Players Who Live Half the Year Somewhere Else
Roughly two in five sessions here belong to somebody whose golf is split between this valley and a cooler, denser place. The travel column exists almost entirely because of them.
I have wintered here since 2009 and spent every one of those years quietly convinced that my Wisconsin golf had gone backwards. It had not. My clubs were simply doing two different things in two different climates and no one had ever put both figures next to each other on one page. Seeing it in print was almost annoying. Fifteen years of blaming my swing.
The part I did not expect was being told which of my numbers to distrust. There is a grey block on the sheet listing the shots they threw out and why. I have had fittings before where every ball counted, including the two I topped, and I never once questioned it.
Booked because my seven iron felt short. Left having been told my seven iron was fine and my six was two degrees weak from a bending job somebody did in 2019. Cost me nine dollars and a two-day wait instead of a new set. I have sent four people since.
My complaint, and I did make it at the time, is that the session took a lot longer than I expected. They change one thing, write it down, change the next thing, write that down. It is not fast and it is not especially entertaining. I understood why by the end, but bring patience.
The Outcome Nobody Advertises
These are here because they are the strongest evidence for how the place is run, and because they are the accounts a studio on commission could not print.
Told me plainly that my dispersion was too wide for the equipment to be the constraint and that I should spend the money on lessons. Handed me three names. Charged me for the session and nothing else. I was mildly insulted for about a week and then I booked the lessons.
I arrived expecting to buy a full set and left with a regrip and an appointment for the following autumn. The measured answer was that my irons were correct and my grips were eleven years old. I would have spent two thousand dollars solving the wrong problem.
Went in for a putter fitting and was told my misses were not patterned enough to fit to yet, and that a putter would not fix them. She offered to run the session anyway if I wanted. I did not. That is the only time a shop has ever talked me out of spending money.
Where the Filing System Earns Its Keep
Fitted in 2017, then a bad back and six years away from the game. Rang up half expecting to start from nothing and Simone read my old specifications back to me over the phone. The new sheet prints the 2017 numbers next to the 2026 ones. I have lost eleven yards with a seven iron and gained about four degrees of humility, and it is all written down.
My father was fitted here in 2015 and died in 2022. I brought his clubs in to be re-specified for me and they still had his file. Being handed his old sheet was not something I was ready for. They also did not charge me for pulling it.
How These Were Collected
Simone asks, by email, roughly three months after a session. Three months rather than three days, because the useful question is whether the clubs held up on a golf course, not whether the afternoon was pleasant.
- Nothing is offered in exchange, not a discount or a free regrip
- Replies are printed as written, with only surnames confirmed
- Criticism is kept in; two of the accounts above contain some
- Anyone can withdraw theirs at any point by ringing the desk
Roughly one client in five replies at all, which is about what you would expect and is worth knowing when reading any collection like this one, here or anywhere else.
The Fair Warning
Read the fourth account in the first block again. Sessions here genuinely do run long, and the process is repetitive by design. If you want a quick answer and a club in your hands the same afternoon, we are the wrong studio and would rather you knew that now.
Come and get your own account of it
Ring the desk, describe the shot that is costing you, and see whether we tell you to book anything at all.