Get Fit The Ping Fitting Van Experience
Sunday, at The Meadows Golf Course in Blue Island, IL, a suburb directly south of Chicago, Klees Golf Shop hosted a Ping Demo Days. The Ping Fitting Van came out and parked right next to the driving range. The two men in charge, John and Matt, were young, energetic and organized. Matt ran the launch monitor, a laptop with a box below that I did not get to view.
John worked with the people signed up for fitting or who came by to see what was going on. The Men's Club was finishing their round and a few of them came by wondering if Ping clubs were being given away. Despite 30+mph winds and the threat of storms, there were a surprisingly large number of people playing golf.
John and Matt set up at least 20 bags of clubs. There were G10s, Raptures and Rhapsodies for every kind of golfer. This was a Southpaw's Paradise and a woman golfer's delight. Drivers, fairway woods, hybrids and the iron carts, multiple lofts and shafts types. If you couldn't find a Ping club that worked for your swing you weren't looking.
People came by to find out their irons didn't fit, their driver lofts were too low or their shafts were too stiff. One guy actually discovered he needed an Xtra stiff shaft, a surprise to him and me. I picked up a 16 degree Rhapsody driver and hit three terrific drivers, at least 160 yards, all straight. A couple of other women did even better with G10 drivers with 12 degree lofts and soft-regular flexes.
The Fitting Van was set up with a wide-screen TV monitor that ran a DVD of the fitting process and people's experience getting fit for their clubs. I was not in a position to view the DVD but I heard the same sequences enough times to figure out that personal testimonies were the primary selling point.
A major thunderstorm cut the fitting day short by an hour. But, everyone who came seemed to have really enjoyed the experience and I know some of them benefited. Klees Golf Shop has already written up four orders and there may be more to follow.
Surprises? There were plenty of golfers playing at The Meadows who never heard of our shop. There were plenty of golfers who hadn't been to Klees Golf Shop in over ten years and had no idea where we were. There were also golfers who came by to fool around with no intention of changing equipment. I suspect that group makes up a big percentage of who shows up at Demo Days. The guys from Ping seemed to think that, too, but they were remarkably good natured about this and gave everyone far more attention than I would have.
Ping does a terrific job at enabling golfers to experience a full range of equipment, with the tools, bells and whistles you'd expect from the company that made club fitting an industry standard. If you've never been to a Ping Demo Days you're missing something.
