The Golf Club Maestro in Ocean Isle Beach

Aerodynamics, angular velocity, dynamic balance, isometrics, moment of inertia, static balance and torque force? Sounds like the glossary of a physics textbook, but actually these are the physics behind making the perfect golf shot.

The physics of a golf swing is much more complicated than a single strike of a golf ball. There is the golfer’s technique, the aerodynamics of the ball in flight and the ball spin. Essentially it’s the transference of energy between player and club. Professional golf club fitter C. J. Ebel knows that physics is what drives the importance of being properly fitted for golf clubs.

“Golf clubs are complicated. Golf is a simple sport, but it’s complicated,” explains Ebel, owner of Golf Club Maestro in Ocean Isle Beach. “I take care of the complication, the physics part, so golfers can see improvement, develop consistency and keep their passion for the game.”

Maestro is the Spanish word for teacher, which encompasses Ebel’s passion for educating golfers about the benefit of custom fitting their clubs.

Customized club fitting can make an impressive difference in any player’s game, especially for seniors and newcomers to the sport. For golfers older than the age of 50, their swing speed starts to slow and they lose strength and flexibility, making their existing club set an ill-fit.

“As we age it becomes more difficult to overcome strength issues,” Ebel says. “We outgrow the original fitting of the equipment.” That, he explains, makes the set improperly weighted, which affects repeatability and comfort.

“When you have to force the club to do what you want it to do, then the game is no longer enjoyable,” he says.

Players new to the game are exceptional candidates for custom-fitted clubs as well. “When I talk about custom-fitted clubs, I often hear people say, ‘I’m not good enough yet to get custom-fitted clubs.’ But that’s the irony.”

If an off-the-rack club’s length, weight, shaft or grip doesn’t properly fit the golfer’s body, he or she will most likely develop unnatural techniques. In addition to helping players get the right fitting clubs, Ebel relies on his own past teaching experience to help other golf instructors outfit their sets for teaching students.

Ebel’s customized balance crafting doesn’t require golfers to go out and purchase a new set of clubs. He can take an existing set and balance and weight it properly to give golfers an opportunity to make more consistent swings for better contact when striking the ball. Off-the-rack golf club retail sets are made from high-quality materials, but the weighting and balancing typically differ from club to club in the same set because of the archaic standardized fitting technique that uses a swing weight machine. This results in clubs that have different Moment of Inertias (MOIs), and therefore the golfer has to use a different amount of effort to swing each club.

“For the most part, golfers typically have suitable sets, so we work with what they have,” Ebel says. “Then as their game develops and they think about new clubs, we know the basic specs we can work with and we have a better idea of what they need in a new club.”

Proper balancing requires much more precision and focus on how each component (the club head, shaft and grip) are weighed and measured through the entire club set. CJ’s Golf Club Maestro method focuses on determining a golfer’s physical effort and then defining it through a fitting process so that all of the clubs in the set swing with the same effort and timing.

Ebel’s advanced way of fitting golfers to clubs has grown from his life-long exposure to and experience with the game of golf. His family owns and operates the Haystack Mountain Golf course outside of Boulder, Colorado, which has been around for nearly a half-century. Haystack has an esteemed reputation as a teaching course that caters to a broad range of golfers.

“I played all the time, and I had access to all types of clubs,” Ebel says. He played golf on his high school team, ranking number one, and continued playing through college in Texas and at Pfeiffer College in Misenheimer, North Carolina. Though Ebel spent many years instructing golf professionally, it was the process of making clubs that most appealed to him. He knows the technology through and through.

Golf Club Maestro Balance Crafted Clubs measures the Moment of Inertia (MOI) using a MOI period counter instead of the traditional swing weight scale to craft all clubs in a set that require the same amount of physical effort to swing. He uses components of Tom Wishon Golf Technology exclusively because in his opinion they are the highest quality in the industry, meeting OEM standards or better.

The Club Maestro club-fitting process begins with a consultation in which Ebel gathers information about the golfer’s current set. It progresses to a fitting session using a test set of irons in which the importance is on determining the amount of physical ability and effort that the golfer has available to make the most consistent contact and highest club head speed during the golf swing.

If a golfer’s goal is to play better golf, the solution could be custom-fitted clubs. Though it sounds complex, the end result in custom-fitting clubs can inspire dramatic improvements on the course.

“I’ve witnessed the success of some of my clients who have dropped 10 or 15 strokes off their game after a month or so,” Ebel says. “It’s especially exciting for me to see players over 50 develop a consistency that they haven’t had in years. They not only gain distance, but confidence. It’s almost as if they’ve recovered their youth again.”

Want to know more?

Golf Club Maestro is at 6810 Beach Dr. SW, Ocean Isle Beach
(910) 269-9920
golfclubmaestro.com