PGAPappas Guest Review: Club Champion Iron Fitting - Creve Coeur, Missouri

If better golf is your goal a Club Champion fitting is the cheat code.  Club Champion is trusted by golfers who are serious about scoring.  They have a massive selection of clubs and shafts to hit.  Their master fitters have endless experience and are battle-tested across every swing flaw known to man.  The gold standard in golf club fitting.  That's Club Champion in a nutshell.

And this PGAPappas Guest review from Brady (@BradyEvans317 on X) about his Club Champion iron fitting might be one of the most amazing club fitting reviews I've ever read.  Brady is a good player.  He's a solid ball striker.  And Club Champion improved every single thing about his iron game.  Distance, dispersion, consistency, control, descent, all of it made better.  And in some cases a lot better.

Here's Brady in his own words on what he thought of his Club Champion iron fitting and ultimately the irons that wound up being best for him.  And I don't exaggerate when I say best for him I might as well say perfect in every possible way for him.

I want to start this article off with PGAPappas is a brainiac when it comes to golf.  You will see why later.

I was fortunate to be selected during the 12 days of Christmas for the iron fitting & set of irons at Club Champion.  Pete set me up at my nearest Club Champion in Creve Coeur, MO.  5 days prior to the fitting, Shannon Igney called me to get a better understanding of my game to have an idea of what type of player I am.

As I had a 1 hour & 45 minute drive to the fitting, I kept asking myself many questions, as I have never been fit for irons.

For reference, I started playing golf at the age of 8 and played 10 - 15 golf tournament per year through college (mid 90’s to early 2000’s). Golf was a major part of my childhood. As the years have passed & I now have a family, playing golf is more difficult. I now play around 8 -  10 times per year.

Learning the game back then, we did not have trackman or anything like that. We saw data though feel & our eyes.

As I walked into the store Shannon was very welcoming & explained the process to me.  Growing up in the era I did, all of the numbers like smash factor, ball speed, angle of descent, etc. were numbers I am not familiar with. Shannon was great at explaining them to me.

Shannon had me warm up & the fitting began. I typically hit in intervals of 7. With my 6 iron I had a smash factor of 1.30, which she said should be around 1.40 or slightly north of that. We then took my club to the swing weight machine & it was at a weight of C9. I told her I liked my Ping i59 irons, but the performance of them were not passing my eye test. Something was off.

Watching me swing & seeing the data. We began Shannon working her magic. I told her I would not question or really even ask what she was doing, as she is the expert & my job was to simply hit good shots.

I continued with this approach throughout the entire fitting. After her first tweak of an iron shaft I immediately picked up 13 mph additional ball speed and my smash factor went to 1.42. We then took the club to the swing weight machine & I was fit into a D5 swing weight. Unknown to me, a big difference.  My carry distance with a 6 iron went from 175 to 189 - 193 yards. Wow!

It did not matter to me what shaft or what iron head it was, I had 2 things that mattered, performance & eye appeal of the iron shape.

Shannon grabbed 2 Callaway apex iron heads Ai 150 & 200 and Ping i240. As we walked she said oh I’ll grab this one too to see, Ping Blueprint S.

From here I let Shannon do her magic. She swapped iron heads & shafts. I never looked, just tried to put good swings on them. Combinations were irrelevant to me.

As I was hitting she was asking about my game. I told her in an 18 hole round my game is broke into 3 sections of holes. Holes 1-7 game is strong with a nice draw. Holes 8-12, draw flattens to pretty straight ball & 13-18 I start getting a little tired and ball tends to stay straight or fade. Very helpful information for her.

As we finished, she had me try the new Mizuno S-1 Pro irons, just to see how it would perform. More of a blade, I was not as interested due to lack of play these days. It felt great but spin went up & I was losing about 5-6 yards of carry on average.

Fitting was over & time for me to see the data.

We will start with the shaft. Shannon had the perfect shaft for holes 1-7. But we knew I needed something for 18 holes. We noticed my club head speed dropped almost 3 mph from swing 5 to 70. From shots 65 - 70 she put that shaft back in to verify her thought, which was correct. Although it was the right shaft, it wasn’t right for me & my tendencies for an entire 18 holes. So I now know with the correct shaft, I may see slightly more draw first 9 holes or so, but the fades should be eliminated coming down the stretch when more fatigue sets in.

Same scenario applies with the irons. What club she attached was irrelevant, just hit good shots. I do remember referencing one about how the shape fit my eye, but I didn’t look at it, as I wanted to be unbiased. Once finished, we looked at the data. Callaway Apex 150 created the most distance, but also biggest dispersion. The Ping Blueprint S was slightly behind in distance, about 3-4 yards but dispersion was significantly better and so was descent with very consistent flight and trajectory. Golf is a game of misses, easy decision. And I was also now finding the sweet spot with very high regularity.  So I then asked, which club was the one I said I liked the look of, to which she answered, the one you just picked.

I spoke with Pete before this fitting, I was fortunate to play in the Play With Pete Invitational at Scioto Country Club, so Pete has see me hit balls. Before this fitting, Pete said I would be fit for the Blueprint S irons. Had Shannon not grabbed it as she walked by, it wouldn’t have happened. Fate has its way. I chuckled as I learned the Blueprint S was what I was fit for, as Pete called it before I went down there. I say that to say this, Pete knows golf plain & simple. It was a call your shot moment & he hooped it.

One of the best golf experiences I’ve ever had and it’s all part to PGAPappas, Shannon & Club Champion.

If you want to optimize your game, whether you play 10 rounds a year like me or 4 times a week, it’s worth learning more about your game with unbiased data. Golf is suppose to be fun and the game just became that much more enjoyable to me.

-Brady Evans

Wow Brady.  I'm honestly not sure it's possible to have a better iron fitting than you had.  It sounds like Club Champion dialed you in perfectly to your new set of irons.  And I could tell reading your review this wasn't merely about optimizing launch, and spin, and distance and control.  Club Champion was also optimizing Brady to be lethal with his irons in 2026 baby!

Elite fits.  Measurable outcomes.  Club Champion delivers every time.  Their fittings are built on data and expertise.  And they're backed by better golf when your new clubs are delivered.  When something works this well, anything really?  That's when it stops being about opinion and doesn't need any explanation.  Precision in, performance out.  Club Champion.