Bad off the tee – buy a new driver. Not peppering the pin with your short game – buy a new wedge with max-size grooves and the deepest face milling available. We focus so much of our attention on buying new equipment that we seem to forget the two other areas of game improvement. The first one is obvious: getting lessons from a great instructor. The second one, making sure the the equipment we play is right for us, is often ignored.

Getting instruction is an art. You need to find an instructor with whom you connect, one with a deep understanding of the golf swing that can tell you not just what you need to do but also deliver the damning verdict on your swing in such a way that you want to take apart your pitiful excuse for a swing, shred what dignity you have and create a newer improved you. In comparison to that, getting fit for equipment such be a cinch right? If that were true, then why do some experts estimate that a vast majority of golfers are playing ill-fitting equipment?

Partly it is that in the fast moving world of golf technology, it takes some serious dedication to keep abreast of the latest improvements but also that until recently, getting equipment customised beyond regular, stiff and extra-stiff shaft flex was only available to those with access to Tour vans. I say until recently as in the last few years, more and more golfers are learning of the undoubted benefits of correctly fitting equipment and answering the demands of these golfers are places like Chilli Dip Golf in Camberley. Bag Chatter went down there to see what exactly happens at a performance centre like this and how close it comes to the mythical Tour van experience.

Set in the grounds of Camberley Heath golf course, one of the legendary Harry Colt’s courses, Chilli Dip describes itself as a performance centre that ‘offers a truly bespoke custom fitting, club building and repair service usually only reserved for Tour Players’. These sorts of places are normally associated with the US market rather than the European so it is a rare treat for British golfers to be able to access this level of expertise.

The custom fitting process is broken up into four separate areas:

Consultation and Current Set Analysis. This consisted of the fully accredited club fitter watching my swing and then taking away my clubs for a full check of shaft length, shaft flex, swing-weight, loft & lie. It was quite eye opening to actually see the variations in flex, frequency and swing weight in my fairly recent set of big OEM irons and also how the regular pounding of golf balls on both the course and the range had created discrepancies in the lofts and even in the lies. Once this was all done we then chatted about what my handicap was (laughably high), where my game was going (into a death spiral) and what I felt about my current set and what I was looking for in a new set (I suppose a miracle swing cure is out of the question?).

Full ball flight analysis. This was the full treatment, similar to anything that a touring professional would get short of a visit to the manufacturers themselves. A TrackMan launch monitor measures a mind boggling number of different swing metrics. Obviously the basics like swing speed and ball speed are there but then there are the physical markers of carry, total distance, back-spin, side-spin, dispersion as well as angle of attack (both vertical and horizontal), face angle at impact and about a dozen more besides. Hell, for all I know the damn thing knows how much change I have in my pockets! To say that it gives you a complete picture of your swing is an understatement as the true horror of my swing is shown on the huge screen and you really understand why something like this is so useful for those lucky and talented enough to have a repeatable swing.

Small but perfectly formed, the business end of a TrackMan system

With the ability to objectively examine the quality of the strike you can put on the ball, the process of trying different equipment is transformed. Any changes in stiffness, length, shaft type or anything else, you are able to know just how well a club suits you. So homing in on the setup that performs best for your swing and maximizes your distance and accuracy is no longer a hit and miss affair but a real scientific process. Ben, the club fitter who looked after me, instantly picked up an issue with my current setup and guessed that my bad shots were pull-hooks and blocks before I had even hit a ball. A series of test strikes showed that he was spot on and trying the setup that he suggested instantly improved my dispersion as well as adding some unexpected extra distance. The TrackMan data clearly showed this and a change of shafts soon had my spin down closer to optimum levels.

Of course deciding your setup is only the initial part of the process, next comes the building. This really is the icing on the cake where your chosen top performing setup is converted into a superlative custom-built set. Precise head-weights and swing-weights, shaft spines, frequency analysis, personalised grinds, all of the above are available to you to put those finishing touches on your set.

The Workshop, where all the serious work is done

Putter fitting: The one club that in Chilli Dip’s opinion that is too often over looked in custom fitting. You can demo a range of top quality putters on an indoor putting green under the eye of an experienced professional with the end result being a putter that is perfectly customised to your stroke.

Ball fitting: Again, once you have you perfect set up you can even take the opportunity to optimise the ball you play.

Tour equipment has always had a mystique and most likely always will but in the vast majority of cases (one offs and prototypes aside) the reality is that these pieces are just regular equipment has been hand-picked and then tweaked and tuned to match their (admitted perfect) swings. Fitting and performance centres like Chilli Dip bring that extra level of optimisation to the masses for either new or old equipment and are becoming a must for any serious golfer looking for a real advantage. That I’ve shot my best rounds with my new custom fitted clubs may or may not be a coincidence but the confidence I have standing over the ball is directly a result of knowing that my clubs are the ones for me.

For more information, visit www.chillidipgolf.co.uk