When PGA of America Golf Professional Jim Phenicie was selected to join Titleist’s then-new Leadership Advisory Staff in 1992, clubfitting was still a niche many people considered a perk for tour players. Static measurements like height, sleeve length and hand size were coin of that tiny realm, and the majority of recreational players were content with choosing between right- and left-handed heads in an R, S or X flex.
“The first system Titleist put together was a big cart with a bunch of 5-irons,” says Phenicie, the PGA of America Director of Instruction and part owner of WindRose Golf Club outside Houston, Texas. “The process might have taken 30 minutes, 45 at the most.”
Fast forward more than 30 years and Phenicie is still one of Titleist’s most trusted fitters, but his role for his clients has changed. Instead of operating as an evangelist for the benefits of custom fitting, Phenicie is helping players curate the firehose of information they get from sources ranging from social media to tour telecasts.
“There’s so much more information and education out there, which is a good thing, but it’s easy to get overwhelmed or go in the wrong direction,” says Phenicie, who rejoined WindRose in 2016 after a previous seven-year stint as an instructor there in the 2000s. “You also see players coming in with strong opinions already formed, or they have misconceptions about what they need. Maybe they hit a buddy’s driver and they’re convinced that’s the only club for them.”
Phenicie’s meticulous routine – and elaborate fitting area – make the process of getting new clubs much more about data than emotions.
“With all the options, components and the way we can measure every swing, you’re going to need somebody for 90 minutes or two hours to go through drivers, fairways, hybrids, irons and wedges,” says Phenicie, who has camera- and radar-based launch monitors, force plates and 3D motion capture capabilities. “I’ll run them through a custom fit mostly with my Titleist stuff because I have so many options, but then I’ll go to my Ping equipment and my Callaway equipment and try to build as much of an exact duplicate as I can. Sometimes it might even be the exact same shaft. And then we let the numbers tell the story from there.”
While some exotic driver shafts can carry price tags north of $1,000, Phenicie’s builds trend toward precisely optimized versions of manufacturers’ bread-and-butter components. And while driver and iron builds tend to get most of the attention, Phenicie says the most important benefit for many players comes from work in another row of the bag.
“The one thing players miss the most is what they need to do with their wedges,” says Phenicie, who charges $180 for a 90-minute fitting. “A set of clubs is not a traditional set anymore. Pitching wedges used to be 50 degrees. Now, they’re 42 or 43 degrees. Balancing that end of the bag for loft and bounce characteristics is really important – and, honestly, a place where the average player can gain a lot of ground. How many times do you hit your wedges in a round compared to your driver?”
A decorated instructor in addition to his fitting credentials, Phenicie breaks out his week into roughly 60 percent teaching and 40 percent fitting. No matter the time crunch, he emphasizes what green grass facilities stand to lose if they don’t emphasize in-house fitting.
“Companies like Club Champion have popped up because people want a personal touch,” says Phenicie, the 2003 Southern Texas PGA Section Teacher of the Year and a Golf Digest Best in State Teacher. “It would behoove every golf course to have a specific teacher/fitter on site all the time – running their own programs – instead of just relying on the OEMs to run demo days. There’s an opportunity there that could be missed.”
