomes a matter of what head model benefits you the most.  Hot face, low spin/high spin, draw bias, all those sorts of things come in to play.

I've found this shaft first approach to be incredibly accurate.  You know I test and review all kinds of clubs throughout the year.  And even when I'm being fit by a specific OEM for a specific driver or irons, invariably there are one or two iron shafts and one or two driver shafts that I always seem to hit best regardless of iron or driver head type.  For my particular swing, tempo and transition, angle of attack there are shafts that just always perform best for me in all clubs.

When Club Champion is determining what shaft works best for you you're likely to hit five or six different models (sometimes more).  And it's a very comprehensive analysis and testing.  You might wind up hitting the first shaft your fitter recommends absolutely great.  So great that you're ready to move on.  But your fitter will still have you hit more shafts just to make sure that one particular shaft is far superior for you than the other four or five you hit.

 

Every once in awhile (I've had this experience) there can be a couple of shafts that are very comparable numbers wise.  And then it comes down to how one shaft feels compared to the other.  There are some who say as long as your club delivers ideal numbers nothing else matters.  But Club Champion believes the feel, look, and sound of your driver/shaft combination matters a lot.  And I couldn't agree more.  When you swing a club that feels good and looks good to your eye you're going to swing it with more confidence.

I've had this same experience testing two different shafts that gave me very similar distance and dispersion numbers.  But one shaft felt stout and the other shaft felt smooth.  I had a preference on feel and this is important.  Club Champion recognizes that, knows everyone's feel preference is different, and works with you to make sure your new driver checks off all the boxes even above and beyond the numbers.

As anther illustration of getting feel right my swing speed calls for something in a medium to lightweight shaft range.  But anytime I hit a lightweight shaft I don't swing it as fast, I don't hit it as long, something just feels off.  When I go back into that 60-65 gram range I feel more comfortable and just hit it better.  And you won't necessarily know these kinds of things without a thorough Club Champion fitting.

I mentioned to start this review wouldn't be heavy on my own fitting and instead focus on the Club Champion process itself.  But I want to mention briefly a few new shafts I hit that were impressive.  The Aretera Alpha One Blue was very interesting.  It felt similar to the Graphite Design AD DI shaft I often play.  A little lighter feeling stability, also with more kick, more snap at impact.  With this shaft my strike points were all layered on top of each other.  Incredibly consistent.

 

Another shaft I liked and hit well was the Newton Motion driver shaft.  What I liked most immediately was the pronounced feel and awareness of the head compared to AD DI.  With all my clubs I like feeling the head throughout my swing.  The first Newton (4 Dot) shaft I hit felt too light however so Mike put me into the 5 Dot.  And it felt all kinds of right with performance to match.  The Newton Motion 4 Dot is basically a stiff flex and the 5 Dot a Stiff+ to X Flex shaft.  I rarely hit or play that flex shaft but Mike knew immediately what to do and the 5 Dot performance was undeniable.

Clubheads Report for Duty

Club Champion likes to take you through five or six different driver heads (similar in number to the different shafts you try) and again often times even more.  Club Champion wants you to walk out of your fitting absolutely and completely satisfied with your experience and ultimately your new driver build.  My fitter Mike likes to get at least a couple of swings in with me for an even larger number of heads.  Again, just incredibly thorough and professional.  Every time I'm fit at Club Champion I feel like I'm receiving Tour pro attention.

 

Two of the big things Club Champion is looking for with the different driver heads you test are ball speed and consistent contact.  And once your fitter finds that ideal combination of head and shaft that delivers the best ball speed and contact the next step is dialing in that particular head and shaft combination.

And this is actually a great time to also point out a misconception you might have sometimes seen of Club Champion just wanting to make a sale.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Club Champion wants you to play your absolute best.  Period.

Mike was telling me of a customer who came in for a driver fitting.  He had a full bag of brand new Callaway Ai Smoke clubs.  Driver, hybrids, fairway woods, irons, new putter.  I mean everything was brand new.  Mike wondered why he was coming in for a driver fitting when he had all new clubs and so Mike started tinkering with driver adjustability.

This player came in hitting driver about 235 yards on average (after about 10 or so swings to establish a baseline).  And the first thing Mike did was bump his driver's loft up.  The guy gained six yards of carry.  Then Mike flipped weights in his Triple Diamond driver putting the heavier weight up front which brought spin down 500+ RPM.  And he gained another six yards.

When all was said and done no new head, no new shaft, all Mike did was adjust his current driver and 12 yards longer.  Boom.  The customer came in the following week and told Mike he picked up even more distance out on the course than he did in the fitting.  Seriously, Club Champion just flat out cares about its customers and is absolutely zoned in on helping us in every way possible.  I loved this story.

And this is what Club Champion always does for you in your fitting after you've discovered the ideal shaft and head combination.  They get you the swing weight you like, the length that's best for you, and the dynamic adjustability that optimizes everything.

Grips Matter Too

Grips don't get talked about or even thought about as much as they should be.  But Club Champion knows how grips can affect performance and will dial you in here as well.

So let's say your typical miss is left, left left but your hand size calls for a standard grip.  Club Champion helps you figure out and decide if a midsize grip (or building up your standard grip) can help take some of the release out of your swing and straighten out your shots.

Sometimes a player who flares or misses shots right can benefit from a smaller or stretched out grip to release the clubhead earlier and straighten it direction.  The point is a lot can be achieved with different grip sizes and Club Champion will help you get it right for your game and swing.

Club Champion helped me figure out years ago that midsize grips actually improve my swing and reduce my tendency to come over the top.  For me midsize grips give me more feel in my left hand and I slot the club a little better as they quiet my dominant right hand during the swing.

Looking at the Numbers and Trackman Shot Optimizer

At the end of the day your Club Champion fitter will put all your numbers up side by side to show you real gains.  And don't be surprised to see gains of upwards to 10, 15, or even more yards (and improved accuracy to boot) when your fitting is complete.  Another way of looking at these driver gains is to imagine being able to hit a 7 or 8 iron into a green as opposed to a 5 or 6 iron.  It's just flat out game changing.

When Club Champion is looking at your driver numbers clubhead speed isn't necessarily the most important number.  I thought this was very interesting and I didn't completely understand why until Mike explained more of what he was doing and what every Club Champion fitter will do for you.

Club Champion looks at ball speed and smash factor as the two most important numbers.  So if you come in to your fitting and you're not feeling great or not swinging 100-percent for whatever reason clubhead speed will be down and distance will be down.  But when you focus on improving ball speed and smash factor Club Champion knows these gains will travel and even translate to bigger gains when your clubhead speed improves or returns to normal.

Club Champion uses a Trackman Optimizer during your fitting.  The gist of this optimizer (as the name implies) is to optimize everything about your swing to maximize performance of your particular swing speed.  And Club Champion looks at the optimizer to make adjustments in shaft/head combinations that produce better outcomes and get the most out of your swing speed.  It looks at variables like ball speed, angle of attack, spin rates and launch angles and shows what your optimal carry and optimal total yards should be for your swing speed when you optimize all the variables.

A Few Final Thoughts

Mike is one of the best fitters I've ever worked with.  He'll go as deep as you want to go with all the swing analysis and shaft and clubhead tech, explaining everything in absolute and understandable detail.  And he'll also keep it as simple as you want, results driven, performance explained without a full geeking out.  Just extremely knowledgeable, professional, authentic, thorough, and genuinely friendly.  Absolutely everything you could ever want from a fitter.

And the exemplary attention you receive during your fitting doesn't end when your fitting ends.  Mike told me about Club Champion's Perfect Fit Guarantee.  The gist is you can return to Club Champion for 90 days after your fitting to make any adjustments or tweaks to ensure your clubs are performing as optimally as they did during your fitting.  So if something goes wrong after you receive your clubs, Club Champion will make it right.  Yet another example of Club Champion bona fide wanting us to play our absolute best for the long haul. 

How to Enter the PGAPappas Swing into Summer with Club Champion Giveaway

Swing into Summer with Club Champion will run on both X/Twitter and Instagram, and we'll kick it off Friday, May 24th.

To enter on X/Twitter just repost my Swing into Summer with Club Champion Giveaway post, and Follow @clubchampmedia and @PGAPappas.

To enter on Instagram Repost or Mention in Your Story, and Like the Swing into Summer with Club Champion post, and also Follow @ClubChampionMedia and @PGAPappas.

And have fun with this, because it's all about YOU!  Tell me why you want to get fit for a new driver.  Maybe you're curious about Club Champion, maybe you have a fitting addiction, maybe you've never been fit before.  Any reason at all, I want to hear about it.

You guys know I'm already deep into new club reviews this season and have hit pretty much all the current drivers.  I'm more than happy to make any suggestions for you to think about testing at your fitting.  As I mentioned earlier Club Champion has a seemingly infinite combinations of driver heads and shaft options, and sometimes the best driver for you winds up being the one you least expected.

When all is said and done I'll ask the winner to share thoughts on his or her experience.  You can post about it on X/Twitter or Instagram, and definitely write me a DM or email with some pics from your day and what you ultimately wind up with.  And I'll add your guest review to my blog like we always do.  I might even meet you at Club Champion for your fitting, you never know.  

And there you have it.  Are you ready to Swing into Summer with Club Champion?  For one of you, it's going to be a game-changing eye-opening, glorious experience.

As always if you have any questions just leave a comment below, DM me on X/Twitter or Instagram, or send me an email.