At the end of February Scotland opened its first Yes! Golf putter custom-fitting facility at Musselburgh Golf Club in Monktonhall, Edinburgh, writes Dominic O’Byrne. Head pro Fraser Mann and his staff had long been aware of Yes! Golf as a presence on Tour and a reasonably well thought of brand among certain members, but that was about as far as their knowledge went.
Then towards the end of 2008, the team of pros at the club started to become aware of how many putters were simply very poorly set up by the manufacturers; about 99%, they reckon. A conversation with the Yes! Golf agent for Scotland David McDermott led to Fraser Mann and his assistant Norman Huguet taking a trip to Yes! HQ in Southport (37 years’ experience as pro golfers between them). And the rest – as they say – is history…
“I myself never realized just how important a custom-fitted putter can be,” recalls Norman Huguet. “Just having the right degree of loft on the putter makes such a big difference to anybody’s game.
“What our customers like so much about it is that they can see for themselves by the video how their ball rolls, and then just how big the improvement is with a C-Groove putter correctly fitted to their stroke. The change is immediate and impossible to deny so they regard their money as being extremely well spent.”
The number of customers signing up for a custom-fitted Yes! Putter grew very quickly, as those members who tried it out first reportedly began winning every club medal going. The increase is remarkable.
“The proshop used to sell under 20 putters a year,” explains Norman. “We’ve sold 60 so far this season already. And in addition to that, we’re beginning to attract new customers form further afield as well… More than half of the custom-fittings we’ve don have been for non-members.”
There are currently two dozen Yes! Golf Putter Custom-fitting Facilities across Europe between Dublin in the west and Belek on the Turkish Riviera. Yes! Golf created the concept of custom-fit putters in this way and are the world leaders.
Four weeks later Auchterlonies of St Andrews mounted a grand official opening of their own Yes! Putter facility, with Ryder Cup skipper Colin Montgomerie as guest of honour.