Sunday, November 30, 2025

True Spec Golf Fitting Review: Intown Golf Club Dublin Studio

If you're looking to get fit for irons the good news is you have options galore.  Local PGA professionals, large retail chains, manufacturer demo days, and specialty club fitting companies will all fit you by tailoring irons to your swing and body.  But with all these options how do you decide which one's best for you?

I was recently fit for irons by True Spec Golf at their Intown Golf Club studio in Dublin, Ohio and my fitting checked all the boxes that go into making an iron fitting a great iron fitting.  And True Spec stood out in three particular areas.  First, I was fit by the most cutting-edge fitting technology.  Second, my fitter was experienced, skilled, and committed to my goals.  And third, I was able to choose from a variety of iron heads, shafts, and grips to ensure my custom build really was the best build for me.

In this review I'm going to take you through my True Spec iron fitting from beginning to end so you know what a True Spec iron fitting is all about.  A typical True Spec iron fitting will last about an hour and thirty minutes.  But my fitter Matt wanted to make sure I was satisfied in every possible way and so our fit actually went right up to two hours.

Before I get into the actual nuts and bolts of my True Spec fitting I want to touch on a few general things that stood out right from the start and made my entire fitting experience extremely enjoyable and rewarding.  The Intown Golf Club location,  Matt's fitting style, and True Spec Golf's brand agnostic approach to fitting.

Intown Golf Club

Intown Golf Club is a private, members-only golf club offering a year-round upscale golf experience.  And True Spec Golf using Intown for its fittings makes your entire fitting experience feel elevated.

If you want to partake in the full-service restaurant and bar during your fitting go for it.  You know me, I just opted for coffee.  And it was absolutely delicious.  I had to smile near the end of my fitting because everything about Intown and True Spec is highly attentive.  And when I ordered by third cup of coffee they brought me two cups, learning quickly coffee is my jam.

I posted a little video tour of Intown Golf Club at Dublin on X and Instagram the day of my fitting.  Here it is again if you missed it.  If you're anywhere near the Columbus area I'd recommend coming in and asking for a tour.  The amenities offered are thoughtfully crafted and highly inviting.  Ask for Joe and tell them Pete sent you.

Matt's Fitting Style 

I'm really glad I interviewed Matt before my fitting began.  Just a few questions on top of the get to know each other that begins any True Spec fitting.  It was only about three-and-a-half minutes but it was incredibly revealing of what was to come.

Matt would be even more thorough than I expected.  And his fitting knowledge and experience triumphantly shined through my entire fitting.  You'll see what I'm talking about as you read more below.

I posted this interview video on social the day of my fitting and am including it for you here again.  As it turns out I was actually fit by Matt and Colin on this day.  Matt was handing the True Spec fitting at this location over to Colin as he's leaving to head up fitting at True Spec in the North Carolina Intown Golf Club location.  And I can tell you without any hesitation, if you're anywhere near the Dublin, Ohio or Charlotte, NC True Spec locations and are thinking about a fitting, go see Matt or Colin.

True Spec's Brand Agnostic Approach

We've all heard the phrase brand agnostic and it's at the heart of a True Spec Golf fitting.  It basically means True Spec is going to prioritize your performance over any particular brand of equipment.  Your True Spec fitting will go through a wide selection of clubs from many different brands.  You can certainly ask to try particular iron heads and iron shafts.  And your fitter will also recommend heads and shafts based on what you're doing during your fitting.

True Spec's brand agnostic approach includes a matrix of over 70,000 club-head and shaft combinations.  I thought it was cool their iron heads and shafts are kept in something that looks like a mobile tool storage workbench cabinet.  Pull out one drawer and a large assortment of various iron heads await your selection.  Pull out another drawer and every steel and graphite iron shaft you could possibly want to try is there for the testing.

It Starts with a Blueprint

When you arrive for your True Spec iron fitting and begin to warm up your fitter will ask you questions about your game, what you're hoping to accomplish with this fitting, and blueprint your current irons.  And blueprinting your irons is basically a way to read your CPMs (cycles per minute or frequency of your shafts).

The reason this is important is simple but profound.  You have iron shafts that can range in flex from L (ladies) to Triple X (for those long drive players).  But the same flex designation from one shaft company to the next can often be different.  Blueprinting your irons allows True Spec to not only inspect the cycles of flexibility in your shaft to help choose a range of shafts best for you regardless of flex designation.  It also allows True Spec to inspect cycles of flexibility in different portions of your shaft which further helps dial in the best shafts for you based on your tempo, delivery, angle of attack, and a host of other swing characteristics.

A Simple Overview of the True Spec Iron Fitting Process

Matt started my True Spec fitting with a base shaft that we'd use to test a variety of iron heads.  I asked him why a base shaft and he said the shaft is basically all about timing at the end of the day.  And blueprinting allowed him to start me off with a shaft that fell within a CPM range that was good for my particular swing.

The variety of iron heads we tested were all about what they can and can't do for my swing.  Bigger and smaller heads, heavier and lighter heads, they were all on the table.  And once we found the best iron head (or two) we then went deeper into different shafts until we found a shaft that optimized iron head performance for my swing.  Things like maximized ball speed, consistency of impact, and even help in correcting weaknesses in my swing (in my case a tendency to come into impact with an open face).

The True Spec Fitter Knowledge and Expertise

Matt asked me right from the start what I want in my irons.  More accuracy?  More distance?  How important is appearance and feel?  I wasn't going to make it easy for Matt so I told him, "I want it all."  He laughed and said, "Okay then let's get to it."

We started with the Ping Blueprint T.  Matt chose that because I told him my preference in iron appearance is a very compact and clean look.  And I was a bit surprised that I hit it pretty well.  I thought an iron like this might not generate enough launch or spin for my average swing speed but I had no problems with it at all.

You're probably going to hit six to eight different iron heads and six to eight different shafts during your True Spec fitting.  And what you hit will be determined by what irons you want to try as well as iron recommendations your fitter makes for you. Matt did have me hit a few larger heads to test my statement that I tend to hit smaller iron heads better than larger iron heads and that was quickly confirmed.

And speaking of larger iron heads or game-improvement heads, Matt explained to me why I hit smaller iron heads better.  I mentioned earlier that my miss is often the result of having my face too open at impact.  And a lot of the larger irons or game improvement irons also have tungsten in the toe.  This is designed to make them more forgiving, more stable.  But for someone with a swing like mine the tungsten can actually keep my face open even more.  And that's one of the reasons why I hit an blade iron like Blueprint T better than say a (conceptually more forgiving) Titleist T200.

A Lot of Interaction and Back and Forth

Feeling the iron head during my entire swing is important to me.  So Matt did have me hit different heads that were generally heavier heads and asked me how I liked the feel, how they were different, and what my favorites were, things like that.  But Matt also explained to me that the heavier head alone isn't what necessarily gives me the feel I look for.  Matt was a pro in San Diego for four years (I can't remember what club) and he told me although a shaft and its weight is an indicator of rigidity, where the mass in the shaft is located will also affect feel and can make the same iron head feel different (lighter or heavier).

This was important because a few heads I liked in appearance didn't have that heavier through the entire swing feel while I was hitting them with the base shaft.  But those same heads with different shafts that Matt dialed me into later all of a sudden had that heightened sense of feel and location through the entire swing that I desire and we were in business.

Matt quickly figured out what my typical flight pattern is.  "The Rory McIlroy pull-fade," he called it.  And of course I laughed because my butter cut isn't Rory's butter cut.  But this was important because Matt was taking all kinds of numbers from TrackMan (launch, spin, ball speed, face-to-path, and many more) and figuring out what heads were working best for me and further, what heads we could get to work even better when we started dialing in shaft selection.

I noticed I didn't hit any particular head and shaft combination many times during the beginning of the fitting.  I asked Matt why and he said he didn't want me changing my swing and adjusting to different irons.  The entire point of this fitting was to get that ideal iron head and shaft combination ideal for me without any adjustments in swing.  Yeah I could have started flipping my hands to close the face more but Matt didn't want to see that as I don't normally do that when I swing.  He didn't want to see me adjusting my stance to help get higher launch or spin when it wasn't there naturally.  "Quality over quantity," as Matt said.  "We want to get you to your ideal without you having to work too hard for it," he said.  Matt clearly wants to do right by his customers.

Revisiting Brand Agnostic

It's my job to know clubs as I review them all year long.  So it was a bit of a treat for me to actually hit an iron I admit was never even on my radar.  Matt gave me a new Bettinardi iron to hit because of my desire to feel the head of my irons throughout the entire swing.  The particular iron I hit was a fully milled face, very precision based, with consistency of spin and groove geometries.  And it wound up being a really solid iron head with particularly impressive ball speeds.

As Matt had me hitting different irons, the Blueprint T, the Bettinardi, Miura MC 502, Mizuno S3, and a handful of others it became obvious why brand agnostics is important in a fitting.  Matt wanted me to swing my swing.  And he was finding different irons for me based on the Trackman numbers and his analysis to help me swing my swing even better.  Eventually we got to one iron that felt great, looked great, and in Matt's words, "checked off a lot of boxes" including consistency, impact, dispersion, and distance.  Next up was shaft testing to get this iron head optimized for my swing (and interestingly we also got into a shaft that helped me close my face more at impact).

Honing in on Shafts

Matt had me hit shafts I like as well as some he recommended based on what he was seeing on TrackMan.  Matt's goal now was to help me close my face a bit more and get my pull-fade working more consistently.  As Matt said, "work with my swing quirks not against them."

If you're a gear head you probably have a favorite shaft profile, maybe high-launch, low spin for example.  But just as important and maybe even more important is how a shaft feels.  And it's a shocker to see a shaft work for you that isn't your typical favorite shaft profile.  Some shafts that fit my favorite shaft profile gave me bloated spin, launch, and face-to-path numbers.  While others that didn't fit my favorite shaft profile gave me shockingly good results.

All the while we were testing shafts Matt continued asking me questions about stability, vibration, and feel.  And I won't go into all the shafts we tried.  But I have to mention that Matt did put me into a 110 gram KBS shaft with a higher balance point than I'm used to playing.  And not only did it increase face rotation for me and help get the face square at impact in relation to path, it also increased mass (over my usual 95 gram iron shafts) without sacrificing head feel.  And by the time we got to that ideal head-shaft combination it was basically aim, hit, walk down the middle of the fairway.  It helped with my tempo, it helped close my face to path.  And I was hitting shots so good Matt said "you're just padding your stats now huh Pete?

Conclusion

A True Spec Golf iron fitting will dial in all the basics.  Loft, lie, shaft flex, length, grip, swing weight, and set makeup are all analyzed and addressed to fit your particular swing.  Where True Spec Golf goes above and beyond a typical iron fitting however is in their commitment to brand agnostic fitting and the depth of expertise their fitters possess.

True Spec's brand agnostic approach to fitting is what allows their fitters to find the best combinations of iron heads and shafts for your unique swing.  The fitting is extremely thorough.  And at the end of the fitting you know you're getting a custom built set of clubs that will truly enhance your performance on the course.

My fitter Matt had a deep technical knowledge of equipment and strong understanding of the golf swing.  His ability to diagnose and analyze my swing was nothing short of exceptional.  And he put me into a final set of irons that will have me hitting good shots more repeatably.

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