Hey, Team Titleist,
In the brief time since its introduction, Titleist's Radar Capture Technology (RCT) has helped bridge the gap between traditional golf and a variety of indoor golf experiences. By enabling radar-based launch monitors to precisely capture and measure – not estimate – golf ball spin rates in indoor environments, RCT is arming golfers, coaches and fitters with precise data that makes indoor practice, instruction and fitting more productive and translatable than ever thought possible. (Click here to hear what indoor partners are saying about RCT).
And now with RCT enabling radar-based launch monitors to precisely capture and measure – not estimate – golf ball spin rates in indoor environments, our golf ball fitting teams have been exploring and testing with RCT indoors. And the results have been extremely promising.
To see how RCT is bringing golf ball fitting indoors, we tagged along with Titleist Fitting Expert, Jake Hardy, as he conducted golf ball fittings for a group of Team Titleist golfers – including George Kostakos. A self-described golf junkie, George had experimented with several different golf balls over the past few years, but he had never gone through a formal golf ball fitting.
Jake structured his fittings the same way he would in an outdoor setting, first looking at 50-yard pitch shots, then examining full swings with a 7-iron and, lastly, analyzing tee shots hit with the driver. For each series of shots, Jake shared with players the launch, spin, speed and flight data captured by his TrackMan 4 unit and highlighted the performance differences between each Titleist golf ball model.
I caught up with George shortly after his fitting and asked him to share his thoughts on the experience:
Q: Before your fitting session with Jake, how did you go about choosing the right golf ball for your game?
GEORGE: By hearsay, really. You guys have me, I'm a Titleist guy, right? But you hear something about one of your competitor's balls or whatever, and I would try them here and there, but I always would come back to Titleist. From my layman's perspective, it always felt better when I got back to Titleist, whether it was around the greens, with the irons or off the tee.
And then, the other thing that would come up from time to time is which kind of Titleist would I play? And I've shifted around a little bit between the Pro V1 and the Pro V1x.
Q: So, you had never been fit for a golf ball before, correct?
GEORGE: No, and I felt like one of the best things about the experience, for me, wasn't just the results and knowing that the Pro V1x turned out to be a little better in all categories for me - and consistently so. But, also just having each different model sitting there, particularly when I was hitting short shots, chip shots. It was like, 'Oh, okay, I feel the difference here from one ball to the next'. So it was valuable for a lot of reasons. Like I said to my wife, I'm a junkie, so I love all this stuff.
Q: Based on your fitting results, Jake recommended the Pro V1x. What were some of the key points that made the X the best fit for you?
GEORGE: One of the things Jake said that really resonated was about my tee ball. He said, "The differences in performance, off the tee, between the X and the Pro V aren't going to make enough of a difference for that to be the reason I choose the ball." And that's why he got me focused in on the mid-iron and even hundred-and-in-type shots, where the spin really does make a difference in my game.
Q: As you switched between ball models, was it interesting to see how your trajectories changed on the TrackMan screen?
GEORGE: Well, yeah, it's funny. I thought the fact that I hit a naturally high ball was costing me a little bit. I don't know, whatever the reason, I liked the look of the lower trajectory of V. It felt like it was taking off in a nice window, it would climb. But there I am with X, higher launch, but five yards longer on every iron, maybe 10 yards longer on the drivers I hit well. But Jake explained, at my course, where we have a lot of elevated greens, you want to come in a little higher on a lot of those greens. If I can hit my 7-iron, 165, 170 yards instead of a 155, 160, I don't have to worry about coming up short and rolling down a big false front. I can still hit that high ball and feel good about it.
Q: We overheard Jake discussing descent angle with you. Can you share what that was about?
GEORGE: Yeah, Jake showed me how my V and X shots differed in the way that they descend into the green and how steeper is better for me. The steeper angle of X will help me hold more greens. Especially firm greens, which we have at my club. I could see it right there in the data.
Q: The experience that you had in the RCT fitting, do you feel like that's going to translate well onto the golf course?
GEORGE: I do. I feel like there's room for improvement, but I'm a 5-, 6-handicap. I'm good enough to know that I can play. There's a confidence knowing that I've been through the process and that's the right ball. But I also am looking forward to being outside and trying to match the results I saw on the screen. I've since been to a couple of simulators and I actually bought a couple sleeves of Pro V1x's just to have in my pocket to use in those simulators. And I was blown away last time with some of the distance numbers that I was hitting. It was pretty cool, pretty encouraging.
Q: Your fitting was included in the footage we shot for our new RCT video? Did you suffer any performance anxiety when we turned the cameras on?
GEORGE: No, I'm a bit of a ham, so that worked out pretty well. Good stuff, I can't wait for my golf buddies to see what we did.
Q: Any final thoughts you'd like to share with Team Titleist about your RCT fitting?
GEORGE: I think the golf ball isn't appreciated enough. I walked out of there thinking, 'I should have done this a long time ago.'
Thanks for sharing your experience with us, George!
We want to hear from you, too. Please share your RCT experiences in the comments below.
For more information on Titleist Radar Capture Technology and to order Pro V1 RCT, Pro V1x RCT, Pro V1x Left Dash RCT and AVX RCT please click here.
And for more resources to help you find the best golf ball model for your game, visit https://www.titleist.com/fitting/golf-ball-fitting.
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