Taylormade Offers Custom Club Fitting Online
You can get customized golf balls and golf bags online – why not custom-fit golf clubs?
That's what Taylormade asked before it launched its Custom Shop, which allows golfers to design their own custom-fitted irons, hybrids, wedges and putters personalized with their name or initials stamped into the back of the clubhead. For players who know their specs – in terms of loft, lie, length, etc. – the process is a snap.
While we could walk you through the process of customizing and personalizing a $1,199.99 set of Taylormade M CGB irons, let's talk wedges.
The online process starts with a milled club selling for $149.99 and walks the user through the desired degree of loft and lie, shaft length and grip thickness. Lofts can be weakened or strengthened by up to 3 degrees. Lie angle can be adjusted up to 3 degrees flatter or more upright. Up to 2 inches can be added in shaft length.
Buyers can select a steel or graphite shaft and, if they choose graphite, they can select a shaft manufacturer, a shaft flex and other variables, plus grip type, grip manufacturer, and even grip thickness measured in number of tape wraps under the grip.
The club is finished off with your personalized lettering – your name, nickname or whatever – and the orientation of the lettering, plus the color of ink to highlight the stamping. In our test of the Custom Shop personalization process, we went with:
A $149.99 Taylormade milled 60-degree wedge, polished metal surface, regular-flex Aerotech graphite shaft, one inch over standard length, one degree upright, a Golf Pride tour wrap with three extra layers of tape and our nickname in red ink. With our customization, the final price was $219.99. A steel-shafted version of the same club came in at $169.99.
The online ordering engine even gave me a date for shipping — two weeks and two days from clicking “add to cart.”
Not bad. Now if we could only dial up a, 310-yard drive and a 5-under round, we'd really be flushing it.