I must say before I kick this off that I really didn’t know what to expect when we headed over to the Bay Area on a cold November afternoon. I recall being in the car and saying to myself, “this is nuts; we aren’t actually going to fit Steph Curry today…are we?”
Think about it for a second, Steph Curry is arguably the face of the NBA and is hands down the greatest shooter of this or maybe any generation. His golf legacy has been well told as well with The Underrated Tour, which has been a huge success, along with his efforts around the Howard Golf team which, in my opinion, is the kind of action that is essential to actually growing the game.
As a golfer/athlete, I had seen videos and heard from people who had seen it live, watched it on TV, but I had NO CLUE the guy was this good. He STRIPES it. PGA Tour quality? Maybe. But elite amateur? Hell Yes.
And now, we will be in the mud with this legend getting him dialed in? WOW. Thankfully I had one of my favorite people with me, Korn Ferry Rep Mike Soroka, who is known to be one of the best Driver fitters in the game. The whole day would be one of discovery, fun, and probably some gear geek, what have you.
The fitting started off with him running through his current set-up:
Driver: Rogue ST TD S (9 degrees, -1/N)
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus Blue 7 X (45 inches, D3)
3-wood: Mavrik Sub Zero (13.5 degrees)
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus Blue 8 X (43 inches, D3)
Utility: X Forged UT ‘21 (18 degrees)
Shaft: KBS Tour 130 X
Irons: Apex Pro ’19 Double Dot (4-PW)
Shafts: Project X 6.5
Wedges: Callaway Jaws MD5 (50-10S, 56-10S, 60-10S)
Shafts: Project X 6.0
Putter: Odyssey Toulon Atlanta (Stroke Lab)
Ball: Callaway Chrome Soft X LS 22
Grips: Golf Pride Tour Velvet Midsize
Here is a snapshot of his numbers:
7-Iron:
2-iron:
Driver:
We then shifted to Irons which ended up being Raw Apex TCBs:
The cool thing in regards to the irons was the introduction of the CSX 22 VS the CSX LS he has been playing; launch went down, spin went up along with ball speed, resulting in a bit more carry overall and some tighter gapping across the set. The last finding was we noticed that it was much easier for him to control certain shapes in the wind with CSX vs. LS.
After Irons, we jumped to a new X21 UT 19 and TD 3-wood that he loved after only hitting five shots with each. VS, his gamer, the X21, gave him a bit more spin and was much easier to turn over when he needed to. The Paradym TD 3-wood was probably the easiest piece of the bag; it launched higher, ball speed went up, spin went up, the dispersion was MUCH tighter, and total carry went up. This was a 15-degree head VS the 13.5 degree Mavrik he had in the bag previously. He immediately felt more confident seeing a bit more loft and had little trouble getting the Paradym UP which was something he really wanted out of his 3-wood.
Now to the big stick:
This is what Callaway Performance Rep Mike Soroka (who was running the fitting) had to say:
Steph is a rare high-speed/low-spin player that we’ll run into on the fitting side of things. Typically players with that much speed also create a decent amount of spin.
One of the challenges was that Steph likes to see an initial window that is on the lower end, so we couldn’t increase launch parameters to “ideal” numbers because he would end up covering the ball more or swinging steeper to get the launch angle to where he likes to see it. So we only increased the launch angle by about three-tenths of a degree but increased the spin by just over 400 rpm. Steph noticed the ball was staying in the air a little bit longer with the increase of spin and was also happy with where he saw the ball when he looked up after impact Between the increase of spin (shaft and weight setup) and the technology in the Paradym driver, down-range dispersion was night and day better than his Rogue gamer.
The Paradym TD 9.0 was about one mph faster, but between moving to the Ventus TR Red shaft and moving the heavy weight back, we were able to get the launch parameters to where he picked up 13 yards of carry and 10 yards overall on best shot vs. best shot. He immediately felt a little more feel with the Ventus TR Red shaft, which he really liked.
We ended up with Paradym TD 9.0, Ventus TR Red 7x, 1” tipping, and 45” EOG.
Stephs New WITB
Driver: Paradym TD (9 degrees, N/S) 12GB/6GF
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus Red TR 7X (45 inches, D3, Tipped 1, 194.9G)
3-wood: Paradym TD ADJ (15@15.2)
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus Blue 8X (43 inches, D3, Tipped 1.5)
Utility: X21 Tour (19@18.5)
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus Blue HYB 10X (40.25 Inches, D4, 60 lie)
Irons: Apex TCB Raw (4-PW)
Shafts: Project X 6.5 (+.75 length, D4, STD Lie)
Lofts: 23/26/29/33/37/41/45
Wedges: Callaway Jaws Raw (50/10S, 56/10S@55, 60/08Z)
Shafts: Project X 6.0
Putter: Odyssey Toulon Atlanta (Stroke Lab)
Ball: Callaway Chrome Soft X 22
Grips: Golf Pride Tour Velvet Midsize
I hope you enjoyed the video as I had a dream day filming it, and its an experience I will never forget.
LFG
JDub
