Sean Cain, the Director of The Kingdom at Reynolds Lake Oconee, is a firm believer in club fitting. Not just for better players, but for every golfer regardless of skill level. Playing with clubs that don’t fit your body, he says, will keep you from improving and getting the most out of your game.
“We really assess a player’s natural body movements when evaluating their equipment,” says Cain. “Ill-fitting clubs will not allow a player to maintain consistency in their swing because the body will be in a constant state of manipulation.”
At The Kingdom, Cain has the latest tools to make sure golfers get the perfect clubs. Utilizing the industry-leading Trackman technology, the Kingdom team uses these two separate data points to precisely determine the clients’ needs, measuring and analyzing every nuance of a swing.
In the putting lab, working on putting—and fitting the right putter—is used in conjunction with the Kingdom’s existing Quintec putting launch monitor and lasers that help the golfer with alignment.
With all this fitting technology at his fingertips, it still comes down to the skill of the fitter to make the perfect marriage of golfer and clubs. Cain pays close attention to the data, noting that different clubs demand different thinking.
“For the driver, I think spin loft is the most important piece of data to evaluate, so golfers control their spin and don’t hit tee shots that upshoot or never get high enough off the ground,” Cain explains. “With irons, spin is important too but has to work with landing angle; we want to maximize distance but also make sure the ball can hold the green. Then with wedges we look at angle of attack—how the club comes down into the ball—combining that with the correct grind of the wedge’s sole for the best turf interaction.”
Sounds complicated, but with all of the high-tech tools at his disposal, Cain has the information he needs—and the results to show the student—in seconds. Yet even with proof positive, he warns the golfer that there’s a lot to take in and not to get too hung up on any particular number.
“There’s normally one piece of information that clients become obsessed with in the first 30 minutes of the fitting,” he says, “and it’s usually something that really doesn’t have much bearing on our objectives. Spin rate, launch angle, even distance, they may have heard something from a friend or read something in a magazine that makes them think that one data point is the end-all. It gives us the opportunity to explain how irrelevant that information is and, hopefully, will set them free from any unwarranted obsession going forward.”
