Fittings
How a SnowBird fitting works.
Measure first, change one thing at a time, and keep only what the numbers support. Here is the process and the rules I use on the data.
The session
Interview
Your game, your current set, typical misses, how far you hit each club, and what you want to change.
Static measurements
Height, wrist-to-floor, hand size and finger length. These give starting points for length, lie and grip, not answers.
Baseline
You hit your own clubs on the launch monitor so we can see speed, launch, spin, strike and dispersion before changing anything.
Dynamic testing
Lie, length, shaft and head are tested one variable at a time, with enough shots per option to see a real difference.
Gapping
We check that every club has a job and that the distances between them are even, especially at the wedge and long-club ends.
Build sheet
You leave with the written spec for every club (head, shaft, length, loft, lie, swing weight or MOI, grip) and the reason for each.
See Fitting parameters for what each spec does. Session lengths and pricing are provided on request.
How I clean launch-monitor data
A launch monitor reports every swing, including the ones you would never count on the course. Before I compare two clubs, or publish anything in the Data Lab, the shots go through the same rules.
- Full swings only. Each club has a minimum carry for a full swing (for example 100 yards for my pitching wedge, 140 for my 7 iron). Partial wedge shots go into a separate wedge matrix.
- Strike grade. Each shot is graded against that session's median smash factor and carry. Shots well below median on both are marked junk and left out. Long shots are never penalised.
- Recency weighting. The last 90 days count fully. Older sessions count less, and anything before my January 2023 equipment change counts least.
- Percentiles, not just averages. I report a cover number (P30), a stock number and a flush number (P80), plus the middle 50%, so you can see how wide each club plays.
- Know the source. Indoor simulator sessions, outdoor TrackMan and FlightScope numbers are labelled and not blended blindly.
Applied to my own archive, these rules keep 5,400 of 10,154 shots as usable full swings. Most of the rest are deliberate partial wedges, not bad swings.
What a fitting is not
It is not a sales pitch for one brand, and it is not a single number off a speed reading. If your current club is already right, the build sheet will say so.