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| What is the technology behind the FitChip process?
Custom fitting of golf clubs has been around for many years. Custom fitting in the past has dealt with selecting club length, club lie and grip size by specific measurements. The most important component, the stiffness of the golf shaft, was historically selected by trial and error, or more recently, using the totally irrelevant measurement of club head speed. Even though players may have the same club head speed, they don't have the same club release or swing timing. FitChip which employs a computer chip and accelerometer, records the acceleration pattern (in .002 second intervals) from which it can derive club release, ball impact, and other critical swing timing parameters. Using this information FitChip selects the exact cycle per minute frequency for the shaft that will return the club to straight and square at ball impact. This insures the greatest combination of distance and accuracy.
The Segments of the Golf swing
The important part of this illustration is the red "Shaft Release Area". One must understand the minute time differential involved between selecting the softest shaft and selecting the stiffest shaft. I had a club fitting group that travels from Country Club to Country Club using Club Head Speed and the Launch Monitor, tell me the only thing they were missing in their system was the club release time. However, the head of the group proceeded to inform me he could see where that release was occurring. This statement encouraged me to further investigate the exact time interval during which the club releases in the swing. From our swing data, I found that from the earliest release time (softest shaft) to the latest release time (stiffest shaft ) was an interval of only .05 seconds. This means that if you want to fit a player to within 2 CPM of the frequency he needs to play his best golf, you only have .004 second to pick the right shaft. I will disagree with anyone that claims he can see this release point with any accuracy. Especially the accuracy needed to select the proper shaft for the player. FitChip takes 25 readings during this .05 second interval and averages the number of test swings made for each club tested. The accuracy needed for proper shaft selection is programmed into FitChip.
For your swing testing you may use the players current clubs or a set of test clubs. We recommend testing be done using the 9 Iron, 5 Iron, 3 Iron or 5 Wood and the Driver. This insures a sufficient number of data points to establish a slope or curve on which you would build the set of clubs. The player will swing each club 4 to 10 times to establish sufficient data for a reliable average. This data (up to 40 swings per player and a total of 84 swings) will then be downloaded to a larger computer for further analysis of the players swing pattern.
The Analysis
The larger computer basically makes the same analysis as the FitChip. However, on the larger computer we can actually view the acceleration swing pattern and possibly refine the selected point of release for better accuracy. The following Chart is representative of the type of acceleration data provided by the FitChip. The blue line represents the player's club head acceleration or shaft load curve. The red line represents the release of the club (as a spring) in the swing. The time from the start of club release to ball impact determines the clubs shaft stiffness. The Raw Data and Club Head Speed curve is used to select ball impact. The abrupt drop in club head speed is caused by Impact. Once each of the (up to 40 swings per player)
Shaft Acceleration or Load Club Head Speed
Frequency Chart
swings have been analyzed and marked "USE" the data can be plotted (small dots) on the following Club Length VS Frequency Curve (Frequency Chart). The larger red dots represent the average of the several selected swings for each club.
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