Radar Bay
Doppler unit tracking full flight into a net at eighteen feet. This is where driver and fairway blocks spend most of their time in the cold months.
The Studio
A Shop, a Bench, and a Grass Tee Out Back
No showroom, no logo wall, no commission structure. Two bays, a build bench, and forty-odd shafts hanging where we can reach them.
Where It Started
2011, a Two-Car Garage off East 33rd
Ross Kettleman was an assistant pro at a Des Moines municipal course and spent his winters re-shafting clubs for members who did not want to ship anything anywhere. The garage had a bench, a loft and lie machine bought used off a retiring builder in Ottumwa, and a space heater that never quite kept up with January.
What kept coming back was the same complaint from every member who had been fitted somewhere else: the numbers were great in the room and disappointing on the course. Ross started keeping a notebook of which builds held up in October and which ones only worked in a calm bay. That notebook is the reason this shop exists.
The Hubbell Avenue space opened in the spring of 2015. It had been a small-engine repair shop, which is why the floor slopes very slightly toward a drain and why the ceiling in Bay 2 is a foot higher than in Bay 1. We have never bothered to fix either.
Plain Facts
Opened2015
Bays2 indoor
OutdoorGrass tee, Apr–Oct
Staff4
Head brands stocked7
Shaft models on hand40+
Build turnaround5–9 days
Everything is built here. Nothing gets drop-shipped from a warehouse with a factory spec and a sticker.
Deliberate Choices
Things We Decided Not to Do
Some of these cost us money. We have kept them anyway because each one exists to remove a reason for us to steer you wrong.
- No commission on components. Fitters are paid for the hour, not the sale. A block that ends in no purchase pays the same as one that ends in a full bag.
- No brand volume agreements. We are not obligated to move a certain number of any manufacturer's heads in a season, so nothing quietly biases a recommendation.
- No fitting on a mat only, in season. From April through October, fairway woods and hybrids get hit off grass. Mats lie about turf interaction, and they lie in a direction that flatters the club.
- No stock-shaft substitution. If the fitting says a particular shaft, that is the shaft that goes in, at the tested length and weight. We do not swap to whatever is in the drawer.
- No group sessions. One golfer, one fitter, one bay. Two people alternating in a ninety-minute block get about thirty usable swings each, which is not enough to decide anything.
The Floor Plan
What Is Actually in the Building
Camera Bay
Higher ceiling and a photometric unit that reads the ball off the face. Better for wedges, short irons and anything where spin matters more than apex.
Build Bench
Loft and lie machine, frequency meter, swingweight scale, spine finder, shaft puller. Every club that leaves here was assembled at this bench.
Grass Tee
A leased strip on the lot behind the building, mowed to fairway height. Open April to October, weather permitting, and the reason our fairway fittings are worth booking in summer.
Honesty Clause
The One Bias We Will Admit To
We are biased toward builds that stay playable in bad conditions. If two setups are within a couple of yards on a calm screen and one of them holds its line better in a crosswind, we will recommend the second one every time, even if the first looks marginally better on paper.
That preference will not suit everybody. If you play the majority of your golf indoors on a simulator league through the winter, or if you travel to play in still, warm air, tell us at the start of the block and we will weight the numbers differently. We would rather adjust the bias openly than pretend we do not have one.
Related reading: our piece on crosswind carry windows walks through exactly how much a ballooning flight gives back when the air moves.
Who You Will Work With
Four people work here and you will meet at least two of them during a block. Ross runs most driver work, Priya handles fairway woods and hybrids, Toby builds and covers the scoring clubs, and Danielle keeps the calendar honest.
Nobody here is a rotating contractor. The person who measures your swing is the person who builds the club and the person who answers the phone when something is not right two months later.
Meet the FourCome See the Place
Drop in during bay hours and we will show you the bench and the shaft wall without any obligation to book anything. Most people who do that book on the way out.