At the mobile trailer parked on the grounds of Doral Arrowwood Golf Club, they talk about “swing DNA” this spring. Whether you hook or slice, putt long or drive short, that swing is yours alone. The two-man staff and the technology they”™ve brought to Westchester County in their Hot Stix Golf trailer offer prescriptions to help a golfer get better at the game.
“You”™d be amazed how constant it is,” said Steve Grosz, a senior fitter at the mobile Hot Stix Golf Performance Center, who works outdoors with a laptop and his company”™s proprietary software about as ably as he wields a wood or iron on the nearby practice range. He was talking about one”™s “swing DNA.” A golfer can”™t change that, but can change the clubs in one”™s bag to better fit that DNA.
Based in Scottsdale, Ariz., Hot Stix Golf is an eight-year-old company that has become the largest independent tester of golf equipment in the world. At its research and development lab in Scottsdale, an engineering team and a resident robot with a reliably automatic swing test manufacturers”™ clubs and component parts from head to shaft. The database of measurements is used to match golfers”™ swings with new clubs or rebuild old clubs.
Making its first appearance on the East Coast, the Hot Stix Performance Center tracks a golfer”™s DNA with TrackMan, a Danish company”™s state-of-the-art equipment that uses Doppler radar technology to measure various shot characteristics, including trajectory, carry distance, club speed and spin rate. Golfers looking to cut strokes from their game with DNA-friendly clubs can view three-dimensional measurements of their club movement and ball flight in real time.
The company said it has custom-fitted more than 100 players on the PGA Tour and more than 25,000 amateur players. “Once it gets accepted on the PGA tour, everybody wants to use it,” said Joe Pica, golf manager at Doral Arrowwood.
Mitchell Spearman, the English golf pro and instructor who has brought his Mitchell Spearman Golf Academy to Doral for a second season and his Mitchell Spearman Junior Golf Camp there for a third season, shares a client base with Hot Stix: “Frustrated golfers who want to get better. Golfers have one thing in common ”“ they all want to get better,” he said.
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“It”™s been a great collaboration of bringing brands together, of my instruction and their club-fitting, to bring us to where we”™re at,” Spearman said. “It”™s really putting Doral on the map for what it has. This is going to be a big thing for the New York area.”
The Hot Stix Golf Performance Center opened May 1 at the Rye Brook resort”™s nine-hole course. It is open by appointment from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. For an appointment, call toll-free 877-513-1333.
A fitting for woods costs $200, as does an irons fitting; a putter fitting is $75. A club-fitting package is $475. A game fitting, in which Hot Stix pros go through every club in the bag and test the golfer in on-course situations, costs $795.
Hot Stix fitters do not recommend any one manufacturer”™s line of clubs. “Our feeling is that every manufacturer makes great equipment, but it”™s different, and there”™s only one club that”™s right for one person,” said Grosz.
“If the clubs that they have work for a person, then we can just retrofit them, modify them” to better fit that person”™s swing DNA, said Hot Stix fitter Chris Marsh.
“It can get expensive,” Grosz said. But it”™s wiser spending for golfers who spend anyway on replacement clubs. “A lot of people go through a lot of clubs that don”™t fit them,” he said.
“I run across golfers all the time who have the wrong clubs in their bag,” Spearman said.
“Don”™t work for the golf club, let the golf club work for you,” Marsh said. His company”™s personalized club-fitting technology helps a golfer do just that.
With Hot Stix technology, “I think it”™s getting the right information into the hands of golfers that”™s going to help them,” Spearman said.
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