This is the story of how that happened, what it did to my traditional game and why I think you should try it.

Why I Play FlingGolf

On my way out of the Dick's job, a friend of mine named Joe Jenkins, aka Hollywood and who's now my doubles partner and team co-owner (go Rogues), asked if I wanted to drive up to a tournament with him in Amesbury, Massachusetts. I said “hell yeah, I'm in”. Twelve hours in the car, and a dingy motel stay later, I'm standing in Amesbury meeting the pros, getting introduced to Alexander Van Alen, the creator of FlingGolf, and John Pruellage, President of World League FlingGolf, and getting handed my first FlingStick. The rest was history. I'm currently 18th in the world in FlingGolf, was named the MVP of the 2024 World League FlingGolf All-Stars Skills Challenge, am the Owner of River City Rogues, LLC, and absolutely wouldn't be here without FlingGolf.

Here's what clicked for me almost immediately. The golf swing is not a swing at all. It's a throw. It's a throwing motion. If you play anything rotational, anything that involves throwing a ball or rotating through your body, you don't just have the ability to play FlingGolf. You already have an edge on understanding what a golf swing is actually supposed to be. The only thing standing in your way is the pile of preconceived notions you've been told about what the swing should look like. Take those out. Think about what the motion really is. It's a throw.

That's why I keep flinging. It stripped the game back down to something athletic and honest. One tool, a natural motion and a target.

How FlingGolf Made Me a Better Traditional Golfer

This is the part I've made a few videos about, because it surprised me.

With a bag of 14 clubs, you've got a different tool for every situation. Different carry distances, different lies, fourteen answers to fourteen questions. With FlingGolf, you don't get that luxury. You have one FlingStick and what's between your ears. You're an artist with a single paintbrush for the entire canvas of the golf course, and it's up to you to create a work of art for 9 or 18 holes.

That constraint made me a far better course manager. When you can't club up or club down, you start reading a hole completely differently. Hazards you'd never think twice about with a driver in hand are suddenly very much in play. You're navigating, picking angles, thinking two shots ahead instead of just swinging at the green and hoping. You really have to think of carry vs total distance, especially since we don't have the benefit of backspin to slow the ball down. It's even more apparent in your short game. You learn to be a spot chipper really quickly. Find a spot on the green where your ball should be and put it there. Let the ball do the rest.

It works. In September of 2025, I shot a 66 at Hunting Hawk Golf Club in Glen Allen, Virginia. White tees, almost 6,000 yards, with a maximum throwing distance of about 220 yards, roughly the total length of my 4 iron. It makes you think, "maybe I don't need my driver on this hole." FlingGolf humbles you, but it also gives you some things to truly be proud of. Not to brag, but it's also helped me achieve my personal best in clubhead speed and ball speed. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought I'd achieve 180 ball speed, but I have FlingGolf to thank for that.

Picture this scenario: You're staring down the barrel of a 150 yard par 3. It's playing downhill, wind in your face with bunkers on the left and right. If I were to play traditional golf, my immediate thought is a nice 9 iron, get it to the middle of the green. But in FlingGolf, we don't have that luxury, we don't have that safety net to fall back on. We look at this par 3 and think, "man, what throw gets me there, through the wind

The thing I keep coming back to is my Topgolf days. I was teaching kids the swing for three years, and I wish I'd known about FlingGolf then. I could have taught my students so much more effectively, because I could have shown them the throw first and let the swing follow. The mechanics make sense in your body before they ever make sense in your head.

It also changed how I think about equipment. Once you understand the swing as a throw, you stop blaming your hands and start looking at whether your gear matches the motion you actually make. That is the whole idea behind our free club fitting: diagnose the motion first, then fit the clubs to it. Ace, our AI club fitter, is tuned to my fitting logic, and the extensive research I've done as a student of the game of golf.

Why You Should Give it a Try

We're going to get pushback from traditionalists. That's okay. I think about snowboarding and skiing. Snowboarding lives right alongside skiing because you don't have to modify the slopes to accommodate it. Same deal here. You don't modify the course for FlingGolfers. We play right alongside everyone else, and our pace of play is faster.

We're playing the same distances. We're driving, chipping and putting the ball like anybody else on the property. The only true difference is how we get from tee to hole.

And FlingGolf has given me a lot. It lets me travel around the country playing in tournaments, doing meet and greets, beat-the-pro events and charity events. It's given me something to do with my Dad. And it was the last thing my late mother saw me do that she was proud of. Those last two matter more than any score I've ever shot or any place I've ever been to.

So in short, FlingGolf really is the Future of the Fairway they advertise, because anyone can play it. If you can throw something, you can play FlingGolf. If you're tired of the traditional, snooty thought process around the game, this is right up your alley. And if you're like me and you just want to think outside the box about your golf, FlingGolf is right here waiting for you.

Pick up a stick. Go throw. And most importantly, have fun. If you're looking to get into FlingGolf and don't know where to look, head to the FlingGolf website. And if you're looking to find someone that can help you, we have Ambassadors like myself all over the country.

And if you'd like to read any of my other articles, head to the TPG blog. We've got reviews from golf ball brands, and more.

The Reason For Piss Missile

Basically, he, like a lot of us average Joes out there, think that Titleist ProV1 golf balls are too damn expensive. A sentiment I think we all share, especially in 2026 where it is.....let me check... oh yeah, 55 buckaroos a dozen for golf balls we all know we're gonna lose. And so he thought to do something. Create a 4 piece golf ball that performs well at a price that doesn't feel like you're being robbed by the guy behind the counter.
And I daresay he accomplished his mission.

What I Got From The Sim

I want to note that I did the test at The Park RVA, an entertainment venue in Richmond, VA that is equipped with Full Swing Simulators that were just upgraded to their newer software version. I used my 7 iron, a Nike VR TW Blade at 35 degrees for this initial test, and I also played a few holes on the sim as well just to see what things were like.

The first swing had some absolute POP. I typically hit my 7 iron about 170 yards, and immediately saw 7 to 10 extra yards. I was easily hitting that 7 of mine about 180 yards, which is in the perfect range of what I wanted. I then decided to go with my 2 iron, an 18 degree Srixon ZX driving iron, which I hit about 235, and got 245 out of it on my second swing. I was flabbergasted. I've tested a lot of Direct to Consumer golf balls in my time, and the question that always comes to mind is, "why the hell are we spending so much money on golf balls?" There's no reason to throw all this money down the drain when you have perfectly good golf balls that you can buy without nuking your wallet.

I then decided to pull out the big dog for shenanigans sake. I'm currently gaming a Srixon ZX5 MKII LS at 9.5 degrees, turned down to 8.5. I have a Mitsubishi Tensei White 65 X Stiff in as well. So I decided to start small, some cruising swings. I cruise around 112-114mph of clubhead speed. And these bad boys were FLYING about 285yds with no issues at all. I then decided to crank things up a little, going around 120mph of club head speed, and I hit my personal ball speed PR inside of 3 swings. The ball carried 301yds and rolled to 315. The spin rate was in the 2800s for that swing, so a little high, but I definitely managed to get a couple of swings inside of the low to mid 2 thousands in spin rate. So the balls are absolutely controllable and predictable. I'm a massive fan of this product, and to be completely honest, I didn't know what I was getting into when I tried these out, but I'm really glad I did. Thank you Rob for the opportunity to give these a proper try, and I'm definitely going to take these to the course for a more thorough review.
UPDATE, I PLAYED THESE A LOT ON THE COURSE AND OH MY GOD THEY'RE GREAT.

On the course, they played like an absolute dream. Both the standard PM and their other variant, the Rainmaker, their 3 piece control/spin ball. (Didn't know it had a brother, did ya?) But in all seriousness, these balls hang (heh) with the big box brands with ease.

The Rating

I did this for my article on Snyder Golf's SNY PRO, so I figured I should come back and readjust a few things. I'll be grading these on 3 pieces of criteria.

1. Appearance

2. Feel

3. Value For Money

Appearance: 5/5

I mean come on, did you expect anything less? The name of the brand is freaking PISS MISSILE and they are unapologetic about it. Piss Yellow and PROUD OF IT. With an alignment line for putting, and text that comes straight from the WM Phoenix Open, Rob knew who he was making these balls for, and no, it's not your stuffy ass grandpa who swears by only hitting his number 4 Callaways.

Feel: 4/5

I prefer a higher compression ball. Something clicky and responsive. A lot of folks don't like that feeling like you're hitting a rock, but somehow Piss Missile Golf has that feel, but with plenty of spin control to boot. It performed for me around the greens, and I even managed to nearly spin a ball back into the hole from a bad lie with a 54* wedge. I've never been able to pull that off before.

Value For Money: 4/5

This was easy. You have a ball in the standard Piss Missile that's only $35.99 on its website right now, and it's putting up really good stats. Right next to the top brands. I wouldn't feel nearly as guilty or pissed off if I shanked these (oh I did) into the woods, versus a ProV1 or a TP5.

If you're a fan of brands who don't take themselves too seriously, definitely give these guys a try. You won't regret it. I definitely didn't. I'll happily talk up Piss Missile Golf anytime.

If you're looking to snag some Piss Missiles of your own, hit this link.

Check out the brand on their socials, whether it's Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube.

Let em know True Path Golf and Garry sent you.

-Garry Callis Jr.
Founder/Editor
True Path Golf

Check out my review for Snyder Golf's SNY PRO here.

Gonna throw some cold water onto this debate. No, golf shaft flex is not standardized across brands. Flex letters, Ladies, Senior, Regular, Stiff, Extra Stiff, are each manufacturer's own internal label, not a regulated industry spec, and nothing requires one company's Stiff to match another's. Hell, if you look at brands like Tour AD, there's even a Stiff Regular in the mix somewhere. The real physical measurement underneath the letter is CPM, cycles per minute, and CPM is the number that actually behaves consistently from shaft to shaft. The letter is shorthand for a range of CPM values, and different companies draw and publish those ranges differently.

What a Flex Chart Actually Tells You

A swing-speed-to-flex chart gets you a starting band, not a diagnosis. Depending on which chart you're looking at, Regular usually sits somewhere around 75 to 95 mph and Stiff somewhere around 85 to 105 mph. Notice the overlap. That's not a typo. Flex categories are wide on purpose, often 15 to 20 mph per band, because shaft manufacturing sorts into a handful of buckets and your actual swing speed isn't a bucket. It's a continuous number that gets forced into one anyway. But something I want to note as well is that swing speed per iron and swing speed for driver are going to be two completely separate sets of criteria.

So when a chart hands you a letter, it already did less work than it looks like. It told you which neighborhood to start in.

Part of why those bands don't line up brand to brand comes down to what's actually different inside the shaft: wall thickness, the materials used, where along the shaft it's reinforced. Two companies can build a shaft to hit roughly the same CPM number and still produce a different feel, because CPM measures how much the shaft bends, not exactly where or how it bends along its length. There's going to be a difference in what a graphite Mitsubishi Tensei's "Stiff" is versus a Fujikura Ventus's "Stiff" or a steel Project X iron shaft versus a KBS.

Why "Stiff" Doesn't Mean the Same Thing Twice

CPM gets measured by clamping the grip end of a shaft, pulling the tip down, letting it go, and counting how many times it oscillates in a minute. Golf shafts generally run somewhere between 200 CPM, genuinely flexible, and 300-plus CPM, very stiff. A Regular typically lands in the low 240s to 260s. A Stiff typically lands in the 260s to 280s. Those ranges alone tell you flex is a spectrum getting sliced into labels, not a fixed point.

Here's where it actually breaks down. Tim Briand, a fitter with True Spec Golf, has pointed to two shafts in the same family, both labeled X-flex, that measure roughly 33 CPM apart: a Modus 120X running around 303 CPM and a Modus 130X running around 336. Same brand. Same letter on the label. That gap is wide enough to cover the difference between a Regular and a Stiff in some other manufacturer's entire lineup. If that's true inside one company's own X-flex shafts, treating "Stiff" as a portable, comparable spec across different brands was never going to hold up.

Kris McCormack, VP of Tour and Education at the same company, has put it even more bluntly, calling flex letters essentially irrelevant as standalone indicators: "One company's Stiff could be another company's X could be another company's red." Some brands skip letters entirely and label flex by color instead, which is its own reminder that the letter system was never a standard, just the convention most of the industry happened to settle on. Two different fitters, two separate examples, pointing at the same thing. The letter on the shelf tells you almost nothing by itself.

Torque Isn't Standardized Either

It's not only flex. Torque, a shaft's resistance to twisting through impact, has the identical problem. Every manufacturer measures it with a slightly different clamp size, a different distance from the clamp to where force gets applied and a different amount of force. A shaft rated 4.0 degrees of torque from one company isn't reliably a 4.0 from another. This isn't a weird exception buried in one spec sheet. It's a pattern in how the whole industry reports shaft numbers, which is the second reason a spec sheet from a brand switch can look identical on paper and feel nothing alike in your hands.

What This Means When You Switch Brands

Staying in the same letter across a brand switch is not a guarantee of staying in the same feel. If you can get the actual CPM number on both shafts, old and new, that's the real comparison, not the flex label printed on the side. If you can't get that number, which is common outside a fitting bay, that's your signal you need an actual fitting conversation instead of a chart lookup or a guess based on what worked last time.

Practically, that means walking into a fitting or a shaft comparison with three questions instead of one: what's the actual CPM, what's the torque rating, and where does the shaft kick, meaning where along its length it actually flexes. A flex letter alone answers none of those. All three together get you much closer to knowing whether a new shaft will genuinely feel like your old one, instead of just claiming to on the label.

The Shaft Is a Timing Mechanism

Here's the part most flex content skips entirely. Flex, weight and kick point work together as a system tuned to how you personally load and release a shaft on the way down, not just how fast you swing it. A golfer who times their release well can get more speed out of a lighter, whippier shaft than a heavier shaft that supposedly "matches" their speed would ever let them generate. That's part of why elite long drivers often compete with senior flex or even ladies flex driver shafts. They aren't slow swingers. They're golfers who load and release a shaft so efficiently that a lighter, whippier build converts into more clubhead speed than raw stiffness would.

Their everyday, on-course drivers usually run heavier and stiffer than the shaft they compete with, though. The ultra-light build is made to win with one all-out swing, but there's a lot to learn from those long drivers. A prime example of this is Martin Borgmeier. Martin Borgmeier has been using TPT driver shafts for years now and one of the things that he always talked about was CPM. A lot of these long drivers out here have those lightweight shafts because they know how to control their driver swing and they want it tuned to the CPM that they're swinging with, which is insane. The fact that someone can be that in tune with their equipment is damn near otherworldly in my opinion. But for us mere mortals, we can dial it back a bit.

I can make this concrete with my own bag, which is the reason why I even wrote this to begin with.

My driver is a Srixon ZX5 LS Mk II, dialed down to 7.5 degrees off a 8.5 degree head, with a Mitsubishi Tensei White AV in X-Stiff, about 65 grams, a low-spin, low-torque build. My clubhead speed sits right around 120 mph. PGA Tour average is 115. I'm meaningfully above that number, and that's exactly the profile that wants a heavier, stiffer, lower-spin shaft.

My irons are a Honma TR20 P, a player's distance set with a KBS $-Taper Lite in Stiff, only 100 grams, a full flex grade down from my driver shaft and noticeably lighter. I don't need to force iron speed the way my driver number suggests, and I get pretty steep at the bottom of my swing, which is part of why I can time a stiffer, lower-spin build well without it fighting me.

My wedges go the other direction again. Two TaylorMade MG wedges with True Temper Dynamic Gold S200 shafts, right around 127 grams, heavier than my irons on purpose. I don't take full swings with wedges, just a personal rule. I feel like I can time where the head is in my swing with heavier wedge shafts, but this isn't a one-size-fits-all rule.

Same golfer, three clubs, three different weight and flex answers, because each club is asking my swing to do something different. That's an argument a chart alone can't make for you.

What Your Ball Flight Is Already Telling You

Swing speed still matters. It's just not the whole conversation. If you're swinging your irons around 80 mph, I'm probably starting you in Regular. If you're swinging your driver somewhere around 90 to 95 mph, you're sitting right on the real cusp between Regular and Stiff, and that's not the chart failing you. It's a genuine toss-up that comes down to tempo and feel, not a number that resolves itself.

Your ball flight is already giving you a diagnostic most golfers never connect to their shaft. If you notice the clubface opening at the bottom of your swing and your shots are consistently missing right, that's usually a torque signal, not a flex one. The fix is often a heavier or higher-torque-resistant shaft, not simply going stiffer. Conventional wisdom says match the number and move on. I'd encourage you to make that call for yourself, because you're the only one who has to live with how the club feels, on and off the course. You also have to think of loft and lie angle. Are you an upright, or a flat player? These details matter, and it's best you get fit.

What This Means for You

If you can time it, the letter on the shaft matters less than the whole system working together: weight, flex, kick point and torque, tuned to your actual swing instead of a printed label.

Start a free shaft fitting with Ace at truepathgolf.me/smart-shaft-fitting. Ace doesn't need a launch monitor sitting in your garage to do this. It asks about your numbers, your tempo and what your ball is actually doing, and builds a real answer around that instead of handing you a letter and calling it done.

Check out my other articles, like the reviews on Piss Missile and Snyder Golf balls.

Garry Callis Jr.
Founder/Editor
True Path Golf

Before I get into the weeds here, I want to make this clear. I was not paid to write this article. And even if I was, it would get my unbiased opinion. That's a guarantee.

Why I Tested Snyder Golf

As someone who's been in and around the golf industry, you find brands you want to try. I've been to the PGA Show a couple times over the last couple of years, and I've had the honor to meet a lot of cool folks. In this case, I met Tino and Caspar Dietrich, the Founders of Snyder Golf USA. I introduced myself as a professional FlingGolfer and content creator, and because I was doing some scouting for my workplace, asked them about their website, content and all that good stuff.

TL:DR, I was seeing if they'd work with me on a project. But here we are 7 months later, and I'm writing about their stuff.

Here's what really grinds my gears about people and golf balls. A box of Pro V1s runs you around 55 smackaroos a dozen, which to me, is too much money. And if you're an average player, or a weekend warrior, you're losing some of those balls every single round. Think about this for a second. A ProV1 that you happened to skull-f*** into the woods costs $4.58 per ball. Do that to a full sleeve, and you're at $13.74.

Or, hear me out, you grab a box of Snyder Golf balls. If you lose a sleeve of these, you're at $6.90. At the cost of a dozen ProV1s vs the Snyders, you could get a glove, a couple of hot dogs at the turn, and a drink. Hell, you might even walk away with money left over.

Not everybody needs to be playing a Titleist Pro V1. Not everybody needs a Callaway Chrome Soft X or a TaylorMade TP5. A lot of that decision comes down to ego, not performance. We all know that one guy that thinks more expensive equipment is going to save a 2 dollar swing, when that isn't the case at all. This is my public service announcement: your golf ball matters just as much as your clubs, maybe more, because you're using it on EVERY single swing. If it's not right for you, you're leaving strokes on the table in the same way that ill-fitting clubs will.

Back when I was at Dick's Sporting Goods as a Golf Sales Lead, I had to do a seminar on the Paradym line from Callaway. At that time, I met Travis Murphy, who is now one of their Senior Product and Fitting Managers. He said something I'll never forget. He told us that every club fitting is a ball fitting, and that hit me like a bolt of lightning. Because he's right. You have to match the ball to the person. And that's why I am building this application from scratch.

On The Wedges And Around The Green

This is where the SNY Pro really had me thinking. On a 50 yard pitch shot, I typically try to keep my spin right around 5000 to 5500 RPM, and that's exactly where this ball sat. If I'm pitching from 50 yards, I know it's going to stop on a dime IF I hit it right.

On fuller wedge shots, from around 90 yds out, I'm looking for something closer to 9 to 10k RPM, enough spin that the ball stops or even checks back toward the hole. The SNY Pro got there consistently. I actually chipped one in during testing, and I've got the clip here for evidence.

If you're hitting your wedges well, the spin on this ball is genuinely controllable. That's not a small thing at 28 dollars a dozen. (get used to me talking about the price of these golf balls in this article.)

Driver And 7-Iron

I average right around 180 yards total with my 7-iron. Testing the SNY Pro, I stayed right in that window, with a couple of shots climbing to 190, even 195 yds.

Off the tee with my driver, the ball is HOT. I was consistently getting ball speeds in the 170's, and hit one shot that touched 180 mph. It's a high compression ball, and while I don't know the exact compression rating Snyder Golf uses, it performs in the same premium tier as a Pro V1 or a TP5, not a step below it.

The Verdict

This is new, and I'm gonna keep doing it for future ball reviews: a score out of five in three categories, appearance, feel and value for money.

Appearance: 3/5

It's a simple ball, no loud graphics, just the Snyder Golf logo and a straightforward alignment line for putting. It's giving similar energy to a Vice Golf ball. I'm a fan of simplicity. But I also like conversation starters. The brand name alone is going to invite some questions, but that's about it.

Feel: 4/5

Off the putter and the wedges, it's clicky and responsive. It feels the way a premium golf ball should feel, without needing a tour-level short game or a premium wallet to notice it.

Value for Money. 5/5

For $28, this ball is putting up the same kind of spin numbers as some of the most expensive balls in the game. Who am I to say no to that? And if the SNY Pro isn't your jam, they have quite a few more balls to choose from, and you can use their fitting tool to find out what's best for you.

If you're in the 105mph or higher swing speed category, you may have just found another option.

Total: 12 out of 15, an easy 4 out of 5 overall. A very strong start.

Sny Pro: Round Up

For $28 a dozen, I'd use this ball without hesitation. It's fast off the driver and the irons, and it's genuinely controllable around the greens where most budget balls feel a bit more inconsistent. If you're not a tour-level player squeezing out the last 1% of performance, the case for spending double on a premium OEM ball gets a lot harder to make after testing this bad boy.

Go grab a dozen: Snyder Golf SNY Pro, and let Snyder Golf USA know I sent you.

And if you're rethinking what's actually in your bag after reading this, that's kind of the point. The ball is arguably the most important piece of equipment you use on the golf course. So make the right choice. Start a free fitting with Ace at truepathgolf.me and find out if the rest of your bag is dialed in too, or not what you thought it was.

Snyder Golf is the official golf ball of the German Golf Association, and so writing a piece for a brand this prestigious is beyond my comprehension. Thank you to Caspar for all of his help on getting my videos out more on social media. Let me know what products I should write about next. And if you want to see my review on Piss Missile Golf, check it out here.

Garry Callis Jr.
Founder/Editor
True Path Golf

I am not new to golf, either. I spent about a year as a golf fitter and sales lead manager at Dick’s Sporting Goods, two years in secondhand golf sales with Next Round Golf in Richmond, Virginia, and three years across multiple roles at Topgolf. Counting all of that plus the content I have made on my own, I have been in and around this industry for close to eight years. FlingGolf is still the best thing that has happened to me in it.

None of what I have listed above happens without FlingGolf. This sport has been some of the most fun I have had in my life, and I do not think I would be where I am without it. So I want to give the guys at FlingGolf their flowers, and I want to make the case for why this game deserves a lot more credit than it gets.

The Snobbery Is Real, and It’s Missing the Point

Traditionalists see FlingGolf and write it off immediately. Bad apple. Not “savory” for the golf course. Different, and different is bad. I get it, but I do not think most of the people saying that have actually thought about who this game is for.

My dad is 62. He is an Air Force veteran, and he does not have the same range of motion he used to. I can still get on the course with my dad and be competitive, have a great time, whether we are playing traditional golf or FlingGolf that day. That is the whole point. There are a lot of people who do not jive with the traditional golf world. It can be snooty. It can be exclusionary. It can be uptight, and honestly, it can be flat-out cost-ineffective for a lot of families.

FlingGolf gets people on the course, having a great time, at a price point that is actually realistic. Our highest-end model runs $200, you get a bag, something to hold water, a couple of balls, and that is it. You will lose way fewer balls than you will playing traditional golf, and you learn the actual essence of the game without half the hassle or the expense.

“You’ll Never Play This on a Real Course”

I hear this one constantly, and it is just not true anymore. I was honored to run a tournament at Magnolia Greens Golf Club last year, a Troon property. We have taken FlingGolf to over 3,000 golf courses at this point, including Pebble Beach and St. Andrews. We have played the same stops tour players have played, and plenty of courses most people will never get to set foot on in their lifetime. If FlingGolf can tee it up at St. Andrews, “you will never play this on a real course” is not an argument anymore. People typically shun what they don't understand. Traditionalists quake in their boots when they see me. Black guy, 30s, long dreadlocks, and doing a thing they have never seen before on their "precious golf course." I'll tell you a story. I remember being at The Hollows Golf Club in Hanover, Virginia. The starter walks up to me, looks me up and down, spots the FlingStick in my hand and asks, "what in the hell is that?" I give him my 30 second elevator pitch explaining what the game is all about, and then he hits me with the "let's see it bud" look. I proceed to launch a ball about 215 down the middle of the fairway and he was in sheer shock. I proceeded to shoot a 75 that day and that starter never gave me crap again.

You’re Painting an Entire Canvas With One Piece of Equipment

The vitriol we get online is honestly kind of funny, because I do not think most of the people dishing it out could do what we do. In traditional golf, you are standing over a 150-yard par 3 with water in front, and you have got a bag full of clubs to solve that problem. In FlingGolf, you have got one piece of equipment, and you are the one who has to figure out how to get it there.

FlingGolf teaches course management in a way I have not seen matched by any other sport, including golf itself. I shot a 66 at Hunting Hawk Golf Club in Glen Allen, Virginia, with a maximum distance of about 220 yards, roughly what a 4-iron would give you. That is not something a lot of people can pull off, and it should tell you something about what this game actually demands.

This Sport Includes People the Traditional Game Leaves Behind

Do not get me started on how this game brings in women and kids. In the World League FlingGolf Professional Tour, our women are absolute killers. And our Masters division, 55 and up, is not to be underestimated. I was at the No Bunkers No Bogeys No Score Scramble in Atlanta last weekend, and watched one of our Masters guys throw a ball from 120 yards and stick it to three feet. You would not have known that ball was thrown instead of hit with a wedge. You would have no idea.

And honestly, that should not even be the distinction people care about. At the end of the day, we are all still trying to get a ball into a hole from hundreds of yards away. That is the game. Thrown or struck should not change how much it counts.

There’s a Real Business Case for FlingGolf

If I were running a golf course, I would want a rack of FingSticks on hand. You are bringing in a type of golfer who normally would not set foot on your course, and you can rent sticks out for $20 to $30 a pop. Massanutten Resort has been living proof of this since 2015. Brett Mowbray, their PGA Director of Golf Operations, has said FlingGolf has been worth about $40,000 a year in revenue for them ever since they added it, from an extra 1,400 to 1,500 rounds annually. If a course sitting on empty tee times can pull numbers like that, it is hard to see a reason not to try it.

FlingGolf does offer packages for golf course operators to start increasing their inventory at a lower price, and you can also contact an ambassador like myself for event activations. Prime example, Independence Golf Club in Midlothian, VA actually offers FlingGolf for their Par 3 course known as the Bear. I did the 100 Hole Hike out there in partnership with Youth On Course, and it was some of the most fun I've had. Exhausting, but fun. Hunting Hawk also gives special rates for FlingGolfers after 3pm. So if you're in the area, check it out.

How I Actually Got Here

In 2023, my now doubles partner Joe Jenkins, better known on tour as “Hollywood,” walked into my store at Dick’s Sporting Goods and asked if I wanted to film some content for him in Massachusetts for this sport he was into. I asked what it was. He said FlingGolf. I was in before he finished the sentence.

We drove twelve straight hours to Amesbury, Massachusetts, where FlingGolf is headquartered. I got to take pictures, talk to the pros, and eventually sat down with Alex Van Alen, the creator and CEO of New Swarm, FlingGolf’s parent company, and John Pruellage, President of FlingGolf and Commissioner of the New Swarm FlingGolf Tour. I asked if I could help market the sport. Without hesitating, they brought in Steve Bloom, who needs no introduction as the brains of the operation and Vice President, handed me my first FlingStick, a Stinger, and told me to do them proud.

Three years later, here I am. I watched these guys on Shark Tank, throwing a set of clubs on the ground and pitching the Sharks, long before I ever imagined working alongside them as an Ambassador. It still feels surreal some days.

Round-Up

I am grateful. Grateful to Alex Van Alen and John Pruellage for building something worth believing in, grateful for the people this game has put in my life, grateful for the ecosystem I get to be part of. This sport does not get the respect it has earned yet, but every round I play with my dad, every Masters-division player sticking one from 120 out, every kid who picks up a FlingStick because a full set of irons was never in the cards for their family, or someone who just doesn't jive with the traditionalist notions of golf makes this worth it.

If you want to get into FlingGolf yourself, head to flinggolf.com and check the “Where to Play” tab. You will find an ambassador in your area who can show you the ropes. And if you're in the Richmond or surrounding Virginia, come find me. I'll be more than willing to give you a hand.


And if you want to see my other articles, check out the one I wrote on Piss Missile Golf

I'm building True Path Golf to not only be a hub for folks to learn about themselves from a fitting standpoint, but I'm building a community where we can give tips, keep up with training, and if you fling or swing, it doesn't matter. You're welcome here. Welcome to True Path Golf.

Meanwhile, over in the comments under MyGolfSpy’s Wilson FitAi story, actual golfers are split. One guy says he got fit with the first-gen system in under fifteen minutes and it landed on the exact same lie angle, loft, and shaft spec a human fitter gave him six months earlier. Another predicts that within a few years, “anyone will be able to perform the fitting function without experience or knowledge.” A third just asks, reasonably, whether anyone’s actually going to test the AI against a real fitter side by side instead of taking the press release’s word for it.

Since Ace has been doing this exact thing since before it was an industry trend, it felt worth answering that honestly instead of just cheerleading for the category we’re in.

TL:DR

• AI fitting tools from Wilson, Mizuno, and Club Champion all launched or relaunched in 2026, and mainstream coverage (CNN Business, Golf.com) is treating AI as a real shift in equipment, not a gimmick

• The honest answer on accuracy: good for narrowing you into the right neighborhood, not a perfect replacement for a live fitting session, and every credible source in the space says exactly that

• AI genuinely struggles with two things: day-to-day swing variance, and anything that isn’t measurable, like feel and sound preference

• Where AI fitting wins: cost and access. A Club Champion session runs $150-$450. Ace is free.

• Where AI fitting quietly loses: none of the big-name AI tools (Wilson, Mizuno) are brand-agnostic, “AI-powered” doesn’t mean “unbiased”

What Actually Changed in 2026

The old Wilson FitAi used a sensor clipped to a dedicated fitting 7-iron. The new version ditches the hardware entirely and plugs straight into Foresight launch monitors (Trackman integration is coming), reading real launch angle, spin rate, ball speed, and spin axis instead of estimating from a sensor. It has also expanded from irons-only to drivers. Mizuno’s Swing DNA takes a similar swings-in, bag-out approach with its own Shaft Optimizer. Club Champion’s AI Co-Pilot has been estimated by at least one reviewer at around 80% accurate, which cuts the other way too: roughly one in five recommendations could miss without a live fitter checking the work.

So Is It Actually Accurate?

For the swing-speed range most recreational golfers live in, yes, in the sense that matters most: an AI system built on real swing data and a real product database tends to land on the same root cause a decent human fitter would. That is not a marketing claim, it is what Wilson’s own reviewers keep reporting anecdotally.

Where it gets shakier is exactly where Golf.com’s own coverage frames the debate: is this the future of fitting, or just a really smart assistant? Two things AI genuinely cannot do yet: account for the fact that your Tuesday-morning swing is not your Saturday-afternoon swing, and measure anything that is not a number, how a shaft feels in transition, how a strike sounds, whether you like the way a head looks behind the ball. Wilson leans into that framing itself, positioning FitAi as a tool built to help fitters, not replace them.

The Part Nobody’s Saying Out Loud

“AI-powered” does not mean unbiased. Wilson’s AI recommends Wilson clubs. Mizuno’s recommends Mizuno clubs. That is the same problem the free OEM ball-fitting quizzes have always had, Callaway’s tool leans Callaway, Bridgestone’s leans Bridgestone, except now it is wearing a more sophisticated badge. The incentive has not changed. The tool just got smarter at justifying it.

Ace does not have a warehouse of inventory to move. It diagnoses your swing speed, tempo, miss pattern, and transition first, and only then names a specific fix across every major brand, because there is nothing riding on which brand you end up with.

Where I’d Actually Trust an AI Fitting

As a starting point when you do not have access to a fitter or a launch monitor: yes, without hesitation. As the final word when you are chasing marginal, tour-level gains, or when the decision comes down to feel rather than numbers, grip texture, headcover aesthetics, sound at impact, that is still a conversation with a person, not an algorithm.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will AI replace human club fitters?

Not soon, and the companies building these tools are not even claiming that. Wilson positions FitAi as a tool to help fitters, not replace them. The realistic version of the future is AI handling the data-heavy diagnostic work faster, with a person still making the judgment calls on feel and edge cases.

How accurate is AI golf fitting compared to an in-person fitting?

For golfers in the 85–105 mph range where most recreational players live, a well-built AI diagnosis tends to identify the same root cause a skilled human fitter would. The real-world gap for most golfers is not accuracy, it is cost: in-person fittings commonly run $150-$450, and free AI tools do not.

Are Wilson FitAi and Mizuno Swing DNA brand-agnostic?

No. Both are built by, and recommend, their own manufacturer’s equipment. That is worth knowing going in, an AI recommendation from an OEM tool is still an OEM recommending its own product.

What is the difference between Ace and these OEM AI tools?

Ace is not owned by a club or ball manufacturer, so a recommendation is not tied to moving one brand’s inventory. It also starts with a diagnosis of what is actually wrong with your current setup before it ever gets to a recommendation, and it is free.

If you want to see how it actually holds up, try Ace free at True Path Golf and see what it finds.

So you did what equipment marketing teaches every golfer to do: watch what the pros play. Scottie and Rory are beating the holy hell out of balls off the tee, Bryson rebuilt his entire bag around single length clubs and is basically Doc freaking Brown on the golf course. You picked up the new driver, a sleeve of tour balls, (that you have no business buying) maybe swapped your shaft, and you're still coming up short.

Losing distance off the tee can trace to your swing, your equipment, or both. The problem is that most golfers skip the diagnosis and go straight to spending money, or straight to the range to grind on something that may not need grinding. Before you do either, you need to know what's actually wrong.

TL:DR

• Distance loss in recreational golfers frequently traces to equipment mismatch, though swing mechanics can be a contributing factor

• Tour equipment is engineered for swing speeds of 110–125 mph, most recreational male golfers swing between 85 and 100 mph

• A shaft is a timing mechanism: wrong flex opens or closes the face before impact, producing distance loss and directional misses

• A 90+ compression tour ball doesn't fully compress at 88–95 mph, costing ball speed and carry distance

• Getting a diagnosis before spending money on equipment or lessons directs your time and money to the actual problem

How the Equipment Marketing Trap Works

The equipment industry runs on one reliable lever: aspiration. Pros hit it farther, pros win tournaments, pros use this equipment, so use this equipment and you'll hit it farther too.

Tour players swing their drivers at 110–125 mph. The average recreational male golfer swings between 85 and 100 mph. Equipment optimized for 120 mph performs very differently at 92 mph. The shaft stiffness, the ball compression, the spin characteristics, all of it calibrated for a swing speed most recreational players simply don't have.

Tour players use Extra Stiff shafts because their transition forces and clubhead speeds demand it. They play 90+ compression tour balls because their swing speed fully compresses and unlocks those balls' performance. At 90 mph, a high-compression tour ball is too firm to fully compress off the face. You get less ball speed, less carry, and none of the spin separation that makes those balls valuable at tour speeds. The marketing doesn't explain any of this. It shows you the equipment list and leaves you to draw your own conclusions.

I spent some time as a Golf Sales Lead at my local Dick's Sporting Goods in Richmond, VA, and so I had to learn to fit customers for equipment. I remember one customer who came in with a beautiful set of Mizuno MP-29 irons, old school muscleback blades, and he was telling me he was losing distance. I had him hit a few shots on the Foresight GC3 we had with a newer TaylorMade Stealth set and he picked up a few yards. He jumped for joy, until the sticker shock hit him in the face like a truck. So instead of ringing it up, I worked on his technique and got him hitting a few extra balls. After 15 minutes or so, he was hitting those Mizunos pure. He thanked me for saving him $1,500, and for looking at him as a person, not a spreadsheet figure. That conversation stuck with me. The same situation plays out with drivers every week in every shop. You can't expect a $650 driver to fix a $2 swing.

I built True Path Golf because golfers deserve a diagnosis before they get a recommendation. And because the person giving the recommendation shouldn't profit from which way it goes. The AI logic is based from my personal experiences in club fitting, and things I've learned along the way.

The Shaft Is a Timing Mechanism

For most recreational golfers losing driver distance, the shaft is where the investigation should start.

A shaft is a timing mechanism. During your downswing, it loads, bending slightly in response to the forces your swing generates. At impact, it unloads, and that release determines how the face is positioned when it meets the ball.

When your swing speed changes, gradually with age, with injury, or even with swing improvements from lessons, a shaft that matched your old swing may no longer match your current one. A Stiff shaft calibrated for 105 mph starts behaving differently at 97 mph. It loads less completely, doesn't return to square as efficiently, and the face is slightly open at impact. The ball starts left and curves right. You lose distance, you lose accuracy, and you blame your swing.

The specifics depend on your transition, how aggressive or smooth your move from backswing to downswing is. An aggressive swing at 95 mph creates more shaft load than a smooth swing at the same speed. Two golfers with identical swing speeds can need different shafts for exactly this reason. The number alone doesn't tell the whole story.

What an Actual Diagnosis Sounds Like

Take a golfer swinging at 115 mph with a Regular flex shaft. The ball starts left and curves right. A fitting recommendation says "go stiffer." A diagnosis explains why: at 115 mph, a Regular flex shaft flexes so far open in transition that it can't recover before impact. The face opens. The ball launches left of target and curves away. The fix is a specific shaft with the right kick point for that swing speed and transition pattern.

Ace, True Path Golf's AI equipment doctor, runs that exact reasoning. It starts with diagnosis: your speed, your tempo, your miss pattern, your transition. Then it names the specific fix, not "try a mid-launch Stiff option," but "Fujikura Ventus TR Blue 7S, 75g Extra Stiff, Mid Launch, Low Spin, designed for aggressive swings at your speed window."

What You're Getting vs. What a Diagnosis Delivers

Most equipment purchases happen without a real diagnosis. Something that grinds my gears is when someone who doesn't care about your swing is fitting you. They hand you some random club, have you swing it a couple of times, tell you want you want to hear, and they make off like a bandit because they just ripped you off and provided no value to you. Just a set of clubs that don't fit you.

A diagnosis starts with questions before it gets to recommendations:

• What is your driver swing speed, and has it changed recently?

• What is your miss pattern, left, right, low, high, or inconsistent?

• What is your tempo and transition, aggressive from the top, or smooth and late?

• What does your ball flight look like under pressure or fatigue, when compensation breaks down?

Two golfers at 93 mph swing speed can need entirely different shafts depending on their answers. If you've never been asked these questions before receiving a recommendation, you went through a sales process.

Ace asks every one of them. If you have launch monitor data, from a TrackMan session, a FlightScope Mevo, or just a random picture you took when you wanted to brag to your homies, you can upload it and Ace interprets the dispersion, the bias, and the timing patterns, not just the averages.

Here's the thing: if Ace's diagnosis points to your swing rather than your equipment, that's the honest answer. Get with someone who knows the golf swing better than you do and learn from them. No equipment fix replaces good instruction when instruction is what's needed. We're building an ecosystem of players and coaches who can give you a hand.

Two Golfers, Two Different Problems

Here's a couple of scenarios. A 45-year-old with a 13 handicap has been losing distance for two seasons. He's hitting his driver 261 yards, down from 275 when he was a 10. His shots tend to start left and trail right, especially under pressure. He's certain he needs a new driver.

Ace's diagnosis: he's swinging at 101 mph after recent lessons cleaned up his transition, but his shaft is a Regular flex rated for 85–95 mph. The shaft loads hard and releases open. The fix is a Stiff shaft with a lower torque rating built for his improved transition speed. He doesn't need a new driver head. He needs the right shaft for the swing he has now.

A 16-year-old joining his high school golf team is playing his dad's hand-me-down irons: decade-old steel shafts weighted for a 45-year-old swinging at 90 mph with his irons. The kid swings at 72 mph. His ball flight is low and left with anything longer than an 8-iron and he can't figure out why his teammates are hitting past him with older equipment.

The fix isn't more practice. The fix is irons built for his swing speed and tempo, and that answer is free to get before spending a dollar on equipment.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I know if my shaft flex is wrong?

The clearest sign is a consistent miss pattern that doesn't improve with swing changes. If your shots start offline or curve directionally with your longer clubs, particularly under pressure or fatigue, and instruction hasn't corrected it, shaft flex is worth investigating. A shaft too stiff for your swing speed produces a push-fade pattern (low and right). A shaft too soft produces a hook pattern (high and left).

Does ball compression actually affect distance?

Yes, measurably. Compression describes how much a ball deforms at impact. Full energy transfer requires full compression. At 88–95 mph driver speed, a 90+ compression tour ball doesn't compress completely, and you leave ball speed on the table. Moving to a mid-compression ball in the 70–80 range at that swing speed typically adds carry distance with no change to your swing.

How accurate is an AI golf fitting compared to an in-person session?

For golfers in the 85–105 mph range where most recreational players live, an AI diagnosis built on accurate swing inputs and a structured product catalog identifies the same root causes a skilled fitter would. The practical gap for most golfers is cost: Club Champion fittings run $150–$450. True Path Golf's Ace is free.

What shaft flex do I need for my swing speed?

Shaft flex recommendations by driver speed, based on True Path Golf's fitting framework:

• Below 60 mph → Ladies (L)

• 61–69 mph → Senior (A)

• 70–84 mph → Regular (R)

• 85–104 mph → Stiff (S)

• 105–115 mph → Extra Stiff (X)

• 115+ mph → Tour Stiff (TX)

These are starting points, not absolutes. Tempo shifts the answer: a slower, 3/4 swing at 90 mph may call for Regular; an aggressive full swing at the same speed calls for Stiff. Iron flex runs separately from driver flex your iron swing speed is lower than your driver speed, so fit them independently.

Can I get fit for a driver without a launch monitor?

Yes. A fitting based on swing speed, tempo, miss pattern, and ball flight identifies equipment mismatches accurately without launch monitor data. Ace is built specifically for golfers without monitor access. If you have data from a TrackMan session or similar, uploading it gives Ace additional context, but it's an enhancement, not a requirement.

Before you put another $500 toward equipment because a tour player uses it, spend 10 minutes with Ace. Tell it your swing speed, your tempo, your miss pattern. Upload your launch monitor data if you have it. Get a specific diagnosis, model names, engineering specs, and the reasoning behind each one, free, no hardware, no appointment.

I'm gonna keep it real with you, it might just be your clubs. But everyone swears up and down that it's them. You might not be the problem at all. Or well, a bigger part of the problem.

I'm looking for more folks to give Ace a test and see what you find. Always open for suggestions.

Try Ace free at True Path Golf