Mark Crossfield has made a number of observations recently that have modified my take on club fitting. Take this video for one [spoiler alert!]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8i3FPPnsHY
Here, Mark hits three drivers, 10 shots each. He rotates drivers after every three shots. Then he begins to analyze the data: drivers A, B, and C all have different tendencies in the numbers (spin, distance, dispersion, etc.), and he’s asking you to pick which driver is best for him.
The catch [again, spoiler]: they’re all the same driver.
What Mark has been stressing in some of his recent videos is that to find statistically meaningful differences between clubs, you need to hit a lot of shots, and then the results need to be different enough that they’re not overlapping.
I definitely believe that different clubs and shafts produce different outcomes, and that some players have swings that are especially suited to certain kinds of equipment. (I also think that there are fairly neutral swings that might effectively play with almost anything.)
So I don’t believe that fitting is worthless (and I don’t think Crossfield thinks so either. But I do think there is an illusion of certainty in small samples that needs to be examined more closely.