Sticks n Stuff: Fit to Be Satisfied

by Victor Williams

Barefoot and loaded for bear, Jim McMahon blasted one driver after another toward the big Douglas firs lining the practice tee at Edgewood Tahoe. A few minutes earlier, fellow former NHL center Pierre LaRouche happened by with a mind to have his own big stick tweaked.

And hours before that, another guy — probably some bruiser of an NFL star or, who knows, maybe Charles Barkley — broke his 3-wood against a tree in competition and sent it to the range in a buddy’s cart to be re-shafted and put back into service, lickety split.

Just another day at the office for the guys and gals at Hot Stix, who showed up with a tricked-out trailer worth more than $500,000 and an arsenal of the latest gear from TaylorMade, Callaway, Titleist, Cleveland, Mizuno, Nike and other companies for players to test against their own fingerprint-like swings. They spent several days on Lake Tahoe’s south shore dialing in the lofts, lie angles, weight biases, shaft frequencies and optimum ball spin rates of guys like McMahon, LaRouche and two-time American Century Golf Championship winner Billy Joe Tolliver — folks serious enough about their games to care about such minutae, and dreaming of sporting the same finely tuned gear as their PGA Tour heroes.

The friendly, helpful and savvy Hot Stix eggheads give them, and anybody who seeks them out, just that. After years of drawing everybody from Tour pros such as Tom Lehman, Aaron Baddeley and Hale Irwin to distance and accuracy-starved weekend hackers to their Scottsdale headquarters for a science- and technology-steeped tune-up, they’re spreading the clubfitting gospel across the nation with a fleet of four trailers outfitted with everything they need to individualize a player’s game from, as they say, “grip all the way to the ball.”

“We originally targeted the high-end, Top 10 percent of the private clubs, but we found that we left out a huge population of golfers who wanted access to the service we provide,” says Chris Dragon, Hot Stix’s president, who brought his top crew to Tahoe for the first time to wow the celebs with their unbiased, thorough approach to swing testing and clubfitting. “We’ve gone to more public courses as well. So folks who’ve heard about us, through the media or word of mouth, have access to us. They don’t have to fly all the way to Scottsdale to get fit, like they did five years ago.”

A $6 million merger with privately held StormWind Ventures earlier this year allowed Dragon, Hot Stix founder Mark Timms and their colleagues to hire Dr. Tom Mase to run the company’s research and development and design mobile centers that take on-the-spot fitting to a new level — with across-the-board player satisfaction the goal. “Today we work with more than 100 Tour players, and this year alone they’ve won $25.5 million to date. That’s a lot,” Dragon says. “One of the things I’ve driven through the organization is that we’re passionate about improving someone’s game, but we’re obsessed with their complete satisfaction. If something doesn’t perform for you because you’ve changed your swing, bring it back and let us dial it in for you. What started as a cult-like following has turned into more of a national phenomenon. Now we can take vehicles like this and really cover the nation.”

Whether they make the trip to the desert, visit one of Hot Stix’s soon-to-come licensed “big box” retail fitting centers or wait for the big logo’d trailers to show up at a nearby range, golfers get the same stem-to-stern treatment. Dubbed “Tour fitting,” it takes about as long as an 18-hole round of golf, yielding a lot less psychic pain — and a lot more knowledge about one’s game and the role of modern technology in improving it in virtually every area, from driving distance to putting prowess. Golf club companies can do that, too, but what makes Hot Stix different is their complete dismissal of the one-brand-fits-all philosophy.

“They’ve all got fabulous product, but a certain manufacturer might not make the best equipment for you,” says John German, a master fitter, PGA professional and former Tour player. We’re non-biased. We don’t work on commission. We’re not going to force a certain manufacturer down your throat. We don’t care what you play with. We’re just concerned with putting what works best in your hands. If you look in a lot of our customers’ bags, you’ll see a Cleveland driver, TaylorMade fairway woods, Callaway hybrids, Mizuno irons, Titleist wedges. That’s why a lot of people like us.”

Hot Stix starts its fitting process by mapping what they call a player’s “swing DNA,” capturing crucial numbers such as swing speed, launch angle, spin rate, ball flight and clubface dispersion. And they make sure the player is hitting his or her own clubs to give them both a baseline and some direction on what equipment to recommend later.

“We match that DNA against how the equipment performed based on the launch parameters of the individual,” Dragon says. “Then we match them up with the perfect equipment for their swing. We don’t teach; we leave that to the teaching pros. It makes a huge difference. You take high handicappers and shave five strokes off their game, that’s night and day for them. For a low handicapper, you shave half a stroke off, that’s night and day. So we wanted to have that available for the majority of golfers, not just the pros.”

At Tahoe, German took an FG swinger through a 90-minute session, first with the driver. The Hot Stix launch monitor showed him blasting a 10.5-degree TaylorMade r7 460 — one that matches what’s in his own bag — an average of 265 yards with a slight fade and the right high trajectory, but with way too much backspin. “Your swing produces a lot of spin with this club, which pretty much keeps you from getting enough roll on the ball,” German said. “It’s up around 4,000 rpm. We like to see it around 3,000. Let’s try this club.” With that, he grabbed a 10-degree Callaway X460 with a stiff, mid-frequency Fujikura shaft. The results were immediate and impressive: another 10 to 15 yards on average and even the occasional soft draw for the longtime power fader. German pointed to the telltale numbers on the monitor. “You hit both clubs well, but you can tell the difference in backspin. And that’s not even the shaft I would recommend; with, say, an Accra mid-flex shaft you’ll get even more distance, and with the right ball [he recommended a Titleist Pro V1x, Bridgestone Tour B330, Callaway HX Tour, Nike Mojo, Maxfli Black Max or Srixon ZUR-S], you’ll get that spin down even more.”

Another half hour trying out several brands of 6-iron brought several facts to light: This 10-handicapper should be swinging True Temper Dynamic Gold steel shafts instead of graphite (they’re a little more consistent from club to club, German said), and he can still handle a head that’s closer to a classic blade than the wide-soled, newfangled “improvement irons” currently in his bag, if he wants to.

A go-round with wedges and a putter would no doubt have produced more “a-ha” moments, but time got short and curious celebs and others started showing up under the Hot Stix tent, so the impromptu fitting ended. No matter — this subject walked away with a big jolt of confidence and a serious jones to find a first tee.

That’s pretty much the standard response for any Hot Stix customer. German has pro-fit hundreds of players of every ability, size, swing pattern and strength level. He helped Baddeley pinpoint his irons just before the Aussie notched his first PGA Tour win at Harbour Town earlier this year. He’s seen people come in who’ve never been fitted and left with whole new appreciation of what they can accomplish on their home course, and their scorecards. And their reaction to what Hot Stix’s club-by-club analysis can do is the same: It doesn’t take a swing overhaul or mountains of practice to improve your game. With Hot Stix in his corner, a player can get there almost overnight. They’ll even send someone home with a dialed-in club to test for a couple of weeks, just to make sure it works for them at their regular course. If it does, they’ve made a sale. If not, no biggie — the player just ships it back and they go for the next club on Hot Stix’s personalized list of recommended clubs and balls.

Ultimately it comes down to what fits not only a customer’s swing, but his eye and mind, too. “If you’re hitting the ball better, the misses are better and the numbers back it up, it still has to look right sitting on the ground,” Dragon says. “And you still have the power to choose your own equipment. We recommend good-better-best. If you want to play like Tiger, here’s what he’s hitting. If you want something similar but don’t want to spend that much, we’ll present you with good-better-best options. But a lot of people will say, ‘Even though you’re telling me it’s close, I want to spend a couple hundred dollars more and get it perfect.’”

In the high-tech world of Hot Stix, that’s music to a clubfitter’s ears — and a strong indication that they’re on the right track when it comes to keeping the game itself on an upward swing. It happens most often these days when they’re on the road, building clubs in their workshop on wheels and making believers out of everyday golfers.

“When people see a mobile unit like this, and they look in there and say, ‘You mean you can build, you can grind, you can do everything in there?’ we say, ‘Absolutely.’ People write to us all the time and say, ‘I’ve never played better golf. They get yards back, they get more consistent. And they want to play more. We want to help grow the game. We want to back into the junior-level players, get with the USGA. We figure we’re in a great position to do that.” FG

For more on Hot Stix Golf, visit hotstixgolf.com or call 480.513.1333