I did a Tee-to-Green half-day fitting at the TPI Oceanside facility in November. I highly recommend it if you are in the area. I've done a lot of fittings over the years, and this was by far the most educational and comprehensive. My fitter was Lucas Bro and he was fantastic.

Here is a long review of my experience:

I did a full bag fitting at Club Champion in 2016 and I was pretty pleased, but it was time to upgrade to new irons, and I wanted to stay with Titleist, so I decided to book the TPI fitting during a trip to San Diego.

My 2016 fitting at CC gave me the following: 917D2 10.5 Handcrafted HZRDUS Black 65 5.5 (I swapped in a TS2 10.5 head this April) 816H1 17 and 21 Raijin 84 Reg AP2 4-PW KBS C-Taper Lite Reg Vokey 52-08F (51), 56-10S, 60-08M C-Taper Lite Reg

After checking it at 1pm at the TPI front desk, I met Lucas and I used the locker room to get changed (they had a locker set up for me in advance with my name - nice touch) and we headed to the range. The facility is truly top notch – everything was set up in advance for us, the turf on the range was immaculate (it actually reminded me a little of Augusta – there was not a weed or an unfilled divot or anything out of place).

After warming up a bit, we started with the Driver, worked our way through fairway woods, hybrids, and irons.

Woods: With my current set, I have a Driver and two hybrids, no fairway woods. I had not had a 3 wood in my bag for at least the last 10 years. I guess because I always seemed to hit hybrids more consistently and they seemed to be more versatile. But as a result, I had a pretty large gap between my driver and my longest hybrid. We hit some shots with my 4 and 5 irons to get a sense of where I was with those and what my longest iron should be. After trying a lot of options, we ended up going with 15 and 21 TS2 fairway woods, a TS2 25 hybrid, and then a 5 iron next. Going in, I wasn't considering fairway woods, but I was really liking them on the range, being able to work them either way and I found them really easy to hit once I got comfortable with them. It was easy to evaluate how I would use them on various holes at my home course, e.g. we have a 200+yard par three and a short par 4 that needs a 180-210 draw.

Trackman told the story, Lucas explained every element of what we were looking for in the numbers. This set up gave me consistent yardage gaps and optimal ball flight from the Driver down to the irons. I was a little sad to give up the 4 iron, but when I saw how much better I was launching the 25 hybrid it was no contest.

Irons: I wasn’t sure going in whether the T100 or T200 would be where I ended up. After trying almost every head in the rack, we ended up choosing the T100. Although I hit the T200 at least 5-10 yards further each club, my ball flight and spin numbers were more in line with the T100 and I preferred the feel much more. Interestingly, after trying about 6 different shafts, we ended up with the same C-Taper Lites that Club Champion put me into.

One thing that was really interesting to me is that we ended up going 2 degrees flat on the irons, which I never would have thought. In past fittings, I was always right around standard using the lie board test. But Lucas said that lie board tests are not always the best indicator and you really need to look at the Trackman numbers and the ball flight. In the past couple of years, my bad miss has been a straight pull or pull hook, probably a little more so since I tend to get a little closed at address. Lucas told me to set up a little squarer and then with the 2 degrees flat I was able to confidently release the club head and not worry about a big miss left.

I thought it was really advantageous to do the fitting outdoors versus an indoor fitting at Club Champion. You get a much better idea of where the ball is going in real life versus just hitting into a screen and looking at the video. Also, outdoors you obviously get a sense of your turf interaction and divot pattern which you don't get hitting off a mat.

Driver: After all that, we went back to the driver and tried some different shafts and lofts, and we concluded that my existing driver and shaft was perfect, no need to change.

Wedges: Next, it was over to the short game area, an expansive series of target greens. Once again pristine turf conditions. This was the most educational part of the afternoon. We set up about 50 yards from the green, to which I said, wow – we’re going to start with the hardest shot in golf, the dreaded puke zone! Of course, I chunked the first few but after Lucas gave me a few thinks to adjust (feet closer together, keep the hips still on the backswing) I started to hit some good ones. Lucas kept giving me different wedges and after a while I was hitting shots with perfect little, shallow divots instead of the deep gouges I tended to hit with my current wedges.

We also talked about the advantage of going with a Vokey PW rather than a setted T100 PW, which I would never have considered. We ended up with a 46/50/54/60 configuration with higher bounce numbers than I was playing. We also decided to use the same C-Taper Lite in the 46 and 50 as I will have in the T100s and then go with a regular C-Taper in the 54 and 60 which will give me a consistent feel on the fuller swing shots and a slightly heavier shaft for the shorter shots around the green that I will play with the 54 and 60.

Balls: I switched from Pro V1-X to Pro V1 a couple of years ago and asked Lucas to evaluate it. Over the course of the fitting, he was throwing me balls and mixing in a few Xs here and there and he said that overall they did not make much of a difference in my ball flight, so it was much more important to go with whatever gives you better spin feel around the green. Good to know. Interestingly, the various sets of balls on the ranges all have different circled numbers on the side so they can keep separate the balls they use on the full range vs the short game area as they replace the short game area balls more frequently due to the amount of wear they get from wedges. But every ball I hit all day looked brand new, never a scuff or a blemish.

By the time we finished, it was three and a half hours later – we reviewed the final choices and then Lucas was then able to place the order directly on my Club pro’s account and he emailed me the summary of the results. The woods and T100’s arrived within two weeks and we are waiting to order the wedges for the SM8s to be released in the Spring.

I highly recommend TPI if you are in the area and want to get all the attention like a tour pro would get. Like Disneyland for golfers. If you are committed to Titleist, I would choose a TPI fitting over Club Champion for sure. A definitely for a wedge fitting - you need to be outdoors on turf. With that said, I think Club Champion did a very good job for me (TPI agreed with their driver and iron shafts for me), their fitters are great and if you are interested in looking across all the top vendors, they have it all in one place.

My only problem now is getting through the cold NJ winter so I can get on the course with the new setup in the Spring…

New bag after TPI fitting:

TS2 10.5, Handcrafted HZRDUS Black 65 5.5 A-1 (my current driver) TS2 15 Fairway, Mitsubishi Tensei AV Series Blue 65 (Regular) A-1, -1" length TS2 21 Fairway, Mitsubishi Tensei AV Series Blue 65 (Regular) A-1, standard length TS2 25 Hybrid, Mitsubishi Tensei AV Series Blue 70 HYB (Regular) D-1 (-1 loft), +0.5" length T100 5-9 KBS C-Taper Lite Reg, 2 degree flat standard length, D2 swingweight Vokey 46.10F, 50.12F, C-Taper Lite Reg, 2 degree flat, D2 swingweight Vokey 54.14F, 60.12D, C-Taper Reg, 2 degree flat, D5 Scotty Cameron Tour Rat I Masterful