Cobra Smarter Ways To Lower Scores: 5-handicap Mark Smith’s Fitting

Golf Monthly reader Mark Smith enjoys a full driver-to-wedge custom-fitting as part of our ‘2017 Smarter Ways to Lower Scores’ project with Cobra Golf…

Cobra Golf Smarter Ways to Lower Scores 2017

Name: Mark Smith Handicap: 5.3 Home Club: Gog Magog GC, Cambridgeshire

Mark's Cobra Golf custom-fitting hopes and goals "I’m an open-minded, competitive and very active golfer, playing in nearly all my club competitions plus numerous scratch and handicap events across the UK & Europe. I’ve had several fittings over the past decade, but remained loyal (biased?) towards. the same manufacturer for each product during that time.

"But despite changing my specs and having lessons, I’ve stayed a 5-handicap over this period. Time for a change perhaps? I’m looking forward to this opportunity to be fitted for an entire range built to my specification by Cobra, a company I’ve not considered before."

Monday 24th July 2017: progress report Video story: Check out Mark's most recent progress from our catch-up at a Europro Tour Pro-Am in late July at Luton Hoo...

Tuesday 6th June 2017: progress report

"After receiving my fitted Cobra clubs, bag, apparel and shoes, I spent two weeks on the range and courses at Gog Magog dialling in the yardages of my King Forged TEC Irons & King Versatile Wedges.

"The week after, I put them into play in a Golf Foundation Medal at Gog Magog GC, shooting net par to finish 10^th. The following two Medals I finished 2^nd and 3^rd shooting two under my handicap and getting a 0.5 cut in the process."

Forged TEC Irons 5-GW "My TEC irons are the most consistent iron I’ve ever played. Their penetrating but high ball flight has allowed me to hit more greens in regulation on longer iron shots and they consistently play up to 10% further than my old irons. They are very forgiving on the odd inevitable mis-hit and so easy to hit with the aid of the KBS Tour C-Taper Lite Stiff shafts."

King F7 Driver "After initial issues with ball flight caused by a steep attack angle, we’ve fine-tuned my King F7 Driver to allow a slightly lower launch to even out distance into the wind. The fitting has given me a 20% increase in 'fairways hit' compared to my previous driver. The Arccos Connect system built into the King F7 Drivers works great with the App on my iPhone."

King F7 3-wood & Hybrid "I had initial problems with ball-striking using the fairway wood. It tended to balloon up in the air, especially into the wind, costing me distance and accuracy. So we adjusted the settings to create a lower ball flight and it is now performing as expected. I have struggled with the hybrid, though, due to its high ball flight, which is not ideal in windy conditions at my home club, resulting in a large gap to my fairway wood.

"Overall, my stats are showing an improvement from tee to green due to my fairways in regulation percentage and some consistent iron play. I'm looking forward to making the new wedges work for me from 100 yards going forward. If only Cobra made Putters!"

Monday 13th March 2017 Driver-to-wedge custom-fitting session at Silvermere Golf & Leisure, Surrey

Fitted by Joe Folker, Cobra Golf Brand Experience Manager…

Driver - Cobra King F7 10.5˚, HZRDUS Red 65 6.0 stiff shaft, draw weight, black “Mark felt he always leaked his current driver right, so I moved the 12g weight into the heel setting to encourage a bit of draw bias.”

3/4-wood - Cobra King F7 15.5˚, Fujikura Pro 65 stiff shaft, front weight, black “Our standard stock stiff shaft gave Mark the best results and the nice high flight that he wanted. He was getting 235 yards of total distance with around 220 yards of carry.”

3/4-hybrid - Cobra King F7 19.5˚, HZRDUS Black 85 6.0 stiff shaft “Mark had two hybrids but from looking at the numbers on TrackMan they did a pretty similar job. So we replaced those with one club that fitted the gap perfectly.”

Irons 5-GW - Cobra King Forged Tec KBS C Taper Lite stiff shaft, standard length, 1˚ flat “Mark’s current irons were quite bladed with quite a heavy shaft and he felt he lost a bit of control and didn’t get much feedback from the shaft. So we put him into a head that was more forgiving and a shaft that was much lighter, which meant he instantly got more distance with a carry gain of 13 yards.”

Wedges - Cobra King Versatile 52-08, 56-10, 60-08 “Mark’s irons will come with pitching and gap wedges. He currently carries three wedges and chipping is one of his strengths so we gave him 52, 56 and 60 models in the Versatile offering of our King wedge. He plays a lot of links golf so didn’t want anything with too much bounce – Versatile is our mid-bounce option and it performed best for him.”

Grips: Lamkin REL Black (driver with CONNECT grip)

Mark’s feedback “The difference in the irons was another 8-10mph of ball speed and around 14 more yards of carry, which was an amazing stat. We got a little right-to-left shape going with the driver, which I said at the beginning of the day I was after, and I didn’t need to swing the club any faster –I got 3mph more without needing to do anything. It’s been an amazing day. Having not hit Cobra clubs before, the quality was top-class and I’ve been very impressed by the fitting process.”