Fitting language gets needlessly mystical. Below is what each term means, what it does to the ball, and roughly how much of it is worth arguing about.
Nobody needs to memorise any of this before a session. It is written down because people ask, and because a client who understands why we are changing something tends to make better decisions about what to spend money on.
Measured in grams, and the single specification most likely to be wrong in a bag bought off the rack. Weight influences tempo far more than flex does. Too light and the club arrives early and the face closes; too heavy and the sequence collapses at the top. We test in ten gram increments because smaller steps are indistinguishable to almost everyone.
Where along the shaft the stiffness changes. A tip-soft profile helps the head release and adds launch; a tip-stiff profile holds the face and keeps spin down for players who load hard late. The letter stamped on the shaft is a marketing label, not a standard, and two shafts both labelled Stiff can differ by more than a full flex.
How much the shaft twists under load, in degrees. Lower numbers feel firmer through impact and suit aggressive transitions. It is genuinely important and also routinely oversold; for most players a difference of half a degree is not detectable, and we would rather spend the session on turf interaction.
The angle between shaft and sole at address, and the cheapest meaningful change in the whole catalogue. A lie that is two degrees too upright points the face left at impact for a right-handed player, and no amount of aim correction fixes it permanently. We set this on grass, not on a lie board alone, because the board tells you where the sole sits at rest rather than at speed.
Longer clubs are not reliably longer clubs. Adding half an inch to an iron raises the swing weight, flattens the effective lie and usually widens the strike pattern. Most people we fit end up with irons at or slightly under standard, and a meaningful minority end up shorter still after we look at where the ball is contacting the face.
A relative measure of how head-heavy the club feels, expressed on that odd letter-and-number scale. It is a feel specification rather than a performance one, but feel drives tempo and tempo drives everything else. We match it across a set so no single club feels foreign in your hands.
The shape of the bottom of the head and the angle at which it meets the ground. This is the spec that decides whether a club digs, glides or bounces on your particular turf. It matters most in wedges and fairway woods and it is entirely invisible on a hitting mat, which is why we fit it outdoors.
Static loft is stamped on the club. Delivered loft is what the face presents at impact after your shaft lean, attack angle and handle position have had their say. The gap between the two is often four degrees or more, and it is delivered loft that determines flight. Buying static loft to fix a delivered loft problem is the most common expensive mistake in golf.
Cheap, quick and consistently underrated. A grip that is too thick slows the hands and leaks shots right; too thin and the face over-rotates. In Central Florida humidity the texture question is nearly as important as the diameter, and a corded grip in July is not a luxury.
People ask for a chart, so here is one. Treat it as the opening position in a negotiation with your actual swing rather than an answer. Roughly a third of the players we fit land outside the row their clubhead speed suggests.
| Driver speed | Shaft weight, driver | Typical profile | Iron shaft direction | Common trap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under 85 mph | 45–55 g | Softer tip, higher launch | Graphite, 60–80 g | Being sold Regular steel because it is what the shop stocks |
| 85–95 mph | 55–60 g | Mid launch, mid spin | Light steel or graphite, 85–105 g | Adding loft rather than fixing a negative attack angle |
| 95–105 mph | 60–70 g | Mid to low launch | Steel, 105–120 g | Chasing an X flex the transition does not need |
| 105–115 mph | 65–80 g | Low launch, tip stiff | Steel, 120–130 g | Too little loft, leading to a flight that falls out of the sky |
| Above 115 mph | 70–90 g | Low launch, low torque | Steel, 125 g and up | Assuming heavier is automatically more accurate |
Central Florida turf is not one surface. Bermuda in July is lush, grabby and sits the ball up; the same fairway in February is dormant, thin and tight, with sandy soil an inch beneath. Clubs that were fitted in one condition and never checked in the other tend to disappoint for six months of the year.
The specs most affected are bounce, sole width and delivered loft. We will usually recommend slightly less bounce in the wedges than a northern fitter would, and a marginally narrower sole in the fairway woods, because tight dormant lies punish a wide sole harder than lush ones reward it.