Equipment

Custom Fitting in the UK – Chilli Dip Golf

Published

18 years ago

Aug 28, 2008

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

Equipment

Then and now: Comparing Rory McIlroy’s current setup to his record-breaking 2019 Canadian Open victory

Published

3 hours ago

Jun 11, 2026

Alistair Cameron

In Rory McIlroy’s first appearance at the 2019 RBC Canadian Open, he crushed the record books to earn his 16th PGA Tour title in dominating fashion, winning by seven shots over Shane Lowry and Webb Simpson.

McIlroy’s score of 22-under-par 258 is the lowest 72-hole score to date at the Canadian Open, and his closing 61 is also the best final-round score in the history of one of golf’s oldest tournaments. Finally, with his win in 2019, McIlroy became only the sixth player to win the career Triple Crown, adding to his victories at the U.S. Open in 2011 and The Open Championship in 2014, joining Tommy Armour, Walter Hagen, Arnold Palmer, Lee Trevino and Tiger Woods in a coveted list.

So, with that, why not compare his current setup to the clubs he used to break all the records?

Driver

2019: TaylorMade M5 (9 degrees), Shaft: Mitsubishi Tensei CK Pro White 70 TX
2026: TaylorMade Qi4D (9 degrees @8), Shaft: Fujikura Ventus Black 7X (45 5/8 inches)

McIroy led the Tour in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee in 2019; he’s doing the same in 2026. Between now and then, McIlroy has switched from the Mitsubishi Tensei CK Pro White 70 TX (a shaft with slightly more feeling in the tip) to the original Fujikura Ventus Black 7X, having just made the change to the heavier version from playing the 60X.

What’s interesting about McIlroy’s 2019 setup is that the weighting on his driver is actually set in the high-draw setting, using the T-Track weighting system, whereas in the Qi4D, he’s currently using a heavily rear-weighted setup. (Two 13-gram weights in the rear and only two 4-gram front weights.)

The TaylorMade M5 driver he played in during his Canadian Open win was the company’s first head that they claimed to design to initially exceed the USGA’s COR limit, and then injected with tuning resin to bring it back in bounds.

Fairway woods

2019: TaylorMade M6 3-wood (15 degrees), Shaft: Mitsubishi Tensei CK Pro White 80 TX; TaylorMade M5 5-wood (19 degrees), Shaft: Mitsubishi Tensei CK Pro White 90 TX
2026: TaylorMade Qi4D 3-wood (15 degrees), Shaft: Fujikura Ventus Black 8X; TaylorMade Qi4D 5-wood (18 degrees), Shaft: Fujikura Ventus Black 9X

The TaylorMade M6 fairway wood that McIlroy was using during the 2019 season is still in the bag of some of the best golfers on Tour in 2026. Just check out Justin Rose’s winning setup from the Farmers Insurance Open earlier this year. This year, though, McIlroy has still been searching for his top-end-of-the-bag setup, having played both the new Qi4D and the Qi10, which he won the Masters with.

The same shaft swap can be seen in the fairway woods as the driver, along with slightly less loft on the 5-wood.

Irons

2019: TaylorMade P750 (4) Buy here, TaylorMade P730 (5-9), Shafts: Project X 7.0
2026: TaylorMade P760 (4), TaylorMade Rors Proto (5-9), Shafts: Project X 7.0

The biggest difference between McIlroy’s custom set and the stock P730s is the groove design. While the P730s were constructed with 14 MX-9 grooves on their milled faces, McIlroy’s proto heads instead use the higher-spinning, 16-groove layout of the TW2 grooves. Other big differences between the sets are that McIlroy’s 7- and 8-irons have thinner toplines, are 1 degree stronger in loft, and are 1/4 inch longer than the original P730 builds.

With McIlroy’s 4-iron, the switch from P750 to P760 sees a transition to a two-piece construction with Speed Foam in it, which allows McIlroy to launch the ball slightly higher, with more workability.

Wedges

2019: TaylorMade Milled Grind (48-09SB), TaylorMade MG Hi-Toe (52-09SB, 56-09SB, 60-LB09), Shafts: Project X Rifle 6.5
2026: TaylorMade MG5 (46-09SB, 50-09SB, 54-11SB, 60-08LB @61), Shafts: Project X 6.5 (46-54), Project X 6.5 Wedge (60)

Between 2019 and 2026, McIlroy’s focus on his short game has been much more apparent. It was the reason why he switched back to the TP5 golf ball, to help with launch, spin and control with his wedges leading up to his career Grand Slam victory in 2025. The most apparent changes to McIlroy’s wedge setup are his lofts and bounce. He’s slowly delofted his pitching to a sand wedge, but has increased the loft on the lob wedge, bending his current 60-degree to 61. With that, adding more loft to his lob wedge also slightly increases the bounce and leading-edge sit point, so, as a result, he plays a lower-bounce lob wedge compared to 2019. The MG5 wedges are also softer than the first Milled Grind option from 2019. McIlroy also no longer plays the full-face grooves found on the Hi-Toe.

Putter

2019: TaylorMade Spider X
2026: TaylorMade Spider Tour X

Notice anything similar. Yes, the copper finish on Rory McIlroy’s Spider X putter in 2019 is a slightly more reflective finish than the recently released torched PVD finish. McIlroy was using the True Path alignment system, but now uses only a single white sightline.

Ball

2019: 2019 TaylorMade TP5 (#22)
2026: 2025 TaylorMade TP5 (RORS)

As mentioned above, McIlroy had transitioned from the TP5 to TP5x golf ball since his victory in Canada in 2019, but now is black with the same style of golf ball as his victory at Hamilton Golf & Country Club.

Grips

2019: Golf Pride Tour Velvet Cord
2026: Golf Pride MCC

Interesting, McIlroy actually used Golf Pride’s Tour Velvet Cord grips during his victory in 2019 (it was during a 2+ year switch to the corded TV) as opposed to his usual MCC grips, which he has played for most of his career.

Equipment

From the GolfWRX Classifieds: Titleist Vokey Proto Wedges 54M, 60T

Published

5 hours ago

Jun 11, 2026

Will Schube

At GolfWRX, we are a community of like-minded individuals who all experience and express our enjoyment of the game in many ways.

It’s that sense of community that drives day-to-day interactions in the forums on topics that range from best driver to what marker you use to mark your ball. It even allows us to share another thing we all love – buying and selling equipment.

Currently, in our GolfWRX buy/sell/trade (BST) forum, @Putt4Dough is selling some prototype wedges from Vokey Wedgeworks. These include a 54 degree wedge with the M grind and a 60 degree wedge with a T grind.

From the listing:

(1) Titleist Vokey Proto Wedge 54M with a Tour Issue DGS400 shaft and Golf Pride Tour Velvet (logo down). Standard length, lie, and loft. BB&F ferrule. Raw wedge in good condition. No initials. Price is $200 shipped. Buy both wedges for $380 shipped.

(2) Titleist Vokey Proto Wedge 60T with a KBS Tour 130X shaft and Golf Pride Tour Velvet. Standard length, lie, and loft. Raw wedge in good condition. No initials. Price is $200 shipped. Buy both wedges for $380 shipped.

To check out the full listing in our BST forum, head through the link. If you are curious about the rules to participate in the BST Forum, you can learn more here: GolfWRX BST Rules.