FORE Magazine

Top Menu

  • About Me
  • Contact Us
  • Home

Main Menu

  • Current Issue
  • Profiles
  • Sustainability
  • Travel
  • 19th Hole
  • Classic Course
  • FORE Her
  • More
    • Know the Rules
    • Handicap Hints
    • SCGA Junior
    • Where Are They Now?
    • News
    • Public Affairs
  • scga.org
Sign in / Join

Login

Welcome! Login in to your account
Lost your password?

Lost Password

Back to login

logo

FORE Magazine

  • Current Issue
  • Profiles
  • Sustainability
  • Travel
  • 19th Hole
  • Classic Course
  • FORE Her
  • More
    • Know the Rules
    • Handicap Hints
    • SCGA Junior
    • Where Are They Now?
    • News
    • Public Affairs
  • scga.org
Equipment
Home›Equipment›Getting in Gears

Getting in Gears

By Tod Leonard
March 17, 2017
5314
0
Share:

Jamie Puterbaugh, a former San Diego State player who has become a golf teacher, has a student from his alma mater’s women’s team.

She is 5 feet, 4 inches tall and obviously skilled enough to play at the NCAA Division I level. She was fit for her clubs by a major golf company, yet Puterbaugh says she was swinging with shafts that might normally be put in the hands of a 6-foot man.

So it was no wonder that when Puterbaugh put her on the newest form of swing analysis from Gears Golf, it showed she was hitting nearly every shot near the neck of the club. In essence, the golfer was succeeding despite her clubs.

“It was, like, are you kidding me?” Puterbaugh said with good-natured exasperation.

The fix was shockingly easy. Puterbaugh reduced the clubs by an inch, “and now she can hit the sweet spot pretty much on command.”

The story illustrates what the majority of recreational golfers face: If a college player can have poorly fit clubs, imagine what it’s like to try to play any semblance of quality golf with sticks off the rack that very likely don’t match your swing.

“It’s insane,” Puterbaugh said. “It’s a really hard game. It’s a game of precision and a game of misses. If you club isn’t fitting, the misses can be pretty demoralizing.

“Don’t get me wrong. You have to know how to do some basic movements in the golf swing. But there are plenty of times when you see someone fighting a golf club and they don’t know it.
Puterbaugh believes the solutions for that are better than they’ve ever been.

Swing analysis was advanced considerably more than a decade ago with the debut of TaylorMade’s MATT system, which used the motion-capture technology of movie making to record swings. Now comes Gears, which has fine-tuned the process while also producing greater analysis of how the club – not just the golfer — is performing during every millimeter of the swing.

“An MRI for your golf game” is what Golf Digest said of Gears when it debuted in 2014.

The Aviara Golf Academy in Carlsbad, owned by Jamie’s dad – perennial Golf Magazine Top 100 teacher Kip Puterbaugh – was one of the first users of the MATT, and it’s now the first public academy in California to be using Gears.

The Puterbaughs invested in the system – which retails for nearly $40,000 — eight months ago and revamped the teaching bays at Aviara to create what looks and feels like an entirely new fitting experience.

No longer are golfers limited to accepting one brand during a fitting. At Aviara, they can choose from six companies — TaylorMade, Callaway, Titleist, Ping, Mizuno and PXG. There are dozens of graphite shafts from which to choose from among makers Fujikura, Oban, Mitsubishi and Aldila. The steel shafts are from KBS and Nippon.

Using clubheads that allow for interchangeable shafts, a club fitter at Aviara can have a golfer test every club brand, with a shaft specific to his specs, within a matter of minutes.
“We’ve been very brand agnostic,” Puterbaugh said. “We let the customer make up their mind. We want to put every club in front of them to see what they can do.”

The cost of a full three-hour fitting in the Gears system is $350. A 90-minute session for irons and wedges is $175. A single-club fitting – most often for drivers or putters – is $100.

The lead club fitter at Aviara is Peter Campbell, a teammate of Puberbaugh’s when they played at La Costa Canyon High in Carlsbad. Campbell played at UCLA and on pro tours before getting into the fitting business.

“There’s nothing else like this,” Campbell said of the Gears system. “There’s nothing that actually tracks what the club is doing.”

One of the key elements of the swing caught on Gears is shaft deflection, Jamie Puterbaugh said. At three key points in the swing, the shaft bows or “droops”: takeaway, loading at the top of the swing, and the downswing. The right amount of flex at each point springs the clubhead into the ball for ideal distance and accuracy.

The challenge for a club fitter is to find the right weight and flex in a shaft at not only the tip, but also the butt end.

Kip Puterbaugh has been teaching golf for more than 40 years, and he had an eye-opening experience when Campbell got on the system. With his previously fitted clubs, Campbell had a tendency to flip his hands at impact and launch the ball too high. Then they tested him with lighter Nippon shafts. The flip disappeared and his ball flight was lowered by 15 percent.
The shaft switch gave Campbell a better swing without any effort on his part to make it happen.

“That blew my frickin’ mind!” Kip Puterbaugh said with a laugh. “That opened my eyes to club fitting in a way I wasn’t familiar with.”

Previous Article

Beth Allen set for “most fun week” ...

Next Article

Checking out Srixon’s new Q-STAR Tour

0
Shares
  • 0
  • +
  • 0
  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

Tod Leonard

Related articles More from author

  • Vockey Master Wedge Maker
    Equipment

    Wedge Master

    July 1, 2014
    By Scott Kramer
  • Equipment

    Iliac Golf: A Southland Golf Fashion Exclusive

    February 23, 2017
    By Corey Ross
  • Equipment

    Totally Tacky

    July 31, 2018
    By Scott Kramer
  • Music to your ears- Cobra King
    EquipmentFall 2015

    Music to your Ears: A ringing Endorsement for some new drivers

    October 1, 2015
    By Scott Kramer
  • Equipment

    Getting My Kicks

    June 20, 2017
    By Scott Kramer
  • EquipmentWinter 2017

    Equipment: Now vs. Then

    February 14, 2017
    By Scott Kramer

Leave a reply Cancel reply

Recent Posts

  • FeaturedProfilesWinter 2023

    A Steady Hand at the Helm: A Fond Farewell to SCGA Stalwart Kevin Heaney

  • FeaturedThe PodiumWinter 2023

    Changing of the Guard: New Galleri Classic Set to Debut in the Desert

  • 19th HoleFeaturedWinter 2023

    Best Ball Bar & Grill: Woodley Lakes GC Gets a Big Culinary Upgrade

  • FeaturedPublic AffairsWinter 2023

    Grass by Design: Pure Research Yields New Strains of Drought-Tolerant Grass

  • FeaturedSCGA JuniorWinter 2023

    Making a Future in Golf a Reality: Skylar Graham and the Pathways Internship

FeaturedThe PodiumWinter 2023

Changing of the Guard: New Galleri Classic Set to Debut in the Desert

In what can be viewed as an unprecedented, albeit unofficial baton pass, the Coachella Valley is trading one pro golf tour for another this spring. As many will recall, last ...
  • New Year’s Daze: Looking Forward and Looking Back at your Handicap

    By Kevin O'Connor
    February 7, 2023
  • Grass by Design: Pure Research Yields New Strains of Drought-Tolerant Grass

    By Craig Kessler
    February 7, 2023
  • Best Ball Bar & Grill: Woodley Lakes GC Gets a Big Culinary Upgrade

    By David Weiss
    February 7, 2023
  • Making a Future in Golf a Reality: Skylar Graham and the Pathways Internship

    By Ken Van Vechten
    February 7, 2023
© 2016 FORE Magazine About Us | Contact Us | Advertise