My wife was taught by her dad long ago. She got back into it again last year with me, after a several decade's hiatus. She had a handful of lessons. She drives the ball pretty well and straight with her $250 Dick's sporting goods starter set and hits well off a tee, sometimes teeing it up in the middle of a fairway.

Would a new player like her benefit from a fitting, or should someone like this take more lessons and develop a more consistent swing first?

I don't want her dropping $3,000 and have to need new clubs in a year after improving her swing. If, however, the clubs can be adjusted to her swing as she develops over the next 5-10 years, then that's a different story.

Honestly I think fitted clubs might be overkill for someone just starting. A decent off the rack set is fine for a typical amateur at her level imo.

Thanks. I tend to agree but wasn't really sure.

A proper fitting will always help. But in this case the question is, would that money currently be better used on lessons? After all, you have to be able to make halfway consistent contact for fitted clubs to help out.

I had a young lady come in interested in getting fit for clubs. After talking with her I had my suspicions, so I had her hit a few balls in the simulator. She made contact about half the time. Properly fitted clubs can't help someone who doesn't know how to swing.

What does she currently shoot?

Those are good points. She probably isn't consistent enough yet except with the 3W that she uses as a driver, but she always makes contact at least. She didn't generate a lot of club speed, but that's getting better so she'll try driver this weekend. Her instructor told her to use the 3W instead of driver last year.

She doesn't keep score yet and does pretty much what she wants, hits the shots she feels like hitting, as long as it doesn't hold anyone up.

Has had a couple legitimate birdies and some pars. 😂. Those are the only occasional scores she keeps.

If she's close to "standard" you might as well buy a standard length set and have the lie angles adjusted. The lies can be adjusted more over time.

If she's super tall or short or otherwise needs a non-standard length but tries to play with standard length (and lie) irons it's going to impede her development.

So basically... yes, get fitted. You can always readjust lie angles later.

I would think just a static fitting is sufficient. Length and lie.

She's 5'3" and has this set:

https://m.dickssportinggoods.com/p/t...2018ldstpflset

Standard length. I guess I need to find out if she's standard size for the clubs, but either way that's a really good idea about length and lie adjustments. I never even thought of that.

She might be okay with those out of the box. At 5'3" it's likely she'd be better off with a slightly flat lie but a cheap set of cast irons like that might not be bendable by much if at all. You should do the sharpie test with her to see if the lie angles are reasonable as they are.

If she doesn't have a repeatable swing, which only comes from experience, a fitting isn't usually worth it, in my opinion. There needs to be a consistency in her swing to allow for a proper fitting.

I didn't get my first fitting until I had five years' experience under my belt. I was then consistently hitting the same shots -- including a slight pull to the left -- and I was able to get clubs that corrected the issues.

As others have said, the money is usually better spent on more lessons.

I will do that. Thanks again. I hadn't heard of that either.