Notes From the Bay Door

I had four wedges and thought I was covered. Turned out two of them carried within five yards of each other and I had a twenty-five yard hole underneath. Fixing that one gap changed my approach game more than any club purchase ever has.

Booked a driver session expecting to be sold a driver. Ellery measured the one I brought, told me the head was fine, changed the shaft and shortened it three-quarters of an inch. My fairway percentage went from awful to ordinary, which is all I wanted.

What I appreciated was the order of operations. Baseline first, map second, equipment third. By the time we were testing shafts I already understood what problem we were trying to solve, so the recommendation did not feel like a sales pitch.

My long irons were unusable and I assumed I needed hybrids. Delia showed me the descent angles — the ball was coming in too flat to hold anything. Two hybrids replaced two irons and now those numbers land where they should.

The build quality is the part nobody mentions until afterwards. Every iron in my set came back within a gram of the target swingweight, and Marcus had the measurement sheet ready when I collected them.

I play once a fortnight and felt slightly ridiculous booking a fitting. Nobody made me feel that way. They fitted what I actually do rather than what a better player would do, which is a harder job and they were honest about it.

Putter session was thirty minutes and cost less than a sleeve of balls per stroke saved. The lie angle was two degrees out. Two degrees. I had been aiming right for years and blaming my eyes.

I brought a bag assembled over fifteen years from three different sources. They untangled it into something coherent without telling me to throw all of it away, which I had been dreading.