Southwest Florida golf: Tour Fit Golf Labs makes home at Tiburón
Tour Fit Golf Labs is out to do exactly what its name says. Tiburón Golf Club members, Ritz-Carlton Golf Resort guests and the public can all have the opportunity to do it.
And Tour Fit isn't tied into a specific club manufacturer.
"We're brand agnostic," said CEO Renzo Renzi, who's also an investor. "We don't care if you fit into Callaway or TaylorMade. We want to put the client into the best custom golf clubs for their swing."
What Tour Fit does have is all of the shafts and clubheads and similar parts of the golf club -- a total of 50,000 combinations. Then using items such as a TrackMan launch monitor and SAM Putt Lab and SST Pure, it can dig into the details of the swing and go from there.
"We can get a 15- to 20-yard again per club and a much tighter dispersion with each shot that leads to lower scores, lower handicaps and people out there enjoying the game again," Renzi said.
Kevin DeDonato, Tiburón's general manager, hopes the golf lab adds something for members and resort guests.
"We're excited for them to be here and looking forward to a good relationship," said DeDonato, who took over the club along with Troon last September. "I know our members love it and it's a great experience for the resort guests as well. I think our brands align well."
After a client goes through a fitting -- that can take an hour or up to 3 1/2 hours for a full bag of clubs -- and chooses what manufacturer's clubs they're going with, the clubs are then ordered. Once they arrive at Tour Fit, one of two custom builders -- led by Lely High graduate Brandon Collier, who started Pure Performance Golf, a club-fitting business in Naples several years ago -- the components of the clubs are then configured using the specifics from the client's fitting. Renzi said the finished product usually is in the client's hands in two weeks or so. The company has been part of Golf Digest's Americas 100 Best Clubfitters since 2011.
"We're about interpreting data to help somebody with golf.," said Collier, 34, a former mini-tour player who has fitted 50 tour professionals. "Since we're actually hand-building the clubs, it does us no good to hand-build a set of clubs that won't work."
"Brandon started the original company," Renzi said. "The whole premise is if the pros can have it, why can't the regular people have it? The answer is they can. That's why this is so unique."
Renzi and Collier also said they see the golf lab as a complement to teaching professionals.
"If there's 15 yards gained with the club, that means the remaining five yards may be in the swing and we would go and refer them to a local pro," said Renzi, who also is in the same facility as Impact Zone Golf, headed by instructor and former tour player Bobby Clampett.
The Tour Fit website features testimonials from club pros, amateurs, and long drive champion David Mobley. Last month, PGA Tour Champions player and golf TV analyst Peter Jacobsen, a Bonita Springs resident, was in for a visit.
"We get a lot of older clients and they used to be able to hit it 150 yards, and now they can only hit it 130 yards," Renzi said. "They're happy to get back to where they used to be. They're just looking to add back yards that they may have lost over the last few years."
The studio in the Tiburón clubhouse is the former home of the TaylorMade Performance Lab that opened several years ago and was vacant until what became Tour Fit moved in this past October. When the former Pure Performance Golf had financial problems, EFO Financial Group saw an opportunity and took over.
"That's what we try to do, find really good businesses that we can take over from a management operation standpoint and put in good people and try to grow the company on a national platform," said Renzi, also of EFO.
To find out more or schedule an appointment, go to tourfitgolflabs.com or call 513-0002 or email getfit@tourfitgolflabs.com.