Until recently, having the ability to play a bag full of custom clubs was something reserved only for the most elite players and those golfers willing to devote extra time, effort, money and usually travel to have clubs perfectly fit for their game. While the golf equipment market is still dominated by golfers who buy clubs off the rack, the importance and value of being fit for every club in the bag is starting to make its way into the mainstream. OEMs and individual clubmakers, like Fairway Jockey, are offering golfers a wider and more exotic selection of custom heads, shafts, lofts, and grinds than ever before.

Founded three and a half years ago as a brick and mortar fitting center, Fairway Jockey is a group of club fitters who got together to change the custom club fitting market. Late last year, FairwayJockey.com went live, opening up an opportunity for golfers anywhere to be able to go through a customized club building experience and have clubs built to spec and delivered right their door. To get a sense for their process and build quality, I had a chance to have a wedge custom built to my specifications by Fairway Jockey.

Browsing the club selection, you’ll find every major driver off any of this year’s hot lists such as the Callaway Big Bertha or Taylormade SLDR, but also less common models from Miura, Vega and others. The same goes for irons, hybrids, fairway metals, wedges and putters. If a particular head or shaft isn’t listed, Fairway Jockey can usually get it for you. One of their main goals is to be able to offer options that a golfer can’t normally find through an OEM or local golf shop. They pride themselves on carrying many of the harder to find shafts and heads, and can generally order anything a golfer might want.

Right now, the site is focused on building new clubs. But in the near future, Fairway Jockey is planning to offer a service where golfers can send in their existing clubs to be reshafted with all the same custom options. While this service isn’t available today, the company hopes to have it up and running in the very near future.

Price match and shipping

Fairway Jockey’s primary goal is to offer the greatest number of options and flexibility for its customers, but they also want to be competitive and will match any reputable offer from the major OEMs. So if you’re building a set of Mizuno irons and choose a shaft that Mizuno considers a stock shaft and not a custom upgrade, Fairway Jockey will match that price. Graphite shaft upgrades are also generally priced in line with other sites and retailers. If a price is higher than an advertised price elsewhere, simply contact the company and they will look into it. That said, building a stock set of clubs likely isn’t the best use of a site like Fairway Jockey and their real value starts to show when you begin customizing your clubs.

Any order over $99 automatically qualifies for free shipping and some individual items also come with free shipping.

Assistance with shaft and club selection

Many golfers coming to Fairway Jockey will know exactly what they are looking for and will be able to spec their clubs without assistance. But for those who are looking for additional insight and help, Fairway Jockey can also make professional fitting recommendations. With a few key pieces of information such as height and wrist-to-floor measurements, as well as tempo, transition, release and a variety of spin and launch angle data, their proprietary shaft fitting software, combined with the experience of the clubfitters, can help determine the best options based on information you provide. While the product descriptions are very basic and don’t go into a lot of detail, if you’re looking to talk through the merits of a heel grind versus a toe grind, their team can help there as well.

VIP Membership

For those planning to make numerous purchases through the year, or maybe build an entire bag, Fairway Jockey offers three tiers of VIP membership, which includes discounts of 5-to-15 percent. Starting at $49.99 per year and up to $149.99 per year, VIP membership gives you discounts on equipment as well as special offers, newsletters and product reviews. Unlike some other VIP programs, you can use your discount on your first purchase.

Custom options and my Vega wedge

Vega is one of those wedges that is part shotmaking tool and part work of art. Forged out of one piece of soft carbon steel by a master craftsman, their wedges are some of the most coveted on the market. I’ve wanted to put one in my bag for a long time and when I had the opportunity to build a wedge, a decided to go with the 60-degree VW-06 in raw finish which will naturally rust a bit over time. The classic shape of the VW-06, tightly ground curved leading edge and extra heel grind make this an extremely versatile wedge.

Building a custom club on Fairway Jockey is simple thanks to their intuitive drop down menus. After selecting my dexterity and finish, the rest of the options are selectable in any order. For the Vega, True Temper Dynamic Golds are the standard shaft option, but many custom shafts are available from the Shimada Tour Wedge to the Oban Oi103 and almost everything between. For custom shafts, the price to upgrade is displayed in the drop down menu, which makes it easy to see where any extra charges will be added. That is the same for any option requiring an upcharge. I went with the KBS Custom Tour Black Pearl shaft. For my height, I happen to play their wedge at the stock length, which is listed, but you can go shorter or longer in half inch increments.

I didn’t want the loft bent, but again, it is an option to bend the club plus or minus 2 degrees. With the Vega wedges, Fairway Jockey can adjust the lie up or down as much as 3 degrees to fit your exact profile. Since the shaft I was fit for came in black and the raw head was also black, I wanted to build an all black wedge. A rainbow-like selection of ferrules is available with everything from lime green to pink with two white rings, but I wanted all black with no white rings. To cap it off, I went with the Golf Pride New Decade Multi Blackout Grip with two wraps of tape. I could have gone with a grip that was more of a true black, but I like the feel of the New Decade and chose feel over looks.

Fairway Jockey also offers swingweight adjustment, hotmelt services and counterbalanced putters to round out the selection of custom options across all their equipment.

They build all the custom clubs from one facility, which allows them to keep tight control over the quality. In fact, only two people will ever touch a custom build. The club arrived in a sturdy, well-packaged box with a padded wedge cover and everything looked good. But I was more interested in the small polish-type details like whether or not the ferrule had any tiny clamp marks. There were not any marks anywhere on this club, and the overall build quality of the wedge is as good as I’ve ever seen. Beautiful doesn’t begin to describe it. This wedge is evil!

Performance

After I got past simply wanting to look at this wedge, I had to get out on the course. The very first shot was a 50 yard, half wedge to a pin just 10 feet off the front edge and tucked in about 5 feet from a slope that would take the ball straight to the back of the green. I played it to the front edge and flushed it on the number. Many people compare the softness of a forged club like this to butter. But to be honest, it was so soft it had the pure feel of almost nothing at all. The club slicing through the turf was the first substantial feeling I felt and even that made me want to throw another ball down and hit the shot again. Over the course of the day I hit low spinners, high lofted shots and dropped a few balls in the bunker just to see how it played. The extra heel grind allowed me to open the face up and nip a few spinners off the fairway, which hit the green and checked up immediately. The zip produced by this wedge was outstanding. The versatility, feel and distinctly unique look of this wedge makes it easily the best I’ve ever had the chance to play.

Bottom Line

Not every golfer is fortunate enough to have a quality golf shop and club fitter nearby that carries an extensive collection of equipment that can be truly customized down the tightest of specs. Fairway Jockey makes it possible to have a custom club built for your game, tested to their tight tolerances, shipped, and in your hand ready to play in about a week. If you’re looking at building a single club or an entire bag, they are definitely a site to check out.

As for the wedge… it’s a Vega. A stunning piece of craftsmanship that plays every bit as well as I imagined it would.