On this week’s episode of the Fully Equipped Podcast, I’m going to sit down and introduce our newest team member, McKenzie Steensonto talk about getting into the golf industry, how I was able to get it for the GOLF team and many interesting topics I wanted to discuss. One of those topics was how I manage my own connections and how I plan to handle my connections moving forward as we embark on our 2027 launch content production journey.
“How are these fittings for you and these fitters when you are someone who has, no prejudices, but you understand so well what is happening and what is happening, but you put your own voice in the fitting,” Steenson asked.
“It’s the fitters who set these (my) rules,” I replied. “So, Duane (TaylorMade) and Hunter (Titleist) were both like, ‘I’m never going to give you a driver that has more weight in the front.’ Period.” They both said that if there was a max style head that would stick with me, they’d love to put me in it.”
These rules for my game actually go back to before I was employed with GOLF when I had the opportunity to visit the TaylorMade Kingdom and get in shape for the Qi35 with Matt Simone and Duane Anderson. During the fit, we realized that having me play something with a forward weight bias significantly affected my ability to get my head through the ball properly.
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Typically, this caused me to end up with a fairly weak lack of thrust that didn’t have enough launch. As a player who likes to see the ball go down the left and wants to hit it as high as possible, this was not working. Since then, I haven’t even tested with the weight bias in the front; I always start with this in the back. It hasn’t failed me yet.
When I visited TPI for my GTS adaptationHunter referred to that video of mine, and while we tried all the heads and weight settings between them, it was clear that we needed something back-weighted just for the purpose of the strike. The back-weighted GTS4 didn’t have enough spin, and the back-weighted GTS2 produced unreasonable flight for my game. But the back-weighted GTS3 was perfect. In fact, we also added more weight to the rear than the standard configuration.
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“So, just as the driver’s head (in this example) is for you a problem to solve, we are the fitter’s problem to solve,” said Steenson.
Precisely.
Let your installers do their job! They are trained to prepare well for the season. In an ideal world, you find “your man”. The fitter you keep coming back to. I’m lucky to work with all the OEMs consistently, so I have “a guy” at each of them, plus friends in customization who can help my game outside of those. Being able to trust someone who really knows and cares about your game is a massive advantage for the confidence you feel with your clubs in hand.
