Tom Wishon – The Father of American Club Fitting.

Written by Mel Sole on January 17, 2015. Posted in Golf Equipment, Golf News

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After I had read Tom Wishon’s book “In search of the perfect club.” I finally understood how complicated clubfitting is.

In the years I was a club pro in South Africa ( from 1966 to 1983), clubfitting was taking a student out on the range, letting him hit a few balls and saying, “You need an “R” Shaft and a D2 Swingweight. If the student was very tall, I would say, “Let’s add an inch.” That was as technical as I ever got. Today club fitters use sophisticated technology to measure clubhead speed, toe down, kick factor, smash factor, ball spin, and launch angle. Just to name a few of the measurements. Here is an insight into the Father of American Clubfitting, Tom Wishon, did by golfdashblog.com.

Tom Wishon - The Father of American Club Fitting.

This month’s not so “Quick 9″ is with master clubmaker Tom Wishon.

Tom discusses club design. Golf club myths, getting properly fitted. Future technology and much more. You’ll learn a ton. I promise. I’m so thankful to Tom for agreeing to do is and put this important (and often VERY misunderstood) information out there for you. First: Who exactly is Tom Wishon? With more than 35 years of experience in the field, Tom Wishon Golf Technology is recognized as one of the industry leaders in the research of golf club design, performance and clubfitting technology.

Our R&D has been at the forefront of the golf industry. Including the development of more than 50 golf club design technology firsts. As well as countless discoveries in the science of golf club performance for golfers. Having begun his golf equipment career in 1972, Tom Wishon has designed over 300 original and innovative clubhead models. More than any other single person in the 500 year history of the game.

His clubhead designs represent more than 50 different technology firsts.

Tom Wishon is the only designer from the custom clubmaking side of the golf industry whose clubhead designs have been used to win on the PGA Tour, the Champions Senior Tour and in Ryder Cup competition. He has designed and custom built the golf clubs used in competition by Scott Verplank, Bruce Lietzke, Ben Crenshaw, as well as the last set of clubs played by Payne Stewart before his tragic accident in 1999. Tom is the also the author of 9 books within the field of golf club design, performance and clubfitting. In addition to hundreds of equipment related articles written for virtually every golf publication in the golf industry.

As Terry McSweeney, Director of Communications for the PGA of America, states, “Tom has the unique ability to communicate technical issues about golf equipment. So non-technically minded people can easily understand and follow the subject.”

Two of Wishon’s books, The Search for the Perfect Golf Club and The Search for the Perfect Driver qualified for best-selling status. And won successive Book of the Year awards in 2006 and 2007 from the International Network of Golf. The oldest and largest organization of golf industry media professionals in the world.

He is considered the ‘go-to guy’ by the equipment editors for many of the major consumer golf publications. Searching for honest, marketing-free explanations about the technical performance of golf clubs.

Jim Achenbach, equipment editory for Golf Week magazine has said, “Tom is the smartest person in the golf industry when it comes to golf clubs.” As Tom stated in making his decision to establish his own company in 2003: “I completely respect the product design work of the large golf equipment companies. But my three decades in golf club R&D has proven without question that the best set of golf clubs any golfer will ever play will be a set of professionally custom fit golf clubs. And not a set of standard made clubs simply bought off the shelf. Because I know this is the only way any golfer can hope to play to the best of their ability and benefit the most from swing instruction.”

Click here for the rest of the interview.

Source: golfdashblog.com

Picture: wishongolf.com

Thanks for reading – Tom Wishon – The Father of American Club Fitting.