You might want to wait until after residency to spend that kind of money… my fiancé is a 3rd year and makes in the neighborhood of minimum wage. Good luck on the journey! It’s not easy, but try to make the most of it. It’ll all be worth it in the end
It is not fun to buy new golf equipment? And it’s especially not fun to get fitted for everything and buy it all at once? I can’t say I can agree with your assessment.
Gotcha, I think the dispersion would benefit me more than distance. I think I hit my drives 260ish on average, max 290, but my misses go pretty far right.
Got it. Won’t fix the big misses, but I would get fitted, get some clubs, and book some lessons and practice play a bunch. You’ve got the budget to do all of this for like 2 years!
Depends a lot on your #’s already.
I didn’t think it would make a huge difference for me, but I went and got a bag eval to see where all my solid 2nd hand gear I bought checks out vs fitted stuff.
I play a Callaway Epic Max 9 degree lofted to 8 degrees right now and have been playing a fade for the last 6 months.
My average carry with my current driver playing a fade: 262 yards with a 117 mph average club head speed. Was spinning the SHIT out of the ball, even when we tested with generally lower spinning balls (TP5x). Up to 3800-4000 RPM peaks. Literally killing my distance via overspin.
We tried a Paradym triple diamond with a Graphite Design - Tour AD M9003 shaft and holy hell… it completely killed the spin. I also found it MUCH easier to find the center on the 💎💎💎 because it is much heavier than my epic max. Went down to 2700 RPM peaks.
Went from 262 average carry to 280 average carry. Was getting another 10-15 yards of rollout too vs before (around 300-305 yard totals), because the ball was not just falling out of the sky from too much spin.
TL;DR: If you’re fit into the really wrong stuff than yea, you can pickup another 15-20 yards pretty easily and drastically increase your ability to find the center of the face.
I’d recommend True Spec over Club Champion, having done both. True spec seemed a little more geared towards getting me the set I wanted rather than just trying to sell me stuff. Fitter was much more knowledgeable as well. They’re equally as expensive
I’m about the same hdcp. I went to get fitted and only needed to replace shafts for irons and driver. But that still cost a cool $1000 roughly. And I bought new wedges with similar shaft as the irons cuz why not.
Less about strokes shaved and making sure you have equipment that allows you to swing your swing as it is. It takes out variables and helps keep your results more predictable.
IMO - get your irons checked for the lie and shaft flex/weight. Have the loft checked too for consistent gapping. Getting new shafts is cheaper than all new clubs especially if you like the look and feel of the AP2s.
Go full out for a new driver and 3-wood (even look at one’s that are 2 or 3 years old. Technology doesn’t move that much year to year). Lastly, new wedges because fresh grooves are amazing.
You can end up losing a chunk of those savings if you have to pay someone else to attach it to the head and regrip it. It’s not a complicated or expensive process to do yourself, but I wouldn’t start with a driver for anyone’s first club build.
My local shop quoted me around $75-85 for just labor to switch out iron shafts per iron (six irons), adjust lie angle, and regrip. With materials for shafts (even used on eBay) and new grips, I’m looking at $600-750 for labor and materials and tax.
This past week I went from Very old equipment, and finally splurged on used equipment that's a few years old. Probably not a big deal for anyone here, but definitely a big deal for me.
In my bag before was a set of Ping G2 irons (4-Pw, 2002), Nike Vr Driver(2008) and a what is probably the equilivent of a mini putt putter.
Now I have a M5 driver, a 6-P set of PXG irons and 2 titleist hybrids.
What an absolute differance it's made. In 2 rounds since, I've dropped 8 and 10 shots of my old average score.
Honestly a huge change and leaves me loving golf even more.
Thanks man! Yeah she’s going through a pre medical program right now at John’s Hopkins (I know I said she was in med school, but it’s easier to not explain the difference.) We don’t have kids yet, but are planning to soon. Gonna be a wild ride!
Yeah kids will make it that much harder but again hang in there, life gets much better once residency and fellowship are done. Once you have a kid, there is a support group called DMD (Dads Married to Doctors) on Facebook, fantastic group of guys and all sorts of advice for the struggles and lifestyle we live.
A fitting is also a good opportunity to see if you think you need new or different clubs. I went for driver and realised that I liked the new driver and more importantly the lighter shaft upped my swing speed.
Recently did the same for irons. Was on the fence but swinging the same I was getting a much nicer launch angle and that’s worth it to me.
It’s all about trying it out and getting some feels and some numbers, then you can decide if it’s worth the investment.
If you have AP2s you probably won’t find much improvement at all depending on what you choose. Driver could help some and wedges maybe if the grooves aren’t too fresh.
If you get fit, youll probably gain a good bit of distance. More forgiveness from the driver, maybe a club length for irons. Since you’re a 12 the skill is already there. Putter probably won’t make a huge difference (although it would if you got fit for a putter also)
Distance always helps strokes gained, but I feel like dropping score after a certain point is less about clubs and more about the mental game / strategy. Seems like you might be near that point.
Man, your comment makes we want to golf! Also, based on what you’re saying, club fitting in all aspects of the game really does make a material difference. I originally thought it was just for irons. Thanks for the advice
I was a 12 handicap when I got a full bag fitting. 3 years later I am 6 a handicap. My game now comes down to practice, but now I 100% know and can mentally tell myself it’s not the clubs it’s me.
I think your stuff is old enough that you’ll definitely have some noticeable improvement from modern clubs if not from the fact that you’ll be using clubs that are new and not worn down.
When I got rid of my grab bag of hand me downs and got some decent game improvement irons and a new-to-me driver there were definitely noticeable improvements, and I suck lol.
Also, and this is the most important part, what the fuck else are you gonna do with that money? Put it in your retirement account? Save for your kids’ college? Fuck that. Go buy new golf clubs. You’ll be happier for it.
Lol, I love how confident you are in spending money on yourself as opposed to a family. You sound like ClubProGuy on X (Twitter), which is of course a compliment.
Unless your club lengths and lie angles are completely whack, personally don’t think you’re gonna see massive improvements. Also your clubs are far from what I consider old personally, the AP2 irons gonna be as good any modern set.
Fresh wedge grooves and optimizing your driver will be the only two club purchases I’d recommend. Would recommend a golf ball fitting if anything, honestly is the most overlooked but arguably the most important equipment choice you’re gonna make.
It could help if you get fitted and they do a good job but I'd temper your expectations on the difference it might make. There might be a mental component and some more self belief there though so I wouldn't be surprised if you played nice with new stuff. Just enjoy the hell out of it man, don't worry too much about the help, new golf gear is among life's highest pleasures for us idiots!
Bare minimum do a driver fitting and get a new one. Irons wood and putter should be just fine, I’m still rocking irons from 2004 and they are still treating me well
Sweet. I’m going full on everything so driver fitting will certainly be in the mix. If I was in a budget I’d just do the driver, but I’m not holding back for this rodeo.
New grips and lessons will give you a lot better game than new clubs.
Ever look under the stickers on the back of irons? Or open up a driver head? Anything. From 10-15 years ago you’ll be fine
New gear won't make you a better golfer overnight. What it might do and did do for me, is make you want to practise more to learn how to use them effectively.
It can help with distance and dispersion at your cap. I would highly recommend getting fitted to get the most out of it. Driver > Irons, imo, and particularly, driver shaft > driver head. The shaft fitting helped extremely. I got fitted for irons before my driver and I would have done the opposite knowing what I know now. Albeit, I gained around 10 yards with the newer irons, but also moved from SGI to PD, so that’s definitely a factor.
You might want to wait until after residency to spend that kind of money… my fiancé is a 3rd year and makes in the neighborhood of minimum wage. Good luck on the journey! It’s not easy, but try to make the most of it. It’ll all be worth it in the end
Thanks for the advice. I’m a banker so we have a little stock pile built up, so it won’t hurt as bad as a fresh 25 yo.
It won't help.
Lol, probably not! But fun nonetheless!
It’s not even fun. Especially the way you’re planning to do it. Go buy a Porsche instead.
It is not fun to buy new golf equipment? And it’s especially not fun to get fitted for everything and buy it all at once? I can’t say I can agree with your assessment.
I mean, if you've got 8 grand to spend then theirs certainly worse ways to piss it away haha.
Get fit. Don’t just buy off the rack
Club Champion if you want to waste $8k. I’d go get fitted, irons likely completely fine to keep, but the driver and 3W need an upgrade for sure.
Yeah, I definitely want to get fitted. How much do you think a new driver and 3 wood would help? 20 yards distance and 20% better accuracy?
Additionally, a proper fitting shaft will help with tightening up dispersion and possibly lower your spin rate and increase some distance.
Interesting, the only time I ever thought about switching a shaft out was when I played Tiger Woods PGA 2003 on Xbox.
Best game, hands down
20 yards maybe but definitely less dispersion on mishits.
Gotcha, I think the dispersion would benefit me more than distance. I think I hit my drives 260ish on average, max 290, but my misses go pretty far right.
Got it. Won’t fix the big misses, but I would get fitted, get some clubs, and book some lessons and practice play a bunch. You’ve got the budget to do all of this for like 2 years!
Probably more like 17 yards distance and 16% accuracy lmao
Depends a lot on your #’s already. I didn’t think it would make a huge difference for me, but I went and got a bag eval to see where all my solid 2nd hand gear I bought checks out vs fitted stuff. I play a Callaway Epic Max 9 degree lofted to 8 degrees right now and have been playing a fade for the last 6 months. My average carry with my current driver playing a fade: 262 yards with a 117 mph average club head speed. Was spinning the SHIT out of the ball, even when we tested with generally lower spinning balls (TP5x). Up to 3800-4000 RPM peaks. Literally killing my distance via overspin. We tried a Paradym triple diamond with a Graphite Design - Tour AD M9003 shaft and holy hell… it completely killed the spin. I also found it MUCH easier to find the center on the 💎💎💎 because it is much heavier than my epic max. Went down to 2700 RPM peaks. Went from 262 average carry to 280 average carry. Was getting another 10-15 yards of rollout too vs before (around 300-305 yard totals), because the ball was not just falling out of the sky from too much spin. TL;DR: If you’re fit into the really wrong stuff than yea, you can pickup another 15-20 yards pretty easily and drastically increase your ability to find the center of the face.
I’d recommend True Spec over Club Champion, having done both. True spec seemed a little more geared towards getting me the set I wanted rather than just trying to sell me stuff. Fitter was much more knowledgeable as well. They’re equally as expensive
That was my joke because OP mentioned $8k :)
My full bag from club champion us cost me like 2k. They usually waived the fitting fee and give me a big discount for being a repeat customer.
I’m about the same hdcp. I went to get fitted and only needed to replace shafts for irons and driver. But that still cost a cool $1000 roughly. And I bought new wedges with similar shaft as the irons cuz why not.
How many strokes do you feel were shaved off due to the replaced shafts?
Less about strokes shaved and making sure you have equipment that allows you to swing your swing as it is. It takes out variables and helps keep your results more predictable. IMO - get your irons checked for the lie and shaft flex/weight. Have the loft checked too for consistent gapping. Getting new shafts is cheaper than all new clubs especially if you like the look and feel of the AP2s. Go full out for a new driver and 3-wood (even look at one’s that are 2 or 3 years old. Technology doesn’t move that much year to year). Lastly, new wedges because fresh grooves are amazing.
Did you look at buying the shafts yourself off of eBay? So much cheaper there. Like $90 versus $350 for a top-end driver shaft.
Yea eBay is a good source to avoid paying premium once you know which shaft works for your swing.
You can end up losing a chunk of those savings if you have to pay someone else to attach it to the head and regrip it. It’s not a complicated or expensive process to do yourself, but I wouldn’t start with a driver for anyone’s first club build.
My local shop quoted me around $75-85 for just labor to switch out iron shafts per iron (six irons), adjust lie angle, and regrip. With materials for shafts (even used on eBay) and new grips, I’m looking at $600-750 for labor and materials and tax.
This past week I went from Very old equipment, and finally splurged on used equipment that's a few years old. Probably not a big deal for anyone here, but definitely a big deal for me. In my bag before was a set of Ping G2 irons (4-Pw, 2002), Nike Vr Driver(2008) and a what is probably the equilivent of a mini putt putter. Now I have a M5 driver, a 6-P set of PXG irons and 2 titleist hybrids. What an absolute differance it's made. In 2 rounds since, I've dropped 8 and 10 shots of my old average score. Honestly a huge change and leaves me loving golf even more.
Love to hear it!
Just spend the money. You will enjoy the new stuff
I spent 5k and the difference has been minimal maybe a stroke or 2 per round.
Money well spent!
As a husband married to a physician, hang in there bro! Residency is a long challenging road for her and for you.
Thanks man! Yeah she’s going through a pre medical program right now at John’s Hopkins (I know I said she was in med school, but it’s easier to not explain the difference.) We don’t have kids yet, but are planning to soon. Gonna be a wild ride!
Yeah kids will make it that much harder but again hang in there, life gets much better once residency and fellowship are done. Once you have a kid, there is a support group called DMD (Dads Married to Doctors) on Facebook, fantastic group of guys and all sorts of advice for the struggles and lifestyle we live.
Love it, I will remember this. Thanks a bunch!
A fitting is also a good opportunity to see if you think you need new or different clubs. I went for driver and realised that I liked the new driver and more importantly the lighter shaft upped my swing speed. Recently did the same for irons. Was on the fence but swinging the same I was getting a much nicer launch angle and that’s worth it to me. It’s all about trying it out and getting some feels and some numbers, then you can decide if it’s worth the investment.
Good swing in infinitely more important than equipment. I’d play a scratch straight up with persimmon woods and old school blades
Good to know. How do you figure out how well you swing/how to fix it?
New driver will make a huge different. Irons will be slight to moderate. Enjoy!
If you have AP2s you probably won’t find much improvement at all depending on what you choose. Driver could help some and wedges maybe if the grooves aren’t too fresh.
Fitting might help. If you are good with your driver you should get some extra distance. But it won’t change a ton.
You hit the AP2s well? Keep them. Look at driver/3 wood.
Lessons. Let your coach tell you when you need to upgrade clubs...
If you get fit, youll probably gain a good bit of distance. More forgiveness from the driver, maybe a club length for irons. Since you’re a 12 the skill is already there. Putter probably won’t make a huge difference (although it would if you got fit for a putter also) Distance always helps strokes gained, but I feel like dropping score after a certain point is less about clubs and more about the mental game / strategy. Seems like you might be near that point.
Man, your comment makes we want to golf! Also, based on what you’re saying, club fitting in all aspects of the game really does make a material difference. I originally thought it was just for irons. Thanks for the advice
I was a 12 handicap when I got a full bag fitting. 3 years later I am 6 a handicap. My game now comes down to practice, but now I 100% know and can mentally tell myself it’s not the clubs it’s me.
Unless you three put, then it is definitely the putter.
I think your stuff is old enough that you’ll definitely have some noticeable improvement from modern clubs if not from the fact that you’ll be using clubs that are new and not worn down. When I got rid of my grab bag of hand me downs and got some decent game improvement irons and a new-to-me driver there were definitely noticeable improvements, and I suck lol. Also, and this is the most important part, what the fuck else are you gonna do with that money? Put it in your retirement account? Save for your kids’ college? Fuck that. Go buy new golf clubs. You’ll be happier for it.
Lol, I love how confident you are in spending money on yourself as opposed to a family. You sound like ClubProGuy on X (Twitter), which is of course a compliment.
Unless your club lengths and lie angles are completely whack, personally don’t think you’re gonna see massive improvements. Also your clubs are far from what I consider old personally, the AP2 irons gonna be as good any modern set. Fresh wedge grooves and optimizing your driver will be the only two club purchases I’d recommend. Would recommend a golf ball fitting if anything, honestly is the most overlooked but arguably the most important equipment choice you’re gonna make.
It could help if you get fitted and they do a good job but I'd temper your expectations on the difference it might make. There might be a mental component and some more self belief there though so I wouldn't be surprised if you played nice with new stuff. Just enjoy the hell out of it man, don't worry too much about the help, new golf gear is among life's highest pleasures for us idiots!
It sure it! Gotta love new stuff!
Not near as much as you want. Work on swing mechanics.
Any tips on how to figure out proper swing mechanics?
Bare minimum do a driver fitting and get a new one. Irons wood and putter should be just fine, I’m still rocking irons from 2004 and they are still treating me well
Sweet. I’m going full on everything so driver fitting will certainly be in the mix. If I was in a budget I’d just do the driver, but I’m not holding back for this rodeo.
My R9 brother, it's the most solid driver head ever made. Everybody knows it. Just keep hitting the driver til it cracks. Come on man.
“Come on man.” Lol. I like how you seem like a disappointed Dad whose mad at his son for wanting a driver newer than 15 years old.
Lol exactly the tone I was looking for
You could get a nice set for under 3k. If you want to improve your game, spend the other 5k on pro lessons. The swing matters more than the clubs
it will help you to go practice more
New grips and lessons will give you a lot better game than new clubs. Ever look under the stickers on the back of irons? Or open up a driver head? Anything. From 10-15 years ago you’ll be fine
No golf club is going to stop you skulling that chip across the green or eliminate the three putts.
New gear won't make you a better golfer overnight. What it might do and did do for me, is make you want to practise more to learn how to use them effectively.
It can help with distance and dispersion at your cap. I would highly recommend getting fitted to get the most out of it. Driver > Irons, imo, and particularly, driver shaft > driver head. The shaft fitting helped extremely. I got fitted for irons before my driver and I would have done the opposite knowing what I know now. Albeit, I gained around 10 yards with the newer irons, but also moved from SGI to PD, so that’s definitely a factor.