Custom Fitting Case Study: Stiffer shafts and new heads gave this player the power he was missing

July 30, 2018

Joseph Montoro went through a custom fitting in an attempt to gain some yards with his irons. Check out the results below.

Courtesy

FIX THIS:

Joseph Montoro, a 45-year-old 11-handicapper from Miami, has some talent, thanks to a background in baseball and a clubhead speed that hits 104 mph with the driver. With his current off-the-rack clubs, his tendency was to miss a lot of shots to the right—fine when you’re advancing a runner to third, but not when you’re aiming for fairways and greens. Joseph also felt that given his speed, he was leaving yards on the table.

Enter Andres Victoriano, a certified True Spec fitter at the company’s shop at Trump National Doral Miami, who gave Montoro a custom fitting and made a couple of interesting changes to his bag, including swapping a hybrid for one of his long irons, and getting him into a new iron model altogether to combat his spin.

Did the changes work? The numbers prove that this fitting was a home run.

BEFORE TRUE SPEC FITTING

OLD LONG IRON
Five-year-old forged small-cavity blade with Dynamic Gold XP S300 steel shafts (numbers below are averages).

Club Speed (MPH): 93.7
Ball Speed (mph): 136.5
Spin Rate (RPM): 3,849
Carry (yards): 208.4
Total (yards): 226.3
Launch (degrees): 10.3

OLD IRONS (6-iron)
Five-year-old forged small-cavity blades with Dynamic Gold XP S300 steel shafts.

Club Speed (MPH): 93.7
Ball Speed (MPH): 127.2
Spin Rate (RPM): 5,320
Carry (yards): 183.9
Total (yards): 193.8
Launch (degrees): 14.6

AFTER TRUE SPEC FITTING

NEW HYBRID
Ping G400 4H with KBS Tour Graphite 85 X shaft (numbers below are averages).

Club Speed (MPH): 96
Ball Speed (MPH): 140.3
Spin Rate (RPM): 3,335
Carry (yards): 218.5
Total (yards): 238.9 (That’s 5.6% farther!)
Launch (degrees): 11.5

Ping hybrid — Joseph got matched with a Ping G400 4H hybrid with a KBS Tour Graphite 85 X shaft.

NEW IRONS (6-iron)
TaylorMade P790 with KBS C Taper X shaft.

Club Speed (MPH): 93
Ball Speed (MPH): 130.4
Spin Rate (RPM): 4,547
Carry (yards): 194.3
Total (yards): 207.6 (That’s 13.8 more yards!)
Launch (degrees): 12.4

TaylorMade irons — True Spec fit Joseph with TaylorMade P790 irons with KBS C Taper X shafts.

FITTER COMMENTS

“Joseph had lots of speed, but was playing stock, lightweight stiff-flex shafts in his irons and stock stiff shafts in his hybrid and woods. His miss with his irons was a push to the right, no doubt exacerbated by his iron shafts being too soft and not stable enough for his speed and the way he loaded the club. I ended up putting him in extra-stiff shafts, steel in his 5-iron through wedges and graphite in his woods. I traded his bladelike 4-iron for a Ping G400 hybrid and replaced his one-piece forged irons with TaylorMade P790s, both of which produced superior performance: 10 yards of extra carry with his new graphite-shafted hybrid and nearly 14 extra total yards with his new, stiffer-shafted irons.” — Andres Victoriano, True Spec certified fitter