Written On The Bench While The Glue Set
There is a spiral notebook that lives next to the vice. People write in it while they wait for a joint to cure, which is about twenty minutes of standing around with nothing else to do. What follows is transcribed from it, with first initial and surname where the writer gave one and the handicap where they volunteered it.
We have not tidied the grammar and we have not left out the awkward ones. The fourth entry down is somebody explaining that we cost him a set he had already decided to buy, and it is our favourite thing in the book.
The Sessions That Change The Most Scorecards
Twelve years of blaming my four iron and it turned out the four iron was fine on cut grass and useless the moment the ball sat down half an inch. Nayeli showed me the entry mark on rung four and it was about four inches behind where it should have been. Wider sole in the long clubs, same shafts, and I have hit more greens from the rough this spring than in the previous three years put together.
I play out at a course where the fairways are basically concrete from the Fourth of July onward. Every previous fitting I have had was indoors and every previous set felt wrong by August. This is the first time anybody has actually put me on that surface and measured it instead of nodding sympathetically.
What I did not expect was how much of the session was spent looking at the ground rather than at a screen. She would walk out after every five swings and look at the scar. At one point she rejected a head I liked because the mark was creeping toward the heel even though the numbers were the best of the day. Six months later I understand why.
Came in ready to spend two and a half thousand dollars on a new set. Left having spent under two hundred, on a full bend, new grips and half an inch off the long irons. Arman told me flat out that the set I owned was better than what I was about to replace it with. I was slightly annoyed at the time. I have sent four people here since.
Off The Deck, Where The Argument Gets Settled
My three wood only ever worked off a tee, which is a strange thing to buy a three wood for. Turned out the sole was too flat for how steep I come in and it was digging on anything firm. The replacement is uglier and I do not care.
The hybrid session is the one I would recommend to anyone over fifty. They tested it out of the rough and off the collar first and barely bothered with the clean lie, which is exactly backwards from every shop I have been in and exactly right for how I actually use the club.
Driver session. Twenty minutes of spray paint before anybody mentioned a head. It turned out I was hitting it two-thirds of an inch above centre and losing spin I needed. New tee peg, ball an inch further back, same driver. Free.
I asked whether I should get the newest model and Bao read me the lead time, told me the previous generation measured within a hair of it, and found me one for four hundred dollars less. Nobody in retail has ever done that for me.
The Short End
Booked a wedge fitting in July and they told me to book a second one in January if I could, because the ground would be a different animal. I thought that was a sales line until I turned up in winter and watched the same wedge dig into soft overseed. Now I carry two fifty-six degree wedges with different grinds and swap them in November.
The putter session measures where you actually aim with a laser. I aim four feet right of the hole from twenty feet and have done for a decade. That single measurement was worth the fee before we touched the putter itself.
My son is thirteen and shot up five inches in a year. They refused to cut down an adult set for him and explained exactly why in a way he understood better than I did. Built him something appropriate for less than I expected to pay.
Not a fitting, just a regrip and a loft check on a set I have had forever. They treated it exactly like it was a two thousand dollar job, printed a sheet, and charged me sixty-one dollars.
Why There Are No Photographs Of Anybody
Several people have offered and we have declined every time. A page of stock-looking headshots is the easiest thing in the world to fake and therefore proves nothing, whereas a specific complaint about a four iron on rung four is the kind of detail that only comes from somebody who was actually standing on the plot.
If you would like to talk to a past customer before booking, ask. Several regulars have said they are happy to take a call, and Bao will connect you with somebody who plays a similar game to yours.